Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SECRETS OF MAXWELL SEX FILES
Claims ramp up pressure on Prince Andrew over FBI probe
PRINCE Andrew is under pressure to co-operate with an FBI probe into Jeffrey Epstein after a series of detailed accusations emerged yesterday.
A New York judge released a 465-page deposition that Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell made in 2016.
In it she said she did not introduce him to girls under 18 and denies Andrew had sex with 17-year-old Virginia Guiffre, above, in the bath at her London home.
GHISLAINE Maxwell dismissed claims that Prince Andrew had sex with a 17-year-old Jeffrey Epstein sex slave in the bath at her London home by saying: “The tub is too small.”
The British socialite, who denies being the paedophile billionaire’s madam, also insisted she never made the Duke of York’s accuser, Virginia Giuffre, dress up as a schoolgirl after buying her outfits.
And she denied introducing Epstein to Andrew – despite the Prince having said that she did.
The revelations came as a New York judge released a 465-page transcript of a seven-hour video deposition Maxwell, 58, made in a 2016 civil defamation case.
Her sworn testimony leaves the Duke, 60, open to serious questions over just how he befriended convicted sex offender Epstein.
And it piles more pressure on him to co-operate with the FBI probe into the late financier’s alleged underage sex ring.
Maxwell, who is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn while awaiting trial, has not addressed the claims made against her.
But the testimony released yesterday reveals she rejected almost every allegation of wrongdoing put to her in 2016.
Quizzed on if she ever introduced Andrew to girls under 18 who were not her friend’s children, she said no.
During a testy exchange, Maxwell said she cannot recall Ms Giuffre, now 37, ever being in her London home – even though she was pictured there with her and the Prince.
Maxwell does, however, confirm that the Duke was a visitor to her
Belgravia home and they once discussed Ms Giuffre’s “entire tail (sic)”. The Duke’s name is redacted throughout the documents but it is believed he is the person being discussed.
Ms Giuf fre’s l aw yer Si g ri d Mccawley asks: “Did you ever introduce ****** ****** [Prince Andrew] to Virginia in London?” She replies: “I understand her story about ***** but, again, her tissue of lies is extremely hard to pick apart what i s true and what isn’t. Actual ly, I wouldn’t recollect her at all but for her tissue stories about this situation.” The lawyer then asks: “Did Virginia ever stay at your home in London?” Maxwell says: “I know she claims she did but if you are asking me here today to remember specifically, I cannot.”
Of the claims Ms Giuffre had sex with Andrew in her home, Maxwell says: “What I’m representing is that her entire ludicrous and absurd story of what took place in my house is an obvious lie.”
Ms Giuffre, 17 at the time of her alleged encounter with the Duke in March 2001, has described having sex with him in a bath while in Maxwell’s London townhouse.
But Maxwell says: “She then characterised things took place in my bathroom in the bathtub itself.
“The tub is too small for any type of activity whatsoever.”
Later asked if it “was an obvious lie when Virginia said you made her dress up in a schoolgirl outfit”, she replies: “I already testified that, first of all, I don’t know what you
Her ludicrous and absurd story of what took place in my house is an obvious lie MAXWELL ON GIUFFRE’S CLAIMS OF SEX WITH PRINCE AT LONDON HOME IN 2001
I never had non-consensual sex with anybody ever, at any time, at any place, at any time MAXWELL WHEN QUIZZED ON HER SEX LIFE
are talking about. I already testified I didn’t get her outfits and all of that.” Maxwell then says she cannot recall if she went to Europe with Ms Giuffre or if she ever held on to her passport.
She also denied the claim by Ms Giuffre and fellow alleged victim Johanna Sjoberg that she and Epstein presented the Duke with his own Spitting Image puppet while at the paedophile’s New York home.
During his car-crash interview with Emily Maitlis on BBC Newsnight last November, Andrew said he met Epstein “through his girlfriend back in 1999 who… and I’d known her since she was at university in the UK”.
Maxwell began dating Epstein after she started working for him in 1992.
In 2016, when she sat for the deposition in her case with Ms Giuffre, she was asked how long she had known Andrew.
She told Ms Mccawley: “A very long time. I really... it’s so long, it’s really a long time ago. I just don’t recall.”
Ms Mccawley then asks: “Do you remember how you first met him?”
She replies: “No, I do not.” Asked if she introduced the Duke to Epstein, Maxwell says: “That would be another of Virginia’s lies and the lies you perpetrate. I never introduced ****** ****** [Prince Andrew] to Jeffrey Epstein at any time ever, so just add that to the long list of lies.”
Maxwell is then asked: “Do you know how Jeffrey met ****** ****** [Prince Andrew]?” And she replies: “I do not. What I do know is that I did not introduce them. That is one of the many lies.”
Maxwell did c onf irm th e P rince once stayed on Epstein’s private Caribbean island.
The papers reveal that she was combat ive throughout her deposition , repeat
MONEY Maxwell confirms getting payment
edly lashing out against lawyers and often objecting to questioning.
At one point she became so enraged she allegedly smashed her fist on the table, knocking a computer to the floor.
And when asked 10 times in a row if she believed that Epstein, who killed himself in custody last year, had abused any children, she avoided the question each time.
Maxwell also denied that she had ever been involved in inappropriate sex. “I just testified,” she said, “I never
PRESSURE Duke of York at Windsor last month
PICTURED Andrew with Giuffre and Maxwell at her London home in 2001
had non-consensual sex with anybody ever, at any time, at any place, at any time, with anybody.”
Maxwell also squirmed when asked about sex toys.
Mccawley asked: “Did you have a basket of sex toys that you kept in the Palm Beach house?”
The question was followed by several objections from Maxwell’s lawyer, with Mccawley repeatedly rephrasing it.
Maxwell answered: “You have to define what are you talking about.”
T h e lawyer said: “A se x toy meaning a v i brator of some kind... anything like that?”
Maxwell said: “I don’t recollect anything... like that.”
Maxwell was arrested in the US on July 2 and charged with recruiting, grooming and abusing three alleged victims, including a girl as young as 14.
Prosecutors allege the offences occurred between 1994 and 1997.
She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is currently under 24-hour video sur veillance and constant observation by guards.
If she is convicted, Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced late media tycoon Robert Maxwell, faces up to 35 years in prison.
Epstein hanged himself i n a Manhattan jail cell in August last year, aged 66, while awaiting trial for underage sex trafficking.
The Duke of York has vehemently denied all allegations against him and says he does not even recall having met Ms Giuffre.
His legal team also denies claims by US investigators that he has so far provided “zero co-operation” despite numerous approaches.