Andrew faces new court evidence that he DID meet with his teenage accuser
Duke told Emily Maitlis he had ‘no recollection’ of sex-trafficking victim Virginia. Now lawyer says he should brace for fresh revelations
EXPLOSIVE new evidence undermining Prince Andrew’s claim that he did not know teenage trafficking victim Virginia Roberts is set to emerge in the United States, her lawyer claimed last night.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, David Boies said further evidence linking the Duke of York with Ms Roberts will be made public as part of a string of civil lawsuits being brought in America by victims of serial paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
His comments came after this newspaper last week revealed that a highly respected former Royal protection officer has raised questions about Andrew’s ‘alibi’ for the night he allegedly had sex with Ms Roberts in London.
Ms Roberts claims that she was flown to London by Epstein in March 2001 when she was 17 and coerced into having sex with the Duke. This was the first of three alleged sexual encounters with the Prince.
Andrew, 60, has categorically denied the claims, and in November he told Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis: ‘I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever.’
But Mr Boies, who with his colleague Sigrid McCawley is representing Ms Roberts and seven more Epstein’s victims, last night accused the Queen’s second son and his advisers of ‘continuing to dissemble’.
‘There is other evidence that will come out that undercuts his assertion that he didn’t know Virginia, had not been with her,’ he said.
Referring to this newspaper’s revelations last week and another report claiming Andrew was seen kissing a young blonde woman on
Epstein’s Caribbean island, he added: ‘The evidence that has come out in the last week is important, but it is not all that is going to be coming out.’
Any new evidence will pile pressure on Andrew to co-operate with an FBI probe into Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.
In a blistering interview, Mr Boies also: Claimed further evidence will emerge showing the Duke visited Epstein’s notorious £13million New Mexico ranch where several women have said they were sexually abused;
Urged the Metropolitan Police to reopen an investigation into Ms Roberts’s claims;
Condemned Andrew for refusing to cooperate with Epstein’s victims;
Admitted lawyers still do not know the whereabouts of Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite accused of recruiting girls for Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.
Prince Andrew faces the prospect of further damning revelations about his relationship with Epstein and claims about Ms Roberts being made public between now and June as part of a slew of civil cases against the multi-million pound estate of the disgraced financier, who was found dead in his New York jail cell last August after his arrest on child sex trafficking charges. He had previously served 13 months in jail in 2008 for procuring a child for prostitution.
Last month, US Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman, who is overseeing lawsuits brought by 16 women against the Epstein estate, ordered a so-called ‘fact discovery’ before cases are brought to trial. This means the victims’ lawyers will be able to present new evidence, demand the publication of previously undisclosed documents and even quiz alleged co-conspirators accused of helping Epstein procure young women and underage girls for his sex ring.
Judge Freeman said this process should be completed by June 10.
Mr Boies claims this will lead to the publication of new evidence showing that the Duke knew Ms Roberts, now 36 and going by her married surname Giuffre.
‘I think the mistake that he [Prince Andrew] made was thinking that somehow this evidence wouldn’t dribble out and now, of course, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Prince Andrew is sufficiently recognisable that more and more of this evidence comes out and I think it just puts him in a terrible position and one that could have been avoided, at least in part, if he had simply been more forthright and forthcoming initially.
‘A judge in New York in some of the cases has set a discovery cut-off for June, so I think a lot of this will come out between now and June.’
Asked what the new evidence is, he replied: ‘I can’t get into this… but all I can say is that there will be more evidence coming out.’
He did, however, claim that new evidence will emerge showing that Prince Andrew visited Epstein’s vast Zorro ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The New York Times last year claimed that Epstein told scientists that he hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at the ranch.
Several of his accusers claim they were raped there. In November, it emerged that a former housekeeper at the ranch had claimed Prince Andrew spent three days there in 2001, where she said he was kept company by an unnamed ‘beautiful’ female doctor.
Mr Boies, one of the most prominent lawyers in the United States, accused Andrew and people speaking on his behalf of attacking Ms Roberts’s credibility.
An unnamed supporter of Andrew last year claimed that a photograph showing the Duke with his arm wrapped around Ms Roberts’s bare waist, which was taken in Ms Maxwell’s home in Belgravia, Central London, in 2001 was ‘fake’ and that Ms Roberts’s story was ‘a fantasy’.
Mr Boies added: ‘At some point I think Prince Andrew and the people who are speaking on his behalf need to recognise that continuing to dissemble is not only unsustainable but counterproductive.
‘He is worse off today than he would have been if he had simply faced up to whatever happened.’
Buckingham Palace declined to comment last night.
‘The mistake Andrew made was thinking this wouldn’t come out’