Now more women allege they were victims of Epstein
They came forward after Ghislaine arrest
MORE women have reportedly come forward to say they were abused by Prince Andrew’s friend Jeffrey Epstein.
US lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents 16 of the paedophile’s victims, said a number of women from Europe had contacted her in recent days to make claims against the billionaire’s estate.
The news comes after Epstein’s close friend Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested by the FBI over child sex charges.
The 58-year-old is alleged to have groomed schoolgirls who were then abused by Epstein – including one she is said to have befriended in London. Maxwell has consistently denied all of the allegations.
Following the socialite’s arrest last Thursday, Ms Allred told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I have now more people, more victims, contacting me who have never come forward to anybody except me. I do represent some people from Europe, the UK as well, who have reached out.’
Another lawyer for Epstein victims, Brad Edwards, suggested he too had ‘more clients’ who claimed to have been in the presence of Prince Andrew.
The prince – who stayed with Epstein at his Manhattan mansion and flew on his private jet, nicknamed the Lolita Express – has categorically denied seeing or suspecting anything untoward. He has also strenuously rejected claims by Virginia Roberts, who alleges she was forced to have sex with the duke on three occasions.
Mr Edwards claimed: ‘It is not only Virginia – we have several other clients who were in his presence and Mr Epstein’s presence.’
US prosecutors want to question the prince as a witness as part of their investigation into Epstein, who killed himself in prison last August while awaiting trial.
UK Labour leader Keir Starmer piled more pressure on Prince Andrew yesterday, saying: ‘Of course he should co-operate with the US. He will have to justify his own actions, but it does not matter who you are, you co-operate with the law enforcement authorities where they require you to do so.’
Amid widespread speculation that Maxwell – daughter of the late media tycoon Robert – could strike a deal with prosecutors, Andrew has been urged to start talking to the FBI before she gives her own version of events.
Allies of the duke have repeatedly insisted he is ‘bewildered’ at the standoff with US officials, having offered to help them but received no response.
Ms Allred told the BBC: ‘They [the prosecutors] have said over and over again that they would like to speak to him in an interview where he answers questions, and he seems to be the one playing the cat-and-mouse game.
‘If Prince Andrew’s lawyers would like to contact me, I’ll put them in touch – problem solved.’ Following Maxwell’s arrest, Ms Roberts claimed the duke should be ‘panicking’. Ms Allred said in response: ‘I don’t know if he will be panicking but certainly he can never know whether Ms Maxwell would in fact decide to co-operate.
‘If she is interested in a deal then she is going to have to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and she is going to have to answer truthfully everything that she is asked. And that would be [about] Prince Andrew – what she saw him do or... knew he did.’
A friend of Maxwell’s yesterday insisted she would ‘never, ever say anything’ about the duke. Laura Goldman told TV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘Prince Andrew doesn’t know a lot. Partially because he’s not that intelligent, and he is spoiled and entitled so he didn’t really ask questions about what was happening.’
Epstein’s victims, feared to number in the hundreds, include British former Playboy model Anouska de Georgiou. She says she was groomed as a child after meeting the financier in London in the 1990s.
She said last year: ‘When Jeffrey would see me he would physically shake because he wanted to get at me.’
‘She’ll have to tell the truth’