GHISLAINE WITNESS’S BOMBSHELL FOR ANDREW
Victim who helped convict Maxwell waives anonymity to reveal key Virginia evidence
VIRGINIA Roberts told a fellow Jeffrey Epstein ‘sex slave’ that she slept with Prince Andrew in London, it was claimed last night.
The then 17-year-old is also said to have shown the infamous picture of her posing at Ghislaine Maxwell’s home with the Queen’s second son.
In a world exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Carolyn Andriano says Miss Roberts texted her from London in March 2001 to say she was going for dinner with Andrew, Maxwell and Epstein.
Miss Roberts is alleged to have shown the picture to Miss Andriano back in Florida, saying of the prince: ‘I got to sleep with him.’
Miss Andriano, 35, gave harrowing testimony against Maxwell at her trial last month. Four of the five guilty verdicts against her were underpinned by the evidence of the
married mother of five, including the most serious charge of sex trafficking a minor which carries a maximum 40-year jail term.
Today Miss Andriano bravely waives her legal right to anonymity to tell the full story about her horrific ordeal in Epstein’s ‘House of Sin’ in Palm Beach, Florida – when she was aged 14 to 17 – and her then friendship with Miss Roberts, who she says, recruited her into Epstein and 60-year-old Maxwell’s sexual abuse ‘pyramid scheme’.
Her account of her conversations with Miss Roberts is the first time there has been any contemporaneous and independent report of the purported meeting with the Duke of York.
Miss Andriano’s astonishing interview with the Daily Mail – for which she is not being paid – comes in the week that Andrew’s lawyers made a desperate courtroom bid to get Miss Roberts’ rape lawsuit against him in the US thrown out.
His legal bid is said to be hanging by a thread, with a judge expected to rule shortly. The duke strenuously denies any wrongdoing, and says he cannot remember meeting his accuser. Sources close to him have suggested that the picture of him with Miss Roberts may be fake.
Andrew’s lawyers are seeking to persuade the court that the 38-year-old – now based in Australia and known by her married name Giuffre – had waived her right to sue him when she signed an earlier £370,000 legal settlement with US financier Epstein, who killed himself on remand in prison.
In her interview with the Mail, Miss Andriano says she believes what Miss Roberts told her in 2001 – ten years before the teen sex accuser first told her story in a Sunday newspaper.
Miss Andriano said: ‘I asked her if she’d been to the palace. And she said “I got to sleep with him”. I said “What? You’re f ****** with me” and she said “no, I got to sleep with him”. She didn’t seem upset about it. She thought it was pretty cool.’
Miss Andriano, who has been widely praised for her courageous testimony at Maxwell’s trial, added: ‘I waive my right to anonymity. I am doing this because I want all young women to know what happened to me when I was a teenager and how it has affected my life.
‘I want to be a voice for all survivors of sexual abuse so that they are not afraid to come forward, even if it is years after the event, and say what happened to them. This is my story and I want to tell it.’
Earlier this week Maxwell’s lawyers demanded a retrial after one of the jurors who convicted her of trafficking confessed to being a sex abuse victim.
Prosecutors who put Maxwell behind bars asked the trial judge for an investigation into the admission by Scotty David during media interviews. But the British socialite’s lawyers went further, saying it was ‘incontrovertible grounds for a new trial’.
Mr David is now likely to be summoned back to the New York courtroom. A spokesman for Prince Andrew declined to comment.