The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Reporter accused of helping Giuffre ‘fabricate’ claims against Duke
Maxwell’s lawyers called for British journalist to be made to give evidence in abuse case, papers reveal
US CoRRESpondEnt
GHISLAINE MAXWELL accused a British journalist of helping Virginia Giuffre “concoct” and “fabricate” sexual assault allegations against Prince Andrew.
A second tranche of unsealed documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell’s sexual abuse were released on Thursday after a US judge ordered thousands of pages of files from a 2015 lawsuit to be made public.
The latest release includes a submission from Maxwell’s lawyers calling for Sharon Churcher, a former
journalist, to be compelled to give evidence as part of the case. Ms
Churcher first interviewed Ms Giuffre – who accused Prince Andrew of abusing her as a teenager – in 2011.
Maxwell’s team claimed Ms Churcher “prompted” Ms Giuffre to “fabricate stories regarding Prince Andrew” and to “invent stories regarding Alan Dershowitz”. Mr Dershowitz is a lawyer and former Harvard law professor.
The lawyers referred to email exchanges between the two women in which Ms Churcher gives Ms Giuffre advice on ghostwriters and agents for her book
The 70 pages of emails, which were also released on Thursday, include a May 2011 exchange in which Ms Giuffre asks Ms Churcher for help in recalling details about her abuse at the hands of Epstein. “I wanted to put the names of these a--holes, oops I meant to say, pedo’s [sic], that J.E. sent me to,” Ms Giuffre wrote.
Ms Churcher responded, saying: “Don’t forget Alan Dershowitz ... JE’s buddy and lawyer … good name for your pitch as he repped Claus von Bulow and a movie was made about that case … title was
“We all suspect Alan is a pedo and tho no proof of that, you probably met him when he was hanging put [out] w JE.”
Mr Dershowitz has denied all wrongdoing and in 2022 Ms Giuffre said she could have been mistaken in identifying him as one of the men she was forced to have sex with as a teenager.
In another exchange from 2011, Ms Churcher gives Ms Giuffre advice on corroborating her claims that she was “given” to the Duke.
“Here’s how: you had photos from that trip – taken in Granada and London – and you recalled going to Paris as well and Morocco,” she wrote.
‘These claims are absurd and if they weren’t made in court papers they would be defamatory’
“I found that itinerary in the logs (you landed at Luton airport near London). Also Johanna [Sjoberg] had recalled being groped by Andrew one Easter at the NY mansion and that Ghislaine sat both of you on his knee. You had an identical memory and there was a flight to NY just before Easter in 01 that I found in the logs.”
Around 60 of an estimated 250 documents have so far been released in connection with the case and more could be released as soon as this evening.
There is no suggestion that Mr Clinton has done anything wrong, and the Duke of York has strenuously denied all allegations.
Ms Churcher said: “These claims are absurd and if they weren’t made in court papers they would be defamatory. The entire conspiracy theory is absurd. I stand by my original reporting, not what other people are saying about it.”
She said a team of journalists was involved in the original articles printed about Epstein’s abuse and they were “extensively researched”.