VIRGINIA Roberts Giuffre claims she was only 17 when she was used as a sex slave by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and when she claims she had sex with Prince Andrew in a toilet.
But what do we know about Virginia Roberts Giuffre and what are her allegations against Epstein and Prince Andrew? Here is everything we know.
Who is Virginia Roberts Giuffre?
Mum-of-three Virginia Roberts – now Virginia Giuffre, 35 – made claims against Brit socialite Ghislaine Maxwell – Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-lover.
Giuffre has alleged that she was procured by Maxwell, 57, the daughter of disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell, as a teenage “sex slave” for Epstein.
She released a manuscript just hours before Epstein’s death, which added to more than 2,000 documents of a lawsuit pending against the former financier and his pals.
The legal documents were released in a defamation case involving Giuffre, who in 2015 claimed Prince Andrew slept with her three times, and Maxwell.
Virginia Roberts has now claimed that she had sex with Prince Andrew in a toilet when she was 17, after a night where he had been plying her with vodka in a posh London club.
The royal has vehemently denied the accusations against him, branding them “false” and “without foundation”.
When called by the Sun Online, Buckingham Palace stated: “It is emphatically denied that The Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts.”
However, Roberts stood by her accusations, saying the Prince “was an abuser, he was a participant”.
In September 2021, her legal team then confirmed that they had issued Andrew with a writ ahead of his pre-trial in New York.
The August 27 summons warned the Duke that he has 21 days from a set date to respond or face a default judgment on the charges.
What did she accuse Jeffrey Epstein of?
Giuffre says her account is “99 per cent true” but her own lawyers have described it as “fictionalised”.
She claims she first met royal dad-of-two Prince Andrew on a trip to London in 2001 when she was 17 and Epstein and Maxwell were also there.
The Prince strongly denied having sex with her in London and New York, and a year later at an orgy on Epstein’s private island in the Virgin Islands.
Roberts was 18 when she had her third alleged sexual encounter with the royal on Little St James Island, where she says he engaged in an orgy with nine girls.
Channel 4’s Dispatches programme revisited evidence Ms Roberts gave a Florida court in 2015.
She said at the time: “Epstein, Andy, approximately eight other young girls and I had sex together.
“The other girls all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn’t really speak English.
“Epstein laughed about the fact they couldn’t really communicate, saying that they are the ‘easiest’ girls to get along with.”
Buckingham Palace said: “This relates to proceedings in the United States, to which the Duke of York is not a party.
“Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue.
“It is emphatically denied that the Duke had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts.
“Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation.”
Maxwell has rejected allegations that she has acted as a procurer for Epstein.
A spokesperson said “the allegations made against Ghislaine Maxwell are untrue” and she “strongly denies allegations of an unsavoury nature, which have appeared in the British press and elsewhere, and reserves her right to seek redress at the repetition of such old defamatory claims”.
Maxwell was arrested on July 2, 2020, on charges of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors and is appeared via video in a federal court the same day.
Virginia was woken at home in Australia by her lawyer Sigrid McCawley with the news that Maxwell had been taken into custody.
Virginia celebrated the arrest of Maxwell tweeting: “Orange is the new black.
“Thank you to @FBI @SDNYnews and anyone involved in the arrest of this insidious creature. Hope the judge throws the book at her.
“So so so happy- she’s finally where she belongs.”
David Boies, her lawyer in New York, vowed that Andrew now has to “come clean”.
A Panorama show featuring an interview with Virginia Roberts has been extended from 30 minutes to one hour.
Has Virginia Roberts commented on Epstein’s death?
Giuffre, who now lives in Australia with her husband and three children, has said the paedo’s victims deserve justice.
Her lawyer Sigrid McCawley said in a statement to The Courier-Mail: “The reckoning of accountability begun by the voices of brave and truthful victims should not end with Jeffrey Epstein’s cowardly and shameful suicide.
“The fact that Epstein took his own life within 24 hours of the unsealing of detailed and devastating documents and exhibits in Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, which informed the public of the scope, scale and sophistication of the international sex trafficking operation Epstein conducted, is no coincidence.”
She added: “We are hopeful that the government will continue to investigate and will focus on those who participated and facilitated Epstein’s horrifying sex trafficking scheme that damaged so many.”
