The infamous image of the Duke with Virginia Giuffre and the now incarcerated Ghislaine Maxwell. Photo / Supplied
The infamous image of the Duke with Virginia Giuffre and the now incarcerated Ghislaine Maxwell. Photo / Supplied
WARNING: This story deals with sexual abuse and may be distressing.
Virginia Giuffre was paid US$15,000 ($24,100) by Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew, she has claimed in the latest release of documents from a New York court.
The accuser, who has previously allegedshe was kept as Epstein’s “sex slave” and that she was forced to have sex with the Duke of York in London in 2001, also claimed she and the Duke went to the Tramp nightclub in London together.
The allegations, released to the public for the first time on Tuesday, were made in a 2016 deposition given by Giuffre in a lawsuit she brought against Alan Dershowitz, a legal scholar.
In the videotaped interview, Giuffre said Epstein paid her US$15,000 for having sex with the Prince.
The documents also contain an interview with Epstein, who refused to answer questions on whether he had blackmailed the Duke after he allegedly had sex with Giuffre in 2001, when she was a teenager.
Britain's Prince Andrew leaves Westminster Abbey. Photo / AP
Questioning Epstein on the alleged blackmail plot, Giuffre’s lawyer asked if he had requested that she “give you a full report on the details of what men like Prince Andrew did to her so that you would have blackmail material you could use”.
He was also asked what he knew about the Duke’s “sexual preferences”, and on whether Giuffre had “recounted specific behaviour that Prince Andrew requested before sexual intercourse”.
Epstein declined to answer, pleading his Fifth Amendment right not to respond to questioning.
In the interview with Giuffre, she was asked whether she was “paid $10-15,000 by or on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein for having sex with Prince Andrew”.
She responded: “Yes, I did receive $15,000. I don’t know what equivalent that is to pounds. I received it in American dollars.”
The Duke has been forced to step down as a working member of the Royal family in response to the allegations and has settled a separate lawsuit with Giuffre for an undisclosed sum.
The deposition also recounted how Giuffre and the Duke allegedly attended the members-only Tramp nightclub in Mayfair. She said they stayed at the club “an hour but not two” and that “he ordered the drinks”.
The Duke has denied any wrongdoing.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, with a photo of herself as a teen, when she says she was abused by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew, among others. Photo / Getty Images
Meanwhile, Dershowitz, Epstein’s former lawyer, claimed the Duke would have won his sexual abuse civil case had it gone to trial.
Dershowitz said the Duke had made a “terrible mistake” by paying millions to settle the civil case with Giuffre.
He told Times Radio: “I suspect he was pressured by his mother to make that mistake. If he had fought that case, I believe he would have won.
“I believe the case would have been dismissed on a variety of grounds, but he didn’t want to sit through a deposition, or people around him didn’t want to sit through a deposition, so he settled the case.
“Often you settle cases not because you’re guilty of what you’re charged, but because you don’t want to admit other things that you’ve done. I feel sorry for Prince Andrew for this reason, assuming everything they say about him is correct, the woman who accused him was over the age of consent.
“She apparently bragged about it to her friends, and she collected millions and millions of dollars for that. Yeah, I feel sorry for him.”
Carolyn Andriano, a victim of Epstein who testified at the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, has claimed Giuffre told her in 2001 that she slept with the Duke. She said her friend texted her from London, saying: “You’ll never guess who I’m with...”
Andrew was stripped of all his royal patronages and military titles in January following a civil lawsuit brought by one of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking victims, Virginia Giuffre. Photo / Supplied
When Giuffre returned to Florida, she showed Andriano the infamous photograph depicting the Duke with his arm around her waist.
Giuffre claimed she was raped and sexually assaulted by him on three occasions in 2001, when she was 17. He paid her an estimated US$12 million ($19.27 million) tosettle her civil claim in February 2022, while admitting no liability.
He wanted to pursue the case but was under intense pressure to strike a deal to draw a line under months of lurid headlines ahead of the Platinum Jubilee.
In order to facilitate the deal, Elizabeth II contributed to the financial settlement, which was accompanied by a 12-month gagging clause, ensuring that neither side could discuss any aspect of the case or the financial deal.
In 2022, Ms Giuffre dropped a separate sexual abuse claim against Dershowitz, admitting she “may have made a mistake” in claiming he had abused her when she was a teenager.
Bill Clinton is pictured with Jeffrey Epstein in an undated photograph
The Duke was said to believe that the “extraordinary” development following an eight-year legal battle prompted serious questions over Giuffre’s credibility.
In a joint statement announcing the settlement, Giuffre said that while she had long believed she was trafficked to Dershowitz by Epstein, she was young at the time and was in a stressful and traumatic environment.
Dershowitz spoke out after it was alleged in newly-released court documents that sex tapes featuring the Duke, Bill Clinton and Richard Branson had been recorded by Epstein.
Sarah Ransome, a British victim, sent emails to a friend in October 2016 in which she claimed the paedophile financier had secretly recorded videos of each of the three men and that copies had been made. The Duke, Branson and Clinton have all vehemently denied wrongdoing.
The Duke was seen on Tuesday for the first time since he was catapulted back into the headlines as he drove near his home on the Windsor estate. It was the first time he had ventured out since a New York court began unsealing the documents last week.
In a 2019 interview with the New Yorker magazine, Ransome is said to have admitted that she had “invented” the tapes, but on Tuesday she doubled down on her claims, repeating her belief that “there are videos that exist”.
She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that she was sure those who knew about the alleged tapes were “very frightened of them being released”.
She added: “It’s no secret that everything was recorded. Multiple victims have come forward confirming my account, along with others. I’ve also seen recordings in his office.”
