LONDON: One of the women who has accused Jeffrey Epstein of sex crimes has issued a startlingly clear appeal to Prince Andrew of Britain to “come clean” about his relationship with the disgraced financier.
“He knows exactly what he’s done, and I hope he comes clean about it,” the woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said Tuesday.
She spoke outside a New York courthouse after an emotional hearing in which many of Epstein’s accusers spoke publicly for the first time.
Prince Andrew, the 59-year-old second son of Queen Elizabeth II, has faced intensifying scrutiny for his ties to Epstein, who was arrested in New York in July on sex trafficking charges. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell this month, but in the weeks since, a storm has been mounting in the British news media, and the prince has stood at the centre.
Prince Andrew, a longtime friend of Epstein’s, has been accused of witnessing and taking part in sexual exploitation of young women and girls during their friendship. He has also been widely criticised for maintaining a relationship with Epstein after the financier left a Florida jail in 2010 after a sex crime conviction.
‘Lent to Prince Andrew for sex’
Giuffre said in legal filings in 2015 that Epstein lent her to Prince Andrew for sex on multiple occasions when she was 17. She has released a photograph from 2001 showing Prince Andrew standing next to her with his hand around her bare midriff.
A second woman, Johanna Sjoberg, said in recently unsealed legal filings in the same case that Prince Andrew posed in 2001 for another photograph touching her breast while touching Giuffre’s breast at the same time with a puppet of himself.
The prince has repeatedly denied those allegations.
On Saturday, Prince Andrew broke his long silence on the scandal, saying that he spent only a “limited time” with Epstein and that he never saw nor suspected any behavior involving the sexual trafficking and exploitation of underage girls.
He also played down their relationship, saying he saw Epstein “infrequently” after the two men met in 1999, but added it had been “a mistake and an error to see him” after Epstein was released from jail.
A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said Wednesday that the royal family would not comment further.
But lawyers for Epstein’s accusers have demanded that Prince Andrew disclose whatever he knows about the financier’s behavior.
In 2015, a US court struck Giuffre’s allegations against Prince Andrew from a claim against Epstein, saying they were “immaterial and impertinent” because the prince was not a defendant in the case, The Guardian reported.
Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Giuffre, said there was a difference between “bland statements” and answering questions under oath, The Times of London reported.
“I have personally extended that invitation to Prince Andrew multiple times,” Edwards told the news outlet. “We are ready and we have a lot of questions for him.” - New York Times
