The death of Jeffrey Epstein came hours after a US court released a bombshell cache of documents, including details of a night in London in 2001 that Prince Andrew spent in the company of a 17-year-old girl.
In one exhibit, a manuscript of her proposed memoirs, Virginia Roberts claims she and the Duke of York partied at a nightclub where they danced together and Andrew was ‘whispering sweet nothings’ in her ear. The Duke – who was photographed later that night with his arm around Miss Roberts’s waist – last night denied any impropriety and ever having sex with her.
Describing what she says was the first of three meetings with the Prince, Miss Roberts recalls being woken that morning by Ghislaine Maxwell, a mutual friend of the Duke and Epstein.
‘She was waiting for my cue to ask her ‘What are we doing?’,’ wrote Miss Roberts. ‘When I did, she responded with convincing enthusiasm: ‘We’re going shopping for a new ensemble.’ She paused for a moment to build the suspense before completing her sentence: ‘To go dancing with a Prince of England this evening.’
Virginia Roberts, then 17 and one of Epstein’s accusers, is photographed with Prince Andrew and socialite Ghislaine Maxwell in early 2001
Prince Andrew is pictured with Epstein in Central Park in New York in February 2011. The Duke may be dragged deeper into the Epstein scandal
‘Hoping it would be one of the younger generation, I was disappointed when she told me it was the Duke of York. I looked at her with a fake surprised look. ‘What… wow!’ I exclaimed.’
During a trip to various designer shops, Miss Roberts claims Ms Maxwell urged her to be ‘bubbly and energetic’ when she met the Duke – but that nerves engulfed her. ‘As the day grew shorter my anxiety only heightened,’ she wrote. ‘By the time I got ready I was a nervous wreck.’
The trio went to a nearby restaurant for dinner before going on to Tramp nightclub.
‘Andrew’s guards waited outside while we all went in to hit the dance floor,’ Miss Roberts recalled.
‘I had the Prince’s attention… I just giggled, not really knowing how to reply to an ageing man with a bad smile and terrible moves. He was the most incredibly hideous dancer I had ever seen.
‘After an hour of pelvic smashing we finally exited the floor, His Royal Highness was dripping with sweat.’
The group returned to Ms Maxwell’s London townhouse where Miss Roberts alleges that she had sex with the Duke in a bath.
The document was filed by Ms Maxwell’s lawyers in an attempt to demonstrate that Ms Roberts was lying. They said the tub was ‘too small for a man of Prince Andrew’s size to enjoy a bath in, let alone sex.’
As well as allegations of abuse carried out by Epstein on teenage girls, the more than 2,000 pages released on Friday contain evidence from David Rodgers, one of the billionaire’s pilots, who described how he flew the businessman with guests including Bill Clinton and the supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Epstein is pictured with his associate and one-time girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell in 2005. Investigators may now turn their focus to her after Epstein’s death in his prison cell
US President Donald Trump appeared on flight logs from 1997.
The papers also include claims by a second woman, Johanna Sjoberg, who alleges that Prince Andrew fondled her breast when she sat on his knee at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 2001.
In a witness account, Ms Sjoberg describes how someone suggested she and Ms Maxwell pose for a photograph on a sofa with a puppet of the Duke, whom she had not recognised until that point. She said Ms Maxwell told her to come to a cupboard where she grabbed the caricature, previously described as ‘some kind of big blow-up toy that was his Spitting Image puppet’.
‘I didn’t know who he was,’ Ms Sjoberg said. ‘And so when I saw the tag that said Prince Andrew, then it clicked. And we went down – back down to the living room – and she brought it in. It was just funny because he thought it was funny because it was him.’
She claims the Duke and Miss Roberts sat together on the sofa with the puppet on her lap.
‘I sat on Andrew’s lap, and I believe on my own volition, and they took the puppet’s hands and put it on Virginia’s breast, and so Andrew put his on mine,’ she alleges, before agreeing that it was done in a ‘joking manner’.
The documents originally formed part of a defamation claim by Ms Roberts against Ms Maxwell. The claim was settled in 2017. The release of the documents followed a legal battle led by the Miami Herald newspaper that began in January. Ms Maxwell had opposed it on the grounds that it would spark a ‘furious feeding frenzy’. Epstein’s accusers claim the socialite took on the persona of a ‘mother hen’ for the billionaire.
The documents released state that it is ‘an undisputed fact that multiple witnesses deposed in this case’ have testified that Ms Maxwell, daughter of disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell ‘operated as convicted paedophile Epstein’s procurer of under-age girls’.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said last night: ‘This relates to proceedings in the US, to which the Duke of York is not a party. Any suggestion of impropriety with minors is categorically untrue.’
Previously his spokesman said: ‘It is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation.’