As Prince Andrew comes under growing scrutiny for his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein, resurfaced photos show the pair partying with Donald Trump and Melania at Mar-a-Lago in 2000.
The photos were taken on February 12, 2000 at a celebrity tennis tournament at Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Epstein brought Andrew as a guest, and was also accompanied by Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been accused of helping Epstein procure underage girls for sex.
Epstein, who was facing federal sex trafficking charges, died behind bars earlier this month in what the coroner ruled a suicide.
Donald Trump is seen with then-girlfriend Melania Knauss,Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000
Trump and Melania pose with Prince Andrew at the same event. Andrew was Epstein’s guest at Mar-a-Lago, and has come under increasing scrutiny over underage sex allegations
Trump and Melania are seen at the February 2000 event. Trump later cut ties with Epstein and barred him from Mar-a-Lago, allegedly for trying to pick up young girls
The photos show Epstein, Maxwell and Andrew posing with Trump and his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss.
It was a few months later, in the summer of 2000, that Maxwell recruited young towel girl Virginia Roberts from the locker room of Mar-a-Lago to become an international sex slave for Epstein and his pals, Roberts alleged in a lawsuit.
Maxwell has previously denied involvement in Epstein’s crimes, and her whereabouts are currently unknown.
Epstein’s visits to Mar-a-Lago during the 1990s and early 2000s are well documented, but at some point he and Trump had a falling out, and Trump banned him from the property.
‘Yes, and I did have a falling out a long time ago. The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly, but I haven’t spoken to him in probably 15 years or more,’ Trump said last month. ‘I wasn’t a big fan of Jeffrey Epstein, that I can tell you.’
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, through her attorney, has said that Trump never had sex with her or any other underage girls that she is aware of.
But the now 36-year-old accuser has said that Epstein forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was just 17.
Virginia Roberts photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in early 2001
Virginia Roberts (center in blue) arriving at court on Tuesday with lawyer David Boies. She sued Epstein in 2015 claiming she was held as his sex slave
Her allegations, which Andrew denies, were struck from US civil court records in 2015 after a judge said they were ‘immaterial and impertinent’.
Buckingham Palace has branded the allegations ‘false and without any foundation’ and ‘any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors’ by the duke was ‘categorically untrue’.
On Thursday, Giuffre’s attorney David Boies urged the Duke of York to ‘just come clean.’
Speaking to Sky News, Boies said the prince’s position that he was ‘totally unaware’ of the convicted sex offender’s lifestyle is ‘very hard’ to keep up.
Boies said that even if Prince Andrew continues to ‘delay and obfuscate’ the case is ‘not going away’ because there is ‘too much evidence’.
Giuffre appeared on the court steps of Manhattan federal court on Tuesday to tell the media the prince knew ‘exactly what he has done’ and urged him to ‘come clean’ after speaking at a hearing with around 29 other Epstein victims.
The mother-of-three, who now lives in Cairns in Australia, sued Epstein in 2015 and claims she had sex with Prince Andrew in London when she was 17.
The criminal sex trafficking case against Epstein was formally closed by prosecutors in New York after he was found hanging in his jail cell earlier this month.
A prison-issue mug shot of financier Jeffrey Epstein, taken in 2017. His death in Metropolitan Correction Center – New York was ruled a suicide