^{Duke denies claim in court papers that teen was picked to sleep with him by Robert Maxwell's daughter}


Woman said she was 'forced' to have sex with Prince Andrew at parties

The royal has issued a strong denial of the 'categorically untrue' claims

Alleged victim hit back by saying she would not be 'bullied into silence'

She was told to 'give the prince whatever he demanded' by Jeffrey Epstein

Claimed underage girls were ‘procured for sexual activities’ by Maxwell


Prince Andrew abused an underage girl at an orgy where she was being used as a sex slave, it was sensationally claimed last night.

In an extraordinary legal allegation, a woman said she was ‘forced’ to have sex with him at parties in London, New York and the Caribbean.

Last night the prince issued a strongly-worded denial, with Buckingham Palace saying ‘any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue’. But his alleged victim immediately hit back by saying she would not be ‘bullied into silence by aggressive attacks’.

The woman – named only as Jane Doe #3 but said to be 30-year-old Virginia Roberts – says in court documents she was told to ‘give the prince whatever he demanded’ by his friend Jeffrey Epstein, the US billionaire paedophile who hosted the sordid parties.

She claimed she and other underage girls were ‘procured for sexual activities’ by Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite daughter of crooked tycoon Robert Maxwell.

Miss Maxwell is alleged to have facilitated the prince’s ‘abuse’ of the girl, after helping Epstein to convert her ‘into what is commonly referred to as a sex slave’.

Miss Maxwell is described as a madam and ‘a primary co-conspirator in [Epstein’s] sexual abuse and sex trafficking scheme’.

Legal documents lodged with a court in Florida name Andrew, 54, as one of three men allegedly involved in abusing the woman 13 years ago when she was 17 – which is underage in Florida state law.

The bombshell papers state: ‘One such powerful individual Epstein forced [her] to have sexual relations with was a member of the British Royal Family, Prince Andrew, aka Duke of York.’ The claim names three locations, saying one involved an orgy with numerous underaged girls. It alleges: ‘Epstein instructed Jane Doe #3 that she was to give the prince whatever he demanded and required Jane Doe #3 to report back to him on the details of the sexual abuse.’

Epstein, a long-term friend of Prince Andrew, was one of the best-connected men in America until he was jailed for 13 months in 2008 for soliciting girls for underage prostitution.

The prince stayed friends with him despite his conviction and they were seen together in 2011 after Epstein’s release from jail.

Last night a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: ‘This relates to long-standing and ongoing civil proceedings in the United States, to which the Duke of York is not a party. As such we would not comment on the detail.

‘However, for the avoidance of doubt, any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue.’ Until now Buckingham Palace has refused to comment on stories around the case, but last night lawyers for the prince advised his private office to release a statement, given the high-profile nature of the latest legal salvo, which made headlines around the world.

His accuser countered with a statement issued through her lawyers that said: ‘I am looking forward to vindicating my rights as an innocent victim and pursuing all available recourse. It appears that I am now being unjustly victimised again.

‘These types of aggressive attacks on me are exactly the reason why sexual abuse victims typically remain silent and the reason why I did for a long time. That trend should change. I’m not going to be bullied back into silence.’
Although she was not named in court documents, she was being linked in America to Miss Roberts, who as a teenager was photographed standing next to Andrew.

Jane Doe #3 has made similar allegations against Harvard Law School expert Alan Dershowitz and a French model scout. Professor Dershowitz strenuously denies the claims, telling the Politico website: ‘It’s totally, unequivocally and completely false’.

Epstein was suspected nearly a decade ago of paying for sex with dozens of underage girls. The FBI ultimately dropped its investigation and, in a ‘plea bargain’, he admitted a single offence and served 13 months of an 18-month jail sentence.

The documents, filed at West Palm Beach Federal Courthouse in Florida, are part of an ongoing civil dispute between Epstein and four of his alleged victims. The latest issue refers to his plea-bargain which two unnamed victims, Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2, say prosecutors should not have agreed.

Jane Doe #3 and Jane Doe #4 have joined their legal action. Last night there was no response to requests for comment from Miss Maxwell. Epstein’s lawyer, Jack Goldberger, said the allegations were ‘old and salacious and ‘been consistently proven to have no merit’.


The claim filed at Florida district court in West Palm Beach by the woman known as Jane Doe #3 includes allegations that: 

‘Epstein sexually trafficked the then-minor Jane Doe, making her available for sex to politically-connected and financially-powerful people.

‘Epstein’s purposes ... were to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information.

‘One such powerful individual Epstein forced [alleged victim] Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with was a member of the British royal family, Prince Andrew, aka Duke of York.

‘Jane Doe #3 was forced to have sexual relations with this prince when she was a minor in three separate geographical locations: in London (at Ghislaine Maxwell’s apartment), in New York and on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands (in an orgy with numerous underaged girls.)

‘Epstein instructed Jane Doe #3 that she was to give the prince whatever he demanded and required Jane Doe #3 to report back to him on the details of the sexual abuse.

‘Maxwell facilitated Prince Andrew’s acts of sexual abuse by acting as a ‘madame’ for Epstein, thereby assisting in internationally trafficking Jane Doe #3 (and numerous other girls) for sexual purposes.

‘Epstein also trafficked Jane Doe #3 for sexual purposes to many other powerful men, including numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well known prime minister, and other world leaders.

‘Epstein required Jane Doe #3 to describe the events that she had with these men so that he could potentially blackmail them. Maxwell was another person in Epstein’s inner circle and co-conspirator in Epstein’s sexual abuse.

‘In addition to participating in the sexual abuse of Jane Doe #3 and others, Maxwell also took numerous sexually explicit pictures of underage girls involved in sexual activities.

‘Maxwell herself regularly participated in Epstein’s sexual exploitation of minors, including Jane Doe #3.

‘Maxwell persuaded Jane Doe #3 (who was then 15 years old) to come to Epstein’s mansion in a fashion very similar to the manner in which Epstein and his other co-conspirators coerced dozens of other children.

‘Epstein kept Jane Doe #3 as his sex slave from about 1999 through 2002, when she managed to escape to a foreign country and hide out from Epstein and his co-conspirators for years.’

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Jailed as a paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein found many of his wealthy friends quietly melted away.

But there was one long-standing associate on whose loyalty he could rely – Prince Andrew.

The pair had been chummy for years, and not even Epstein’s conviction for abusing underage girls appeared to dent their bond. Three years after Epstein’s downfall in 2008, the friends were photographed strolling together in New York’s Central Park.

It caused acute embarrassment and cost the prince his job representing Britain as a trade envoy. Even his staunchest defenders at Buckingham Palace ‘had their heads in their hands’, according to an informed source. ‘This is just indefensible. There is nothing we can do,’ one courtier said.

But Andrew has always done pretty much as he likes, especially if it involves partying with beautiful women. In this, his super-rich playboy friend was something of a kindred spirit. Neither is married – Epstein has never wed – and the two powerful men partied together all over the world.
The Duke of York holidayed and had daily massages at the £4million Florida mansion where Epstein abused teenage girls, legal papers claimed in 2011. Andrew is said to have enjoyed regular rub-downs at the whitewashed Palm Beach residence where winged gargoyles flanked the gate and masseuses worked for £60 an hour. Photographs of naked women adorned the walls.

In return, Epstein seemed to enjoy extraordinary access to the heart of the Royal Family, courtesy of Andrew, and has been a guest of the Queen at Balmoral, Windsor Castle and Sandringham.

Sarah Ferguson was also a visitor to Epstein’s Florida mansion, and he even helped her to clear her debts. She accepted £15,000 from him in a grubby deal she later admitted was a ‘gigantic error of judgment’.Epstein and Andrew met in the 1990s, introduced by the financier’s then girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, the glamorous daughter of disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell.

She and Epstein became a couple shortly after the newspaper publisher’s 1991 death when Miss Maxwell moved to New York and – bankrolled by him – established herself as a leading Manhattan socialite.

She repaid the favour by putting Epstein in touch with her own well-heeled friends in Britain, including Andrew. According to friends, this first meeting probably took place during a holiday at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, owned by Donald Trump.

In 2000, Epstein was an honoured guest at a June engagement at Windsor Castle to celebrate the Queen’s birthday.

Six months later, he was invited to a party at Sandringham which the prince had arranged to celebrate Miss Maxwell’s 39th birthday. In between, she took Epstein to a ‘hookers and pimps’ party at a New York nightclub hosted by former lingerie model Heidi Klum in a black latex S&M outfit.

Andrew was also at a Manhattan cocktail party thrown that year by Miss Maxwell which was filled with young Russian ‘models’ – leaving some of the other guests ‘horrified’, court papers indicated.

Epstein was first arrested in 2005, after the stepmother of a 14-year-old girl told Florida police that he had paid the youngster $200 (£120) for an ‘erotic massage’.

An FBI investigation uncovered a string of vulnerable teenagers who claimed he kept them as a harem at his luxury homes.

He allegedly staged orgies on private jets and flew girls as young as 12 to ‘topless parties’ at his Florida mansion, dubbed the ‘House of Sin’. By 2008, the FBI believed it had identified 20 women who might level sexual allegations against him in court.

Epstein struck a ‘plea bargain’ with prosecutors that saw him confess to two relatively minor charges related to child prostitution with the rest of the case dropped. He received an 18-month jail sentence.

More sordid secrets of Epstein’s ‘House of Sin’ then began to emerge – including Andrew’s penchant for massages. The billionaire’s long-standing handyman and cleaner Juan Alessi said, in court papers seen by the Mail, that he set up massage tables for Andrew on a daily basis. Speaking under oath to solicitors in 2009, he said pictures of naked women were on display by the pool, while other witnesses described nude photographs of underage girls adorning a stairway.

He said Miss Maxwell kept a laundry basket full of sex toys in a cupboard at the house, alongside a shiny black costume. Mr Alessi added that the five-bedroom home ‘was run like a hotel’ with a host of celebrity guests passing through. Among them was Andrew, who stayed in the blue guest room where there was apparently soap in the shape of male and female genitalia.

Mr Alessi said: ‘I saw guests at the house that were celebrities ... It was Prince Andrew. It was Princess Sarah.’ He later clarified that he meant the Duchess of York. Asked whether the pair ever had massages, Mr Alessi said: ‘Prince Andrew did.’ At least 40 girls later came forward, some saying Epstein sexually assaulted them during massages. One sordid allegation was that for his birthday one year, he was presented with three 12-year-old girls from France for his sexual pleasure.

Epstein’s personal assistant Sarah Kellen, 35, is said to have arranged for a string of underage girls to visit his mansion and would pay them around £150 a visit. She prepared massage tables and oils that the girls were to use for their ‘work’. A former girlfriend of the billionaire financier, model Nadia Marcinkova, took part in threesomes with him, court documents said. Both women refused to comment when questioned by lawyers.

Until now, it has always been reported that there was no evidence Andrew was aware that his host was paying children for sex.

Indeed, the Daily Mail has previously stressed that none of the claims about the prince has been corroborated, and that they have yet to be tested in a court of law.But some Buckingham Palace courtiers were in despair yesterday that the Royal Family has been dragged further into the Epstein mire. American friends of Epstein have always noticed how he delights in his royal links.

There have even been unsubstantiated rumours – most probably started by the financier himself and on which Buckingham Palace has not commented – that one of secretive Epstein’s financial clients was the Queen herself. Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and recipient of Epstein largesse, said he was given that impression by the financier.

It is unknown whether Epstein has actually met the Queen, but there is no disputing that he was given rare access to the royals’ inner sanctum. In July 1999, Andrew invited Miss Maxwell and Epstein, then her boyfriend, to stay at Craigowan Lodge in the grounds of Balmoral. Andrew lavished hospitality on Epstein and his girlfriend, before escorting his guests on a tour of the estate. For Epstein, the weekend had been a social triumph.

The financier started from humble beginnings. The son of a parks department worker, he was working as a maths teacher in Manhattan in 1976 when he was plucked from obscurity by a pupil’s father who got him a job on Wall Street. For Andrew, his growing closeness to Epstein would cause him intense embarrassment. In 2011, after the photo appeared of him with the billionaire in New York, Andrew was shamed into stepping down as Britain’s trade envoy.

On that occasion, it was the Queen who came to his rescue, in a remarkable show of maternal love. Andrew is the Queen’s favourite son, and she has been deeply upset at the opprobrium heaped on him. Only time will tell how she will react to his latest travails.


 DailyMail/QH