Ghislaine Maxwell denies finding underage sexual partners for Prince Andrew
22 October 2020, 17:44
Newly released transcripts show financier Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend was combative and defensive under questioning four years ago.
Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend denied introducing Prince Andrew to underage sexual partners in a defensive and combative deposition made public on Thursday.
Ghislaine Maxwell branded accuser Virginia Giuffre an “awful fantasist” in the newly released transcripts.
The exchange four years ago was contained in hundreds of pages of transcripts ordered to be released by US District Judge Loretta A Preska.
“Are we tallying all the lies?” Ghislaine Maxwell asked during the 2016 deposition, saying she could not recall taking Epstein accuser Ms Giuffre being out for a night of clubbing with Andrew in London.
“Her tissue of lies is extremely hard to pick apart what is true and what isn’t,” she said.
Maxwell has been charged with recruiting three underage girls in the 1990s for Epstein to sexually abuse, and committing perjury in the depositions.
The charges do not relate to the prince and Maxwell has pleaded not guilty.
The British socialite, 58, parried a long list of inquiries about Epstein’s sexual proclivities and her interactions with Ms Giuffre and other young women, insisting she never saw the financier have sex with anybody.
“She is an absolute total liar and you all know she lied on multiple things and that is just one other disgusting thing she added,” Maxwell said, denying having a threesome with Epstein and Ms Giuffre.
“I never saw any inappropriate underage activities with Jeffrey ever,” Maxwell said.
Ms Giuffre accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous wealthy and influential men, including Prince Andrew.
He and the other men have denied her allegations.
Maxwell repeatedly denied hiring anyone under the age of 18 for Epstein.
As for whether she was Epstein’s girlfriend after meeting him in 1991, Maxwell called it a “tricky question”.
She said: “There were times when I would have liked to think of myself as his girlfriend.”
Asked whether it was Epstein’s “preference to start a massage with sex”, Maxwell said: “I think you should ask that question of Jeffrey.”
In a deposition of Epstein conducted later in 2016, he mostly invoked the Fifth Amendment, which protects against self-incrimination.
“Fifth,” he replied when he was asked if Maxwell was “one of the main women” he used to procure underage girls for sexual activities.
Ms Preska had ordered the transcripts of seven hours of depositions of Maxwell be released by 9am on Thursday.
The judge allowed the release of the transcripts after rejecting arguments the interviews for Ms Giuffre’s 2015 defamation case against Maxwell would jeopardise a fair criminal trial for her next July.
Maxwell has been held without bail since her July arrest on charges that she procured the underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse between 1994 and 1997.
The 2016 transcripts were among more than 2,000 pages of documents being released since an appeals court last year began unsealing documents from the since-settled defamation case.
Ms Giuffre said Maxwell recruited her at age 17 to be sexually abused by Epstein and the socialite from 1999 to 2002.
The Miami Herald, whose reporting in 2018 brought fresh scrutiny to Epstein’s crimes, had argued in seeking the unsealing that Maxwell’s fear of embarrassment shouldn’t stop the public from learning of “the sexual abuse of young girls at the hands of the wealthy and powerful”.
Epstein was 66 when he killed himself in jail in Manhattan in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
