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11-01-2024
NEW YORK: A fifth and final batch of court documents relating to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been released.
Among the 1,400 pages of records are depositions with Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
This last trove shows Epstein refused hundreds of times to answer lawyers’ questions, including about alleged blackmail of famous men.
The documents have been released as part of a lawsuit brought by sex-trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre.
The legal action, filed in 2015, was settled in 2017. Maxwell has since been jailed for 20 years for helping Epstein abuse young girls. She is appealing against her conviction.
The court records contain a transcript of Epstein’s 2016 sworn deposition in which he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination.
Under questioning, a lawyer for Ms Giuffre asked Epstein whether she had been told to provide a “detailed report” about her alleged sexual encounters with powerful men such as Prince Andrew.
The attorney asked whether this was intended to be used as “blackmail material”.
Epstein refused to answer any of the questions, repeatedly responding by saying just the word “fifth” over 500 times.
The Duke of York has previously told media he had no memory of ever meeting Giuffre, who alleged she was told to have sex with him on several occasions.
In 2022, he paid her an undisclosed sum to settle her sex-assault lawsuit against him, but did so with no admission of wrongdoing or liability.
In her 2016 deposition released on Tuesday, Giuffre said she was paid $10,000 to $15,000 (£7,900 to £11,800) for one sexual encounter with the prince.
She testified she had been paid $160,000 by a media organization for two articles and a photo showing her with Prince Andrew.
Giuffre also denied ever having been sex-trafficked to any “presidents”, but maintained she was made to have sex with “a well-known prime minister”.
She refused to name this person, adding: “If I can just say, I personally know that this is not a good person to talk about and I’m not going to, point blank, I’m not going to say his name.”
Giuffre also said there was another individual who was introduced to her as a prince besides Prince Andrew to whom she was trafficked in the south of France.
At times in the interview, Giuffre said she was unable to recall details, including the time and location of specific alleged sexual encounters.
She said she had been using Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, as well as ecstasy, cannabis and alcohol.
Other men she has said she was forced to have sex with include Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, Victoria’s Secret boss Les Wexner, billionaire hedge fund investor Glenn Dubin, and former US peace envoy George Mitchell, all of whom have previously denied her claims.
In 2022, Giuffre dropped a lawsuit against Dershowitz and acknowledged in a statement that she “may have made a mistake in identifying” him. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
