Notorious sex trafficker and former madam for Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, insisted in a new interview that an infamous photo portraying Prince Andrew with an under-aged Virginia Giuffre is fake, the Washington Examiner reports.
Giuffre accused Prince Andrew, the second eldest son of the late Queen Elizabeth II, of sexually abusing her when she was 16 and 17 years old.
“I don’t believe it’s real for a second,” Maxwell told the British channel TalkTV.
“It’s a fake. … There’s never been an original, and further, there is no photograph. I’ve only ever seen a photocopy of it.”
“I have no memory of Virginia and Prince Andrew meeting,” Maxwell said.
The infamous image, attached below, shows then-17-year-old Giuffre next to Prince Andrew with Maxwell lurking a few steps behind.
'IT'S A FAKE': Ghislaine Maxwell makes stunning claim about infamous Prince Andrew photo with Virginia Giuffre during jailhouse interview. https://t.co/Whk3epRvhU pic.twitter.com/fA6C5sUcGv
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 22, 2023
About a year ago, Giuffre and the prince reached an undisclosed settlement. But according to a Fox News report, Prince Andrew is now building a “$12M legal ‘war chest’” to demand Giuffre retract her sexual abuse claims against the Duke of York.
It is alleged that Andrew, Maxwell, and Epstein forced Giuffre to sleep with the prince while she was under 18. The New York Times said she feared the repercussions of speaking out in the years thereafter.
Andrew’s closest confidantes now believe he may be able to overturn the settlement and successfully force Giuffre to retract, the Examiner reports.
The Examiner’s reporting continues:
In court, Andrew regretted his association with Epstein and apologized for the suffering Giuffre endured as both a victim of sexual abuse and the damage to her reputation and attacks from the public. However, his defense attorneys in the past accused Giuffre of making the allegations for financial reasons and painted her as someone only interested in money.
Maxwell was sentenced last June to 20 years in prison after she was found guilty on five counts, including “transporting a minor for the purposes of criminal sexual activity,” “conspiring to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts,” and perjury related to statements she made in 2016.
Maxwell called meeting the now-disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein the “biggest regret” of her life. Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in 2019.
