Page QQQ Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Miss Roberts – now 36, married
with three children and called Mrs
Roberts Giuffre – was a long way
from the impressionable teenage
runaway who says she was so eas-
ily manipulated by Epstein.
While other victims were emo-
tionally overwhelmed by the occa-
sion, Miss Roberts was calm and
self-possessed as she walked up to
a podium to speak.
Like many, she expressed regret
that Epstein had escaped trial but
stressed that justice still had to be
delivered to those who had helped
him in his crimes.
She said she had been a ‘victim of
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Max-
well’ and spoke of the ‘dark, crimi-
nal acts they committed against
me and hundreds of other girls and
young women for years and years’.
She continued: ‘When I was
recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell at
Mar-a-Lago it was just before I
turned 17 and I thought I was
going to get a big break.
‘My hopes were quickly dashed
and my dreams were stolen. Jef-
frey Epstein is no longer alive but
this is not about how he died. This
is about how he lived.’ Miss Rob-
erts paid tribute to the ‘brave and
beautiful women’ who were in
court. She said the pursuit of jus-
tice ‘must not end, it must con-
tinue, he did not act alone’.
Miss Maxwell, the British daugh-
ter of disgraced newspaper tycoon
Robert, has denied wrongdoing.
She was repeatedly cited by vic-
tims as Epstein’s principal aider
and abettor during years of alleged
abuse of young girls.
Outside court after the hearing,
Miss Roberts said: ‘I was recruitedto that. He knows exactly what
he’s done and I hope he comes
clean about it.’
Her lawyer Brad Edwards said:
‘With respect to Prince Andrew or
anyone else who has made a gratui-
tous statement, if anyone who
wants to come over here and talk to
us and answer real questions that
the victims have and that we have
on their behalf we welcome that.’
He went on: ‘I’ve personally
extended that invitation to Prince
Andrew multiple times. Any time
we are ready and we have a lot of
questions for him.’
Mr Edwards dismissed Prince
Andrew’s comments on Epstein
as ‘just bland statements that are
not responding to everything’. He
added: ‘We have specific pointed
questions and if he really wants to
help then we want his help.’
David Boies, another lawyer for
Miss Roberts, said: ‘Anybody can
deny things in a printed statement.
It’s a different thing to come here,
answer questions under oath, sub-
ject to cross examination.’
Turning to the repeated mention
of Miss Maxwell by Epstein’saccusers, he noted they had won a
‘very substantial settlement’ from
her in a 2015 civil lawsuit.
He added: ‘In that lawsuit we
detailed in contemporaneous doc-
uments and depositions Miss Max-
well’s participation in sex traffick-
ing. We believe that is a roadmap
for a potential prosecution.’
Epstein escaped federal prosecu-tion on similar charges in Florida
in 2008 when he reached a plea
deal with prosecutors that saw him
get a 13-month prison sentence
which allowed him to go to work
every weekday. In the widely con-
demned deal, his accusers were
never given the chance to speak
out against him.
There was no such injustice yes-of their ordeal at the hands of Epstein and
his powerful friends. Some speaking in pub-
lic for the first time, they described not only
the abuse but their anger that their claims
were ignored for years.
They also told the hearing for alleged vic-
tims in the wake of Epstein’s suicide in his
jail cell – with the case against him looking
set to be dismissed – that they had been
denied the chance to confront him.
Miss Roberts, whose previous claims in
court papers in Florida were struck out by a
judge as ‘immaterial’ and ‘impertinent’, told a
Manhattan federal court how she was
recruited by Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine
Maxwell while working as a 15-year-old assist-
ant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
She says she was cajoled into performing
sex acts on Epstein and later passed on to
his powerful friends.
Miss Roberts claims she was 17 when she
had sex with Prince Andrew at Miss Max-
well’s London home.
The prince, who has repeatedly denied Miss
Roberts’s claims, continued to fraternise
with Epstein even after he was released from
an 18-month jail term for sex offences.
In two statements over the past fortnight,
the duke said he was ‘appalled’ by Epstein’s
alleged offences but has insisted he has done
nothing wrong.
He said he did not ‘see, witness or suspect
any behaviour of the sort that subsequently
led to his arrest and conviction’ and admit-
ted it was an ‘error’ to have seen Epstein
after his release from jail in 2010.
As she gave evidence in court yesterday,
‘I JUST HOPE
THE PRINCE
COMES CLEAN
ABOUT IT...’
Hand round the waist: Andrew with Miss Roberts in Continued from Page One
at a very young age from Mar-a-
Lago and entrapped in a world I
didn’t understand and I’ve been
fighting that world to this day and
I will never stop fighting until these
people are brought to justice.’
Asked what she thought of
Prince Andrew’s denials that he
knew about Epstein’s gross sexual
misconduct, she said: ‘He knows
what he’s done and he can attest1
EPSTEIN’S lawyers used yesterday’s hear-
ing to claim he was murdered in his cell.
Attorney Martin Weinberg said an expert
hired by the defence found broken bones in
Epstein’s neck were ‘more consistent with
pressure... with homicide’ than suicide.
He asked US district judge Richard Ber-
man to look into the manner of Epstein’s
death. ‘Find out what happened to our cli-
ent. We’re quite angry,’ Mr Weinberg said.
The 66-year-old financier was found dead
in his prison cell in Manhattan, New York,
on August 10 while awaiting federal trial
for sex trafficking.
Officials said that Epstein hanged himself
with a bed sheet. However, one broken
bone was the hyoid, which can also be
damaged by strangulation.SISTERS who claim they were abused by
Epstein have recalled how Ghislaine Max-
well referred to the girls she allegedly
recruited for him as ‘nubiles’.
Maria Farmer, speaking publicly for the
first time, said she met Epstein and Miss
Maxwell in 1996. Her 16-year-old sister
Annie was also allegedly groped andabused by the pair at around the same
time. Maria claimed Miss Maxwell
referred to the girls she introduced to
Epstein as ‘nubiles’.
She also expressed guilt at having acci-
dentally helped Miss Maxwell and Epstein
set their sights on her younger sister, the
New York Times reported.Epstein injuries ‘like homicide’ Ghislaine ‘called us nubiles’
‘We want
his help’