Virginia Giuffre, who accused Britain’s Prince Andrew and other influential men of sexually exploiting her as a teenager trafficked by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, has died aged 41 in an apparent suicide at her farm in Western Australia on Friday, her publicist confirmed.
“Deeply loving, wise and funny, she was a beacon to other survivors and victims,” publicist Dini von Mueffling said in a statement.
“She adored her children and many animals. She was always more concerned with me than with herself. I will miss her beyond words. It was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her.”
The American-born Giuffre, who lived in Australia for years, became an advocate for sex trafficking survivors after emerging as a central figure in Epstein's prolonged downfall.
The wealthy, well-connected New York money manager, Epstein committed suicide in August 2019 while awaiting trial on US federal sex trafficking charges involving dozens of teenage girls and young women, some as young as 14.
The charges came 14 years after police in Palm Beach in Florida, first began investigating allegations that he sexually abused underage girls who were hired to give him massages.
Giuffre came forward publicly after the initial investigation ended in an 18-month Florida jail term for Epstein, who made a secret deal to avoid federal prosecution by pleading guilty instead to relatively minor state-level charges of soliciting prostitution. He was released in 2009.
In subsequent lawsuits, Giuffre said she was a teenage spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago — US President Donald Trump's Palm Beach club — when she was approached in 2000 by Epstein's girlfriend and later employee, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Giuffre said Maxwell hired her as a masseuse for Epstein, but the couple effectively made her a sexual servant, pressuring her into gratifying not only Epstein but his friends and associates.
Giuffre was flown around the world for assignations with men, including Prince Andrew, when she was aged only 17 and 18.
The men denied it and assailed Giuffre's credibility. She acknowledged changing some key details of her account, including the age at which she first met Epstein.
But many parts of her story were supported by documents, witness testimony and photos — including one of her and Andrew, with his arm around her bare midriff, in Maxwell’s London townhouse.
Giuffre said in one of her lawsuits that she had sex with the royal three times: in London during her 2001 trip, at Epstein’s New York mansion when she was 17 and in the Virgin Islands when she was 18.
Epstein's death in 2019 put an end to her hopes of holding him criminally accountable. She founded an advocacy charity, SOAR, in 2015.
Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Giuffre, said in a statement on Friday, “Her courage pushed me to fight harder, and her strength was awe-inspiring. The world has lost an amazing human being today. Rest in peace, my sweet angel.”
