Jeffrey Epstein paid Virginia Roberts Giuffre $500,000 in November 2009 to dismiss a lawsuit she had brought against him alleging that he and Ghislaine Maxwell had sexually abused her and directed her to have sex with their powerful friends, according to a newly unsealed settlement document.
Epstein didn’t acknowledge guilt in the agreement and it shielded Epstein’s “agent(s), attorney(s), predecessor(s), successor(s), heir(s),administrator(s), assign(s) and/or employee(s)“ from liability, as well as “and any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant.”
That second category is significant in light of a lawsuit Giuffre brought in August 2021, alleging that the British royal had sexually abused her between 2000 and 2002 when she was under the age of 18 at Jeffrey Epstein’s New York mansion and private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London home. A picture of Giuffre, Andrew and Maxwell taken in Maxwell’s home around the time of the alleged offense has become notorious.
Andrew had sought to have the lawsuit documents released publicly and argued that he was protected from liability given the language of the settlement. He pointed out that Giuffre’s original complaint against Epstein had said that Epstein had directed her to have sex with Epstein’s high-powered friends including “royalty.” Giuffre had first turned over the settlement agreement as potential evidence in her lawsuit with Epstein’s former attorney, Alan Dershowitz. Giuffre has said that she was also trafficked to Dershowitz, which he denies.
Andrew has also proclaimed his innocence and fought the suit from the start, first questioning whether he had been appropriately notified and subsequently arguing that he was protected from the agreement, that modifications to a New York law allowing Giuffre to bring the suit despite it being past the statute of limitations were unconstitutional and that Giuffre, who currently lives in Australia but indicated that she is a citizen of Colorado, doesn’t have standing to bring the suit.
Giuffre disputed Andrew’s claims and argued that Andrew is not protected by the 2009 settlement, negotiated by a lawyer paid for and selected by Epstein, because he is not identified in the settlement and “and the actual parties to that Release made clear at the time and thereafter that he was not intended to be included in that Release.” She also pointed out that she settled again with Epstein’s estate in 2020 despite the 2009 agreement, writing that Epstein’s estate recognized “the questionable validity of the 2009 Release even as to Epstein.”
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan will hold a hearing on the matter Tuesday.
The hearing comes on the heels of Maxwell’s conviction last week on five of six counts related to the sex trafficking of minors. She faces the prospect of spending decades in prison on the charges, unless she can win a long-shot appeal or can strike a deal with prosecutors to flip on other co-conspirators or her friends, though legal experts suggest she would have to have “bombshell” information for prosecutors to be willing to strike a deal.
Giuffre said after Maxwell’s conviction that she hoped to see other co-conspirators brought to justice.
“Maxwell did not act alone,” she said in a statement. “Others must be held accountable. I have faith that they will be.”
Maxwell had argued unsuccessfully in her criminal case that she was protected by a controversial 2007 non-prosecution agreement that Epstein had entered into with federal prosecutors in South Florida as part of their plea deal with Epstein on allegations he had sexually abused dozens of girls in Palm Beach. Epstein’s deal had allowed him to plead guilty to two state solicitation charges, one involving a minor. He served 13 months in the county jail and was allowed to work each day from a Palm Beach office for much of the sentence.
The lawyer who represented Giuffre in her settlement with Epstein, Robert Josefsberg, had been selected and paid for by Epstein as part of the plea deal.
Epstein’s non-prosecution deal was the subject of the Miami Herald’s 2018 Perversion of Justice series and led federal prosecutors to revisit Epstein’s crimes and bring new sex charges against him in July 2019. He was found dead in his jail cell one month later in what has been ruled a suicide.
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