It was a simple photograph, taken late in the evening on 10 March 2001, that came to symbolize Virginia Giuffre’s case against Prince Andrew.
The one with the duke’s arm around the 17-year-old’s waist, with Ghislaine Maxwell beaming to one side, and the man behind the camera clicking the shutter but hidden by the flash’s reflection in the window being Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced late financier and sex trafficker.
That picture – the one that Andrew claimed on BBC’s Newsnight might have been doctored, since he had “no recollection” of then or ever meeting Giuffre at Tramp nightclub in London – will likely serve as both a prequel and postscript of the saga.
It has been reproduced in countless newspaper articles about the scandal. The picture’s symbolism was not lost on Wendy Murphy, a former sex crimes prosecutor. She said: “If this were not a member of the royal family with a person from a very different social class, the picture would tell you nothing, because it’s not a picture of sexual assault. In an ordinary case, the defense would just say it only proves they were at a party together.”
The problem, Murphy said, is that Maxwell is in the background and it is a picture that “has no innocent explanation, because there is no innocent reason for him to be hugging her, even in a social situation”.
The settlement, which the duke’s lawyers said includes a “substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights”, marks the end of Giuffre’s long journey from life as a south Florida teenager drawn into the Epstein-Maxwell sex trafficking conspiracy to prominent campaigner against the sexual abuse of minors.
Giuffre, then Virginia Roberts, spent four years as Epstein’s personal masseuse, during which she alleges she was trafficked to the financier’s friends and clients. She now lives in Australia.
In a 2009 civil lawsuit against Epstein, under the pseudonym “Jane Doe 102”, she alleged that her duties included being “sexually exploited by Epstein’s adult male peers, including royalty”. Giuffre reached a $500,000 settlement with Epstein in that case before it went to trial.
She also sued and settled for an undisclosed sum with Maxwell in a 2015 defamation suit. Giuffre filed the current civil lawsuit against the duke for sexual abuse, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress just five days short of the closing of a window in statute of limitations in New York’s Child’s Sex Act.
The original image showing Giuffre, the duke and Maxwell together at Maxwell’s home, before, her lawyers claim, she was sexually abused by the duke, is reportedly lost.
Ahead of the settlement, the duke’s lawyers asked Giuffre to hand over the original, anticipating arguing that it was fake. But according to the Daily Beast, nobody on Giuffre’s legal team knows where it is, or has ever seen the original photograph.
The picture, taken on Giuffre’s own camera, had allegedly been packed into a box and shipped from Colorado to Sydney sometime between between 2011 and 2016, when Giuffre emigrated to Australia.
It remained unseen, at least by the public, until the Mail on Sunday asked for evidence to Giuffre’s claim that she had been trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell – who is now awaiting sentencing after being convicted of sex trafficking in December – to support her claims that she had been forced to have sex with a number of prominent figures.
It later emerged, during a 2016 deposition as part of a defamation suit Giuffre filed against Maxwell, that the Mail on Sunday paid her $140,000 to publish it, as well as $20,000 for two interviews.
During that deposition, Giuffre said she had lent the picture to the FBI in 2011 but had last seen it before she packed up her home to emigrate. It might, she said, be in her home, in storage at her in-laws’ or with “seven boxes full of Nerf guns, my kids’ toys, photos”.
In November 2019, Andrew was asked about the photograph in an interview with Newsnight. “I don’t remember that photograph ever being taken. I don’t remember going upstairs in the house,” he said.
The photograph is now perhaps one of the most infamous images of him. For Giuffre, the settlement has been described as a victory.
“She has accomplished what no one else could: getting Prince Andrew to stop his nonsense and side with sexual abuse victims,” said Lisa Bloom, a US lawyer who acted for eight Epstein victims. “We salute Virginia’s stunning courage.”
Of the others involved in the picture, Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell faces spending the rest of her life behind bars.
In a recent interview after Maxwell’s conviction, Giuffre said: “It takes time to heal, and this justice is part of the process. Now I can start really working past Maxwell and thinking about the others who need to be held accountable.”
She added: “No matter how rich or how connected you are.”
