The woman at the center of an alleged sex scandal enveloping influential men on two continents today filed a sworn affidavit in federal court adding fresh detail to her claims and vowing “to pursue all reasonable and legitimate means to have criminal charges brought against these powerful people for the crimes they have committed against me and other girls.”
Virginia Roberts, now 31, alleges she was kept for four years as an underage sex slave of American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who in turn required her to have sexual relations with Britain’s Prince Andrew, renowned lawyer Alan Dershowitz and “many other powerful men, including politicians and powerful business executives.”
She declined to name others in her statement - but her lawyers noted in a cryptic footnote that, if she had, the names would “have created significantly more media attention than the names that she did include.”
Palace Denies Teen Sex Allegation Against Prince Andrew CLICK HERE for Full Coverage of the Royal FamilyEpstein, an enigmatic financier who has palatial homes in Florida, New York, New Mexico and the US Virgin Islands, was the subject of wide-ranging state and federal investigations, beginning in 2005, looking into claims that he had illegal sexual contact with dozens of underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion and elsewhere. He ultimately entered into an unusual and, at the time, confidential non-prosecution agreement with the federal government that resulted in him pleading guilty to two relatively minor sex crimes in state court. Dershowitz was among a group of prominent attorneys who helped Epstein secure the deal.
Epstein pleaded guilty to one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of a minor to engage in prostitution. He served 13 months of an 18 month sentence in Florida prison. He was facing a potential 10 years to life sentence if he was prosecuted and convicted on the federal charges. Roberts and other women are trying to undo that agreement, claiming it was illegal because it violated their rights as victims of federal crimes.
Roberts’ affidavit, filed in a federal court in a case seeking to overturn Epstein’s deal, marks the first time Roberts has made a statement under oath. She claims that, at the direction of Epstein, she had sexual relations three times with Prince Andrew - the second son of Queen Elizabeth - “including one orgy” on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean – and six times with the Harvard legal icon Dershowitz in Epstein’s homes in New York, Palm Beach and New Mexico, and aboard one of Epstein’s private jets.
Both Dershowitz and Buckingham Palace, on behalf of the Prince, have vigorously denied Roberts’ allegations.
Dershowitz filed a sworn statement with the court, denying all her claims and calling her “a serial liar, whose uncorroborated word should never be credited.” Dershowitz also rejected the allegations in an interview with ABC News.
“Every single word in her affidavit about me is a deliberate and categorical lie. I don’t know her, I was never with her, I never touched her,” Dershowitz said.
Dershowitz said he wants Roberts to come forward with dates and times on their alleged encounters so he can use his travel records to prove his innocence, he said.
“She picked on the wrong innocent person, because I have the will, the determination and the resources to fight back and prove that what she’s saying is false,” he said.
A Palace statement earlier this month called her allegations “false and without any foundation,” and a spokesman for the Royal family declined Wednesday to respond to Roberts’ new affidavit.
Roberts says in the new court filing that her introduction to Prince Andrew came in 2001 in London, when she says she was told by Epstein that she would be meeting a “major prince” and that he directed her to do “whatever Prince Andrew wanted.”
“I knew he was a member of the British Royal Family,” Roberts wrote, “but I just called him ‘Andy.’” A photograph showing her with the Prince, which Roberts claims was taken by Epstein, was included in her court filing.
At the time, she was 17 years old. She alleges she “engaged in sexual activities” with Andrew that night after a Chinese dinner and drinks at “Club Tramp” and says she was later paid $15,000 by Epstein for “working” with the prince. Later she says she told Epstein about “Andy’s sexual interests in feet,” which she claims Epstein found “very funny.”
Her affidavit alleges she had sex two more times that year with Prince Andrew, at Epstein’s New York mansion in a massage room she refers to as the “dungeon,” and later in an orgy with approximately eight other young girls on Epstein’s private island off the coast of St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands.
Afterwards, she says in her affidavit, she “felt disgusted, and went quickly to my own cabana that night and went to sleep.”
She writes that Buckingham Palace’s denials are “false and hurtful” and that she is “hoping that he would simply voluntarily tell the truth about everything.” Her attorneys put into the court record a two-page letter they sent to the prince, requesting that he agree to be interviewed under oath. The lawyers claim that the attempted delivery of the letter was rejected.
Prince Andrew, currently in Davos, Switzerland, representing Britain at the World Economic forum – is expected to publicly address Roberts’ allegations for the first time on Thursday.