Ghislaine Maxwell’s dramatic arrest piles pressure on Prince Andrew to cooperate with Jeffrey Epstein sex probe
GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S dramatic arrest today has heaped pressure on Prince Andrew to cooperate with the Jeffrey Epstein sex probe.
Andrew is accused of having sex with a 17-year-old Epstein sex slave in Maxwell’s flat.
The British socialite’s arrest comes almost a year after Epstein was arrested and then killed himself in prison in mysterious circumstances.
Maxwell, 58, was arrested on Thursday morning on charges of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.
She is accused of ‘delivering underage girls into Epstein’s trap’ by grooming them as she stood over the pervert as he carried out his sick abuse
Her friendship with Prince Andrew, 60, has been under scrutiny since the start of the Epstein scandal.
HEAT BUILDS ON ANDREW
Maxwell introduced Andrew to Epstein in 1999 while she was dating the US billionaire.
She was a guest at Windsor Castle for Andrew’s 40th birthday party thrown by the Queen.
Maxwell even attended Beatrice’s 18th bash at Windsor Castle and a shooting party at Sandringham thrown by Andrew for her birthday.
In his now-notorious BBC Newsnight interview about his links to Epstein, the Duke of York said: “Remember that it was his girlfriend that was the key element in this.
“He was the, as it were, plus one, to some extent in that aspect.”
The Duke of York has been accused of sleeping with sex slave Virginia Giuffre Roberts three times when she was just a teenager.
Ms Roberts claims she met Andrew on a trip to London with Maxwell and Epstein in 2001 at Maxwell’s house.
US DEMAND
Prince Andrew has vehemently denied the allegations and said that he cannot remember ever meeting her.
But following Donald Trump’s sacking of Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss has ramped up the heat on Prince Andrew.
Following Maxwell’s arrest, Ms Strauss said she would “welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us to have the benefit of his statement”.
Last month, the US officially demanded Britain hand over Prince Andrew to be quizzed over his links to billionaire paedophile pal Epstein.
In a bombshell move, the Department of Justice told the UK the Duke of York was now caught up in a criminal probe for the first time.
Andrew, 60, has so far refused to be quizzed by New York prosecutors investigating Epstein’s evil historic sex trafficking network but strongly denies any wrongdoing.
Until now it was thought he was only likely to be the target of action by Epstein’s victims in the US civil courts.
Ms Roberts Giuffre, now 36, alleges she had sex with Andrew on three occasions between 2001 and 2002, twice while underage. However Andrew denies this.
But US prosecutors have branded Andrew a liar as pressure mounts on him to testify.
EPSTEIN LINKS
Lawyers for the Duke of York insisted he had offered to give a witness statement three times to investigators probing his links to billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
But their account was savaged by angry officials in New York as a bitter war of words erupted.
Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused Andrew of “repeatedly” refusing his team’s requests for interviews.
And he said the Prince had “unequivocally” told his office in March he would not be quizzed as part of Mr Berman’s inquiry into Epstein’s historic sex trafficking network.
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Maxwell was so close to Prince Andrew she visited him four times in one day at Buckingham Palace and even enjoyed intimate picnics in view of the Queen’s bedroom window, a former royal aide claimed.
And Andrew “begged” with Maxwell to clear his name by publicly defending him but she refused, asource told The New York Post.
When she said no he went ahead with last November’s car crash Newsnight interview about his links with Epstein.