If British party girl Ghislaine Maxwell has any sense, she’ll get her affairs in order before the FBI locks her up in connection with the Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
On Friday, Reuters reported that the federal agency is investigating Maxwell and others believed to have been involved in the dead Wall Street financier’s conspiracy of rape and abuse.
Virgina Guiffre, Epstein’s most prominent victim, alleges that Maxwell, the daughter of the late Robert Maxwell, an Israeli spy and British publishing tycoon, was Epstein’s main procurer and joined in the sexual abuse of Epstein’s victims.
And one of the people with whom Epstein and Maxwell forced Guiffre to have sex, she says, is Britain’s Prince Andrew. Giuffre described that encounter in an interview earlier this month.
Andrew, apparently, is not under investigation, Reuters reported.
Main Target
The news that the FBI is targeting Maxwell comes four months after Epstein, a convicted sex offender, supposedly hanged himself in his cell at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10.
Epstein was found dead the day after a judge released more than 2,000 pages of court documents related to Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Maxwell, who had accused Giuffre of lying about the sex-trafficking ring and Maxwell’s role in it. Giuffre alleged that Maxwell participated in “multiple threesomes” with Giuffre and Epstein, and flatly called the British socialite Epstein’s “madame.”
It’s no surprise then, that Maxwell is a “principal focus” of the FBI probe, as Reuters described it. Federal gumshoes are also looking at other “people who facilitated” Epstein’s crimes, which Reuters laughably called “allegedly illegal behaviour.”
Reported Reuters:
“Maxwell has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing,” Reuters reported. “Her lawyers Jeffrey Pagliuca and Ty Gee did not respond to a request for comment.”
The FBI also is following up on many leads received from women who contacted a hotline the agency set up at its New York field office in the wake of Epstein’s arrest in July, the sources said.
One of the sources said the probe remains at an early stage.
Andrew’s Role
One person who could undoubtedly shed light on the matter and the FBI must certainly interview is the prince, eighth in the line of succession to the British throne.
Andrew’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, booted him out of Buckingham Palace last month — such was the family’s embarrassment over Andrew’s close friendship with Epstein and Giuffre’s accusation that Epstein “loaned” her to the prince. Andrew was a frequent flier on Epstein’s sex jet.
Andrew didn’t end the friendship until Epstein fell out with the prince’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, after she called Epstein a pedophile. Epstein threatened to sue her.
Andrew, also styled His Royal Highness the Duke of York, denies any such carnal liaison, despite Giuffre’s detailed account of his “raining” sweat on her while dancing in a nightclub, and a photo that shows the two together at Maxwell’s apartment in London. Maxwell is standing behind them.
Yet the “the FBI has no current plans to interview Britain’s Prince Andrew,” Reuters reported:
The two law enforcement sources said the FBI’s principal focus is on people who facilitated Epstein and that Andrew does not fit into that category. They did not rule out the possibility that the FBI would seek to interview Andrew at a later date.
Epstein’s Multiple Co-Conspirators
Reuters reported that the FBI is looking into multiple tips left at a hotline it created after Epstein was arrested, but the likelihood is that Epstein’s partners in the rape ring are already well known and under investigation.
The federal indictment against Epstein alleged that he “directed employees and associates, including a New York-based employee” to arrange the encounters. Recruiters “routinely scheduled these encounters” through the same employee, “who sometimes asked the recruiters to bring a specific minor girl.”
In other words, Maxwell wasn’t Epstein’s only helper; multiple “employees and associates,” some on Epstein’s payroll, helped keep a steady supply of girls available for Epstein to rape and abuse.
Among the rape victims is Jennifer Araoz, who told NBC News that Epstein raped her when she was 15.
Epstein even allegedly raped and abused one victim while he was on “work release” and serving a previous sentence for child prostitution that required him to register as a sex offender.
Photo: domoyega/iStock/Getty Images Plus
