Epstein Victim Says She Flew on His Plane With Prince Andrew
A woman who claims she was 14 when Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein abused her, told feds that she flew on the sex trafficker's private jet with Britain’s Prince Andrew.
The revelation came Wednesday during Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial. The British socialite’s lawyer, Laura Menninger, spent the morning cross-examining Jane Doe about her previous statements to the government relating to Epstein and his enablers.
Menninger asked whether Jane recalled saying Andrew and others—including chef Adam Perry Lang; Epstein’s brother, Mark; and Epstein’s mother—were passengers on the jet. Jane answered that she didn’t recall. (The Daily Beast previously reported that Lang was cooperating with the government’s probe.)
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Jane did, however, recall the names of adult women who allegedly participated in group sexual abuse of her and Epstein when she was only 14 and 15 years old.
Menninger referred to Jane’s prior statements about a professional massage therapist named Sophie, who she remembered as a tall and thin Florida resident who had a tan and nice legs. Jane said the woman married a race-car driver and would “make out with girls” during the orgies. Jane also indicated she flew on Epstein’s plane with Sophie.
Jane also said a British woman named “Emmy” and a woman named “Eva” joined in the sexual encounters. (It’s unclear whether “Eva” refers to Epstein’s former girlfriend, Eva Andersson-Dubin, who along with her husband, billionaire Glenn Dubin, were frequent flyers on Epstein’s planes. Maxwell’s assistant Emmy Tayler was also present on the flights, but the alleged victim did not confirm whether she was referring to her.)
A woman named Michelle Short participated and was a friend of Emmy, Jane said. She identified a woman named “Kelly” as involved in the sexual abuse, too.
“You told agents you could recognize these people if you saw pictures?” Menninger asked, to which Jane replied in the affirmative.
Under questioning, Jane also confirmed an Epstein employee named “Lesley” called her home to set up travel arrangements for her when she was 14, 15, and 16 years old. Jane was likely referring to Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff, who denies any involvement in the financier’s teen sex ring. Groff was named as a co-conspirator in Epstein’s controversial plea deal inked in Florida in 2008.
Jane was asked on Wednesday about meeting future president Donald Trump after Epstein brought her to his resort Mar-a-Lago. She testified she didn’t remember whether she met the reality star before or after Epstein and Maxwell began sexually abusing her.
The alleged victim also testified that she sang happy birthday to Mike Wallace one time when Epstein flew her to New York.
While Maxwell’s lawyers worked to highlight inconsistencies with Jane’s interviews with the government, the cross examination also revealed new details about Jane’s knowledge of famous people in Epstein’s world.
According to Jane’s testimony, Epstein at one point in the 1990s brought her to New York to see The Lion King on Broadway and bragged about their mezzanine seats and about knowing the director.
Jane also said Epstein introduced her to the dean of admissions at Juilliard. When Menninger asked whether the dean referred Jane to the Professional Children’s School, where she attended her senior year of high school in New York, Jane said she didn’t remember.
On Tuesday, Jane Doe testified Maxwell and Epstein approached her in 1994 at Interlochen’s summer camp as she sat alone on a park bench eating ice cream. Epstein told her “they were big benefactors of this camp, and that they went there every summer, and that they gave different kids scholarships. And so they wanted to really know what a student attending the camp, what their perspective was on it.”
Epstein then asked for Jane’s parents’ names and she told him her father, a musician, had recently died of cancer. The financier took down her mother’s phone number.
Jane said that after her father died, her family “went into complete bankruptcy and lost everything.” They moved into the pool house in the backyard of a family friend’s home in Palm Beach.
After summer camp ended, Jane returned home and started eighth grade. One day soon after, Epstein’s associates called Jane’s mom and invited them over for tea at his mansion.
Jane began to spend time with Epstein and Maxwell alone and said the British socialite began to feel like an “older sister” to her. “She seemed a little bit odd and quirky; but, you know, she would kind of like tease me at times and—but she was nice.”
The perverted couple took Jane on shopping trips, including to Victoria’s Secret to buy underwear, allegedly grooming her for weeks before Epstein sexually assaulted her.
One day at Epstein’s Palm Beach lair, he asked Jane about her aspirations and told her he knew agents, photographers, even the owner of Victoria’s Secret. The conversation ended abruptly, Jane testified, and Epstein led her to his pool house outside. That’s where, according to Jane, he masturbated on her.
Jane never told anyone, she said, because she was “terrified and felt gross and I felt ashamed.”
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In subsequent visits to the home, Maxwell trained Jane on how to “massage” Epstein. “They moved me over to the bed and took their clothes off and started to like sort of, like, fondle each other and sort of, like, kind of casually giggling about it,” Jane recalled of their alleged abuse. “And I was just standing there.”
Maxwell’s demeanor suggested “it was very normal, like it was not a big deal,” Jane testified.
“I’d never seen anything like this or felt any of this, and it was very embarrassing … When you're 14, you have no idea what's going on,” Jane said.
Later, when Jane was 14 or 15, Maxwell and Epstein allegedly involved her in group sex at the money manager's homes around the world.
On one trip to New Mexico, she said, someone came to her room and summoned her to see Epstein. She said she felt “my heart sink into my stomach … because I did not want to go see him.”
Jane testified that she never told her mother about the years of her sexual exploitation by Epstein and Maxwell.
“Because I felt very ashamed, I felt very disgusted, I was confused, I didn't know if it was my fault, and my mother and I did not have that kind of a relationship,” Jane said. “We didn't talk about our feelings. We weren't allowed to.”
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