Who is Virginia Giuffre in the Jeffrey Epstein abuse case? What to know

The names of nearly 200 friends, associates, victims, and opponents of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein were released this week, uncovered within thousands of court documents.

Documents show that Epstein was linked to multiple celebrities, politicians, and billionaires. As USA TODAY notes, some of the prominent figures named in the documents may have had nothing to do with Epstein, but were listed as possible witnesses in a lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Epstein with sex trafficking in 2019 after the Miami Herald renewed interest in the case. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail.

The sealed documents containing the names were part of a defamation lawsuit brought by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, against Maxwell in 2015.

Who is Virginia Giuffre?

Virginia Louise Guiffre was born as Virginia Roberts in 1983 in Sacramento, California. Her family moved to Palm Beach County four years later.

According to Guiffre, she had a rough childhood as she was sexually abused by a family friend at age 7. Toward the end of her childhood, she was in and out of foster care homes, according to BBC.

By the age of 14, she was living on the streets, per NBC and the Guardian.

When did Guiffre meet Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell?

According to a 2019 article by the New Yorker, Guiffre says she was recruited by Maxwell in 2000 when she was a spa locker-room attendant at Donald Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club while she sat outside reading a book about massage therapy.

“This nice older lady came up to me,” Guiffre recalled within the article. “She had an awesome English accent, and she started conversing with me about what I was reading. She said, 'Wow, you’re really interested in massage. That’s so interesting! Because I actually know somebody who’s looking for a traveling masseuse.' "

When Giuffre arrived at Epstein's Palm Beach home to start massaging him, she recalled that he would be naked and Maxwell told her how to massage him. She told BBC reporters that what she had expected to be a job interview soon turned into the beginning of years of abuse.

She said she became a regular presence at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion and flew her around the world. According to court documents, she stated that she was “required to be sexually exploited by Defendant’s adult male peers, including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen" when she traveled with Epstein.

What did Virginia Giuffre say about Prince Andrew?

In 2001, the then-age-17 Epstein and Maxwell brought Giuffre to London and introduced her to Prince Andrew. She said the 61-year-old royal raped and sexually assaulted her.

“Ghislaine woke me up in the morning and said, ‘You’re gonna meet a prince today.’ I didn’t know at that point that I was going to be trafficked to that prince,” Giuffre said in a past USA TODAY report.

Later, after a trip to a club where she said she was served vodka and danced with the prince, she said Maxwell told her Andrew was coming back to the house and that she was expected to "do for him what you do for Epstein. I couldn’t believe it.”

A picture of Andrew with his arm around Giuffre and Maxwell in the background was taken at the house and has been around the internet for years.

After sex in a bathroom and in a bedroom, she said, Andrew left the house.

“He wasn’t rude or anything about it. He said, ‘Thank you,’ and some kind of soft sentiments like that and left,” Giuffre told NBC.

In her civil case, Giuffre claims that the prince sexually abused her three times — at Maxwell's London home that night, and later at Epstein's homes in Manhattan and Little St James in the Virgin Islands.

Giuffre also named several others that she claims Epstein and Maxwell instructed her to have sex with, including attorney, and Epstein's attorney during the criminal case, Alan Dershowitz, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, former Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel.

When did Giuffre end her connection with Epstein and Maxwell?

In a past interview with the Miami Herald, Giuffre said Epstein had lost interest in her sometime in 2003 because she was "too old for him."

She convinced him to pay for her to get training to become a professional masseuse. She told reporters that Epstein arranged for her to take a class in Thailand, but it came with a condition: She was instructed to pick up a Thai girl he had arranged to come to the States.

She went to Thailand, where she met her now husband and escaped with him to Australia.

When did she file a civil case against Prince Andrew?

In August 2021, Giuffre sued Prince Andrew in federal court, reiterating allegations she'd made publicly against him since January 2015.

"(Andrew) denies that it ever happened, he’s going to keep denying that it ever happened, but he knows the truth and I know the truth," Giuffre said during an NBC Dateline interview.

She continued: "When you are abused, you know your abuser. I might not have my dates right, I might not have my times right… but I know their faces and I know what they’ve done to me."

What have Prince Andrew, Maxwell said about the claims?

Andrew forcefully denied her allegation at the time but there is at least one picture of him with her. In 2019, Andrew clarified his "former association or friendship" with Epstein in a statement issued to USA TODAY.

"During the time I knew (Epstein), I saw him infrequently and probably no more than only once or twice a year," the statement from Buckingham Palace read. "I have stayed in a number of his residences. At no stage during the limited time I spent with him did I see, witness or suspect any behavior of the sort that subsequently led to his arrest and conviction."

Maxwell has also denied knowing Giuffre. In a past Palm Beach Post article in 2020, they noted that Maxwell was asked, "Did you, as part of your duties in working for Jeffrey, ever arrange for Virginia to have sex with (name redacted)?"

“Just for the record, I have never at any time, at any place, in any moment ever asked Virginia Roberts or whatever she is called now to have sex with anybody," Maxwell answered.

In 2015, Giuffre filed a defamation case against Maxwell after she accused Giuffre of being a liar. That case was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2017.

Where is the civil case now?

USA TODAY reported that Giuffre and Andrew reached an out-of-court settlement in February 2022, and the case was dismissed in March 2022 without going to trial.

What is Giuffre doing now?

Giuffre now lives in a large house on the coast of Perth, Australia with her husband and three children.

According to the BBC, she has founded a nonprofit organization called Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR), aimed at "educating and advocating for victims of trafficking."

Contributing reporting: Holly Baltz of the Palm Beach Post and Aysha Bagchi and Dan Morrison of USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Virginia Giuffre: Names on Epstein's list come from accuser's lawsuit