Beyond the grave, Virginia Giuffre can still turn the tables on her tormentors. Of course, the villain of her story is dead, Jeffrey Epstein, having died while in prison facing charges of sex trafficking, but the familiar charges have a dreadful resonance. The Guardian today publishes extracts from her memoir, Nobody’s Girl, A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice (out on Monday), and, even edited and presumably redacted, they are hard to read without flinching. Perhaps the most poignant aspect is her initial optimism when, as a young assistant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort (no, nothing happened there), she was allowed in the vicinity of famous visitors. Then she was spotted and followed by Ghislaine Maxwell: “I didn’t know it yet, but an apex predator was closing in”, she writes.
She hoped that she really would be allowed to better herself, to train as a proper masseuse, “to excel at something”. What followed was a shocking account of grooming, in which Ghislaine Maxwell brought her to a room where Jeffrey Epstein was lying naked on a bed. There she broke down her repugnance by showing her how to meet the expectations of the man on the bed. It was, she makes clear, the fact that another woman, whom she trusted, was present which broke down her boundaries and made her give way and do what was expected. As she puts it later, “Over time, I would come to see Epstein and Maxwell less as boyfriend and girlfriend, and more as two halves of a wicked whole.” What’s clear is that without Maxwell, Epstein would have been a far less effective predator.
As Virginia sinks deeper into the pit, she registers disappointment that, yes, she was indeed only there for sex; her actual aspirations counted for nothing. But she writes that Epstein stopped at nothing in ensuring his entire control of his possession:
“We know where your brother goes to school,” Epstein said. He let that sink in for a moment, then got to the point: “You must never tell a soul what goes on in this house.” He was smiling, but his threat was clear. “And I own the Palm Beach police department,” he said, “so they won’t do anything about it.”
And then there were the pharmaceuticals: “I was turning more and more to Xanax and other drugs, which were prescribed by doctors Maxwell sent me to. Sometimes, when I was really struggling, I took as many as eight Xanax a day.”
So, having been subjugated, Virginia writes, “I came to be trafficked to a multitude of powerful men. Among them were a gubernatorial candidate who was soon to win election in a western state and a former US senator.”
Obviously the most famous of the powerful men with whom she alleges sexual relations was Prince Andrew, though he has repeatedly denied the claims and indeed reached an out of court settlement with her. We are all familiar with those accusations but the most striking allegation here is her claim that Epstein and Ghislaine played a game with Andrew. “Guess Jenna’s age,” [Maxwell] urged the prince, after she introduced me. The Duke of York, who was then 41, guessed correctly: 17. “My daughters are just a little younger than you,” he told me, explaining his accuracy. As usual, Maxwell was quick with a joke: “I guess we will have to trade her in soon.”
That was in 2001 and Virginia Giuffre alleges that there were another couple of meetings with Prince Andrew, including one encounter that included Epstein and “approximately eight other young girls…the other girls all appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn’t really speak English. Epstein laughed about how they couldn’t really communicate, saying they are the easiest girls to get along with.”
Virginia Giuffre put her finger on it: “The way he viewed women and girls – as playthings to be used and discarded – is not uncommon among certain powerful men”
All of those who were associated with Jeffrey Epstein deny any wrongdoing; many deny any knowledge of his sexual exploitation of young girls. But Virginia Giuffre put her finger on what is most troubling about the whole wretched business:
“While the sheer number of victims Epstein preyed upon may put him in a class by himself, he was no outlier. The way he viewed women and girls – as playthings to be used and discarded – is not uncommon among certain powerful men who believe they are above the law. And many of those men are still going about their daily lives, enjoying the benefits of their power.”
Some of the names of individuals with an Epstein connection have been revealed in civil lawsuits in the US, which is not to say that they are guilty of any offence, or that this counts as evidence.
It is a fact that six years ago, Federal Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan unsealed documents, revealing the names of numerous individuals described in a 2015 civil lawsuit as associates, affiliates or victims of Epstein.
The documents include references to former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, the magician David Copperfield, Prince Andrew, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, actor Kevin Spacey, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, the late New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Vice President Al Gore, among others. To repeat: to be mentioned in these files is not evidence of wrongdoing and some of those mentioned only had fleeting associations with Epstein.
According to the records, Johanna Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s victims, testified that he once told her that Mr Clinton "likes them young, referring to girls". Mr Clinton has said he “knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to” or was charged with.
The files include testimony from Maxwell confirming that Mr Clinton had travelled on board Epstein's private jet, but she did not know how many times.
What would be interesting would be to know more about these powerful men, not just Prince Andrew. It is unfortunate that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell when the security cameras were unaccountably switched off. Similarly Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modelling agent who was also mentioned multiple times, killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting rape charges. That too makes it less likely that the men who were entertained by Jeffrey Epstein will be held to account.
Virginia Giuffre’s image is in the papers today, looking young, fresh and still bright-eyed. Her memoir is subtitled, “A Memoir of Surviving Abuse”. But she didn’t survive it. She committed suicide. She was Epstein and Maxwell’s victim in more ways than one.
