Court papers put daughter of Robert Maxwell at centre of Prince Andrew 'sex slave' case
Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly facilitated Prince Andrew's sexual abuse of underage girl
As the favourite daughter of press baron Robert Maxwell, she moved to New York to rebuild her life after his mysterious death.
But Manhattan socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, 53, has found herself at the centre of a controversy over another powerful man, the US billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, and facing allegations of having procured an underage girl who claims she was forced to have "sexual relations" with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. Maxwell, who left London for New York after her father drowned off his luxury yacht in 1991, is alleged to have acted as "madame" for Epstein, supplying a string of underage girls for the American billionaire and his friends.
Maxwell "strongly denies" the allegations which, said a spokesman, are old, defamatory and untrue. Legal documents lodged in a Florida court allege that the woman identified in the complaint only as Jane Doe#3 - but who has been named as US-born Virginia Roberts - was approached in 1999 by Maxwell, "one of the main women whom Epstein used to procure under-aged girls for sexual activities and a primary co-conspirator in his sexual abuse and sex trafficking scheme".
One of the documents alleges it became known to the US government "that Maxwell herself regularly participated in Epstein's sexual exploitation of minors, including Jane Doe #3".
It describes Maxwell as persuading Roberts, said to be then aged 15 and who was allegedly used as a "sex slave" for the next three years, to come to Epstein's mansion "in a fashion very similar to the manner in which Epstein and his other co-conspirators coerced dozens of other children". When the girl began giving Epstein a "massage", it is alleged in the document, "Epstein and Maxwell turned it into a sexual encounter, as they had done with many other victims".
Epstein then, with the assistance of Maxwell, "converted her into what is commonly referred to as a 'sex slave'", the document alleges. It adds that Maxwell took numerous "sexually explicit pictures of underage girls involved in sexual activities, including Jane Doe #3", which she shared with Epstein.