Question
How did Virginia Giuffre first disclose her abuse by Epstein?
Answer
Virginia Giuffre, née Virginia Roberts, was born in 1983 in Sacramento, California and had a troubled childhood marked by poverty and early exploitation. She was first exploited by a family friend as a young teenager and was working at a nail salon at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate, when Ghislaine Maxwell first approached her around 2000.
The Initial Contact Maxwell approached Giuffre at Mar-a-Lago and offered her a job as a “traveling masseuse” for a wealthy friend. Giuffre, 17 at the time, agreed. She was taken to Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion, where she was sexually assaulted by Epstein. The abuse continued and expanded, including travel to Epstein’s other properties and to locations in Europe, where she was trafficked to other powerful men — including, she alleged, Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz.
First Formal Disclosure Giuffre provided information to Florida law enforcement around 2008, as Palm Beach police were assembling evidence in the Epstein investigation. She was one of the women who provided statements to Palm Beach police and subsequently to federal investigators.
Civil Litigation In 2015, Giuffre became the most prominent accuser through a civil lawsuit she filed against Ghislaine Maxwell for defamation — after Maxwell publicly called Giuffre’s allegations “obvious lies.” The suit generated extensive discovery, and in 2017 it settled for an undisclosed amount.
Giuffre also filed a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew in 2021. That case settled in February 2022 for a reported sum in the millions.
Sources
- Virginia Giuffre civil complaint and deposition excerpts
- FBI and Palm Beach police records
- David Boies court filings on Giuffre behalf