http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597308/The-bombshell-court-document-cla...The bombshell court document that claims Prince Andrew knew about billionaire friend's abuse of under-age girls
Document details conversation between solicitor and Virginia Roberts, 30
Ms Roberts regarded by prosecutors as 'victim' of financier Jeffrey Epstein
Epstein, 61, was jailed in 2008 for soliciting under-age girls for prostitution
He counted numerous celebrities, politicians and socialites as his friends
He was also on chummy terms with the Duke of York and Sarah Ferguson
Ms Roberts claims that, aged 15, she was introduced to Prince three times
Document questions how much Duke knew about his friend's peccadillos
By GUY ADAMS FOR THE DAILY MAIL and DANIEL BATES
PUBLISHED: 07:00 AEST, 5 April 2014 | UPDATED: 08:00 AEST, 5 April 2014
Three months ago, a solicitor called Jack Scarola walked into the vast art-deco county courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, and handed a 23-page legal document to its clerk.
Rubber-stamped Exhibit D, and intended to be used as evidence in a forthcoming trial, the neatly typed bundle of papers — which the Daily Mail obtained a copy of this week — offers an extraordinary insight into the life, and crimes, of one of America’s most notorious sex offenders.
It carries a transcript of a lengthy telephone conversation between Mr Scarola and a 30-year-old former resident of Florida, Virginia Roberts, who now lives in Australia.
Royal company: Virginia Roberts (centre) is pictured, aged 17, with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell
Ms Roberts is one of scores of women regarded by U.S. prosecutors as ‘victims’ of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Sixty-one-year-old Epstein achieved infamy in 2008 when he was jailed for soliciting under-age girls for prostitution. His downfall scandalised America due to both the high-profile circles in which he had moved, and the audacity of his crimes.
The billionaire had counted numerous celebrities, politicians and socialites as friends, including President Bill Clinton, businessman Donald Trump and supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Perhaps most controversially, he was also on chummy terms with two senior figures in British royal circles: the Duke of York and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.
Epstein was first arrested in 2005, after the stepmother of a 14-year-old girl told Florida police that he’d paid her daughter $200 (£120) for an ‘erotic massage’.
An FBI investigation then led to Epstein being accused of keeping a harem of women — many of them vulnerable teenagers — at his luxury homes in New York and Palm Beach, and on a private island in the Caribbean.
'On chummy terms': The Duke of York takes a stroll with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in New York
He allegedly staged orgies on board his private jet, and flew girls as young as 12 to ‘topless parties’ at his pink, £6 million Florida mansion, which was dubbed the ‘House of Sin’.
By 2008, the FBI believed it had identified at least 20 victims who might level sexual allegations against the financier in court. At that point, however, Epstein struck a ‘plea deal’ with U.S. prosecutors. It saw him confess to two relatively minor charges related to child prostitution, with the rest of the case being dropped.
He received an 18-month jail sentence, of which 13 were actually spent behind bars, and was put on Florida’s sex offenders’ register. He escaped prosecution on more serious paedophilia charges, which might have seen him jailed for life.
'Victim': Ms Roberts is one of scores of women regarded by U.S. prosecutors as 'victims' of Epstein
But Epstein’s legal travails are not over. In recent years, more than 40 women have filed lawsuits claiming that Epstein sexually abused them.
Most of their claims have been settled out of court, preventing their accounts of his alleged crimes from being made public — but Virginia Roberts is proving harder to shake off.
The mother-of-three says she spent four years in Epstein’s employment after being hired to perform ‘erotic massages’ for him when she was a vulnerable girl of 15.
She has already spoken publicly of her ordeal once, in a 2011 interview with a British newspaper. Back then, she told how she’d been paid $200 a time to grant sexual favours to Epstein from 1998 onwards, and revealed that he’d introduced her to Prince Andrew on at least three occasions.
In 2001, aged 17, she had danced with the Prince at London’s Tramp nightclub, she said, and had sat on his knee at a house party in New York. Later that year, she’d spent time with him at Little St James, a private island Epstein owns in the Caribbean.
After the first encounter, Jeffrey Epstein paid Roberts $15,000 in cash. A photo taken at the time showed Andrew standing in his shirtsleeves with an arm round her bare midriff. There is, however, no suggestion that the Duke was involved in any form of sexual exploitation.
A heated controversy followed these revelations, aggravated by the news that Sarah Ferguson had accepted a £15,000 gift from Epstein to help pay off debts....
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