Just when Prince Andrew hoped the dust was settling regarding his connections with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell hails him as a ‘dear friend’.
Her emotional jail cell tribute contradicts Andrew’s denial to a US court that they had been close risking scuppering any hopes he had of returning to public life..
Maxwell, who was convicted of grooming and recruting teenage girls for Epstein to abuse, failed to deny suggestions that she and Andrew had been a couple, and declared: ‘I care about him.’
The Mail On Sunday reports: Her remarks come as the MoS reveals a new photograph today of the disgraced former socialite taken at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in New York this year before she was moved to a prison in Florida to serve her 20-year sentence.
In a string of further revelations, she:
Prince Andrew, 62, was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages in January as he fought allegations that he abused Ms Roberts, one of Epstein’s victims, as a teenager in London, Manhattan, and the US Virgin Islands.
He has repeatedly and vehemently denied the claims. He settled out of court with Ms Roberts, who now uses her married name Giuffre, for an undisclosed sum but made no admission of guilt.
A legal document submitted to a US court in January by the Duke’s lawyers contained 41 separate denials of allegations made by Ms Roberts, including her claim that ‘Prince Andrew was a close friend of Ghislaine Maxwell’.
But in her MoS interview, Maxwell spoke in glowing terms of her friendship with the Duke. ‘I feel so bad for him,’ said the disgraced former socialite, who has known Andrew since she was a student at Oxford University in the 1980s.
‘Yes, I follow what is happening to him. He is paying such a price for the association [with Jeffrey Epstein]. I consider him a dear friend… I care about him.’
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