Ghislaine Maxwell has been convicted of grooming teenagers for abuse by Jeffrey Epstein. What are the implications for her former friend Prince Andrew?
The guilty verdict comes as lawyers for the senior royal prepare to go to the same federal court in Manhattan, New York, to defend him against a damages claim brought by one of Epstein’s victims.
Maxwell, 60, was accused of recruiting and grooming four teenagers between 1994 and 2004 for Epstein, her former boyfriend, who killed himself in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges of his own.
It was Ghislaine Maxwell on trial, no-one else
The most obvious and important thing to bear in mind about Maxwell’s conviction is that it applies only to what she did. Nobody else was on trial. The Duke of York is not facing a criminal prosecution in the United States. He’s being sued by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims.
In fact, the trial heard no evidence that Prince Andrew was ever allegedly involved in wrongdoing.
During his 2019 BBC interview, Prince Andrew told Newsnight that his relationship with Epstein was a product of his long-standing friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell.
