Carolyn Andriano, who testified in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in New York last month, has claimed that Virginia Giuffre told her in 2001 that she slept with Prince Andrew. The claims, made in an interview with the Daily Mail, add pressure on the prince as a contemporaneous report of his alleged sexual assault of the then 17-year-old Giuffre. He has vehemently denied the allegations and his lawyers have been urging a US judge to dismiss Giuffre's civil suit against him.
Andriano, then 14 and living in Florida, said she was texted by Giuffre in 2001 from London, who claimed she had slept with the prince. “[Giuffre] said, ‘I got to sleep with him’,” Andriano told the Mail. Andriano recalled Giuffre texting her, saying she was in London with Jeffrey Epstein, Maxwell and Prince Andrew and they were going to have dinner. Andriano asked if she had been to the palace, and Giuffre replied, “I got to sleep with him”. Andriano said Giuffre did not seem upset and thought it was “pretty cool”.
Andriano, now 35, waived her legal right to anonymity to tell the full story of her grooming and sexual assault from the age of 14 to 17 at Epstein's Palm Beach mansion. She previously gave evidence anonymously at Maxwell's trial as “Carolyn”, and said it was Giuffre who introduced her as a 14-year-old to Maxwell and Epstein. In her Mail interview, she said she was speaking out to let “all young women to know what happened to me when I was a teenager and how it has affected my life”.
The Guardian was unable to immediately verify the claims independently. Representatives for the prince declined to comment, according to the Mail. Maxwell, 60, was found guilty of sex trafficking in her Manhattan federal court trial last month.
