An infamous photo of Prince Andrew embracing his sexual abuse accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre was taken at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London home, the alleged madam’s brother said in an interview this week.
Ian Maxwell, 64, admitted to the BBC that he recognized the setting for the 2001 photo after an initial reluctance to talk about it in his first interview in 30 years, The New York Post reported. Ghislaine Maxwell, 59, is in the photo herself.
“I don’t know anything about the photograph, unless I saw that it was published,” he told the UK broadcaster in an air interview on Wednesday. “I know it’s in the interest of your listeners, but I’m still not here to talk about it.”
Prince Andrew, who is accused of having sex with Guiffre when she was being sexually trafficked by Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein when he was a minor, suggested the photo was fake and even denied knowing it.
ALIBI OF PRINCE ANDREW IN VIRGINIA ROBERTS GIUFFRE’S CLAIMS QUESTIONED BY A EXCLUSIVE OFFICER OF REAL PROTECTION
The 2001 photo included in court files shows Prince Andrew with his arm around the waist of 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, who says that Jeffrey Epstein paid her to have sex with the prince.
(US Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Giuffre, then 17, said repeatedly that the photo was taken the first night. Maxwell and Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison after additional charges of sex trafficking, forced her to have sex with the prince.
Prince Andrew also said he does not remember going up the stairs to Maxwell’s house, where the photo was apparently taken.
“I recognize this scenario,” confirmed Ian Maxwell after the interviewer asked, “Was it taken at Ghislaine’s London home?”
When asked if he thought the prince could be called to speak as a character witness for the defense, Ian Maxwell said he did not know, adding, “We are in the process of gathering witnesses and so on … so that I can do not comment on the composition of who will say what to whom. “
He said he assumed his sister still considered Andrew a friend, but said he believed her friendship with Epstein ended about 20 years ago. He said he thinks he only saw them together once, the Post reported.
“I wish she had never met the man, obviously,” he told the BBC, saying that his sister had undergone “brutal and degrading” treatment in solitary confinement in a New York detention center, awaiting his trial for sex trafficking.
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Manhattan Assistant Attorney Alex Rossmiller said last year that she was being held in solitary for her own “security” and “security and orderly operation of the facility,” according to Knewz.