VIRGINIA Giuffre‘s family are demanding answers over the “missing £16million fortune” she amassed from lawsuit settlements – including a payout from Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
A legal row erupted over her multi-million-pound estate after Virginia – one of the most prominent victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – killed herself in April without leaving a formal will.
Virginia is thought to have amassed an estimated £16.5million ($22million) fortune through victim compensation funds and civil lawsuit settlements.
They are all related to the years of abuse she suffered at the hands of Epstein.
It also includes the widely reported £12million ($16million) out-of-court settlement that Andrew paid after Virginia accused him of sexually abusing him.
She claimed billionaire Epstein sex trafficked her to the former Prince on three separate occasions — twice when she was 17.
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Andrew has always denied any allegations of wrongdoing – and is thought to have settled the case with no admission of liability.
Virginia was also paid £375,000 by Prince Andrew’s paedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein in a 2009 out-of-court settlement.
But court documents filed in a legal battle over her fortune in Australia value her estate at just £233,000.
They show Virginia’s multi-million-pound estate was made of multiple assets from her business, jewellery, cars, a horse, and personal items recovered at the farm near Perth – where she took her own life.
It is not clear where the missing amount has gone.
Virginia’s US-based family are understood to be privately concerned over the valuation of the estate and all the money that could potentially be missing, the Telegraph reports.
They are also determined to prevent her estranged husband Robert Giuffre from getting a single penny from the fortune.
Robert remains her next of kin despite the couple’s bitter split after 22 years’ marriage.
Virginia allegedly emailed an “implied will” to an accountant, saying it must go to her three children, plus relatives and friends.
But she insisted no money should be given to Robert.
He now wants to be added to a legal bid by sons Christian, 19, and Noah, 18, to run her estate.
But Virginia’s ex-lawyer Karrie Louden and carer Cheryl Myers are arguing whether the email should be recognised.
The court is expected to continue its deliberations in the new year.
It all comes after Andrew was ordered to appear before the US Congress to explain his “long-standing friendship” with Epstein.
Who was Virginia Giuffre?
VIRGINIA Roberts – later Virginia Giuffre, 41, was an American-Australian campaigner and a prominent victim of the sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein.
She made claims against Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, as well as Brit socialite Ghislaine Maxwell – Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-lover.
Giuffre alleged in court documents that she was procured by Maxwell, 63, the daughter of disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell, as a teenage “sex slave” for Epstein.
She released a manuscript just hours before Epstein’s death, which added to more than 2,000 documents of a lawsuit pending against the former financier and his pals.
The legal documents were released in a defamation case involving Giuffre, who has claimed in court documents that Prince Andrew slept with her three times.
In 2019, Virginia Roberts claimed that she had sex with Prince Andrew in a toilet when she was 17, after a night where he had allegedly been plying her with vodka in a posh London club.
On February 15, 2022, it was announced that Prince Andrew settled the lawsuit – sparing him a humiliating court battle.
He was urged to cooperate “in the interests of justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein”.
Andrew and Epstein shared a well-documented friendship for years before the New York financier’s arrest on serious sex trafficking charges.
But he has always denied ever witnessing or suspecting Epstein of committing any crimes.
The letter was sent just days after King Charles stripped his brother of his “Prince” title following renewed scrutiny of his links to Epstein.
He has also been evicted from his Royal Lodge home and will move to a private residence on the King’s Sandringham estate.
The former Duke of York has been under renewed scrutiny after Virginia made a number of claims against him in her posthumous 400-page biography.
Donald Trump has meanwhile signed a bill to force the release of the investigative files on Epstein.
The bill, which has now become a law, requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release all files and communications related to late financier – known as the Epstein Files – within 30 days.
It will also require revealing any information about the investigation into Epstein’s death in a federal prison in 2019 – as well as about his madam and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell is currently serving time in a US jail for sex trafficking.
What exactly are the Epstein Files?
The Epstein Files refer to the reams of evidence amassed by the Justice Department and FBI during a probe in Florida that led to his 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution and the investigation that led to his later indictment in New York.
The huge trove of documents has been sealed for years, and the object of frenzied speculation.
Only a sliver of the government material has ever been released publicly.
This includes tens of thousands of pages of evidence from federal investigations into Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell – known as the Epstein files – have been released to the public in stages over several years.
These documents, some released in redacted format, include Epstein’s flight logs, his contact book, email exchanges, court documents, and testimonies from victims and witnesses.
Names of many high-profile figures have appeared in them – but that does not mean they were aware of, or involved in Epstein’s crimes.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by the House and Senate and now signed by Trump, calls for the release within 30 days of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” in the possession of the Justice Department, the FBI and US attorneys’ offices related to Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein.
She was the only person convicted in connection with the disgraced financier, but Trump’s MAGA supporters have thought for years that “deep state” elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.