The family of deceased Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre is urging US President Donald Trump not to grant clemency to Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein abuse underage girls.
Giuffre’s family also said it was “shocking” to hear Trump say earlier this week that Epstein had poached Giuffre from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, where she worked at the spa in 2000. The family said Trump’s comment raised questions about whether Trump was aware of Epstein’s sexual abuse at the time.
Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing. Giuffre has said she was a victim of Epstein’s sex trafficking from 2000 to 2002, starting when she was 16. She died by suicide in April at age 41.
Photo: AFP
The family’s statement comes as Trump has faced pressure to make public documents from the federal investigations into Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, and his longtime girlfriend, Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021.
Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, last week met with Maxwell to see if she had any information about others who had committed crimes.
Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, has called on Trump to grant her relief, but Trump has said he has not thought about whether to pardon her.
“The government and the president should never consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell any leniency,” Giuffre’s family said in the statement. “Maxwell destroyed many young lives.”
Separately, the siblings of Virginia Giuffre said their sister had wanted the so-called Epstein files to be released.
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Giuffre’s family said she would have wanted the documents — a trove of materials related to the investigation into the years of abuse by the late sex offender — made public.
“She had a little bit of hope in her because it was said that the files were going to be released,” Amanda Roberts, Giuffre’s sister-in-law, told the network, saying Giuffre would have wanted “transparency and justice” for his victims.
“She was fighting for that to happen right up until the very end,” Roberts said. “She wanted the public to know the crimes that they had committed.”
Trump and Epstein socialized in the 1990s and 2000s, before what Trump has called a falling out.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday, Trump said he told Epstein to “stay the hell out” of Mar-a-Lago after finding out Epstein was poaching Trump’s workers, including Giuffre.
“He stole her,” Trump said.
In their statement, Giuffre’s family said Maxwell recruited her from Mar-a-Lago in 2000.
“It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions,” Giuffre’s family said, referring to Trump’s Air Force One comments.
Asked on Thursday if he knew why Epstein was taking his employees, Trump said he did not.
“I didn’t really know really why, but I said if he’s taking anybody from Mar-a-Lago, if he’s hiring or whatever he’s doing, I didn’t like it and we threw him out,” Trump said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump had been responding to a reporter’s question about Giuffre and did not bring her up.
At Maxwell’s trial in 2021, Juan Alessi, the former manager of Epstein’s Palm Beach home, testified that he drove with Maxwell to meet Giuffre at nearby Mar-a-Lago.
He said he then saw Giuffre at Epstein’s home for the first time that evening, and saw her at the home many times thereafter.
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