Victim waives claims Virginia Giuffre told her she slept with the Duke of York in London 

Virginia Roberts told a fellow Jeffrey Epstein ‘sex slave’ that she slept with Prince Andrew in London, it was claimed last night.

The then 17-year-old is also said to have shown the infamous picture of her posing at Ghislaine Maxwell’s home with the Queen’s second son.

In a world exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Carolyn Andriano says Miss Roberts texted her from London in March 2001 to say she was going for dinner with Andrew, Maxwell and Epstein.

Miss Roberts is alleged to have shown the picture to Mrs Andriano back in Florida, saying of the prince: ‘I got to sleep with him.’

Mrs Andriano, 35, gave harrowing testimony against Maxwell at her trial last month. Four of the five guilty verdicts against her were underpinned by the evidence of the married mother of five, including the most serious charge of sex trafficking a minor which carries a maximum 40-year jail term.

Today Mrs Andriano bravely waives her legal right to anonymity to tell the full story about her horrific ordeal in Epstein’s ‘House of Sin’ in Palm Beach, Florida – when she was aged 14 to 17 – and her then friendship with Miss Roberts, who she says, recruited her into Epstein and 60-year-old Maxwell’s sexual abuse ‘pyramid scheme’.

Virginia Roberts is said to have shown the infamous picture of her posing at Ghislaine Maxwell’s home with the Queen’s second son, Carolyn Andriano claims

Mrs Andriano, 35, (pictured) gave harrowing testimony against Maxwell at her trial last month

Mrs Andriano, 35, gave harrowing testimony against Maxwell at her trial last month. Four of the five guilty verdicts against her were underpinned by the evidence of the married mother of five, including the most serious charge of sex trafficking a minor which carries a maximum 40-year jail term. Pictured: Courtroom sketch of Maxwell, centre, in court on Dec 29, 2021

Mrs Andriano’s astonishing interview with the Daily Mail – for which she is not being paid – comes in the week that Andrew’s lawyers made a desperate courtroom bid to get Miss Roberts’ rape lawsuit against him in the US thrown out. Pictured: The Duke of York leaves his Royal Lodge home

Andrew’s lawyers are seeking to persuade the court that the 38-year-old – now based in Australia and known by her married name Giuffre – had waived her right to sue him when she signed an earlier £370,000 legal settlement with US financier Epstein, who killed himself on remand in prison. Pictured: Prince Andrew walks through New York’s Central Park with Jeffrey Epstein following the latter’s prison term in 2011

Her account of her conversations with Miss Roberts is the first time there has been any contemporaneous and independent report of the purported meeting with the Duke of York.

Mrs Andriano’s astonishing interview with the Daily Mail – for which she is not being paid – comes in the week that Andrew’s lawyers made a desperate courtroom bid to get Miss Roberts’ rape lawsuit against him in the US thrown out.

His legal bid is said to be hanging by a thread, with a judge expected to rule shortly. The duke strenuously denies any wrongdoing, and says he cannot remember meeting his accuser. Sources close to him have suggested that the picture of him with Miss Roberts may be fake.

Andrew’s lawyers are seeking to persuade the court that the 38-year-old – now based in Australia and known by her married name Giuffre – had waived her right to sue him when she signed an earlier £370,000 legal settlement with US financier Epstein, who killed himself on remand in prison.

In her interview with the Mail, Mrs Andriona says she believes what Miss Roberts told her in 2001 – ten years before the teen sex accuser first told her story in a Sunday newspaper.

In her interview with the Mail, Mrs Andriona says she believes what Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre told her in 2001 – ten years before the teen sex accuser first told her story in a Sunday newspaper. Pictured: Giuffre holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she says Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually

Prince Andrew could settle out of court with his US sex-case accuser if a judge rules that the case should go to trial. Insiders say the option ‘remains on the table’ if, as expected, Judge Lewis Kaplan rejects his legal team’s motion this week to have Virginia Roberts’ lawsuit dismissed at an early stage (Andrew pictured in BBC interview, 2019)

Mrs Andriona said: ‘I asked her if she’d been to the palace. And she said ‘I got to sleep with him’. I said “What? You’re f****** with me” and she said “no, I got to sleep with him”. She didn’t seem upset about it. She thought it was pretty cool.’

Mrs Andriona, who has been widely praised for her courageous testimony at Maxwell’s trial, added: ‘I waive my right to anonymity. I am doing this because I want all young women to know what happened to me when I was a teenager and how it has affected my life.

‘I want to be a voice for all survivors of sexual abuse so that they are not afraid to come forward, even if it is years after the event, and say what happened to them. This is my story and I want to tell it.’

Earlier this week Maxwell’s lawyers demanded a retrial after one of the jurors who convicted her of trafficking confessed to being a sex abuse victim.

Prosecutors who put Maxwell behind bars asked the trial judge for an investigation into the admission by Scotty David during media interviews. But the British socialite’s lawyers went further, saying it was ‘incontrovertible grounds for a new trial’.

Mr David is now likely to be summoned back to the New York courtroom.

Prince Andrew declined to comment.

Virginia Giuffre told me she’d slept with Prince Andrew just days after that trip to London with Jeffrey Epstein: Key witness at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial bravely waives her anonymity and makes a sensational new claim

ByStephen Wrightand Barbara Mcmahon In Florida For The Daily Mail 

Carolyn Andriano was resentfully cleaning her bedroom, listening to music and squabbling with her mother – being a typical 14-year-old, in fact – when the text came through. It was from her friend Virginia, thousands of miles away in London.

‘You’ll never guess who I’m with…’ it read. Carolyn knew this was going to be a juicy bit of gossip and was quick to respond. ‘Who?’ she replied eagerly.

A text pinged back immediately.

‘She said, “I’m in London with Jeffrey and Maxwell and Prince Andrew”,’ Carolyn recalls. ‘She said they were going to have dinner. I kind of didn’t believe her, but I had no reason not to. I thought it was far-fetched but, then again, she knew wealthy people and had been to fancy parties and stuff like that.

Pictured: Carolyn aged 8

‘I said, “bulls**t”. I was calling her out on it, but she swore [it was true]. She said she was going to see if she could get a picture.’

Of course, the ‘Jeffrey and Maxwell’ the text referred to were disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in prison in 2019, and his then girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of child trafficking and sex abuse charges in New York last month.

Carolyn and Virginia – then Roberts, now Giuffre – were members of the depraved couple’s harem of vulnerable teens and young women, recruited by Maxwell to provide sexual favours for Epstein. Carolyn was a key prosecution witness at Maxwell’s trial.

Then, she gave evidence only as Carolyn. But she has now bravely waived her legal right to anonymity to speak exclusively to the Mail.

Carolyn has received no fee for this article, saying: ‘I am doing this because I want all young women to know what happened to me when I was a teenager and how it has affected my life. This is my story and I want to tell it.’

Back in 2001, for the two young girls, it all felt like a dangerous – and lucrative – game. A week after the text exchange, true to her word, 17-year-old Virginia came back from the UK and picked up Carolyn from school, keen to tell all. ‘I said, “so where’s your picture, Miss Princess?”‘ Carolyn said. A photograph was duly produced.

The image – Carolyn feels like it was on a mobile phone, although camera phones weren’t universally available in 2001 and memories fade, so it might have been a digital or disposable snap – is one most people will be familiar with.

It shows Virginia grinning, with Prince Andrew at her side, his hand around her waist, and Ghislaine looking on proudly in the background.

Carolyn was duly impressed. But there was more. Much more.

Carolyn was full of questions: ‘I asked her if she’d been to the Palace. And she said, “I got to sleep with him”. I said, “What? You’re f****** with me”, and she said “no, I got to sleep with him”. She didn’t seem upset about it. She thought it was pretty cool.’

Today Carolyn is a life-worn, 35-year-old married mother of five children aged between five and 17, still living near Palm Beach, where Epstein had a sprawling, £13 million mansion. Pictured: A photo of Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach home

This is the first time there has been a contemporaneous and independent account of Virginia’s purported recollection of her meeting with the Duke of York that night in March 2001, which he strenuously denies ever happened. Andrew is currently waiting to hear whether a US judge will throw out Mrs Giuffre’s civil sex assault against him.

‘Virginia just couldn’t believe it. Maxwell had told her she had a surprise for her and I guess the surprise was Prince Andrew. She was excited. I guess when you’re meeting somebody that famous, I would have been excited too.

Virginia said they had dinner and sex 

‘She said they had dinner and they had sex. She didn’t say anything about what they ate or where they were – that’s not what we were talking about. It was just that she couldn’t believe she got to sleep with Prince Andrew.

‘I kept saying, “are you serious?” And she said “yeah”. I asked if she got paid to do it and she never gave me an answer.’

Today Carolyn is a life-worn, 35-year-old married mother of five children aged between five and 17, still living near Palm Beach, where Epstein had a sprawling, £13 million mansion.

She has no issue with Andrew – she’s never met him – nor is she a huge fan of Virginia. She hasn’t seen her former friend in years, and it probably wouldn’t be a joyful reunion if they did meet.

Carolyn holds Virginia responsible for delivering her into Epstein and Maxwell’s clutches in the first place. Giuffre has admitted that she actively recruited young girls for Epstein, something she says she bitterly regrets.

Carolyn has no issue with Andrew – she’s never met him – nor is she a huge fan of Virginia. She hasn’t seen her former friend in years, and it probably wouldn’t be a joyful reunion if they did meet

There is a brief thaw when she hears how the jury trusted her every word: ‘I’m glad they believed me, and that it was wrong what Maxwell did to me. I had a voice and it was heard’. Pictured: Maxwell sits as the guilty verdict in her sex abuse trial is read in a courtroom sketch in New York City

Is Prince Andrew’s team planning to PAY OFF his accuser? Royal could settle case with Virginia Roberts out of court if judge rules it should go to trial, insiders say

Prince Andrew could settle out of court with his US sex-case accuser if a judge rules that the case should go to trial.

Insiders say the option ‘remains on the table’ if, as expected, Judge Lewis Kaplan rejects his legal team’s motion this week to have Virginia Roberts’ lawsuit dismissed at an early stage.

Andrew’s team are understood to acknowledge the ‘attritional impact’ the case is having on the Royal Family, particularly as the Queen, 95, is due to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee this June with the threat of a scandalous sex trial involving her son hanging over her.

‘Obviously, this is a US case involving US lawyers and involving a US civil lawsuit,’ one source said. ‘In reality, 99 per cent of US civil litigations are settled out of court.

A settlement would always be an option on the table, as that’s where the vast majority end up. There is also the wider pressure and attritional impact to consider.’

Sources with knowledge of the case stressed last night to the Daily Mail that no discussions have taken place yet about whether the Queen’s son could – or should – agree a settlement without liability being admitted.

But neither had it been ruled out as an option, they said.

Buckingham Palace has refused to comment, describing it as an ‘ongoing legal matter’.

The issue of whether to settle out of court is a tricky one for the ninth in line to the throne, whose lawyers argued this week in a New York court that Miss Roberts’ case should not be allowed to proceed to trial because of her own 2009 civil settlement with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

Andrew’s legal team say that in return for a $500,000 (£370,000) payout, she agreed to waive her right to sue any other ‘potential defendants’ – which would include the prince, given the allegations she has made against him.

Miss Roberts – who is bringing the case under her married name Giuffre – claims that not only was she abused by Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, but that they ‘trafficked’ her to their friend, the prince.

In her claim for battery and infliction of emotional distress, she claims she was raped by the duke on three occasions in 2001 when she was 17 and he 41.

On the one hand agreeing a no-liability settlement would prevent Andrew going through the humiliating experience of being interviewed by Miss Roberts’ lawyers, who will be able to question him about everything from his sexual partners to the minutiae of his dealings with Epstein and with Maxwell, found guilty last month of sex trafficking.

They may seek answers from other family members, including his ex-wife Sarah and potentially other senior royals.

But a settlement would clearly do little to help the 61-year-old prince clear his name, as he says he desperately wants to do.

Andrew has always vehemently denied the allegations, saying he doesn’t even recollect meeting Miss Roberts, despite there being a picture of them together with Maxwell. And a settlement is unlikely to help him achieve his long-held ambition of returning to public life in some form. 

After his disastrous BBC interview in 2019 with Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, the prince temporarily stepped back from public duties.

A settlement would also not prevent the FBI from pursuing its investigation – its agents would like to speak to Andrew as a potential witness to Epstein’s crimes. 

The Daily Mail understands that Andrew’s legal team still have other avenues to pursue to get the lawsuit kicked out, including the suggestion that Miss Roberts, who lives with her family in Australia, is not domiciled in the US, allegedly rendering her case invalid.

Miss Roberts’s lawyer, David Boies, said the case might not even have come to court if Andrew had shown some ‘remorse and respect’ for Epstein’s victims.

Plus, it should be noted, the jury in New York believed Carolyn’s testimony wholeheartedly. Maxwell was convicted unanimously on five of the six charges against her.

Four of the guilty verdicts were underpinned by allegations made by Carolyn. The most serious of them, of child sex trafficking a minor, applied to Carolyn alone, and carries a maximum 40-year jail term.

A juror this week broke cover to reveal how members had been split initially as they deliberated over some of the charges, but none of them ever doubted Carolyn.

Today, Carolyn seems older than her 35 years. The clear brown eyes of the 16-year-old Carolyn – the age when she was a regular visitor to Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion – are the same, but smiles are a rare commodity nowadays.

A striking, 5ft 9ins, larger-than-life character, with a mane of dyed red curls, and a penchant for chunky jewellery, you sense the ‘tough cookie’ exterior is a shield she’s worn for a very long time.

There is a brief thaw when she hears how the jury trusted her every word: ‘I’m glad they believed me, and that it was wrong what Maxwell did to me. I had a voice and it was heard.

‘It’s so important because I have my own daughters now. Every day I think about whether there’s someone who’s going to put them in the situation I was in. I live with fear for my girls.’

It’s fair to say Carolyn has had a hard life. Her suffering didn’t end when she found herself – aged 18 and a single mother – no longer to Epstein’s tastes, and duly redundant.

In the intervening years, she’s worked as a stripper and escort, spent 52 days in prison for fraud, been addicted to drugs and drink, and suffered mental health issues. She takes a cocktail of medication just to get through the day.

‘I was in the sex industry. It was easy. That was what I was taught, and I figured it was the easiest way to get money for the drugs. I felt worthless. I felt like I was just put here on Earth to be used and abused sexually. I looked at myself in the mirror one time and just cried and cried,’ she says.

‘There’s no amount of money in this world that will ever mend what was stolen – my innocence as a child by Maxwell and Epstein who had been in cahoots for God knows how many years. I have children and I know as a mother, and as a woman, there’s no way in Hell I could ever do something along the lines of what Maxwell has done.’

Curiously, however, when it comes to what allegedly happened between Virginia and Prince Andrew, she has little sympathy for her former friend. ‘I don’t think she [Virginia] deserves any compensation. I don’t think she was coerced into doing anything.’

Although she believed her friend’s account at the time, Carolyn adds: ‘I don’t think Virginia deserves anything less than what Maxwell is getting because she trafficked me into a world of spiralling downward slopes and it has taken my husband John 12 long years to get me to love myself again.’

A vulnerable child with a troubled past and chaotic homelife, Carolyn was just 13 when she met Virginia Roberts. She’d dropped out of school and moved to Florida from New York.

Her mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict, and she’d been abused by her grandmother’s partner when she was four.

With a mother who pretty much ‘let her do what she wanted’, Carolyn started dating a 17-year-old called Shawn – who was friends with Virginia’s boyfriend, Tony – when she was 13.

She remembers Virginia as ‘bubbly and friendly’. ‘She had a way of making me feel comfortable and I trusted her. We became friends and right away I thought she would have my best interests, no matter what, at heart. She knew how old I was, and she knew I came from a broken home.’

Virginia would pick Carolyn up from school and the four of them used to ‘hang out and smoke pot’. ‘I felt pretty damned good about it because everybody else had to walk home or their mum or dad came to pick them up. But I had a pretty friend, who was older, with a car. I thought I was pretty cool for being her friend.’

Carolyn described to the court how Virginia had asked her if she’d like to ‘go and make some money’. All she had to do was go to a friend’s house in Palm Beach and give him a massage. The ‘friend’ was Jeffrey Epstein, and his house was the beachside mansion, where girls were regularly enticed to tend to his insatiable needs.

‘At 14 years old, I was big breasted and I definitely could pass for 21 when I was made up. I did my own make-up but Virginia gave me clothes. She gave me these really tight skimpy shorts with a spaghetti strap top with all my cleavage hanging out.

‘She just said whatever you do, don’t say your age. And I didn’t even ask why. I went along with it.’

Curiously, however, when it comes to what allegedly happened between Virginia and Prince Andrew, she has little sympathy for her former friend. ‘I don’t think she [Virginia] deserves any compensation. I don’t think she was coerced into doing anything’

On that first visit to Epstein’s villa in 2001, Carolyn met Maxwell, who instructed Virginia to ‘bring her upstairs and show her what to do’. They went to Epstein’s bathroom, where Virginia set up a massage table.

‘Epstein came in. He said he just came back from a jog. He brushed his teeth, gave Virginia a kiss on the cheek, looked at me, introduced himself, he took off his shorts and his shirt and was nude and laid on top of the massage table face down.

‘And I looked at Virginia and she eye-motioned to me to say ‘don’t worry, it will be OK’. Forty-five minutes into the massage, he flipped over. I stepped back and Virginia climbed on top of him and proceeded to have sex with him.

 I realised I was too old – I was 18

‘I didn’t know what to do or say or where to go, so I sat on the couch and watched until it was finished. We walked back downstairs and Maxwell asked, “how did everything go?” Virginia gave her a look to say it was a great session and that’s when Maxwell asked me for my telephone number.’

Three $100 bills were handed over as payment for her time.

Carolyn returned to the house about ‘a hundred times’ over the next four years, sometimes three or four times a week. Cash would be laid on the sink in the bathroom. She kept coming back because ‘$300 was a lot of money when you’re 14’.

The ‘massages’ always followed the same routine: a number of girls – some she knew, some she didn’t, all of them young – rubbing Epstein’s back and buttocks before he flipped over.

Although she and Epstein never had full sex, she was sexually assaulted several times.

As for Virginia, her lawyer David Boies (pictured together) stressed that it was important to remember that she too was a victim of trafficking, despite everything she did to bring Carolyn into the fold

FREE AT LAST? GETTING BAIL FOR MAXWELL IS POSSIBLE

With the declaration of a mistrial the clock would effectively be wound back to one day before this trial started.

Because Maxwell was not out on bail, she would not automatically walk free, but one legal expert told DailyMail.com that it was ‘inconceivable’ that her attorneys would not swiftly attempt to renew their bid for bail.

Because a mistrial under these circumstances would not have been declared for ‘substantive’ reasons – there was no evidence admitted that should not have been, nor evidence withheld by the government, for example – there is nothing in the proceedings that would change her lawyer’s previously unsuccessful bond arguments.

However, the situation itself would hand Maxwell’s lawyers a new and potentially persuasive reason to press for bail.

According to one expert, ‘You have a constitutional right to a speedy trial and her lawyers could now argue that because of all this she essentially has not got that.

‘The prosecution would absolutely be brought in again because the mistrial would not have been called for a substantive reason, but for what was basically a screw up. That means they will have to go through the whole process again.

‘If I were her lawyer, I would certainly be making the argument that it is inhumane to make her sit in jail through all that, after all this time, and all over again.

‘The judge just might be sympathetic to that.’

One time, Maxwell offered to take Carolyn to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean. ‘I told her there was no way in Hell my mum was going to let me leave the country. I told her I was 14.’

One day in 2002, Virginia simply disappeared: ‘Vanished – poof – her boyfriend Tony was really upset.’

Epstein told Carolyn she’d gone abroad for school, but she was suspicious and worried something had happened to her friend.

It later transpired Epstein had paid for her to attend an international massage training school in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was here that Virginia met Robert Giuffre, an Australian martial arts trainer, and the two quickly married. She contacted Epstein to say she wouldn’t be coming back.

The following year, Carolyn made a break for it, too. Aged 16, she and her boyfriend ‘ran away’ to Georgia, where Carolyn got pregnant. Her son was born in March 2004.

With money tight, she attempted to pick up the threads of her old job with Epstein: ‘He asked me if I had any younger friends and I said “no”. And that’s when I realised I was too old. I was 18.’ 

In 2007, as the FBI started gathering evidence against Epstein, Carolyn gave her first statement to prosecutors. Last month, it was her turn in the witness stand.

‘I had rosary beads in my hands for the entire time and my husband was in the courtroom and every time I felt like I was getting weak, he would give me a little thumbs up or I’d clench the beads. I was determined to have the strength to have this woman put away for what she did to me and other young women.

‘Sure, they accused me of lying, but I knew that was coming and I stood up to it because I was telling the God’s honest truth.’

She was permitted to use only her first name throughout the trial, but now she’s proud to reveal her full identity to the world.

‘I’m not ashamed at being a victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. For other girls that have been victimised, I want them to know that it is OK to come out and tell somebody – even if you don’t want to be identified – and the sooner the better.

‘I want people to know these terrible things have happened to me and that I am a survivor.

I want to let the other victims know, there’s no timeframe on when you can talk about it, to get help. I’m very happy being a wife and a mother and I want to show people how the tragedies in my life did not stop me. I’m overcoming them. I’m not going to let Maxwell and Epstein ruin my life any more. I’m grateful every day when I wake up.’

As for Prince Andrew, she senses his story is far from over.

‘I never got to ask Virginia about Prince Andrew again after she told me about it. She’d told me never to repeat it again.’

As for Virginia, her lawyer David Boies stressed that it was important to remember that she too was a victim of trafficking, despite everything she did to bring Carolyn into the fold.

Speaking to the Mail, he said: ‘Virginia has said for years that her role in facilitating other young women’s involvement is something that she has always regretted. But that fact doesn’t have anything to do with the truth of her allegations.

‘Nobody is saying these young, vulnerable girls were perfect in every respect. They were susceptible to the kind of threats they were subjected to and it’s not at all surprising they did things they later regret.’

How, and if, the Queen’s second eldest son deals with his own, personal, tragedy unfolding in his private life remains to be seen.

Representatives for Andrew last night declined to comment on Carolyn’s revelations.  

Prince Andrew ‘is trying to force through sale of his £17m Swiss ski chalet because Queen refuses to foot legal bills in Virginia Giuffre sex abuse case’ after it emerged he may SETTLE if trial is given green light to go ahead

ByHarry Howard For Mailonlineand Rebecca English, Royal Editor For The Daily Mail 

Prince Andrew is reportedly trying to force through the sale of his £17million Swiss ski chalet to help foot the bill for his spiralling legal costs as he fights sexual abuse allegations made by Virginia Roberts. 

According to The Mirror, the Duke of York is attempting to speed up the sale of the luxurious property because his mother the Queen will not pay his lawyers’ fees. 

Andrew bought the seven-bedroom Chalet Helora, in the luxury Swiss resort of Verbier with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson in 2014 for £16.6million. It emerged last year that Andrew was selling the property.

The Duke is needing to find the funds to pay his team of US lawyers as they battle the claims made by Ms Roberts.  

Ms Roberts, who now uses her married name of Giuffre, claims that the prince had sex with her three times after she was trafficked by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew has consistently denied the allegations.

US judge Lewis Kaplan could reveal on Friday whether or not Andrew will face a full civil trial in New York after his lawyers argued this week that Miss Roberts’ case should not go to trial because of a 2009 civil settlement she made with Epstein.

If the case does go to trial and Andrew loses, Ms Roberts could be awarded a settlement which legal experts have predicted could be as much as £3million. 

It emerged this week that Prince Andrew could settle out of court with Ms Roberts to avoid the case going to trial. 

Prince Andrew is reportedly trying to force through the sale of his £17million Swiss ski chalet to help foot the bill for his spiralling legal costs as fights sexual abuse allegations made by Virginia Roberts

Andrew bought the seven-bedroom Chalet Helora, in the luxury Swiss resort of Verbier with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson in 2014 for £16.6million

Speaking of the alleged speeding up of the sale of his chalet, a source told The Mirror: ‘It is crunch time for Andrew on several fronts.

‘He is meeting all the costs himself so he needs to raise cash fast to pay bills which are increasing by the day.

‘If there was the potential to settle, well, that is an option, but it is in no doubt that the Queen would not assist him in doing so.’

The newspaper also claimed that the Queen will not help Andrew pay for any future financial settlement which may be paid to Ms Roberts.

MailOnline has approached Buckingham Palace for comment. 

In September last year, it was reported that Andrew and the Duchess of York were close to selling the chalet to settle a legal dispute with its former owner, Isabella de Rouvre, 74. 

The Duke of York is attempting to speed up the sale of the luxurious property because his mother the Queen will not pay his lawyers’ fees. Ms Roberts, who is suing Andrew under her married name of Giuffre, claims that the prince had sex with her three times after she was trafficked by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Above: Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts, aged 17, and Ghislaine Maxwell at Ghislaine Maxwell’s townhouse in London, Britain on March 13, 2001

In September last year, it was reported that Andrew and the Duchess of York were close to selling the chalet to settle a legal dispute with its former owner, Isabella de Rouvre, 74 

Prince Andrew is pictured in 2001 with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson in  Verbier, Switzerland, in 2001 

She claimed they still owed her £6.6million after allegedly missing the final instalment for the property on January 1, 2020.  

She took the case over the property, which has an indoor swimming pool and costs up to £22,000 a week to rent, to the Swiss courts.

However, Ms de Rouvre agreed to drop the legal proceedings when it emerged the property was close to selling for the asking price of £17.3million. 

The Yorks are set to repay the debt once the sale of the home goes through. 

The Yorks became friends with Miss de Rouvre after regularly renting the chalet for holidays with their children, Beatrice and Eugenie.

Prince Andrew and his ex-wife bought it with a mortgage and private funding from the Queen as a ‘long-term family investment’, sources claimed.

When the sale is complete, the duke will no longer own any property, it is believed. 

If judge Kaplan does decide that Virginia Giuffre’s case should go to full trial, insiders said the option to settle out of court ‘remains on the table’. 

Andrew’s daughter Princess Beatrice was pictured skiing in Verbier earlier this week with her husband Edo Mapelli Mozzi

 The couple were accompanied by their daughter, Sienna, and son, Christopher Wolfe, who is known as ‘Wolfie’, Beatrice made a dash for the bus to get to the ski chalet where they are guests of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York

Eugenie, 31, the youngest daughter of the Duke of York, was seen carrying her skis as she walked alongside husband Jack Brooksbank (pictured together) in the famous Swiss resort of Verbier

The Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson was also pictured in Verbier this week as she holidayed with her daughters and their husbands

Andrew’s team are understood to acknowledge the ‘attritional impact’ that the case is having on the Royal Family. 

The Queen, 95, is due to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee in June but has the threat of a scandalous sex trial involving her son hanging over her.  

Prince Andrew asked BBC’s Emily Maitlis in car crash Newsnight interview if he should mention that he could not sweat  

Prince Andrew allegedly asked the BBC’s Emily Maitlis if he should mention that he was ‘unable to sweat’ in their infamous Newsnight interview.

The broadcaster quizzed the Duke of York in November 2019 over allegations made by Virginia Roberts that he had sex with her three times after she was trafficked by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

The prince claimed in his interview with Ms Maitlis that a medical condition after being shot at during the Falklands War left him unable to perspire.

Writing on the BBC website on Tuesday, Ms Maitlis said Andrew asked her during a meeting at Buckingham Palace in the days leading up to the grilling if it would be ‘interesting’ for him to mention the claim. 

Ms Maitlis said that she and her production team were invited ‘right into the heart of Buckingham Palace’ to meet the Duke in the days before the November 2019 interview.

‘It was Prince Andrew who volunteered the information to me in that early meeting that he was “unable to sweat”,’ she said.

‘His Falkland Islands wartime experiences, he claimed, had produced a glut of adrenalin that meant he hadn’t been able to sweat properly since being shot at.

‘I remember him asking me very directly if we thought that would be interesting to hear.

‘And I said yes – I was fascinated by adrenalin – and that we wanted to hear as much detail of his account as we could.’

Ms Maitlis also said that Andrew agreed to the interview because he wanted to ‘clear his name’.

‘Obviously, this is a US case involving US lawyers and involving a US civil lawsuit,’ one source said. ‘In reality, 99 per cent of US civil litigations are settled out of court.

‘A settlement would always be an option on the table, as that’s where the vast majority end up. There is also the wider pressure and attritional impact to consider.’

Sources with knowledge of the case stressed this week to the Daily Mail that no discussions have taken place yet about whether the Queen’s son could – or should – agree a settlement without liability being admitted.

But neither had it been ruled out as an option, they said.

Buckingham Palace refused to comment, describing it as an ‘ongoing legal matter’.

The issue of whether to settle out of court is a tricky one for the ninth in line to the throne, whose lawyers argued this week in a New York court that Miss Roberts’ case should not be allowed to proceed to trial because of her own 2009 civil settlement with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

Andrew’s legal team say that in return for a $500,000 (£370,000) payout, she agreed to waive her right to sue any other ‘potential defendants’ – which would include the prince, given the allegations she has made against him.

Miss Roberts claims that not only was she abused by Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, but that they ‘trafficked’ her to their friend, the prince.

In her claim for battery and infliction of emotional distress, she claims she was raped by the duke on three occasions in 2001 when she was 17 and he 41.

On the one hand agreeing a no-liability settlement would prevent Andrew going through the humiliating experience of being interviewed by Miss Roberts’ lawyers, who will be able to question him about everything from his sexual partners to the minutiae of his dealings with Epstein and with Maxwell, found guilty last month of sex trafficking.

They may seek answers from other family members, including his ex-wife Sarah and potentially other senior royals.

But a settlement would clearly do little to help the 61-year-old prince clear his name, as he says he desperately wants to do.

Andrew has always vehemently denied the allegations, saying he doesn’t even recollect meeting Miss Roberts, despite there being a picture of them together with Maxwell. 

And a settlement is unlikely to help him achieve his long-held ambition of returning to public life in some form. 

After his disastrous BBC interview in 2019 with Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, the prince temporarily stepped back from public duties.

A settlement would also not prevent the FBI from pursuing its investigation – its agents would like to speak to Andrew as a potential witness to Epstein’s crimes.

Ghislaine Maxwell gives Jeffrey Epstein a foot massage on his private jet dubbed the ‘Lolita Express’. The photo was entered into evidence in Maxwell’s case on December 7 by the US Attorney’s Office

Prince Andrew walks through New York’s Central Park with Jeffrey Epstein following the latter’s prison term in 2011

Prince Andrew is interviewed for the BBC’s Newsnight in November 2019. In the interview, Andrew denied Ms Giuffre’s claim that they had shared a sweaty dance at a London nightclub, saying that at the time he could not sweat due to a condition

Andrew’s legal team this week argued that Miss Roberts’ case should be thrown out on several grounds: her previous settlement, the fact that she has not given enough specifics about the alleged abuse and that her pursuit of the case was ‘unconstitutional’. 

Judge Kaplan told the two parties on Tuesday that he would issue his ruling on whether the case should go to trial ‘pretty soon’ and it is expected any day.

But the early signs for Andrew were not good after the judge verbally dismissed many of their arguments. 

Andrew’s legal team is unlikely to appeal if the judge rules against them. A trial date has tentatively been set for September.

The Daily Mail understands that Andrew’s legal team still have other avenues to pursue to get the lawsuit kicked out, including the suggestion that Miss Roberts, who lives with her family in Australia, is not domiciled in the US, allegedly rendering her case invalid.

Miss Roberts’s lawyer, David Boies, said the case might not even have come to court if Andrew had shown some ‘remorse and respect’ for Epstein’s victims.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10380313/Victim-waives-claims-Virginia-Giuffre-told-slept-Duke-York-London.html