Sex tapes are alleged to have been taken of Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and Sir Richard Branson by Jeffrey Epstein, court documents have revealed.
Sarah Ransome, who says she was a victim of Epstein, wrote in emails to a reporter in 2016 outlining claims the Duke of York, the ex-US president and the billionaire businessman were filmed having sex with her unnamed friend on separate occasions by the paedophile US financier.
A firm representing Epstein’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, highlighted the allegations to demonstrate Ms Ransome “manifestly lacks credibility”.
The claims were included in hundreds of documents that a US judge has ordered to be unsealed as part of a civil claim by Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, which was filed in 2015 and settled in 2017.
Despite the defamation case being concluded seven years ago, the Miami Herald successfully fought to make the names and documents associated with it public.
Andrew has strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
Ms Ransome gave a victim impact statement ahead of Epstein’s former girlfriend and long-time associate Maxwell being sentenced for sex trafficking in 2022.
A New Yorker article, released in 2019, reported Ms Ransome admitted “she had invented the tapes to draw attention to Epstein’s behaviour, and to make him believe that she had ‘evidence that would come out if he harmed me'”.
On behalf of Sir Richard Branson, a Virgin Group spokeswoman said: “In a New Yorker report published in 2019, Ransome admitted that she had ‘invented’ the tapes. We can confirm that Sarah Ransome’s claims are baseless and unfounded.”
Mr Clinton’s representatives have not commented after being approached by Sky News.
Among the 2016 documents, Ms Ransome wrote in emails: “When my friend had sexual intercourse with Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson, sex tapes were in fact filmed on each separate occasion by Jeffrey.
“Thank God she managed to get a hold of some footage of the filmed sex tapes, which clearly identify the faces of Clinton, Prince Andrew and Branson having sexual intercourse with her.
“Frustratingly enough Epstein was not seen in any of the footage but he was clever like that!
“When my friend eventually had the courage to speak out and went to the police in 2008 to report what had happened, nothing was done and she was utterly humiliated by the police department where she went to report what had happened with Epstein, Clinton, Branson and Prince Andrew.”
Ms Ransome also alleged in the email extracts that former US president Donald Trump had sexual relations with “many girls”.
“I also know she [a friend of Ms Ransome] had sexual relations with Trump at Jeffrey’s NY mansion on regular occasions,” the alleged Epstein victim wrote.
Ms Ransome was involved in the Giuffre defamation case against Maxwell as a witness and she provided photographs showing Epstein, Maxwell, herself and other young women on Epstein’s private island, Little St James, in the US Virgin Islands.
Some of the images from 2006 have now been made public after the documents were unsealed on Monday.
The duke stepped down from public life and no longer uses his HRH title after the controversy over his friendship with Epstein.
The prince paid millions of pounds to settle a civil case with Ms Giuffre, who accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17. He claimed he never met Ms Giuffre.
She alleged Andrew sexually attacked her in a bath in Maxwell’s London home. But newly unsealed legal documents claim the bath was “too small for a man of Prince Andrew’s size to enjoy a bath in let alone sex”.
Maxwell’s solicitor Philip Barden said in his 2017 deposition, unsealed on Monday: “She [Ms Giuffre] claimed she did have sex with Prince Andrew and that the sex occurred in what can only be described as a very small bathtub, too small for a man of Prince Andrew’s size to enjoy a bath in let alone sex.”
In New York in June 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls, in what a judge called a “horrific scheme” that inflicted “incalculable” harm on victims.
Maxwell has been detained since July 2020 despite attempts by her defence lawyers to get her released on bail. Her appeal is scheduled to be heard in November.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.
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