Virginia Giuffre, a woman who claims she was trafficked as a teenager to Britain's Prince Andrew, is hoping to see "justice done" from afar while Ghislaine Maxwell is on trial, according to her lawyer.
Prosecutors claim that Maxwell, 59, groomed girls as young as 14 to have sex with Jeffrey Epstein, and that she lied about her knowledge of his crimes when she testified in a previous case. On all charges, she has pleaded not guilty.
The trial of the British socialite begins in the U.S. on Monday at Manhattan's District Court.
Prosecutors in the U.S. decided not to pursue Giuffre and would instead focus on four other women who claim they were recruited as minors by Maxwell to be abused by Epstein. Epstein committed suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting a sex trafficking prosecution.
Giuffre's lawyer, David Boies, said Giuffre will not testify in Maxwell's trial or attend court to see the proceedings, but she hopes to see "justice done" from afar.
"The one thing we don't want to do, is do something that throws this trial off track-or give Maxwell's attorneys any excuse to do anything," Boies told The Sun on Sunday.
"If you're there in court, it's so much harder not to say something. We'll just have to sit back, light a candle and send positive messages."
Giuffre accused Andrew of rape and purposefully inflicting emotional distress in a complaint filed last year. Maxwell and Epstein, she claims, forced her to have sex with him in London, New York, and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the early 2000s, and feared for her life if she refused.
Giuffre claims that when she was 17 and 18, Epstein and Maxwell flew her across the world for sexual meetings with billionaires, politicians, royals, and leaders of state.
Andrew has frequently denied Giuffre's charges, and in a formal response to the suit, his counsel questioned her integrity.
Andrew stated in a 2019 interview with BBC Newsnight that he has "no recollection" of ever meeting her and denied having sex with her.
"I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened," he said.
Maxwell has been in jail awaiting trial since her arrest in July 2020, when she was charged with enticing a minor to travel for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activity, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, conspiracy to commit both of those offenses, and perjury in connection with a sworn deposition.
Maxwell is the late media billionaire Robert Maxwell's daughter. She had a romantic relationship with Epstein in the 1990s.
