Epstein offered money to disprove claim Stephen Hawking was in underage orgy
The Jeffrey Epstein files reveal an email the late paedophile billionaire sent to Ghislaine Maxwell about a claim by accuser Virginia Giuffre that revered British physicist Stephen Hawking was in an "underage orgy".
Paedophile billionaire Epstein told Maxwell she could offer money to any friends or family of Ms Giuffre if they could help prove her claims were false. In the email from 2015, financier Epstein suggested to Maxwell that Ms Giuffre had claimed Prof Hawking had taken part in an "underage orgy".
And the newly released court filings show that, in the same email, Epstein told Maxwell that the "strongest" of Ms Giuffre's claims was that former US President Bill Clinton had dined on Epstein's private island. Mr Clinton has strongly denied this.
The email read: “You can issue a reward to any of Virginia’s friends, acquaints, family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false. The strongest is the Clinton dinner, and the new version in the Virgin Islands that Stephen Hawking participated in an underage orgy.”
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Fuming Susanna Reid shuts down interview with Prince Andrew's ex over wild claimThe world-renowned Cambridge professor was pictured at a barbecue on Epstein's private Caribbean Island, before Epstein was first charged in 2006. The pictures emerged in 2015, as reported by the Telegraph.
He was said to have taken a boat cruise and submarine tour when he was one of 21 world-famous scientists who were at an Epstein-funded conference on gravity in March 2006. Prof Hawking died in 2018 aged 76, having survived for over 40 years since he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which left him wheelchair bound and gradually left him paralysed.
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The names of more than 170 people who were either associates, friends or victims of Epstein are set to be made public following a US judge’s order last month. The first tranche of documents was released on Wednesday evening with high-profile figures such as Prince Andrew and former US President Bill Clinton featuring heavily.
The files released included a transcript of Maxwell's videotaped evidence given under oath. During her interview, the socialite claimed she could only recall Prince Andrew on Epstein’s island once.
Andrew stepped down from public life after the furore over his friendship with Epstein and paid millions to settle a civil sexual assault case to Ms Giuffre, a woman he claimed never to have met. The Duke of York was cast out of the working monarchy and no longer uses his HRH style after Ms Giuffre accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17. He strenuously denies any wrongdoing.
Asked whether any girls under the age of 18 were present on that one occasion, Maxwell replied: “There were no girls on the island at all. No girls, no women, other than the staff who work at the house. Girls meaning, I assume you are asking underage, but there was nobody female outside of the cooks and the cleaners.”
In other documents, Maxwell could be seen sending an email in January 2015, shortly after a civil claim had been filed against her, in which she described herself as “out of my depth”. She added: “I have already suffered such a terrible and painful loss over the last few days that I can’t even see what life after press hell even looks like – statements that don’t address all just lead to more questions… what is my relationship to Clinton? Andrew on and on.”
The transcript of whistleblower Johanna Sjoberg's deposition, which contained multiple accusations of sexual misbehaviour against Epstein, was contained within the hundreds of pages of papers. The documents state that Sjoberg said in court that Epstein informed her, in reference to girls, that Clinton "likes them young."
Sjoberg said: “I knew he had dealings with Bill Clinton. I did not know they were friends until I read the Vanity Fair article about them going to Africa together.” Asked if Epstein had ever talked about the former president, Sjoberg added: “He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.”
Ghislaine Maxwell hires Weinstein's lawyer days after he's jailed for more yearsIn 2019, Mr Clinton’s spokesman said he knew “nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to” and that the pair had not spoken “in over a decade”. The spokesman also said Mr Clinton had never been to Epstein’s island, called Little St James, his ranch in New Mexico nor his house in Florida.
Ghislaine appeared to back up this claim in the files. She said: "The allegation that Clinton had a meal on Jeffrey's island is 100 per cent false," before adding "I'm sure he had a meal on Jeffrey's plane."