Alessi said Andrew will stay in the master guest bedroom, which he described as the “blue room.” He recalled seeing Andrew's ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, on one occasion, but added: “I don't think she slept there.”
Alessi also recalls seeing other celebrities including Donald Trump and “a lot of queens and other celebrities that I can't remember.”
Donald and Melania Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2002.credit: GT
Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago club is also in Palm Beach, would come to Epstein's house for dinner, but “never sat at the table,” Alessi said, eating instead in the kitchen.
Asked if Trump had ever received massages, he said: “No. Because he has his own spa.”
Alessi, who worked at Epstein's sprawling home from 1990 to 2002, testified at Maxwell's 2021 trial that he saw “lots and lots and lots” of young adult female visitors, often lounging topless by the pool. He also admitted to stealing US$6,300 ($9,300) from Epstein's office.
Andrew was publicly criticized when photos emerged of him visiting Epstein in New York even after the financier was jailed in Florida for a sex crime.
Virginia Giuffre (center) leaves New York federal court in 2019.credit: Bloomberg
Giuffre sued Andrew, accusing him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17 years old. Andrew said he did not remember ever meeting Geoffrey.
The suit was settled in 2022 without ever going to trial, but the allegations damaged his public standing and prompted Andrew to withdraw from some royal duties.
Phone records
One document contains copies of phone messages Epstein received, handwritten by employees, in 2004, a year before police in Palm Beach began investigating allegations that he was paying underage girls for sex.
At the time, Epstein was garnering attention for his dealings with the rich and powerful, offering free rides on his private jet to celebrities including former US president Bill Clinton and actor Kevin Spacey.
The telephone messages, although mostly mundane, give a little glimpse into his associations. “She had Mr. Harvey Weinstein on the phone,” one message about a missed call reads.
Weinstein, then a power in Hollywood, was part of a media investment group that included Epstein.
Weinstein would years later be accused of raping and sexually assaulting women in the entertainment industry, serving long prison terms after his convictions in New York and Los Angeles.
Harvey Weinstein in court for his appeal hearing in 2020.credit: AP
A Weinstein spokesman did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
There are also numerous letters about missed calls from Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent who was close to Epstein. Brunel was awaiting trial on charges of raping underage girls when he committed suicide in a Paris prison in 2022.
When Epstein was initially investigated by Palm Beach police in 2005, investigators spoke to a number of girls from an area high school who said they had been paid to provide massage services to Epstein.
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Tony Figueroa, who worked as a driver for Epstein and once dated Giuffre, discussed efforts to recruit these girls during his 2016 testimony.
“Jeffrey would give us $200 apiece for every item we brought,” he said. “I would take friends that I went to school with, and I would take them there and introduce them to them, and then I would leave.”
He said Maxwell would call him from time to time “asking me to bring girls.” Figueroa told the same story in media interviews in the years after that deposition.
The legal storm that Epstein and Maxwell faced was nicely depicted in a January 11, 2015 email from her lawyer Philip Barden, who referred to Maxwell as “G,” and to Epstein as “JE.”
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He urged a strong public reaction to Giuffre's allegations because silence was “reputational suicide”.
“Now it is said that Gee engaged in direct abuse – as I feared would happen. The following reports will be made to the authorities,” Barden wrote in a message to a person whose name was highlighted in black, copying Maxwell in the message.
“It is necessary for litigation, investigative and reputational reasons to issue a convincing denial. He added: “I can see why JE wouldn't want this because it might not suit him but he's already toast.”
Four years later, in August 2019, Epstein died by suicide, having been found in a prison cell after being arrested on sex trafficking charges a month earlier.
It will take another two years before a New York jury agrees that Maxwell helped Epstein recruit and groom teenage girls to commit sexual abuse and sometimes joined them.
AP
