Sydney
CNN
—
Virginia Giuffre, a prominent survivor of financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes, who alleged Britain’s Prince Andrew abused her when she was a teenager, has died by suicide, her family said. She was 41.
“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,” read a statement from the family.
Police confirmed that emergency services found a woman unresponsive in her home near Perth, Western Australia, on Friday night. She was pronounced dead at the scene after first aid was unsuccessful.
Her death is not being treated as suspicious, police said.
“She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” her family said in the statement.
“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors.”
“In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”
Giuffre, a mother of three, was one of the most vocal accusers of the wealthy and well-connected sex offender Epstein. In 2019, she publicly alleged Epstein trafficked her and forced her to have sex with his friends, including Prince Andrew, when she was 17 years old.
She also claimed the prince was aware she was underage in the US at the time.
Prince Andrew repeatedly denied the claims.
In July 2019, Epstein was indicted on one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors, to which he pleaded not guilty. One month later, he died by suicide in prison.
He was accused of running a child trafficking ring to provide him with girls as young as 14 for sex and nude massages at his homes in New York City and Florida between 2002 and 2005.
A 2009 settlement agreement, unsealed in 2022, showed that Epstein paid Giuffre $500,000 to drop a case without any admission of liability or fault.
Prior to that, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution charges, one involving a 14-year-old girl, and served 13 months in prison under a controversial plea deal.
His ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in 2020 and accused of facilitating Epstein’s abuse scheme. A jury in 2021 convicted her on five federal counts, including sex trafficking a minor and conspiracy. She was sentenced to 20 years in jail a year later.
Giuffre was not one of the four women who testified in the trial that they had been abused.
Help is available if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters. In the US, call or text 988, for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Globally, the International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide have contact information for crisis centers around the world.
