Virginia Giuffre, Who Stood Up for Victims of Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein, Dies by Suicide

Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused the late convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein of trafficking her as a teenager, has died by suicide at the age of 41.

Giuffre died in Neergabby, Australia, where she had been living, confirmed NBC News. “It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,” her family said in a statement to the outlet. “She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.”

Giuffre, born Virginia Roberts, had alleged that she was brought into Epstein’s circle by his now-convicted sex trafficker associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16, with the pair grooming her to provide sexual services to Epstein. At that point, she had already experienced the trauma of sexual assault by a family friend, lived on the streets of South Florida as a child runaway, and suffered abuse at the hands of Miami sex trafficker Ron Eppinger, who pleaded guilty in 2001 to smuggling women from Europe for prostitution.

As the investigation into the harrowing allegations of sexual abuse against Epstein began, Giuffre became the most prominent whistleblower and provided key information to law enforcement that contributed to the conviction of Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping Epstein recruit, groom, and abuse girls. Giuffre alleged in depositions that she had been trafficked to powerful men in Epstein’s orbit including former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and Prince Andrew. Both denied the allegations.

Epstein was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors with sex-trafficking and conspiracy in 2019. Just a month later, as he was being held without bail in Manhattan after pleading not guilty to the federal charges, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell. His death was ruled a suicide.
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In 2015, Giuffre founded Victims Refuse Silence, since renamed as Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR), a nonprofit advocacy group for survivors of sex trafficking. Following Epstein’s death, she sat down with BBC and during the interview Giuffre claimed she had been trafficked to Prince Andrew and raped by the royal on three occasions, echoing allegations she had first made in a 2014 Florida court filing. She later sued Prince Andrew for sexual assault, and he settled the case out of court in 2022, before he would have been forced to give a sworn deposition. Andrew also pledged a donation to Giuffre’s charity but did not admit to any of her claims.

“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” her family’s statement read. “She was the light that lifted so many survivors.”