LONDON – In emails published by the BBC between Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell — a mutual friend of the prince and Jeffrey Epstein — the royal asks Maxwell specifically about a woman who claims to have been sexually abused by the prince.
The email comes to light weeks after Prince Andrew denied knowing Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a woman who claims she was trafficked by Epstein and sexually abused by Prince Andrew when she was 17.
In the email, Prince Andrew tells Ghislaine Maxwell that he has "specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts." Maxwell later told the prince that she had some info and that he should call when he got the chance.
The message was sent in 2015, the same year that Giuffre filed a defamation lawsuit against Maxwell for her repeated denials of abuse against Giuffre. That lawsuit was eventually settled out of court.
In the lawsuit, Giuffre claimed that she met Maxwell while working at Donald Trump's Mar-a-lago estate in the late '90s. It was at that point that Maxwell allegedly groomed her for a sexual relationship with both her and Epstein. Maxwell denies the claims.
In that same lawsuit, Giuffre claimed she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew while she was a minor.
In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Giuffre detailed her encounters with Prince Andrew, including one meeting at a dance club where she claims the royal was "sweating all over me, like his sweat was, like it was raining basically everywhere."
Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre's claims. In an interview with BBC last month, he said that he has "no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever."
In that same interview with BBC, Prince Andrew admitted that he knew Epstein and stayed at Epstein's New York apartment, even after Epstein was charged with procuring an underage girl for prostitution. Shortly after the interview, the Royal Family announced that Prince Andrew would be stepping away from public life.
"It is emphatically denied that The Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation," Buckingham Palace told CNN in a statement Monday.
There is also a photograph that was allegedly taken in 2001 that shows Prince Andrew, Maxwell and Giuffre.
Epstein died by suicide in jail earlier this year while he awaited trial on additional sex trafficking charges.