Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell of Maine flatly denied allegations contained in court documents unsealed Friday that he had contact with a woman who said she was kept as a sex slave by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, in a 2016 deposition, named Mitchell among a group of powerful men to whom she said Epstein offered her for erotic massages and sex. Others who were named include former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Britain’s Prince Andrew, financier Glenn Dubin, former MIT scientist Marvin Minsky and Jean-Luc Brunel, a well-known modeling agent.
In a statement Friday to the Press Herald, Mitchell said the allegations are false.
“I have never met, spoken with or had any contact with Ms. Giuffre,” Mitchell said. “In my contacts with Mr. Epstein I never observed or suspected any inappropriate conduct with underage girls. I only learned of his actions when they were reported in the media related to his prosecution in Florida. We have had no further contact.”
The other people named by Virginia Giuffre have denied any wrongdoing as well.
Epstein was found dead in his jail cell Saturday morning.
None of those named in Giuffre’s deposition has been charged criminally or sued in connection with Epstein’s case. No other court documents provide any further details about Giuffre’s allegations, and many remain sealed.
The details that came out Friday, in U.S. District Court in New York, were contained in previously sealed documents in a lawsuit Giuffre filed against Ghislaine Maxwell, who was close to Epstein and who Giuffre said was his madam. The lawsuit was settled in 2017 for an undisclosed amount.
The unsealed documents were posted online Friday by multiple news outlets.
In her deposition, Giuffre alleged that Maxwell sent her to give erotic massages and sometimes have sex with many powerful men.
“They instructed me to go to George Mitchell, Jean-Luc Brunel, Bill Richardson, another prince that I don’t know his name. A guy that owns a hotel, a really large hotel chain, I can’t remember which hotel it was. Marvin Minksy,” she said, according to the transcript.
Giuffre does not appear to directly allege that she had any contact with Mitchell.
Epstein, a powerful and well-connected money manager, faces sex trafficking and conspiracy charges in New York. He is accused of forcing young women to perform erotic massages and sex acts on him and others at a number of locations, including his home in Florida, an apartment in New York and even his private plane. His case has drawn intense scrutiny because of his past connections to President Trump, former President Clinton and others, and also because of how prior charges were handled.
Epstein was first indicted on charges in 2007 but only served 13 months in a county jail as part of a deal by then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who later became secretary of labor under Trump. Acosta resigned from the Trump administration last month amid the expanding investigation and questions over his role in allowing the financier to plead guilty to lesser offenses in a sex-crimes case involving underage girls.
Epstein, 66, is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
Mitchell, a Democrat, was a former U.S. attorney and U.S. District Court judge when he was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1980 to finish Sen. Edmund Muskie’s term after Muskie was named secretary of state. Mitchell was reelected in 1982 and in 1988. He was elevated to Senate majority leader in his second term.
Mitchell turned down an offer from Clinton to be a U.S. Supreme Court nominee and instead spent several years as U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland while the nation was plagued by sectarian violence. He later chaired the peace negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
It wasn’t immediately clear Friday how Mitchell knew Epstein. His assistant did not respond to a request for more details about their relationship. In a 2003 profile in Vanity Fair, Mitchell said Epstein “supported some philanthropic projects of mine and organized a fundraiser for me once. I would certainly call him a friend and a supporter.”
Mitchell, who is 85, also served as U.S. special envoy to the Middle East under former President Obama and in 2006 led an investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball.
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