Ghislaine Maxwell is selling her home in London – where Prince Andrew is notoriously photographed with an accused by Jeffrey Epstein – to raise money for legal costs, her spokeswoman said.
British Social Affairs spokesman Brian Basham’s apartment Kinnerton Street in the upscale London suburb of Belgravia was told by the Wall Street Journal.
He did not want to identify the buyer or the selling price.
The estimated value of the stylish home, located just a few blocks south of Hyde Park, is £ 1.9 million – about $ 2.7 million, according to UK real estate website The Move Market. It was last sold in 1997.
Other properties in Belgravia have sold between $ 3.6 million and $ 11.2 million over the past two years.
The lucrative deal would add up to the $ 7 million Maxwell had already earmarked for her defense fund, which would push the total to more than $ 10 million, Basham told the Telegraph.
“Ghislaine will be sad to see the house sold,” Basham told the store. “She was devastated by it all. She will have many fond memories. She will be terribly sad to sell the house. It was her refuge in London. ”
Epstein’s accused, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, claims she was brought to Maxwell’s home in London in 2001 and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17.
A photo of the couple taken at home – with Maxwell smiling in the background – appears frequently as news of Epstein’s alleged sex crimes explodes around the world.
Prince Andrew denied the claims.
Both Andrew and Ian Maxwell, Ghislaine’s brother, also suggested that the infamous photo is now fake.
The sale of Maxwell’s home is nearing completion after it was hit in February when her bank, Barclays, closed her account a day after lawyers paid in £ 130,000 (about $ 180,000), the Wall Street Journal.
The deposit was an initial deposit from the buyer.
In a letter reviewed by the Journal, Barclays warned the buyer not to place the bank in the position where it could “violate a law, regulation, code or other duty”.
Ian Maxwell has accused Barclays of closing his sister’s account as a way to protect his CEO, Jes Staley – who has visited Epstein’s infamous Caribbean island in the past.
But Basham said the Maxwell family worked out a way for the deal.
“We have no idea what Staley was up to with Epstein, but whatever it was, it’s his problem and he should not take his problems out on my sister,” Ian Maxwell told the Journal. “Staley plays at Pontius Pilate with my sister’s life.”
Maxwell has been in federal custody since her arrest in Brooklyn in July on charges that she helped recruit and care for young women and girls to have sex with Epstein. Prosecutors also alleged that she herself participated in some of the abuse.
Her trial begins in July in federal court in Manhattan.
Epstein, 66, hanged himself behind bars in 2019 – about a month after he was arrested on a charge of sex trafficking.
Additional reporting by Mary K. Jacob