Ghislaine Maxwell is selling her London home, where Prince Andrew was infamously photographed with an accuser of Jeffrey Epstein, to raise money for legal costs, his spokesman said.
The sale of the British Socialist’s Kinnerton Street flat in the elegant Belgravia district of London is nearing completion, spokesman Brian Basham told the Wall Street Journal.
He refused to identify the buyer or the sale price.
According to British real estate website The Move Market, the estimated value of the elegant residence, which is just a couple of blocks south of Hyde Park, is £ 1.9 million, about $ 2.7 million . It was last sold in 1997.
Other properties in Belgravia have sold for between $ 3.6 million and $ 11.2 million in the past two years.
The lucrative deal would add to the $ 7 million Maxwell has already allocated to his defense fund, which pushed the total to more than $ 10 million, Basham told the Telegraph.
“Ghislaine will be sad to see the house sold,” Basham told the dam. “She is devastated by all this. He will have many good memories. She will be terribly sad to sell the house. It was his refuge in London. “
Epstein’s attorney, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, claims she was taken to Maxwell’s home in London in 2001 and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 years old.
A photo of the homemade couple, with Maxwell smiling in the background, has appeared frequently as news of Epstein’s alleged sex crimes explodes around the world.
Prince Andrew has denied the allegations.
Both Andrew and Ian Maxwell, Ghislaine’s brother, have also suggested that the famous photo is fake.
The sale of Maxwell’s home is nearing completion after a problem occurred in February when his bank, Barclays, closed its account a day after lawyers deposited £ 130,000 (about $ 180,000), according to reported the Wall Street Journal.
The deposit represented an initial deposit from the buyer.
In a letter reviewed by the Journal, Barclays warned the buyer not to put the bank in the position that “it could breach a law, regulation, code or other duty.”
Ian Maxwell accused Barclays of closing his sister’s story as a way to protect his CEO, Jes Staley, who had visited the famous Caribbean island of Epstein in the past.
But Basham said the Maxwell family worked out a way to carry out the deal.
“We have no idea what Staley got with Epstein, but whatever it was, it’s his problem and he shouldn’t solve my sister’s problems,” Ian Maxwell told the newspaper. “Staley plays Pontius Pilate with my sister’s life.”
Maxwell has been in federal custody in Brooklyn since his arrest last July on charges that helped recruit and prepare young women and girls to have sex with Epstein. Prosecutors also alleged that she herself was involved in some of the abuses.
His trial is set to begin in July in Manhattan Federal Court.
Epstein, 66, hanged himself while behind bars in Manhattan in 2019, about a month after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges.
Additional reports by Mary K. Jacob