By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The family of deceased Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre is urging President Donald Trump not to grant clemency to Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein abuse underage girls.
Giuffre’s family also said it was “shocking” to hear Trump say earlier this week that Epstein had poached Giuffre from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, where she worked at the spa in 2000. The family said Trump’s comment raised questions about whether Trump was aware of Epstein’s sexual abuse at the time.
Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing.
Giuffre has said she was a victim of Epstein’s sex trafficking from 2000 to 2002, starting when she was 16. She died by suicide in April at age 41.
The family’s statement comes as Trump has faced pressure to make public documents from the federal investigations into Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, and his longtime girlfriend Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021.
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, last week met with Maxwell to see if she had any information about others who had committed crimes. Maxwell’s lawyer David Markus has called on Trump to grant her relief, but Trump has said he has not thought about whether to pardon her.
“The government and the President should never consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell any leniency,” Giuffre’s family said in the statement. “Maxwell destroyed many young lives.”
A senior Trump administration official said no leniency for Maxwell was being given or discussed. “That’s just false,” the official said.
Markus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘HE STOLE HER’
Trump and Epstein socialized in the 1990s and 2000s, before what Trump has called a falling out.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday, Trump said he told Epstein to “stay the hell out” of Mar-a-Lago after finding out Epstein was poaching Trump’s workers, including Giuffre.
“He stole her,” Trump said.
In their statement, Giuffre’s family said Maxwell recruited her from Mar-a-Lago in 2000. The family said that was years before Epstein and Trump had their falling out, pointing to a 2002 New York magazine article in which Trump was quoted calling Epstein a “terrific guy” who liked women “on the younger side.”
“It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions,” Giuffre’s family said, referring to Trump’s Air Force One comments.
Asked by a reporter on Thursday if he knew why Epstein was taking his employees, Trump said he did not.
“I didn’t really know really why, but I said if he’s taking anybody from Mar-a-Lago, if he’s hiring or whatever he’s doing, I didn’t like it and we threw him out,” Trump said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement earlier on Thursday that Trump had been responding to a reporter’s question about Giuffre and did not bring her up.
“President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees,” Leavitt said.
At Maxwell’s trial in 2021, Juan Alessi, the former manager of Epstein’s Palm Beach home, testified that he drove with Maxwell to meet Giuffre at nearby Mar-a-Lago. He said he then saw Giuffre at Epstein’s home for the first time that evening, and saw her at the home many times thereafter.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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