The family of Virginia Giuffre has expressed shock and dismay after President Donald Trump claimed he was aware that Giuffre had been “stolen” from his Mar-a-Lago resort, where she worked as a teenager.
In a public statement issued Wednesday, the family urged Trump not to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted sex trafficker and longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein.
Giuffre, a prominent advocate for sexual abuse survivors, died by suicide in April. Her family’s statement came in response to Trump’s recent remarks to reporters, where he said Epstein had “stolen” Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago in the summer of 2000, when she was 16 years old and working as a locker room attendant.
“It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been ‘stolen’ from Mar-a-Lago,” the Giuffre family said.
“It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey ‘likes women on the younger side … no doubt about it,’” Giuffre’s two brothers and her sisters-in-law also told The Atlantic. “We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this.”
Trump has publicly stated he is “allowed” to pardon Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking minors and sentenced to 20 years in prison, per NBC News. Maxwell was a close associate of Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
Adding to the controversy, Maxwell recently met with U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who formerly served as Trump’s personal attorney, as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into Epstein’s network.
In their statement, Giuffre’s family pushed back on any notion of clemency for Maxwell.
“We would like to clarify that it was convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell who targeted and preyed upon our then 16-year-old sister, Virginia, from Mar-a-Lago, where she was working in 2000, several years before Epstein and President Trump had their falling out," they said, via BBC News.
They concluded with a plea: “The government and the President should never consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell any leniency.”
Giuffre was one of the most well-known survivors to speak publicly about Epstein’s trafficking operation, later filing high-profile lawsuits against powerful figures connected to the scandal, including Britain’s Prince Andrew, whom she accused of sexual abuse, a claim he has denied and settled without admission of guilt.
Her legacy, the family says, must not be undermined by political maneuvering or misplaced sympathy for those who exploited her.
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