Ghislaine Maxwell is selling her London home – where Prince Andrew was infamously photographed with a Jeffrey Epstein prosecutor – to raise money for legal fees, her spokesman said.
The sale of the British socialite’s Kinnerton Street flat, in the upscale London borough of Belgravia, is nearing completion, spokesman Brian Basham told the Wall Street Journal.
He refused to identify the buyer or the sale price.
The estimated value of the stylish home, which is 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 been 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 set aside for her defense fund – bringing the total to more than $ 10 million, Basham told the Telegraph.
“Ghislaine will be sorry the house is being sold,” Basham told the outlet. ‘She’s devastated. She will have many fond memories. She will be terribly sad to sell the house. It was her London refuge. “
Epstein prosecutor Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims she was taken to Maxwell’s London home in 2001 and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 years old.
A photo of the couple taken at home – with Maxwell smiling in the background – has often surfaced as news of Epstein’s alleged sex crimes exploded around the world.
Prince Andrew has denied the claims.
Both Andrew and Ian Maxwell, Ghislaine’s brother, have also suggested that the now infamous photo is fake.
The sale of Maxwell’s home is finally nearing completion after it hit a snag in February when her bank, Barclays, closed its account a day after lawyers deposited £ 130,000 (about $ 180,000), the Wall Street Journal reported.
The down payment represented an initial down payment from the buyer.
In a letter reviewed by the Journal, Barclays warned the buyer not to put the bank in a position to “violate any law, regulation, code, or other duty.”
Ian Maxwell accused Barclays of closing his sister’s account as a way to protect his chief executive officer, Jes Staley – who had visited Epstein’s infamous Caribbean island in the past.
But Basham said the Maxwell family had figured out a way to keep the deal going.
“We have no idea what Staley has been up to with Epstein, but whatever it was, it’s his problem and he shouldn’t be expressing his problems on my sister,” Ian Maxwell told the Journal. “Staley plays with my sister’s life at Pontius Pilate.”
Maxwell has been in federal custody in Brooklyn since her arrest last July on charges of helping recruit and nurture young women and girls to have sex with Epstein. Prosecutors have also alleged that she herself participated in some of the abuse.
Her trial will 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 reporting by Mary K. Jacob