Virginia Giuffre, accuser of Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew, dies by suicide: Family
Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew of sexual abuse, died by suicide, her family announced on Friday.
"It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia. She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking," her family's statement said.
"The light of her life were her children Christian, Noah, and Emily. It was when she held her newborn daughter in her arms that Virginia realized she had to fight back against those who had abused her and so many others," the statement continued.
Giuffre and Epstein settled a civil lawsuit for $500,000 in 2009.
Giuffre had alleged that Epstein trafficked her to Prince Andrew, who she claimed took advantage of and sexually abused her when she was under 18.
Prince Andrew had repeatedly denied the allegation and attacked Giuffre's credibility and motives.
Giuffre filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in 2021, accusing the embattled royal of sexually abusing her at Epstein's Manhattan mansion and elsewhere in 2001, when she was under the age of 18, according to the complaint.
Prince Andrew agreed to settle the sexual assault lawsuit from Giuffre in 2022, without admitting to wrongdoing.
In 2015, Giuffre had also filed a civil lawsuit centered on allegations that Epstein's one-time paramour, Ghislaine Maxwell, facilitated the sexual abuse of Giuffre and others.
Hundreds of court filings from that case were unsealed during a four-year period beginning in 2019.
The morning after the first set of documents was unsealed by a federal appeals court in 2019, Epstein died by hanging in his jail cell in Manhattan, where he was being held pending trial on charges of child sex trafficking and conspiracy. The New York Medical Examiner ruled the death a suicide and a Justice Department Inspector General report concurred with that determination.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on five of six counts related to the abuse and trafficking of underage girls and was sentenced to a 20-year prison term.
Giuffre was not called as a witness during Maxwell's trial, and Maxwell has consistently denied all wrongdoing.
Maxwell appealed her conviction to the Supreme Court earlier this month, but the Supreme Court has not yet taken any action.
ABC News' Santina Leuci contributed to this report.
