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What happened to Virginia Giuffre? · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamio.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Monday, April twenty eight, twenty twenty five. The government
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: knew Russia had designs on an Indonesian military base back
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: in March before the federal election was called. Anthony Albanesi
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: is shaping up to be a bigger spender than his predecessor,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Bill Shorten. But the big difference is the PM doesn't
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: appear to have a plan to pay for his cost
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: of living cash splash. That exclusive analysis is live right
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  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au. Prince Andrew
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: accuser Virginia Duffrey was in and out of hospital emergency
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  Speaker 1: departments in the final months of her life. The Australian
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  Speaker 1: is revealing today the forty one year old mother of
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  Speaker 1: three died by suicide at her Perth home on Friday. Today,
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  Speaker 1: our Queensland Bureau Chief Michael McKenna reflects on his last
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  Speaker 1: conversation with the woman who waged war against sex trafficking
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: and abuse. A note before we begin this episode discusses
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: sexual abuse and suicide. Audrey Strauss had only been acting
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: New York for a month when she made a stunning announcement.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Maxwell and Epstein had a method. Typically there, we befriend
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  Speaker 2: these young girls by asking them questions about their lives,
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  Speaker 2: pretending to be taking an interest in them.
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  Speaker 1: That morning, the socialite Galline Maxwell had been arrested following
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  Speaker 1: a raid on her secluded New Hampshire mansion and charged
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  Speaker 1: with trafficking teenagers and girls for abuse by the disgraced
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  Speaker 1: financier Jeffrey Epstein.
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  Speaker 2: Maxwell was among Epstein's closest associatest and helped him exploit
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  Speaker 2: girls who were as young as fourteen years old. Maxwell
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  Speaker 2: played a critical role in helping Epstein to identify a
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  Speaker 2: friend and groom minor victims for abuse. In some cases,
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  Speaker 2: Maxwell participated in the abuse herself.
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  Speaker 1: It was July of twenty twenty and the world had
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  Speaker 1: rearranged itself around the coronavirus pandemic. On the other side
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: of the world, one of Epstein's most prominent accuses received
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: news of Maxwell's arrest.
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  Speaker 3: Last night at eleven seventy m My lawyer calls me,
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  Speaker 3: sickred colleague, and she says, are you singing down for this?
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: Because Gilan's been arrested.
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  Speaker 5: Wow.
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  Speaker 4: I was elated. I was crying with tears of joy.
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  Speaker 4: My heart was raising miles, like a million miles a minute.
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  Speaker 1: Virginia Giuffrey living a quiet suburban life in cans with
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: her former husband Robert at the time. The next day,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: she was on the phone with the Australian's Queensland Bureau
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: chief Michael McKenna, who was racing to meet a looming
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: print deadline.
• 3:14
  Speaker 6: Thanks for doing this again, I really appreciate it. If
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: you're here's some tapping, It's just me trying to tap
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  Speaker 6: some of the answers out so I can make sure
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  Speaker 6: I get deadline. I do a lot of work up
• 3:27
  Speaker 6: in Cape York and North Queensland and was aware that
• 3:31
  Speaker 6: Virginia was living in far North Queensland, and I was
• 3:35
  Speaker 6: given her telephone number by a friend. I rang up
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: that number and her husband Robert answered. I said who
• 3:42
  Speaker 6: I was, and that I was interested in talking to
• 3:44
  Speaker 6: her about Maxwell's arrest and how she felt. And you know,
• 3:50
  Speaker 6: some people respond differently when contacted by journalists, and in
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: this case, Robert really gave it to me. He called
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  Speaker 6: me a few names, and he peppered it with a
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  Speaker 6: few expletives. It's not my first radio I'm being generalist
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  Speaker 6: for a long time, and look. I told him that
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  Speaker 6: I understood his passion and apologized for the intrusion and
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: put the phone down. A few minutes later, my phone
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: rang and it was Virginia on the phone, apologizing.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: We had a bit of a chuckle.
• 4:18
  Speaker 6: I said that I understood, and that if I was
• 4:20
  Speaker 6: in his shoes, I probably would have laden the assault
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: with a few more expletives. I heard a laugh in
• 4:25
  Speaker 6: the background. It was him, and then from that moment
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  Speaker 6: on we started having a pretty friendly conversation. They then
• 4:32
  Speaker 6: later agreed to do the interview.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Virginia Drew Frey died by suicide at her home in
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Perth on Friday. She was forty one years old.
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  Speaker 7: In a statement, Virginia Geuphra's family said she was a
• 4:45
  Speaker 7: fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking.
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  Speaker 7: She was the light that lifted so many survivors. In
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  Speaker 7: the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that
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  Speaker 7: it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight. We
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  Speaker 7: know that she is with the angels. Western Australia Police
• 5:02
  Speaker 7: say they're not treating her death as suspicious.
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  Speaker 1: Giffrey alleged she was recruited by Maxwell following a chance
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  Speaker 1: meeting at Donald Trump's Mara a Lago club in the
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  Speaker 1: year two thousand, when she was sixteen years old and
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  Speaker 1: working as a locker room attendant. She described the encounter
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  Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty documentary Surviving Jeffrey Epstein.
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  Speaker 3: She was like this really bright Mary Poppins kind of
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  Speaker 3: a figure, and then she goes, oh, you know what,
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  Speaker 3: I know this guy. There's an opportunity. Actually, if you
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: want to become a real massage therapist, we can get
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: she trained within the next few weeks. Jeffrey Giland told
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  Speaker 3: me that I need to quit my job with mar
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  Speaker 3: Lago because I'll be traveling with them as they're traveling massuse.
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  Speaker 1: Giffrey claims she was also assaulted by the Duke of York,
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  Speaker 1: Prince Andrew, who counted Epstein and Maxwell among his close
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  Speaker 1: personal friends. The UK Royal has always denied the allegations
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: against him, settled with Juffrey out of court in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty two. Michael Virginia Guffrey had less than a day
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  Speaker 1: to process the news that Glenn Maxwell had been arrested
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  Speaker 1: and charged with a range of trafficking and conspiracy charges.
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  Speaker 1: What was her demeanor like when you spoke with her
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  Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty.
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  Speaker 5: She was a little reluctant, and she was reluctant in
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  Speaker 5: one way. She had at various times.
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  Speaker 6: Been in the middle of a global story, and she
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  Speaker 6: wasn't like a politician or an actor.
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  Speaker 5: She didn't really know how to deal with it. It
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  Speaker 5: was all.
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  Speaker 6: Really overwhelming to her, and she wasn't someone that really
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  Speaker 6: chased the limelight or anything like that. But she kept
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  Speaker 6: saying to me in off the record conversations that she
• 6:44
  Speaker 6: had to be careful that she was going to do
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  Speaker 6: the interview, but what was most important to her was
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  Speaker 6: not to imperil the trial, given that Maxwell had just
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  Speaker 6: been arrested, and that's why she wasn't going to give
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  Speaker 6: a press conference or give interviews generally. But she was
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  Speaker 6: very considered when she said, but this was different. This
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: was a woman who had found me, who had groomed me,
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  Speaker 6: abused me, and then handed me over to Jeffrey Epstein.
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  Speaker 6: There was a real I noticed a real steal with
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  Speaker 6: her when she talked about that.
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  Speaker 1: Virginia Giufray was never called to give evidence at Gallaine
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  Speaker 1: Maxwell's trial, where she was ultimately found guilty of five
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  Speaker 1: counts of sex trafficking.
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  Speaker 8: Jeffrey Epstein's partner in crime, were sentenced today to twenty
• 7:29
  Speaker 8: years in prison for sex trafficking minors. Epstein was indicted
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  Speaker 8: on federal sex trafficking charges back in twenty nineteen, but
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  Speaker 8: committed suicide in prison.
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  Speaker 6: Certainly in the day after Maxwell's arrest in the United States,
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: when I spoke to Virginia, she expected that she was
• 7:48
  Speaker 6: going to give evidence at the trial, and she told
• 7:51
  Speaker 6: me that she was willing and eager to give evidence
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  Speaker 6: at that trial. And her absence from the trial was
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  Speaker 6: quite extraordinary, given it was her story that really pushed
• 8:05
  Speaker 6: the allegations against Epstein and Maxwell onto the front pages globally.
• 8:10
  Speaker 6: There's been speculation in the United States press that because
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: she had a parallel civil case against Prince Andrew, which
• 8:20
  Speaker 6: was later settled purportedly with a payout of fourteen point
• 8:24
  Speaker 6: six million pounds he paid out to her without any
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: admission of liability or guilt.
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  Speaker 5: That was one of the reasons that there was a.
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  Speaker 6: Parallel civil case, and Maxwell's lawyers could argue that there
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  Speaker 6: was a financial incentive for her to give evidence against
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  Speaker 6: her Equally, there was also speculation that there had been
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  Speaker 6: inconsistencies in her public accounts given to the media about
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  Speaker 6: what happened with Epstein and Maxwell and Prince Andrew, starting
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  Speaker 6: from when she was first recruited to work at Moreligo.
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  Speaker 6: When we last spoke, she told me that if she
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: was ultimately paid out or she did get any more compensation,
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  Speaker 6: that she really wanted to dedicate her life to helping
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  Speaker 6: victims of abuse, and that's what she hoped would be
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  Speaker 6: her legacy was to help people to set an example
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  Speaker 6: as to someone who was willing to get up and
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  Speaker 6: make the accusations against her alleged offender, and also to
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  Speaker 6: help provide platforms with support for those victims.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. How Virginia Dufray became a symbol of the
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  Speaker 1: me too movement. Virginia Dufrey kept a reasonably low profile
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  Speaker 1: after relocating to Perth with her husband and children a
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  Speaker 1: few years ago. She told the Australians Michael McKenna in
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  Speaker 1: twenty that she appreciated the power of the media in
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  Speaker 1: bringing perpetrators like Jeffrey Epstein and Glen Maxwell to justice,
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  Speaker 1: but she didn't necessarily seek it out.
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  Speaker 4: And unfortunately I have more faith in the media at
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: the moment than I view the Justice Department, because you
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: guys are actually helping us tell the Justice Department how
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: do the jobs? Like, guys, we cannot let these people
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  Speaker 4: keep getting off the hook.
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  Speaker 1: In turn, the media has handled her story with relative care,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: but Jiffrey exploded back into the public sphere in February
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  Speaker 1: when she shared a post on Instagram that suggested she
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: had days to live following a collision with a bus
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  Speaker 1: on a Perth Highway. Giffrey later backtracked, saying the post
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: had been made in error, and Western Australian Police said
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  Speaker 1: the crash wasn't as serious as Giffrey suggested. Around the
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  Speaker 1: same time, it emerged that the mother of three was
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  Speaker 1: facing a criminal charge in the West Australian courts for
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: breaching a family violence restraining order. Michael Virginia Jefrey did
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: some big interviews in her time, most notably with the
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  Speaker 1: BBC's Panorama program, in which she really doubled down on
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  Speaker 1: her allegations against Prince Andrew, and with the documentary Surviving
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  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. In many ways, she was the face of
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  Speaker 1: what she called the fight against trafficking and sexual abuse.
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  Speaker 1: But she didn't really seek out the media after she
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  Speaker 1: spoke to you in twenty twenty, and the media mostly
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  Speaker 1: let her be. How do you report the public interest
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  Speaker 1: aspects of a story like this when the central figures
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  Speaker 1: life is so obviously in turmoil.
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  Speaker 6: The first thing is to respect all involved, and that
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  Speaker 6: includes the alleged defender.
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  Speaker 5: So you keep to the facts that.
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  Speaker 6: Are known, and you respect the people involved insomuch as.
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  Speaker 5: With a victim, is you have empathy for these people.
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  Speaker 6: For victims, know that they've been through a lot, know
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  Speaker 6: that they are probably going through a lot in now,
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: probably going through this process of being in the public
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  Speaker 6: eye and the possible ability of having to give a testimony.
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  Speaker 6: So I've done this quite a lot over my career,
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  Speaker 6: and it's really just to show respect, ask the questions
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  Speaker 6: and lay it out that you're going to in some
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: cases test what they're going to say, and ask those
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  Speaker 6: questions and report dutifully. We've seen in recent years that
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  Speaker 6: some of the media can take an advocacy role in
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  Speaker 6: reporting these sorts of cases. So it's really down to
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: the journalists and the publication or the broadcaster to do
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: their job. The way that they're supposed to do, and.
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  Speaker 5: That is to keep to the facts.
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: Do not introduce evidence into the public arena during a trial,
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: for instance, unless that evidence has been placed before the jury.
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: There are rules, and some of them are legal and
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: some of them are just obvious, and that involves not
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: being an advocate the facts, asking the right questions and
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: reporting without favor.
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  Speaker 5: That's what the public expects.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Michael McKenna is the Australian's Queensland Bureau chief. You can
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: watch the video of his interview with Virginia Dufrey and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: read the latest about her death at forty one at
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au