The division of Virginia Giuffre’s multimillion-dollar estate has sparked a family feud that is now heading to court. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s sex abuse accuser took her own life in April, at the age of 41, but died “intestate” – without a valid will, which means the estate will be distributed according to legal rules of intestacy rather than any wishes she expressed.
Before her death, Ms Giuffre had amassed a fortune through victim compensation funds and civil lawsuit settlements relating to the approximately three years of abuse she suffered as part of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking and abuse ring, from the summer of 2000 – when she was 16 – until 2003. She received an estimated $12 million (£9 million) payment from the former Duke of York in 2022 to settle the claim, despite Andrew’s continued denial of any wrongdoing. She also received $500,000 (£380,000) from Epstein in 2009, when she settled her sex-trafficking and sexual abuse claims against him. However, Ms Giuffre’s family will now head to court to determine who will receive what.
Under Australian law – where Ms Giuffre was both a citizen and where she lived after the abuse – her husband, Robert Giuffre, could be entitled to up to a third of her estate, despite the fact he filed for divorce two months before her death. However, around the same time he began proceedings, Ms Giuffre is said to have sent an email to her lawyer stating that she did not want him to have any of her money.
As a result, her two half-brothers, Sky Roberts and Danny Wilson, have hired a lawyer to challenge his right to the funds and seek to take a sizeable chunk of the estate, according to her paternal aunt, Kimberley Roberts.
“We don’t believe they have a right to it,” she told The Telegraph. “The estate should go to her children only.”
In June, it was revealed that Ms Giuffre’s two oldest children, Christian, 19, and Noah, 18, who live with their father, had successfully applied to the court to be appointed administrators of the estate.
The brothers are also said to want to assume control of Ms Giuffre’s charity, Speak Out, Act, Reclaim, to which $3 million (£2.3 million) of Andrew’s settlement was ring-fenced for. However, the funds are still being held in an escrow account managed by a third party. Other members of Ms Giuffre’s family are against the half-brothers’ involvement and with the charity to be run by experts in the charity sector.
Concerns have also been raised about how Ms Giuffre died. According to one source, Mr Roberts “wants the whole family to say it’s suicide, without question”.
Ms Giuffre also owned four properties, including a six-bedroom seafront home in Ocean Reef, Perth, and a ranch in the nearby town of Neergabby, where she died.
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