Chapter Twenty-Nine I Solemnly Swear
Twenty-nine
I Solemnly Swear
What is it like to be deposed? No matter the subject matter, it is grueling.
And as you can imagine, when the questioning revolves around years-old sexual abuse, it is especially painful.
During one deposition, I would become so agitated that when we took a brief break, I went to the restroom and vomited.
In that same deposition, I would also flinch as a lawyer flung photos of my children on the table in front of me—as close to a Mafia-style intimidation tactic as I’d ever seen.
The lawyer claimed to be making a point about my use of Facebook (and about how I couldn’t be in fear for my life, as I’d claimed, if I posted pictures of my kids there).
But I saw only malevolence. Maybe it’s because the lawyer’s behavior brought Epstein to mind—the memory of him tossing that photo of Skydy on his desk, telling me never to go to the police, had never left me.
I interpreted this brazen display of my babies’ faces as a direct threat.
Sjoberg’s deposition transcript was easier to digest because she confirmed what I had experienced.
Sjoberg described how Maxwell approached her on the main campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University, where she was a twenty-one-year-old student.
Maxwell said she was looking to hire someone for twenty dollars an hour to answer phones, get drinks, and help around the house.
She compared the job to that of a butler but said butlers were “too stuffy.” Sjoberg accompanied Maxwell to Epstein’s mansion and did as she asked.
But the next time Maxwell asked her to come, Sjoberg was told she would be making a hundred dollars an hour “rubbing feet.” Sjoberg, who has said her relationship with Epstein was platonic at first but that later he pressured her into having sex, also traveled to Little Saint James—she remembered her and me massaging Epstein together on the beach there.
And she recalled the night in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse when Maxwell gave Prince Andrew the puppet that resembled him and then put the puppet’s hand on my breast.
“Did Maxwell ever share with you whether it bothered her that Jeffrey had so many girls around?” Siggy asked Sjoberg.
“No,” Sjoberg replied. “Actually, the opposite…She let me know that she was—she would not be able to please him as much as he needed and that is why there were other girls around.”
Sjoberg also confirmed that Maxwell always said she wasn’t bothered by how many girls Epstein slept with.
And she described how Epstein once requested that she bring a female friend of hers—a physical trainer—to his house.
When the friend of Sjoberg’s arrived, Epstein asked the woman, “You see that girl over there laying by the pool?…I just took her virginity.” Sjoberg said her friend “was mortified” by Epstein’s lecherous boasting.
But me? When I read this account, all I could think was, “Yep, that’s Epstein, to a tee. ”
I couldn’t attend all these depositions—I’d been away from the kids enough as it was.
But there was one deposition that I knew I needed to be there for: Tony Figueroa’s.
I hadn’t spoken to Tony since I was in Thailand, so I wasn’t sure what he’d say.
He knew so much that could confirm what I’d been through.
But I knew Tony was upset by my disappearance from his life fourteen years before.
The deposition had been scheduled by Maxwell’s lawyers.
Why would they seek out Tony, my lawyers wondered, unless they thought he’d give testimony that would help their client and hurt me?
Brad had a preliminary call with Tony, who gave him an earful.
Tony said I’d ditched him, embarrassed him, and left him in an apartment whose rent he couldn’t afford.
When Brad told Tony all we needed was for him to tell the truth, Tony replied, “I’m not doing shit until I talk to Virginia.
I need some explanation about why she fucked me over. ”
So two days before his deposition, I dialed Tony’s number.
When he answered, I told him I was sorry—for the way our relationship had ended in 2002 but also for causing him to be dragged into this mess in 2016.
I knew he was just trying to live his life, I said, and I understood it was no fun to rehash our difficult history.
Because we’d once tried to break free together to make a life outside Epstein’s orbit, when I escaped on my own, I knew Tony felt abandoned.
On the phone, I acknowledged that. We’d been kids together, I said.
I didn’t want to cause him pain—not then, and not now.
Forty-eight hours later, Brad and I headed to a Florida law office for the deposition.
Tony and I said hello in the hallway, but he was nervous and looked away.
I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. I needn’t have worried, though.
Under questioning from Maxwell’s lawyer, Tony recalled that while we were living together, I traveled with Epstein two weeks per month or so.
He confirmed that I’d told him I was forced to have sex with Epstein, Maxwell, and their friends.
He remembered me talking about being forced to recruit other girls and about the sex toys Epstein and Maxwell liked to use on us victims. Tony recalled that when he and I tried to leave Epstein behind, I relished the freedom.
“Like, she did not want to go back there,” he said.
Asked what I was trying to get away from, he said: “to stop being used and abused.” Tony remembered me saying I’d been forced to have sex with Prince Andrew, and he described worrying about my safety while I was in London.
When asked why, he responded, “Just the way she was talking to me. Like, she just sounded scared.” He recalled that when I returned from that trip, he saw the photograph of Prince Andrew with his arm around me.
And he remembered that after I escaped, Maxwell called him and asked if he could find any other girls for Epstein.
“She just said, ‘Hi. This is Ghislaine. Jeffrey was wondering if you had anybody that could come over,’ ” Tony said.
But the most poignant part of the deposition, for me, was when Maxwell’s attorney asked Tony if we’d seen each other since I’d told him goodbye in 2002.
“Nope,” he said, and his face looked truly sad.
It didn’t feel real, he said, that I was sitting across a table from him.
“It’s like talking to a ghost, or seeing one,” he said.
Later, Brad said he thought Tony simply needed to see me to put our unresolved breakup behind him. I hoped Brad was right.
The most important person my lawyers needed to question under oath, of course, was Maxwell herself.
A first deposition was scheduled, but would it happen?
Maxwell had avoided being deposed before.
In 2010, for example, Brad had served Maxwell with a subpoena related to his CVRA case.
Just hours before it was due to start, however, Maxwell’s lawyer called to say that she was leaving the country, with no plans to return, because her mother was ill.
Weeks later Maxwell was back on American soil as one of four hundred guests at Chelsea Clinton’s July 31 wedding in Rhinebeck, New York.
Still, Brad’s deposition never took place.
Now, six years later, Brad was looking forward to finally putting Maxwell in the hot seat at the Boies Schiller Flexner offices in Manhattan.
But less than twenty-four hours before, Maxwell’s lawyers challenged what’s known as pro hac vice—a temporary grant of permission for Paul Cassell and Brad, who were licensed in Florida, to represent me, their client, in New York.
The judge ruled that Siggy would be the one questioning Maxwell.
This was an unexpected curveball. “Pro hacs,” as these requests for temporary permissions are known, are rarely challenged.
Siggy was counsel of record and had been working day and night on my case including helping Brad prepare for the depo.
But still, she told me, “it’s different when you’re the one in the box. ”
“Don’t worry, Sig, Maxwell is going to take the Fifth,” Brad predicted.
“I mean, we know all the crimes that she’s committed—there’s no way she can not take the Fifth.
” Still, just to be safe, Siggy stayed up all night preparing two things: a lengthy list of questions she didn’t expect to get substantive answers to and a strategy to deal with the master manipulator she knew Maxwell to be.
The deposition began just after 9:00 a.m. on April 22, 2016.
After Maxwell was sworn in, Siggy asked her to state her address and her date of birth.
Then, Superwoman asked her first substantive question: “When did you first recruit a female to work for Mr. Epstein?” Maxwell acted confused.
“I don’t understand what you mean by female,” she said.
“I don’t understand what you mean by recruit. ”
Siggy didn’t blink. “Are you a female?” she asked.
Maxwell said yes. Then Siggy repeated her question.
It would take several back-and-forths before Maxwell finally said she’d first hired a woman who was forty or fifty years old to work for Epstein, probably in 1992.
This was going to be slow going, it seemed, but that was all right because, amazingly, Maxwell wasn’t taking the Fifth.
“Did you ever hire someone who was under the age of eighteen?” Siggy asked.
“Never,” Maxwell said.
“Did you invite Virginia Giuffre to come to Jeffrey Epstein’s home when she was under the age of eighteen?” Siggy continued.