A Florida woman who was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell to work for Jeffrey Epstein has claimed that she knew Virginia Roberts was underage when she was forced in 2001 to have sex with Prince Andrew.
Johanna Sjoberg testified in May 2016 that she was a 20-year-old student at Palm Beach Atlantic University when Maxwell, a stranger, approached her and offered her a job as a personal assistant. Sjoberg began working for Epstein in 2001, and was immediately forced to perform sex acts.
Sjoberg said that she knew another of the young women in Epstein’s orbit, Virginia Roberts, was underage.
Roberts had been recruited by Maxwell the year before, in 2000, while she was working as a locker room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
Roberts and Sjoberg would go on to encounter a long list of famous faces – among them Prince Andrew. He has always denied all accusations of sexual activity with Epstein’s accusers, and denied any wrongdoing.
Sjoberg’s testimony was unsealed on Wednesday night – part of a trove of almost 950 pages detailing Epstein’s relationships, friendships and actions. The documents are from a 2015 defamation suit filed by Roberts – now married as Virginia Giuffre – against Maxwell. The documents were sealed in 2017 and made public on Wednesday.
Johanna Sjorberg is pictured in West Palm Beach. She now runs a hair salon in Florida
Sjoberg was recruited at age 20 by Maxwell on the campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University where she attended school
Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell are pictured in 2001 at Maxwell’s London townhouse
One of the documents – a request by Roberts’ legal team to the judge to take more depositions – states: ‘Johanna confirms that she knew Virginia was underage when she met her on the trip to NY with Jeffrey in 2001 because Virginia couldn’t get into the casino and then later Johanna asked her and Virginia said she was 17.
‘Johanna testified that Virginia looked young.
‘Johanna added: ‘At the time I had the impression that she did not have a family or she had walked away from her family. And it seemed to me, you know, they had just sort of adopted her, not as a child, but they would take care of her.’
Sjoberg also claimed that, while Roberts was 17 and she was 20, they were all together in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse with Prince Andrew. Roberts would later say that she and Prince Andrew had sex that evening in Epstein’s house.
Sjoberg said that the Prince groped her breast.
‘Johanna confirmed that she witnessed Virginia when she was seventeen (17) in Jeffrey Epstein’s New York mansion with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell,’ the documents state.
‘Johanna also testified that Prince Andrew sat with Virginia and Johanna and took a picture with a puppet in his image that had its hand and Prince Andrew’s hand on their respective breasts.’
Sjoberg would repeat the story in a 2007 interview with a newspaper.
Jeffrey Epstein is pictured in March 2017 on the New York state sex offender registry
Epstein and Maxwell in an undated photo released by the court
Virginia Roberts has been fighting for almost a decade for justice
She said in 2007 that she returned to the apartment after some ‘sightseeing’ and ‘Prince Andrew was there and a couple of other girls my age. Andrew was very charming . . . She (Ghislaine) came down with a present for him — a latex puppet of him from Spitting Image.’
She added: ‘We had a picture taken.
‘Virginia, another girl there, sat on a chair and had the puppet on her lap. Andrew sat on another chair.
‘I sat on his lap — and he put his hand on my breast. Ghislaine put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast. Then Andrew put his hand on mine. It was a great joke. Everybody laughed. Ghislaine had a very dirty sense of humor.’
The duke paid a reported $12 million settlement to Roberts in 2022 over her claims that he sexually assaulted her when she was 17, which he has always denied. The claims were never tested before a court.
During his notorious interview in 2019 he said he had no recollection of ever meeting Roberts.
Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein are seen strolling in Central Park on December 5, 2010
According to Roberts’ motion, Sjoberg also testified that the magician David Copperfield dined with Epstein, and Copperfield ‘questioned me if I was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Copperfield’s rep for a comment.
Maxwell, the daughter of British media mogul Robert Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein. She is the only person to be tried and convicted for their role in the Epstein sex trafficking ring.
She was sentenced in June 2022, and is appealing her conviction.
Epstein socialized with Wall Street titans, royalty and celebrities before pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. He took his own life in 2019 at age 66 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Sigrid McCawley, Roberts’ lawyer, said some questions about who enabled Epstein have still not been answered.
‘The unsealing of these documents gets us closer to that goal,’ she said in a statement on Wednesday.