(New York) An airplane pilot who worked for 30 years for the deceased billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sex crimes, recalled Tuesday at the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell to have transported celebrities such as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, without bringing charges against them.
In Manhattan federal court, former socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, 59, has been appearing since Monday for recruiting underage girls from 1994 to 2004 and making them available to Epstein for sexual purposes.
She claims to be innocent and pleads not guilty to all six counts.
The financier, with whom she had had a relationship and of whom she was one of the main collaborators, had committed suicide in prison in the summer of 2019 before being tried.
Asked Tuesday by one of the defendants’ lawyers, former Epstein pilot Lawrence Visoski replied in the affirmative when asked if he remembered ever having flown in the billionaire’s plane Prince Andrew, Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, names already mentioned among personalities who have dated Jeffrey Epstein.
Prince Andrew, second son of the Queen of England Elizabeth II, is being sued in New York for sexual abuse by a victim of the American billionaire, facts he has always disputed.
The pilot, who used to transport the guests of Jeffrey Epstein, owner of residences in New York, Florida, New Mexico or the Virgin Islands, also remembered actor Kevin Spacey.
He then explained that he had never witnessed inappropriate behavior on the part of passengers, while specifying that his cockpit was closed during the flight. Then he added that he had “certainly not seen” a passenger having sex with minors.
According to him, Ghislaine Maxwell was the “number two” of Jeffrey Epstein, who was often in charge of planning flights. The daughter of press magnate Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991, is prosecuted for sex trafficking of a minor and faces life imprisonment at the end of a trial which is to last six weeks.
Lawrence Visoski was also questioned about one of the key witnesses for the prosecution, a minor at the material time according to prosecutors. He replied that in his eyes it was more like “a mature woman”.