Virginia Giuffre, 41, renown as the teenage sex worker trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Prince Andrew, has died by suicide on 25 April 2025. In her most prominent suit, Giuffre alleged that she was forced to have sex with the U.K.'s Prince Andrew in London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2001. The prince denied the allegations, though was stripped of his patronages and banished by the British Royal Family. Queen Elizabeth II settled the lawsuit out of court for an undisclosed sum in 2022.

"The Prince and the Epstein Scandal,” produced by the BBC’s Panorama in 2019, stitched together Giuffre’s timeline of a 14-year-old runaway from Florida; who after being molested by a family friend turned to life on the streets; and ultimately came under the control of Ron Eppinger, 65, whose modeling agency "Perfect 10” was later raided by the FBI which led to charges of alien smuggling for prostitution, interstate travel for prostitution, and money laundering for which Eppinger pled guilty. Following the odyssey, Giuffre, 14, returned to her childhood home to live with her father, Sky Roberts, a maintenance manager at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.

At 17, Giuffre, working as a spa attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Spa, was approached by a spa patron Ghislaine Maxwell, who engaged her services as Jeffrey Epstein’s traveling masseuse. With no experience or training, the two quickly began grooming Giuffre to provide sexual services for Epstein and others under the guise of a trained professional massage therapist.

Between 2000 and 2002, Giuffre traveled between Epstein's residences in Palm Beach and Manhattan (Herbert N. Straus House); with additional trips to Epstein's Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, and private island Little Saint James; where she was allegedly trafficked to the billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, and the Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson. All deny this claim, and although modeling behemoth Jean-Luc Brunel said "I strongly deny having committed any illicit act or any wrongdoing in the course of my work as a scouter or model agencies manager,” he followed Jeffrey Epstein’s example in suicide. Giuffre speaks in The Prince and the Epstein Scandal: “I implore the people in the UK to stand up beside me, to help me fight this fight, to not accept this as being ok. Its not consent when you make me afraid to say No.

Consent occurs when one person voluntarily agrees to the proposal or desires of another. It is a term of common speech, with varied definitions, used amongst the institutions of society, law, medicine, politics, research, education, and human intercourse.

The term first appeared in Plato’s dialogues, “the very legitimacy of state authority is predicated upon the consent of those ruled,” and with respect to Plato the Enlightenment philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke went further.

Express Consent is unmistakable communiqué and indisputable, e.g. speech, signatures, clear gestures that are verifiable and witnessed. Informed Consent can only be given by a person who has an objective understanding and clear appreciation of the facts, implications, and consequences of their actions. Finally, Implied Consent is inferred from a person's inactions or compliance, e.g., fear, intimidation and silence.

The #MeToo Movement gathered around the latter: a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture where men and women began publicizing via social media their experiences of sexual abuse and harassment in 2017. Medical malpractice lawsuits center in and around Informed Consent. The American Medical Association (AMA) confirms that 1 in 3 clinicians are sued at least once throughout their career, and the AMA reports that nearly half of all mandatory medical liability insurance premiums increase every year. Generally, 8 of 10 cases that go to trial for medical malpractice enable physicians to prevail due to their demand of Express Consent from their patients. Finally, Plato’s view. “The state derives its power from a combination of factors, including the rule of law, the expertise and wisdom of its rulers, and the consent of the governed."

In Plato's “Crito,” Socrates, faced with a death sentence, refuses to escape, arguing that it would violate the Implied Consent he granted the Athenian state as a citizen. The agreement, informed by his residency in Athens, thus obligated him to obey their laws—even if and when they are unjust. Socrates’ refusal to escape, despite the state’s injustice, highlights from whence authority of democratic institutions comes. People consent to be governed in exchange for protection.

When John Locke took up the discussion during the Enlightenment, he was surrounded by absolute monarchies: a time when strong, extravagant, authoritative, war-prone powerhouses like France and Great Britain were subordinating large swaths of the world. Locke’s “Two Treatise of Civil Government” is the cornerstone of modern political thought, particularly for its emphasis on natural rights, limited government, and the social contract theory. But it was his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” which examined the origins of human knowledge, and the critical importance of the mind's capacity for understanding.

That it significantly influenced the key principles of the U.S. Constitution belies the State of Florida’s abject failure to intervene in the rape, sex trafficking and suicide of Virginia Roberts Giuffre. On Monday, The Independent asked President Trump for comment. "That whole situation is very sad. Her and others. Certainly, that's a horrible thing.”

It’s principle, not platitudes, that inform consent. To reside in a country, we offer our Implied Consent to be governed. To see a doctor we grant our Informed Consent to be treated. Finally, to be employed or even married we offer our Express Consent to comply with state and federal laws, even our employer’s often erroneous Standards and Practices. Yes, Virginia Giuffre could have sued Mar-a-Lago for her alleged sex trafficking experience, potentially holding the property and its owners accountable for enabling or facilitating the trafficking activities, but signed away those rights precipitously without any understanding of recourse, negligence, or civil conspiracy.

Despite the 22nd Amendment prohibiting anyone who has been elected president twice from ever being elected again, ’Trump 2028’ hats and T-shirts went on sale this week at the president’s online store. "I run the country and the world,” he told Time Magazine.

“But I know a place where we can go still untouched by men,” Giuffre writes, referencing Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence.” The album debuted in 1989—the same year 7-year-old Virginia Roberts Giuffre was first sexually abused—and was Henley’s homage to the Baby Boomers or “Me” Generation.

Often described as one of the most preeminent directors of his generation, David Fincher produced the video after extensive research. "Henley was referencing U.S. President Ronald Reagan when he wrote '…they’re beating plowshares into swords, for this tired old man we elected king.' So I dropped a clip of Oliver North testifying before Congress over the lines, 'the lawyers clean up all details, since daddy had to lie.'”

“I must’ve listened to that album 1000 times,” Giuffre said, when writing her memoir “The Billionaire’s Playboy Club.” The sheer decadence of the 1980’s emphasis on conspicuous consumption; laissez-faire economics: sudden shift toward political conservatism; and the hubris of the era’s self-proclaimed poster boy Donald Trump bore witness to shifting family values, and the erosion of the traditional nuclear family. The rise in divorce and single-parent households meant children were now pinch-hitting for their working and often absentee parent.

Many Baby Boomers, raised by parents who emphasized strict moral discipline, would inherit the Civil Rights Movement and Sexual Revolution. Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills was all the rage; wife swapping and swingers clubs were turning the page; and their 5:00pm Martini Hour call on the dot came at the cost of latchkey kids who saw a decline in child health, the rise of childhood obesity, and the missing children crisis.

In 1989, the Boomers produced approximately 2 million runaways in the United States who were often victims of sexual or physical abuse, in most cases by a parent, according to Child Protective Services. Others were called “throwaways,” living on the streets, and is where we found our ingénue, 14, and a synopsis of her self-penned autobiography:

Sitting on the shoreline for 3 days, one can see everyday the sun rise and also fall, the only constant ever-fixed mark the horizon. Wind-whipped by earth and sky, dark clouds roll by as a black stretch limousine appears in the corner of my eye. I don’t know when it turned toward me or why, the day my innocence died…