"They will tell you, in politics, you have to watch who you follow."- JFK, Jr.

@ 1:30

PRINCE ANDREW'S FRIEND, GHISLAINE MAXWELL, SOME UNDERAGE GIRLS AND A VERY DISTURBING STORY. . .

Mail on Sunday (London, England). 2007, pages. 36

She recalls: 'Prince Andrew was there and Ghislaine and a couple of other girls my age. Andrew was very charming. I didn't know exactly who he was but felt that I knew him. She (Ghislaine) came down with a present for him – a latex puppet of him from Spitting Image.

'The room was very large, considering it was Manhattan. It was on East 71, with four floors. It was beautiful, like a museum, with relics from thousands of years BC. There were huge paintings. I didn't grow up poor, but I realised there was more money there than I could ever have imagined.

'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 made a lot of sexual jokes,' says Johanna. 'She had a very dirty sense of humour.

'There were pictures of her and Jeffrey and the Pope, and her and Jeffrey and Castro, and her and Jeffrey and Clinton.'

If the groping incident was shrugged off as a joke, it was in New York that Johanna got the first indications of something more seriously amiss.

Maxwell, one of seven children of Jewish parents, was born Jan Ludvik Hoch in the Czech mountain village of Slatinske Doly, now part of Ukraine and known as Solotvyno. He claimed not to have had a pair of shoes until he was seven.

He escaped Nazi occupation by fleeing to France as a teenager, but lost his parents, four siblings and most of his extended family in the Holocaust. After joining the Czech army in exile, he was evacuated to Britain and joined the British army under the name Ivan du Maurier, apparently after a cigarette brand. He fought in Normandy, met his wife a student at the Sorbonne and won the Military Cross for heroism on the Dutch-German border, which was pinned to his chest by Field Marshal Montgomery.

Throughout his life, he was a good friend to Israel, investing heavily in publishing, pharmaceutical and computer firms in the country. He met accusations he was an Israeli spy with furious denials and legal threats. Such speculation was fanned again after his death, when he was accorded almost a state funeral in Israel, attended by the prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, and the president, Chaim Herzog, and buried in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives. Conspiracy theorists have claimed that Mossad killed him because Israel refused him a loan and he threatened to retaliate.

"Jeff took her in and when she felt better she looked around and realised he could replace the lifestyle she had had – and what a lifestyle it was," says a friend. "She could go back to doing whatever she wanted. Previously the price of that had been having her father. Now the price was this guy. What they both enabled her to do was be herself. She could go off and be this madcap spirit."

Epstein's money opened doors but he did not have much of a social life, which is where Ghislaine stepped in. The dynamic was that Ghislaine organised a life that revolved around his nine-storey mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side (believed to be the biggest private residence in the city), a vast ranch in New Mexico called Zorro, and his private island in the Caribbean. There are also stories of helicopter rides (she became a pilot) to pick up Bill Clinton, of meetings with Fidel Castro and, of course, the mixings with royalty – including a sojourn with Epstein at Sandringham.

According to Wendy Leigh, journalist and author, who knew Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine's "social cachet primarily derives from her contact with Prince Andrew and to her willingness to show up for any fashion or beauty-related events. Celebrating the opening of a Manhattan store is one of Ghislaine's specialities." Where Ivana Trump, Joan Collins and Denise Rich rub shoulders, you will find Ghislaine. At an event to support the New York City Opera Thrift Shop she bought a pink velvet Dolce & Gabbana coat. She was spotted at a party thrown by Christie Hefner at the Playboy penthouse on Fifth Avenue where bunny girls served drinks and a drag act performed.

Her own parties are well attended. At one, in honour of Allegra Hicks, whose husband, Ashley, is the grandson of Lord Mountbatten, the 80 guests included Hollywood star Matthew Modine, the Kennedy family member Mrs Carole Radziwill, the PR guru Peggy Siegal and the socialite Julie Janklow, as well as a Rockefeller, along with the requisite sprinkling of countesses and billionaires.