AS Prince Andrew, Duke of York, fifth in line to the throne enjoyed the slopes about his rented $42,000 a week luxury Swiss ski chalet this week, he was oblivious that in an American court his life was unravelling quicker than he was slaloming.

In the US District Court in West Palm Beach, 31-year-old mother of three Virginia Roberts was filing a motion as part of a broader lawsuit against prosecutors who accepted a plea bargain from billionaire Wall Street banker Jeffrey Epstein on child sex allegations.

SCANDAL: Dad of ‘sex slave’ Virginia Roberts claims she met Queen

The case had been going on since 2008 when the Brooklyn banker, who counted former President Bill Clinton among his close mates, was convicted on the lesser charge of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.

Police in Fort Lauderdale and the FBI were stunned Epstein’s lawyers were able to force prosecutors to accept the lesser charge in exchange for an 18-month jail term, later reduced to 13 months, when they apparently had damning evidence the financier was effectively keeping at least 17 underage sex slaves to service the needs of him and his rich and famous friends around the world and filming their exploits should those friends ever need to be reminded of who their friends were.News_Image_File: Convicted paedophile ... Jeffrey Epstein. Picture: Florida Department of Corrections

Lawyer for some of the women Brad Edwards had filed many motions over the past six or more years on behalf of his clients protesting the plea move, but on New Year’s Day he filed a 13-page motion, in which Roberts was only identified as “Jane Doe 3”, and attached “Document 279” in which she provided titillating details about how as a 17-year-old she had been forced to have sex with the Prince and others at various locations around the world in exchange for a life of riches, private jets and luxury holidays.News_Image_File: Shocking allegations ... Virginia Roberts with Prince Andrew in early 2001. Picture: Michael Thomas.

“Give the prince whatever he demands,” she alleged she was ordered by Epstein as she was flown to London to allegedly have toe-sucking bath time then sex with him, then later to New York for sex on a massage table then the Virgin Islands for him to watch girl-on-girl action with Russian models before she again had to sexual pleasure him on his leather armchair.

To suggest the motion was dynamite back in London would be an understatement with Buckingham Palace issuing a flurry of denials and going into full damage control not seen since the scandals of Squidgygate involving Princess of Wales Lady Diana more than 20 years ago or the Camillagate Tapes involving her then husband Prince Charles and his special consort now wife Camilla.News_Image_File: In overdrive ... Buckingham Palace went into damage control not seen since scandals of two decades ago. Picture: Steve Parsons /Getty Images

The palace thought their first flat denial, on behalf of the Queen’s second son Prince Andrew, that he had sexual relations with the then underage Roberts was enough, but they were clearly wrong. Two days later he was rushing down from the slopes of Verbier village in south-western Switzerland to answers questions from his family, meet with his legal and other advisers over the sordid claims that have again brought the House of Windsor into controversy.

The crisis is unlikely to be quelled with Ms Roberts now making deals with the British tabloids, speaking to US network giants about movie deals and also is finalising a book deal on her time as a “teenage sex slave” to the rich, privileged and famous. And make no mistake — Prince Andrew is not the only name to appear with some of the world’s richest socialites, politicians and personalities now being rightly or wrongly dragged into the sex storm that ultimately could see some of them — Prince Andrew included — forced to deny the allegations in that Florida Court.News_Image_File: More publicity ... Virginia Roberts is already talking movie and book deals.

THE BEGINNING

No stranger to controversy, Prince Andrew’s friendships and associations from his role as international playboy and UK’s special envoy for trade and investment has long raised eyebrows.

In December 2010, the prince was photographed by the now defunct News of The World newspaper walking through Central Park with his friend Epstein (under the headline “Prince Andy and the Paedo”) after the banker was released from jail.

It was a damaging image and brought into question, not for the first time, his choice of friends.

By March the following year and after a photograph emerged of the prince with his arm around the bare midriff waist of Ms Roberts, and admissions he had received a massage at Epstein’s Florida mansion 10 years earlier raised further question marks over his suitability to represent the nation on trade and investment issues particularly in conservative countries in the Middle East.

At that time the 27-year-old married Ms Roberts was speaking — albeit anonymously and being referred to as an Australian masseuse since she had married an Australian martial arts expert 10 days after they met in Thailand in 2002 and were living in Sydney for about 10 years — about dancing at a nightclub with the prince. There was no suggestion it was anything more than a dance, albeit a bad one with the prince grinning cheesily and grabbing her hips as he jumped about.News_Image_File: Global headlines ... Prince Andrew pictured with convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein.

She detailed how as a 15-year-old she was working as a changing room assistant in the spa of Donald Trump’s Florida country club, where her father worked in maintenance, when she was introduced to Epstein’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of press baron, British MP and all-round fraudster Robert Maxwell. It was Ghislaine who allegedly promised the wide-eyed girl she knew a powerful man looking for a travelling masseuse and she could be trained as one.

Roberts later met Epstein, lying naked on a massage table at his Palm Beach mansion, and was asked by him about her background to which she said she was a runaway and no longer a virgin. Another apparent masseuse at their side took her clothes off and told Roberts to do the same; Roberts then had sex with Epstein while the other woman fondled her. Roberts was paid US$200 in cash and told to come back the next day. She said she felt under pressure to have sex on that encounter but would allegedly spend the next four years servicing Epstein’s sexual demands for himself and for others. She claims after two years she was then “given” by Epstein to his rich friends and associates including heads of state, a world famous scientist, politicians and rich socialites.

News_Image_File: No longer laughing ... Prince Andrew, Duke of York, arrives at the Royal Albert Hall. Picture: Matthew Lloyd/ Getty Images

In 2001 she accompanied Epstein on a six-week tour of Europe and North Africa starting with a stay at Ghislaine Maxwell’s home in London’s up-market Knightsbridge. One morning Maxwell allegedly told Roberts “We’ve got to go shopping. You need a dress as you’re going to dance with a prince tonight”. She was bought a AUD$10,000 Burberry bag, a designer dress, perfume and make up.

That afternoon the prince turned up at Maxwell’s apartment, where Epstein was also staying, and was introduced to Roberts. Shortly after Maxwell played a guessing game and asked the royal how old he thought Roberts was and he correctly guessed 17. They all laughed then joked.

“Ghislaine made a joke that I was getting too old for Jeffrey, she said ‘he’ll soon have to trade you in,” Roberts later recounted. It was at that meeting the damning photograph of Prince Andrew with his arm around Roberts was taken, “I wanted something to show my mom”, Roberts recounted. The four then went out to dinner and later to the nightclub Tramp where she danced with her “sweaty” then 41-year-old prince.

In 2011 Roberts told the British press the evening ended with the dance but that Maxwell the next morning told her “you did well, he had fun".

Fast forward to this week and the woman gave a little more detail about her encounter and how she had allegedly become a “gift” from Epstein to the prince later that night and Epstein had paid her US$10,000. “It was made clear to me that my job was to do whatever pleased him.”

She said the pair took a bath together. “He started licking my toes, between my toes, the arches of my feet and then we went into the bedroom and he proceeded to make love to me so to speak. It wasn’t like rape but it wasn’t like love either. It was more like ‘I’m getting my business done’.”.

She said the prince never paid her, that was for Epstein to take care of the finances.

Around Easter of the same year she again met the prince when she was called up and told to go from Florida to New York to meet someone special at Epstein’s mansion. She says she was taken to the library and there was the prince sitting in an armchair next to a desk with a lot of photographs of semi nude young girls including herself.

He had a 21-year-old woman sitting on his knee but Maxwell escorted Roberts over and sat her on his other knee.

She was then allegedly told: “You should take him upstairs for a massage” and it was made clear she was there to have sex with him, an allegation the palace had flatly denied.

“I took him upstairs to the ‘Dungeon’,” Roberts told the British press this week. “He undressed and lay face down on the table. I started with his feet then his calves the way Jeffrey liked it.”

They met again a third time on Epstein’s Virgin Island mansion. News_Image_File: Luxury island ... Jeffrey Epstein's private Virgin Island mansion. Picture: Lawton/Splash NewsShe flew there with Epstein and Maxwell, his semipermanent companion, and hooked up with seven non-English speaking Russian models for a photo shoot. Roberts and the models were posed topless in provocative positions. She later met up with he prince again who with was with Epstein. Epstein allegedly told her to undress and kiss and touch the other girls in an orgy. “Then I stripped and I performed a sex act on Andrew,” she claims, a scenario the palace has vehemently rejected.

COVER UP CLAIMS

During the Epstein investigation and ultimate trial, court papers dated 2007 and titled “statement of undisputed facts” alleged he made attempts to cover up the scandal alleging tracking down some of his accusers and promising to look after them if they did not speak with the FBI. For those who refused he allegedly suggested “bad things” could happen. The allegation is contained in 13,000 papers of evidence US prosecutors have locked away. Epstein’s lawyers secured a deal with prosecutors that anyone else involved in his love trysts and orgies, including presumably the prince, would be given immunity from prosecution. The deal alone has been locked in secrecy as a condition of the plea. Epstein, according to documents lodged in court, actually bankrolled the legal fees of 10 potential witnesses who refused to answer questions.

News_Image_File: Countless women pleaded the ‘fifth” when asked under oath about sexual relations with Prince Andrew. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images.

These supposedly include other girls who were directly question about whether they had ever had sexual liaisons with the prince and pleaded the fifth amendment of legal silence on the grounds of self incrimination. In 2010 one former model Adriana Ross who worked for Epstein was asked whether she had seen evidence of royal underage sex to which she replied “I refuse to answer”. She was one of four named “co-conspirators” with another Yugoslav model Nadia Marcinkova, Epstein’s alleged “live in sex slave” who when asked if she had been made to perform a sex act on the prince replied simply “fifth”, as did Epstein former PA Sarah Kellen who has been accused in court of introducing underage girls to Epstein. When asked about Prince Andrew and allegation of child sex she replied: “On the instruction of my lawyer I must invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege.”

Locked away documents also detail apparently, in more than 500 pages of evidence, “letters of recommendation” apparently written by high flying friends of Epstein arguing his good character. The claim by Roberts lawyers was that he used his “significant social and political influence” to exert pressure for a plea deal. The palace issued a statement stating the prince would never interfere in a legal matter.

Epstein’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz who himself has been accused in the legal motion by Roberts of having sex with underage girls her, has sued Roberts and the lawyers who made all the “outrageous claims” on her behalf.

The prince returned to Windsor and briefed the Queen on his version of events. The palace has issued a total of three unprecedented public statements formally denying the under-age sex claims and calls now to the palace get referred to those three statements. Palace courtiers say there is nothing more to say but without Prince Andrew speaking himself the controversy is likely to linger. His wife Sarah Ferguson has spoken for him about how wonderful he is; her credibility however is in question after it was revealed Epstein lent her $30,000 to pay off a personal debt.

Scotland Yard has also come out with a statement saying it would investigate any underage sex claim if a formal complaint was made by Roberts, with a reminder that no one was immune from the law, as palace lawyers Harbottle & Lewis wrote to British media urging caution about writing Roberts’ claims and reminding outlets of the palace’s three denials. It is unlikely the prince would ever sue for defamation which would give the claims and other lurid details of partying at Epstein’s invitation in Thailand and elsewhere oxygen.

It’s a tough position for the prince but until he speaks publicly more claims will no doubt emerge and further tarnish his reputation, which many in England would argue was already beyond saving, but also that of his family. At one point it was claimed the Queen had met Roberts but Roberts’ father Sky Roberts later said he was mistaken.