Inside the bitter courtroom battle over Virginia Giuffre’s $25million fortune seven months after her shock death

The carve up of Virginia Giuffre’s sizable wealth could begin as early as Friday, with lawyers set to meet in a Perth courtroom to battle over the royal millions.

Christian Giuffre – one of Virginia’s adult sons – is involved in the court battle but told the Daily Mail he was unlikely to show up for the early stages of legal action. He along with his brother are challenging claims from his late mother’s carer and barrister.

Answering the door at his family’s beachfront mansion in Perth, the 19-year-old politely declined to comment about the looming case, and added that his father Robert was not at home.

‘Probably not,’ he said when asked whether he would show up in person at the Supreme Court of Western Australia hearing, ‘I don’t really like lawyers’.

At stake is Giuffre’s estimated $25million estate, comprising a 2022 payout of up to $24.5million from the former Prince Andrew, whose title recently changed to simply Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

There was also $770,000 paid by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2009 and an undisclosed sum paid by his cohort Ghislaine Maxwell in 2017 after Giuffre sued her for defamation.

Virginia Giuffre’s fear of losing this money amid turmoil over her failed marriage had reportedly been weighing heavily on the 41-year-old when she sadly took her own life seven months ago, on April 25.

Despite the payout, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor strongly denies he was sexually involved with Ms Giuffre when she was 17. 

The money he paid to her, which did not include any admissions of liability, was allegedly partly his mother’s, from the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Duchy of Lancaster private funds. She provided funds so that the public would not have to pay.

Now, the people in Giuffre’s life are allegedly preparing to duke it out in court cases stretching across the world for a slice of the millions.

These include her sons, her estranged husband, housekeeper and carer, her Perth barrister, as well as her US-based brother and half-brother and a woman she alleged was an Epstein cohort.

The first hearing of several looming court actions will be held in the Supreme Court of Western Australia in central Perth near the magnificent Kings Park, which is named after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s great grandfather, King Edward VII.

The case management hearing is listed for civil proceedings between Virginia’s two sons, Christian Alexander Giuffre and his 18-year-old brother Noah Shane Giuffre, and their mother’s former lawyer, Perth barrister Karrie Louden, and her carer and housekeeper at the time of her death, Cheryl Myers.

Virginia’s two boys with Robert – they also have a 15-year-old daughter – applied in June to become administrators of her estate.

It had been estimated that Robert Giuffre, who had instigated separation proceedings but not finalised a divorce against Virginia, could inherit one-third of her estate. Their children would likely get the remaining two-thirds.

At the time of her death, Virginia was subject to a restraining order taken out by Robert in the Perth courts, which she said prevented her from seeing her children.

She owned four properties, including the $2.5million Perth house overlooking the Indian Ocean where Robert lived with their children, and the $1.3million farmhouse about 80km north of Perth where she lived.

Ms Louden and Ms Myers have mounted a legal challenge to prevent Virginia’s sons from being granted authority over the estate.

Christian and Noah Giuffre are listed as first plaintiffs in the action and defendants by counterclaim, with Ms Louden and Ms Myers as defendants, and then the plaintiffs in the counterclaim.

Meanwhile, one man will be representing, as it were, the ghost of Virginia, who died without a valid will.

The court is paying guardian and family trust expert Ian Torrington Blatchford $400 an hour after it was forced to appoint an interim administrator to oversee Giuffre’s estate during the legal dispute.

According to WA Supreme Court documents seen by the Daily Mail, Mr Blatchford is appointed as ‘the legal personal representative of the deceased in any legal proceedings or arbitration in which the deceased was a party prior to her death’.

These included proceedings by Robert Giuffre in WA, an action in the US Second Circuit Court of Appeal against Ghislaine Maxwell, the US District Court where Giuffre was the defendant in an action by Rina Oh Amen, and arbitration in which US attorney Alan Dershowitz was the defendant.

The documents stated that ‘the administrator is authorised as the deceased’s legal personal representative to do all things necessary in respect of the deceased’s memoir, ‘Nobody’s Girl’.

This included but was not limited to sourcing copies of all agreements or contracts with publishers Knopf Doubleday and Penguin Random House and with co-author, Amy Wallace.

It has also been reported that, from the US, Virginia’s brother Sky Roberts and her half-brother Danny Wilson had hired a Perth lawyer to challenge any claim by Robert Giuffre on his wife’s estate.