A woman once described as Ghislaine Maxwell’s ‘slave’ has sued the author of a major book about the Jeffrey Epstein case for defamation.
Emmy Tayler claimed that Julie Brown libeled her in ‘Perversion of Justice’ by ‘falsely identifying her as a co-conspirator, aider and abettor, facilitator in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse pyramid scheme’.
Tayler, 47, a British actress, sued Brown and publishers HarperCollins in federal court in Florida seeking more than $75,000 for the ‘enormous and continuing distress, hurt, humiliation, and embarrassment’ she claims to have suffered.
Brown is a Miami Herald journalist whose reporting on Epstein is widely-credited with bringing the child sex abuse scandal to light.
However the lawsuit makes no mention of separate claims against Tayler in the past in other lawsuits.
They include a description by Epstein victim Johanna Sjoberg that Ghislaine Maxwell referred to Tayler as her ‘slave’.
During Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial one of her victims agreed that a woman called ‘Emmy’ who was from the UK took part in group sexualized massages when she was a teenager.
Emmy Tayler, pictured, is suing author Julie Brown for alleging she arranged Jeffrey Epstein’s massage schedule. Tayler once worked as an assistant to Ghislaine Maxwell, and is said to have been described by Maxwell as her ‘slave’
Brown, pictured, is a reporter for the Miami Herald. She blew open the Epstein scandal, with her book Perversion of Justice now triggering a defamation lawsuit from Tayler
Tayler’s lawsuit says that ‘despite claiming Perversion of Justice was the product of serious investigative journalism’ it unfairly targeted Tayler.
The lawsuit states: ‘The book falsely stated that Plaintiff worked for and arranged Jeffrey Epstein’s “massage” schedule in 2005 when he was a prolific pedophile who regularly sexually abused underage girls under the guise of paying them to receive “massages.”
‘This defamatory statement therefore falsely paints Plaintiff as a co-conspirator and aider and abettor of Epstein who facilitated the pedophilia of a notorious child abuser’.
The lawsuit highlights a passage in the book in which a woman called Jane Doe describes how when she was 14 Tayler ‘arranged Epstein’s massage schedule’ at his Palm Beach mansion.
The passage describes how Tayler took the woman up the stairs to the bathroom and unfolded a massage table before saying: ‘Jeffrey will be right up’.
Epstein arrived and sexually assaulted Jane Doe, an experience she called ‘disgusting’ in the book.
Tayler claims that she did not live in Palm Beach at the time in question – around 2005 – and did not work as Epstein’s assistant.
Epstein victim Johanna Sjoberg, pictured, says she once heard Ghislaine Maxwell refer to Tayler as her ‘slave’
The lawsuit states that Tayler worked in London and New York as an assistant to Maxwell, not Epstein.
Due to the claims in the book Tayler’s reputation has been ‘gravely damaged’ and has suffered mental anguish, it is claimed.
Tayler ‘fears leaving her home’ in the UK and her insomnia has been ‘severely aggravated’ and she has been forced to put in place ‘additional security measures’.
The lawsuit states that HarperCollins has removed the offending passage from the electronic and audio iterations of the book but reinstated a sample with defamatory statements on its website.
Tayler claims that the publisher and Brown published statements they claimed were facts but were ‘intentionally false’ with a ‘reckless disregard for the truth’.
Tayler reportedly fled the US in the wake of Epstein’s arrest in 2019 and was last known to be living in Oxford.
Her name has appeared a number of times in court cases related to the Epstein case and she appears on flight logs for his private jets.
In a deposition for a defamation case brought by Virginia Roberts – Prince Andrew’s accuser – against Maxwell, Sjoberg gave a vivid account of an encounter with her.
Epstein and Maxwell are pictured in an undated photo. He killed himself in jail in August 2019, while Maxwell was jailed for 18 years for child sex trafficking in June
Sjoberg said: ‘At that point, I met Emmy Taylor (sic), and she took me up to Jeffrey’s bathroom and he was present. And her and I both massaged Jeffrey. She was showing me how to massage.
‘And then… he got off the table, she got on the table. She took off her clothes, got on the table, and then he was showing me moves that he liked. And then I took my clothes off. They asked me to get on the table so I could feel it. Then they both massaged me’.
Asked how Maxwell referred to Tayler, Sjoberg replied: ‘She called her slave’.
During Maxwell’s trial Jane, one of her victims, also mentioned an ‘Emmy’ from the UK.
Maxwell’s lawyer Laura Menninger asked: ‘You talked about a third woman named Emmy, who was a participant in the abuse, correct?’
Jane said that was correct.
Menninger asked: ‘You said that Emmy was British?’ to which Jane said yes.
Menninger said: ‘And she was involved in the sexual contact, right?’
Jane said: ‘Yes’.
To that, Menninger asked: ‘And she was in these group sexualized massages with you, correct?’
Jane said that was correct.
Maxwell, 60, was jailed for 20 years last month after being convicted of recruiting and trafficking underage girls for Epstein.
DailyMail.com has reached out to HarperCollins and Tayler’s lawyer for comment.