Virginia Giuffre protected her little brother. Now he's fighting for her. - USA Today

Sky Roberts is continuing the advocacy work of his sister, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a key Jeffrey Epstein accuser who died by suicide.

Roberts is urging Congress to pass "Virginia's Law," which would eliminate the statute of limitations for sex trafficking crimes.

He is also calling for the full release of the remaining Jeffrey Epstein files.

Sky Roberts was supposed to be standing next to his big sister.

It was to be Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s day, watching the State of the Union Address after House Democrats introduced “Virginia’s Law,” named after her to eliminate the statute of limitations that has shielded sex traffickers such as the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Giuffre, a key Epstein accuser, died by suicide in April 2025.

Now her brother is trying to carry on her legacy. He is calling on Congress to pass her law and is urging the U.S. to release the rest of the Epstein files. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department has stopped its review after releasing about 3 million of 6 million pages. Trump has said America should move on.

“I am here to say proudly that what Virginia did for this world will not be in vain,” Roberts said during a press conference on Feb. 24, alongside other Epstein accusers and Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Suhas Subramanyam.

“She may have left this earth,” he said, pausing to catch his breath. “But her soul is still here. It lives in every survivor who decides to speak. It lives in in every victim who is still finding their voice and it lives in every person who refuses to accept the country where exploitation is met with immunity.”

Roberts has spent the past nine months speaking on behalf of his sister, sometimes with his wife Amanda. They often both still call her “Sissie,” Roberts’ childhood nickname for her.

“Virginia did not just survive, she fought. She pushed back a culture of silence,” he said, his pride showing through his voice. He wears a silver and blue butterfly pin to sympbolize hope and strength for survivors. “She proved what happens when an ordinary person decides they will not be erased.”

Now Roberts hopes he can continue the work of his big sister, the one who protected them as children.

Virginia Giuffre saved her brother's life

The siblings grew up with their parents among the Cypress trees and grassy horse fields in a rural area outside West Palm Beach. She was in kindergarten when he was born, she wrote in her 2025 memoir, "Nobody's Girl," published six months after her death.

Giuffre called him Skydy Bump, or just Skydy. He was named after their father.

His crib was in her room, and Giuffre, later wrote that “I felt as if he were my baby.” When he woke in the night, she comforted him.

When their parents walked around with beer cans in their hands, she carried him.

And when he and Giuffre were playing in a backyard sandpit one day, her little brother tugged on her T-shirt, pointing toward a snake. She grabbed him and ran to the house.

Her mom said she’s saved his life. It was a deadly water moccasin.

Her book also tells the story of a southern Florida childhood – of homemade bike ramps and treehouses, ponds with snapping turtles and a goat named Cordelius.

Five years older, she protected him when their parents were fighting, covering his ears, and she shielded him from abuse at the hands of their father.

She protected him before he even knew

Roberts didn’t know the lengths his sister had gone to protect him until they were adults and he read a draft of her book.

Part of the reason she was so afraid of Epstein, even as an adult, was she said he had threated her family.

At 16, Giuffre got a job as a locker room attendant at a nearby resort, Mar-a-Lago, where her father was a maintenance man.

Just before she turned 17, she met Epstein and Maxwell. Maxwell was later sentenced to prison for sex trafficking. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 whileawaiting trial on similar allegations.

She didn’t tell her family when Epstein began abusing her, she wrote.

She writes in her memoir that the abuse began when she was interviewing for a job as a masseuse: “My body couldn’t escape this room, but my mind couldn’t bear to stay, so it put me on kind of autopilot: submissive and determined to survive.”

The massages led to sex with Epstein and the men he trafficked her to, she wrote.

She thought about trying to leave. That’s when Epstein handed her a grainy photograph, she wrote.

“It was unmistakably my little brother. Skydy.”

“We know where your brother goes to school,” Epstein told her. “You must never tell a soul what goes on in this house.”

Her brother was 12.

“I had no choice. I believed, but to accept that and make the best of it – for Skydy’s sake, if not my own.”

Telling the truth and finding justice

Roberts saw how hard his sister pushed, even when no one seemed to believe her.

He stood by her when she accused Prince Andrew, once second in line to the throne, of abuse. He supported his sister as she told her story over and over, even when people dismissed and disparaged her. Andrew, who was stripped of his titles in 2025 and settled a civil suit with Giuffre Roberts in 2022, did not admit to wrongdoing and he hasn’t been arrested for sex crimes.

"She had a deep love for her survivor sisters and she had deep love for the millions of victims and surivvors around the world who may never be known by name, and whose lives mattered just the same," Roberts said.

"To say she trailblazed through obstacles is an understatements. She helped build a road for survivors to walk toward truth, toward dignity, toward justice," he said. "And we are here today to carry her torch down that road."

Her brother holds on to that now. And to how she was able to create a beautiful life with three children, even through her struggles.

Now he hopes people listen to her, through him: "Choose unity. Choose love. Choose the courage it takes to stand with survivors not only when it is easy, but when it is expensive, when it is uncomfortable and when it challenges powerful people."

It's why he says he will keep speaking out, traveling from his Florida home to Washington, D.C., spending an entire day talking with news crews and reporters.

"The only thing more powersful than hate is love. This is not going away," he said. "We will not stop until the truth … for Virginia and her survivor sisters … their lives are worth more than someone else’s reputation."

Laura Trujillo is a national columnist focusing on health and wellness. She is the author of "Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter's Search for Truth and Renewal" and can be reached at [email protected].