Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to support lawmakers as they introduced ‘Virginia’s Law’ — a measure to help victims sue alleged sex abusers by making it more difficult for them to evade lawsuits.

The bill, named after Virginia Giuffre, Jeffrey Epstein’s most high-profile accuser, would remove the statute of limitations – the time in which a lawsuit can be filed — in sexual abuse civil cases nationwide while also creating new legal options for survivors.

“People refuse to accept silence at the end of the story. It’s that simple,” Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, a co-sponsor, said.

“It cannot be, when something this dastardly and this terrible and this heart wrenching happens for years,” he said.

The bill also includes language stripping what supporters called legal loopholes for alleged abusers operating in different jurisdictions, citing Epstein’s use of his private Caribbean island as a case in point.

“Survivors of Epstein’s abuse were ignored. They were doubted, they were silenced, they were dismissed,” Schumer said. “And even when the truth finally came out, even when the world finally listened, too many survivors were still told by the law, it’s too late.”

States have varying rules that disallow abuse survivors from bringing civil cases if too much time passes. For example, Alabama has a two-year civil statute of limitations, which can be extended if the victim is a minor, while Texas has no limit on when a case can be brought.

Schumer argues Virginia’s Law gives survivors of abuse across the nation the time to process traumatic events before bringing civil cases and removes automatic protections for abusers who wait out legal deadlines to file suit.

“That’s a system that protects abusers by waiting survivors out. Our law, Virginia’s Law changes that,” Schumer said. “It allows survivors to seek accountability when they’re ready, when they’re strong, supportive, able to face the weight of civilizations, of civil litigation, sometimes it takes years to recuperate from the horror that occurred.”

Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer representing several Epstein survivors, agreed with Schumer that the current limitations are too strict for victims and should be much more flexible.

“Many survivors don’t come to terms with their abuse until many, many years later, and they deserve the right to be able to bring an action when they’re ready. That’s what this law does,” McCawley said.

“It is heartbreaking to be here announcing this without [Virginia], but I will tell you that her voice is being heard loud and clear,” she said.

“She is saying all Americans, Democrats, Republicans, independents, all Americans need to come together and pass this law. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the thing we need to do now,” she said.

Holding a photograph of Virginia Giuffre, her family members stood with survivors.

Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, and his wife both got emotional as they honored her.

Roberts spoke through tears.

“I want to begin with a single word, a word that meant everything to my sister, a word we will not stop fighting for until real justice is served and that word is ‘change,’” he said.

“We are holding an overwhelming mix of grief, loss and pride, and if our voices shake and our tears fall, it is only because of the depth of our love for our sister,” he said. “Grief without action is another kind of silence, and Virginia did not survive what she survived just to be silenced again.”

Lawmakers and survivors said they hope Virginia Giuffre’s legacy can live on in future investigations into Epstein.

“What Virginia did was build the bridge, and now we are crossing that bridge because of the bravery and the words and the wisdom, and I’m sorry for the loss of Virginia, where she has left something so powerful for all victims,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, another co-sponsor, said.

Virginia Giuffre’s brother has penned a furious open letter to Ghislaine Maxwell as she refuses to testify over her links to pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.

The disgraced socialite declined to answer questions from a congressional committee on Monday, vowing to only speak out if she is granted clemency by President Trump.

Sky Roberts, whose sister became the poster child for survivors of Epstein and who tragically ended her own life last year, railed against Maxwell in a letter that was delivered to the committee and also shared on social media.

“Ghislaine Maxwell, you were not a bystander,” Roberts wrote. “You were not ‘misled’. You were a central, deliberate actor in a system built to find children, isolate them, groom them, and deliver them to abuse.

“You used trust as a weapon. You targeted vulnerability and turned it into access. That is not a mistake. That is not poor judgment. That is predation.”

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In his letter, Roberts drew attention to his sister’s description of Maxwell.

“Ghislaine was a monster; she was often more vicious and cruel than Epstein. Put it this way: Epstein was Pinocchio, and she was Gepetto. She was the guy controlling,” Giuffre wrote in her memoir, Nobody’s Girl, which was published after her death.

Roberts slammed Maxwell for the part she played in building a “template of exploitation” that was used to abuse young girls.

“The suffering was not incidental to what you did. It was the point. It was your reward for a sadistic system you helped create.”

Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Epstein, is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking, and invoked her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent during a House Oversight Committee deposition Monday morning.

David Oscar Markus, a lawyer for Maxwell, said he advised his client to remain silent given her ongoing appeal to her 2021 conviction, but said she was “prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.”

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Maxwell remained silent when faced with questions about her knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities, but told lawmakers that both President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton were innocent of wrongdoing.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, who subpoenaed Maxwell, said he was “disappointed” in her deposition. Comer told The Independent the committee considered giving her immunity, but ultimately decided against it after speaking with survivors.

“This was something new today, obviously that’s not for me to decide, that’s for the president to decide,” Comer said.

While the president has acknowledged his ability to pardon Maxwell, he has not expressed an interest in doing so.

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Roberts said in his letter that forgiveness was “neither owed, nor offered” to Maxwell, and he urged Congress to continue investigating why she had been moved to a minimum-security prison after an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

He ended with another direct quote from Giuffre, in which she addressed her tormenter directly:

“Ghislaine, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell,” Giuffre wrote before her death. “Trapped in a cage forever just like you trapped your victims.”

Maxwell’s deposition followed the Justice Department’s release of three million pages of documents related to the government’s Epstein files.

Many of the documents are emails between Epstein, Maxwell, and third parties, and it is widely believed that Maxwell could shed more light on those involved.

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) — As measles cases surge across the United States, according to the Virginia Department of Health, six cases have been reported in the Commonwealth in 2026 so far. That’s already one more case than we saw in all of 2025.

Cali Anderson, Senior Epidemiologist with the Central Virginia Health District, said the increase in prevalence is concerning.

It has been increasing for the past several years, and around the country we’re seeing the same things with rates increasing. We have had a number of very large outbreaks around the US. So far in Virginia, we have not had that happen and we have only had individual cases so far this year,” Anderson said. “We’re likely to see those numbers keep increasing, unfortunately.”

Five of 2026’s cases were in Virginia’s Northern region, with one in the Central region. The ABC13 viewing area is located in the Southwest region, with no reported cases yet; however, Anderson warns that everyone needs to be vigilant.

READ MORE: Health officials investigate confirmed measles case at Virginia airport

“The biggest thing with measles that makes it so concerning is that it is very contagious. So, for individuals that are unvaccinated or not immune to the virus, they have a 90% chance of getting infected if they’re exposed to it,” she said. “For example, if you are in a room of 10 people and one individual with measles walks into the room, everyone else is unvaccinated, nine of them are going to get it.”

The disease is incredibly contagious and difficult to contain.

It is very, very hard to contain once it starts spreading, and that’s why we see such massive outbreaks once they get into pockets of unvaccinated communities,” Anderson said. “That’s a real big concern with measles is that it spreads like wildfire and unfortunately, measles can be very serious.”

In some patients, measles can cause hospitalization or even lead to death.

“Typically, we see about one in every five measles cases ends up having to be hospitalized. It can lead to some serious side effects like pneumonia, conjunctivitis, we can see deafness. Then another big thing with measles is it causes an immune memory loss. Your immune system recognizes a lot of viruses and things that you’ve seen in the past, but when measles comes in, it tends to wipe out that memory. So, now, when your body is exposed to common things like the flu or RSV, or even the common cold, it doesn’t know how to react to them anymore. It has to build that immunity back up,” Anderson said.

According to VDH, vaccination is the best way to protect yourself and your family.

“Just one dose of the measles MMR vaccine will provide 93 percent efficacy against measles, and then after two doses it’s 97 percent effective,” Anderson said. “Nothing is 100 percent, but if we go back to our room example, if we have 100 people in the room and everyone is fully vaccinated with two doses, only three of them have the chance of getting it.”

In Virginia, about 86 percent of seven-year-olds have the full vaccination series, according to VDH. However, in the Central Virginia region, that number is only 70.12 percent.

The vaccine is the number one prevention for measles,” Anderson said.

Measles symptoms can take up to three weeks to show after exposure; however, people can be contagious four days before a measles rash even begins. The initial symptoms are similar to a common cold or the flu, making it even more likely to spread.

“In the first stage, we typically see a high fever of greater than 101, and we usually start to see a runny nose, some red watery eyes and cough. We refer to it as the three C’s of measles: cough, coryza, which is that runny nose, and then conjunctivitis, which is the watery red eyes. Then, about three to five days later, that’s when the rash starts. We typically see the rash present on the face, and then it will spread downwards across the body,” Anderson said.

If you or someone you know begins showing symptoms, VDH recommends letting your doctor know as soon as possible.

“If you think your child or someone that you know might have measles, make sure you’re notifying the healthcare place that you are visiting before you go in. You want to make sure that you’re mentioning that it is a measles-like rash, or you had exposure to measles or something like that. That will help to make sure that we’re limiting our healthcare exposure, because then we can work on the back end to try to limit lobby exposure or anywhere else. That helps to just make sure that we keep the exposure down and our numbers down,” Anderson said.