Of the U.S. presidents and other powerful men rushing to distance themselves from Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew may face the biggest challenge in separating himself from the wealthy financier and accused sex trafficker.
While Bill Clinton and Donald Trump have asserted that they stopped associating with Epstein in the early 2000s, Andrew’s friendship with the high-flying hedge-fund manager continued through at least the end of 2010. This is after Epstein, 66, was investigated on suspicion sexually abusing dozens of underage girls at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida — and after Epstein had served 13 months in jail for solicitation, under a controversial “sweetheart” deal negotiated with federal prosecutors.
Since Epstein’s indictment Monday on new sex trafficking charges, new details continue to emerge about how much the Duke of York may have been immersed in Epstein’s jet-set orbit of parties with pretty young women.
In a new report, the Daily Beast shares interviews with several sources who said they were present at different parties at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in the early 2000s, presided over by Epstein and Andrew, the prince once playfully dubbed “randy Andy” by the British media.
The Daily Beast also said that Andrew, 59, became friendly with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s high-society ex-girlfriend and alleged “madam.” Maxwell is alleged to have played a critical role in recruiting young women to attend Epstein’s parties and in grooming underage girls to be part of his sex-trafficking operation, The Cut reported.
Sources told the Daily Beast that Andrew, “taking a leaf from Epstein’s playbook,” also used the Oxford-educated Maxwell — daughter of publisher Robert Maxwell — to gain access to “smart women” in London.
In at least one case, Andrew used his private apartment at Buckingham Palace to get acquainted with women Maxwell found for him among her high-society connections, the Daily Beast reported.
A former friend of Maxwell’s told the Daily Beast that she was invited by Maxwell to attend “an intimate dinner” at Buckingham Palace hosted by Andrew.
“Ghislaine procured women like me for Andrew,” the woman told the Daily Beast. “It was a network. She was on the party circuit and she was bringing Andrew around, meeting young women.”
The woman didn’t specify when this dinner happened, but she said she and a friend arrived at Buckingham Palace and were escorted to Andrew’s private apartment.
“Ghislaine was there, and it was clear immediately that I had been brought to the dinner as a sex object,” the friend told the Daily Beast. “Andrew sat next to me on the sofa and kept reaching over to hold my hand.”
The woman jokingly tried to put Andrew off by asking him to take her on a tour of the palace.
“The next thing I knew, I was walking hand in hand with Prince Andrew through Buckingham Palace,” the woman said. “As a joke, he took me out on the balcony and I waved to the non-existent crowd.”
After they returned to his apartment, Andrew suggested they all go to a club, but the woman told the Daily Beast she begged off, saying, “‘I have to go to work in the morning’ and left with my friend.”
The Daily Beast said there were a number of reasons that Andrew sought and maintained a friendship with Epstein, going back to the 1990s. For one thing, Andrew needed money to maintain a royal lifestyle. Unlike older brother Charles, who will one day become king and draws income from a vast royal estate, Andrew mostly relies on his mother.
Andrew “benefited from Epstein’s largesse,” including when the duke prevailed upon the financier to help pay off the debts his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, owed to a former assistant, The Daily Beast said. But in the years after his 1996 divorce from Ferguson, Andrew also was drawn to Epstein’s extravagant homes and travel and shared his “insatiable appetite for young women,” the Daily Beast added.
Andrew’s contacts with at least one of Epstein’s reported “sex slaves” have been documented in lawsuits and other court filings over the years. One court document, obtained by The Guardian in 2015, alleged that Epstein forced Virginia Roberts Giuffre, then 17, “to have sexual relations” on three separate occasions with “a member of the British Royal Family, Prince Andrew (a/k/a Duke of York).”
Giuffre, by the way, has alleged that Maxwell brought her into Epstein’s orbit after Maxwell spotted the teenager working as a changing room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, near Epstein’s home. Ghislaine Maxwell invited Roberts to come work for Epstein and train to be a masseuse.
The encounters between Giuffre and Andrew are alleged to have happened in New York, in London and in the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of an “orgy with numerous other under-aged girls,” the Guardian reported. Court documents say that Epstein allegedly instructed Roberts “to give the prince whatever he required” and report back on the details of “the sexual abuse,” the Guardian said.
Giuffre also described her encounters with Andrew in a 2011 Daily Mail interview after photographs were published in 2010 showing Andrew walking with Epstein in Central Park.
Jeffrey Epstein threw a party in honor of Prince Andrew in 2010 https://t.co/IPiYrjYN2U pic.twitter.com/Gkm5nc4XTA
— Distinct Today (@DistinctToday) July 12, 2019
Giuffre’s accusations and the Central Park photos sparked an uproar in the British media. Ferguson apologized in a Daily Telegraph interview for her “gigantic error in judgement” for taking $18,000 from Epstein; Andrew eventually stepped down as the special U.K. representative for trade.
Buckingham Palace has never denied that Andrew was friends with Epstein, but it has repeatedly denied that he engaged in any sexual impropriety with minors.
Buckingham Palace reiterated this position in a statement issued this week to the Daily Beast, saying “The Duke of York has not visited any home of Mr Epstein or met with him since November 2010 when the photo in Central Park was taken. … As we have repeatedly said, any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue.”
The Buckingham Palace official Twitter account, meanwhile, posted photos of Andrew attending a garden show.
Later that day @TheDukeOfYork visited the RHS Garden Harlow Carr to officially open the new Edwardian Garden. #RoyalVisitYorkshire pic.twitter.com/5dGd9I0LFn
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) July 12, 2019
Actually, it’s been reported that Andrew met with Epstein after November 2010. The Daily Beast reported that in December 2010 Epstein hosted a lavish dinner party for Andrew at his Manhattan home. Other dinner guests included Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos and other members of New York City’s media elite.
With Epstein’s arrest over the weekend, it’s not likely that these statements from Buckingham Palace will quiet talk about how much Andrew knew about his one-time friend’s alleged crimes.
The Daily Beast wrote: “As the world of Jeffrey Epstein continues its slow-motion implosion, there seems a significant risk that Prince Andrew may yet find himself buried in the rubble.”
