Emails say Prince Andrew met pedophile Jeffrey Epstein while the financier was still under house arrest…contrary to what the royal told Newsnight
Court reports allege the pair met multiple times in 2010
Prince Andrew is facing fresh questions about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after emails emerged that he met the housebound pedophile, despite promises to BBC Newsnight.
Court documents allege Duke met the billionaire pedophile while under house arrest for sex crimes at his Florida home.
Speaking to the BBC’s Emily Maitlis in 2019, Andrew, 63, said he had cut contact with Epstein after meeting him only once after his release from prison in New York in December 2010.
Asked: ‘Have you seen him or spoken to him again?’ The Duke said: ‘No.’
But in an email sent on June 14 that year, Epstein told then-JP Morgan CEO Jess Staley that he had lunch with the royals and they kept in touch, adding: ‘Andrew just sat next to me at dinner.’
Andrew said he cut off contact with Jeffrey Epstein after meeting him in New York in December 2010. But an email suggests they met in June of that year
Speaking to the BBC’s Emily Maitlis in 2019, Andrew, 63, said he had cut contact with Epstein after meeting her in 2010.
Court papers said: ‘On April 15, 2010, Epstein wrote to Prince Andrew, Duke of York. [redacted word] “Jess Staley will be in London on the 22nd. I think you should come and see me if you’re in town”.
‘Prince Andrew replied that he was unavailable but would visit New York in the near future,’ according to the Mirror.
It comes after a message written by the billionaire pedophile last month and revealed as part of a court case in the US that he presented Andrew as a potential investor in 2011, despite the royal claiming to end all contact in 2010.
Epstein’s victims then urged Prince to speak to the FBI, which he has so far refused to do. It is not known whether Andrew knew that Epstein had mentioned him in the email exchange.
The victims’ representative, US attorney Spencer Covin, told the Mirror: ‘It appears that Epstein was overselling her relationship with Prince Andrew or that the Duke was not entirely truthful about the end of their friendship.’
One victim, who received compensation under the Epstein victims’ compensation program, said: ‘The emails raise serious questions. Why would Jeffrey appreciate him as an investor if he no longer communicates?’
An email written by Epstein to JP Morgan on August 31, 2011 suggested Andrew as a potential investment partner because ‘he is now allowed to make money’.
It was released as part of a lawsuit against the bank by the US Virgin Islands which claims it is ‘complicit in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein’.
In a counterclaim, JP Morgan accused the region’s officials of taking money and favors from Epstein because of his abuse of women on the island.
Andrew says goodbye to a friend at Jeffrey Epstein’s New York home in 2010
Epstein served nearly 13 months in prison in 2008 after being convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl.
Epstein served nearly 13 months in prison in 2008 after being convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl.
But Prince Andrew continued his friendship with the criminal after his release.
In 2019 he told the BBC that his relationship with Epstein and the opportunities he was given were ‘very useful’ and said he did not think the photo in which he is seen with his arm around Virginia Roberts – now known as Virginia Geuffre – was ‘ever taken’.
Jeffrey Epstein took his own life in 2019 while in prison.
Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell – who was also a friend of Andrew’s and appeared in the background of the photo of him and Miss Giffrey – is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
Prince Andrew has been contacted for comment by MailOnline.
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