Details are emerging about differences between Prince Andrew and his one-time buddy Jeffrey Epstein.
By: Mike Mustiglione
The British prince’s longtime friendship with Epstein – which continued after Epstein was imprisoned for having sex with a minor — has caused a firestorm of controversy.
The prince and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, had reportedly borrowed $24,000 from Epstein. “I abhor pedophilia and any sexual abuse of children,” The Duchess of York is said to have once commented.
Accuser Virginia Guiffre has said Epstein made her have sex with the prince when she was only 17, according to “Dateline NBC.”
The prince “is currently what convention demands we style as “in the news for all the wrong reasons,” according to guardian.com. “The story has long concerned his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who, at the time of his death in jail earlier this month, was awaiting trial for running an international underage sex-trafficking operation. It also concerns Virginia Giuffre (then Roberts), who alleges she was recruited as a child as Epstein’s sex slave, and on whose bare hip Prince Andrew’s hand is pictured in a now-infamous photograph. Giuffre claims she was forced to have sex with the Duke of York three times when she was 17. He categorically denies this.”
However, the Guardian’s piece continued, “rather than Epstein’s apparent suicide making it all go away, the focus on the prince’s friendship with him, and its nature, has intensified. Some of Epstein’s private-jet logs, on which Prince Andrew’s name reportedly occurs several times, have been uncovered, while footage of the prince peering cagily round the door of Epstein’s New York mansion, some time after he was released from jail, has emerged. Last week, emails emerged in which a literary agent recounted seeing Andrew in said mansion, receiving a foot massage with Epstein, apparently from two well-dressed young Russian women. The duke was said to be complaining about public focus on his night-time activities.”
In a statement released in late August, the prince called it “a mistake and an error” to spend time with Jeffrey Epstein in 2010, after he was a convicted sex offender. The prince said he saw his friend “infrequently probably no more than only once or twice a year.” He said he did not “see, witness or suspect any behavior of the sort that subsequently led to [Epstein’s] arrest and conviction.”
He added, “His suicide has left many unanswered questions and I acknowledge and sympathize with everyone who has been affected and wants some form of closure… I deplore the exploitation of any human being and would not condone, participate in, or encourage any such behavior.”
