British police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on Thursday, after years of turmoil over his association with Jeffrey Epstein, documents show he has been on the radar of US law enforcement for nearly 15 years.
Mountbatten-Windsor was named during the 2011 FBI investigation of Epstein, according to investigative documents recently released by the Justice Department. Mountbatten-Windsor has denied all allegations of misconduct involving Epstein.
In March of that year, agents flew to Australia after Epstein’s victim contacted federal prosecutors in South Florida, saying she had “information” on the late financier and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
The victim’s name has been redacted from several documents detailing the interview, but the details closely track the public and legal claims made by Virginia Giuffre, a prominent Epstein accuser who died by suicide last year.
Giuffre said Epstein abused her and that he and Maxwell trafficked her to other men, including Mountbatten-Windsor.
In an FBI interview, the woman said she was a locker-room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. Maxwell saw her reading a book on massage or anatomy and told her she was looking for a traveling masseuse, the woman told investigators.
She told FBI agents that she had traveled to London with Maxwell and Epstein and that they had gone to a nightclub in Mountbatten-Windsor, and that she and the then-Royal Maxwell had engaged in sexual activity at home. She also alleged sexual activity at Epstein’s Manhattan home, according to an FBI document.
Andrew has repeatedly denied engaging in sexual activity with Giuffre. In his Newsnight interview in November 2019, Andrew insisted he was elsewhere at the time of the alleged incident: “I was with the kids and I took Beatrice to Pizza Express in Woking for a party at four or five in the afternoon. And then the Duchess because [Sarah Ferguson] Away, we have a general rule that when one family member is away, the other stays.
The document no longer appears to be online, at least as initially indexed, but the Guardian has downloaded the file and its URL is on the Internet Archive. Another document appears almost verbatim, but with redacted names of the accused, found in plea filings that are online in public records.
After Epstein’s arrest, Mountbatten-Windsor appeared more prominently in law enforcement inquiries into Epstein, in private Department of Justice communications and public statements.
An internal DoJ memo dated 19 December 2019 revealed that prosecutors were interested in speaking with him. “We are in the process of obtaining the name of an attorney on Prince Andrew’s behalf. We have this contact information, and we plan to request an interview,” a footnote in the memo said.
Epstein died in prison several months ago while awaiting his Manhattan federal sex-trafficking trial. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021 for Epstein’s abuse of teenage girls.
Geoffrey Berman, the Manhattan US attorney overseeing the Epstein prosecution, has repeatedly criticized Mountbatten-Windsor for being unwilling to help their investigation. On 27 January 2020, Berman said Mountbatten-Windsor had offered “zero” cooperation in their Epstein investigation despite promises to help.
“Contrary to Prince Andrew’s public offer to cooperate with our investigation of Epstein’s co-conspirators, an offer communicated by press release, Prince Andrew has now completely closed the door on voluntary cooperation and our office is considering its options,” Berman said on 9 March 2020.
Prince Andrew has again tried to misrepresent to the public that he is eager and willing to cooperate with the ongoing federal criminal investigation into the sex trafficking and related crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates, even though the prince has not been interviewed by federal authorities and declined our interview four months ago. Berman said in a statement – a lawyer released today – that he would not be available for such an interview.
“If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation, our doors are open and we look forward to hearing from him when we can.”
Contact information for a spokesperson for Mountbatten-Windsor Press was not immediately available.
