PRINCE ANDREW AND THE GREAT EPSTEIN COVER-UP
BRITAIN’S Prince Andrew is set to come under renewed pressure to tell the FBI what he knows about Jeffrey Epstein as a new book reveals how the US government covered up the billionaire paedophile’s appalling crimes and protected his powerful friends.
The astonishing account details how prosecutors ‘conspired’ with the tycoon’s lawyers to hide the industrial scale of his child sex abuse.
The news has prompted some victims to once again demand that the prince co-operates with investigators probing Epstein’s trafficking network. Prince Andrew, who has been accused of sleeping with one of Epstein’s former sex slaves, has so far refused to do so.
The cover-up – exposed in forensic detail for the first time by Bradley Edwards, a lawyer for more than 20 of the victims – means the billionaire’s wealthy and influential friends, including the prince, have so far avoided scrutiny.
Crucially, the book also discloses how socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, 58, was a pivotal figure in Epstein’s ‘sex cult’ for more than a decade, allegedly helping him recruit and groom underage girls.
Edwards’s account of Maxwell’s alleged involvement raises serious questions about why she has never faced justice. Her whereabouts remain a mystery.
The book also claims:
Epstein and Maxwell asked Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts to carry Epstein’s baby – and then hand the child over to them when it was born;
Ms Roberts’s ex-boyfriend recalled how the then 17-yearold rang him to say she had been lined up by Maxwell to have sex with Prince Andrew – but did not want to;
During formal legal proceedings, Epstein’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz refused to deny claims made by Ms Roberts that she was paid to have sex with Prince Andrew. Last night Mr Dershowitz said Edwards had ‘mischaracterised’ and ‘distorted’ what he had said;
Andrew may have stayed at Epstein’s New York mansion at the same time as a woman who the book suggests became Epstein’s ‘chief recruiter’ of girls;
Maxwell allegedly groomed Epstein’s first underage victim in 1994, when she approached a 13-year-old outside a summer camp in the US. Epstein later molested and raped the girl;
Epstein and Maxwell were dubbed ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ by victims, and;
At the height of his offending, Epstein was abusing at least three girls a day. One witness reported how his desire to have sex with underage girls was so overwhelming that he would ‘physically shake’.
Despite identifying 40 female victims, the US government secretly struck a deal in 2007 not to prosecute Epstein for sexually abusing underage girls at his Florida home.
The book reveals how FBI agents had a mountain of evidence against Epstein which would have seen him jailed for life but instead he was allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges of soliciting for prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution, and was jailed for 13 months. Incredibly, the book reveals, Epstein was allowed to spend most of that time working at his Florida office, where he continued to arrange for women to be flown to him for sex.
The book, Relentless Pursuit, also details how victims were kept in the dark about the plea deal and were led to believe police were still investigating.
The deal meant the grotesque scale of his offending – and explosive claims that girls were forced to have sex with his powerful friends – were only revealed years later. Large parts of the book focus on Ms Roberts, who spent three years as Epstein’s sex slave and claims she was forced to have sex with Andrew on three occasions. It raises fresh questions about his controversial stay at Epstein’s New York mansion in December 2010. The news that he had visited Epstein – by then a convicted sex offender – has plagued the British monarch’s second son ever since.
Last year, the MoS revealed astonishing video footage of Andrew peering from the mansion’s grand front door and waving to a brunette during his stay of at least six days.
Andrew has said he did not witness any suspicious behaviour during his time with Epstein but the suggestion that he stayed at the mansion at the same time as a recruiter will further fuel demands for him to co-operate with the FBI.
Earlier this month, US attorney Geoffrey Berman claimed the prince had ‘completely shut the door’ on the investigation.
Edwards last night demanded that Andrew agree to be interviewed as part of legal action five of his clients are taking against Epstein’s vast estate.
Andrew’s spokeswoman declined to comment. news@mailonsunday.ie
‘Cover-up saw Andrew avoid scrutiny ’