Duke stays tight-lipped on Maxwell
Britain’s Prince Andrew is agonising over whether to condemn Ghislaine Maxwell after insiders admitted ‘‘this is not a good time to make enemies’’.
The Duke of York has declined to comment in the days since Maxwell was arrested and charged with grooming underage girls and sex trafficking them for her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.
It is understood that the duke is caught in a dilemma over how to proceed, as he tries to save his own reputation while facing the prospect of being questioned by the FBI. In an infamous BBC
television interview at the end of last year, Andrew was roundly criticised for failing to denounce Epstein, his friend and a convicted paedophile, who had died in a jail in New York while awaiting trial on further charges.
But Maxwell has not yet been convicted and, crucially, could further drag the duke and others into the ongoing FBI investigation.
A source said: ‘‘Like Voltaire on his deathbed, who was asked by the priest to renounce the devil, he replied: ‘This is no time to be making enemies’.
‘‘The same applies to Prince Andrew. He is damned if he does [condemn Maxwell] and damned if he doesn’t. This doesn’t seem a good time for him to publicly come out and criticise her. It would seem bad timing to do that now.’’
Maxwell, 58, has been a close friend of the duke for about 30 years. The obtained and published a photograph last weekend showing Maxwell seated on the Queen’s throne at Buckingham Palace in 2002 after being taken on a private tour by Andrew.
Maxwell is due in court on Saturday for her arraignment on four counts of grooming and child sex trafficking and two separate charges of perjury.
The FBI wants to interview Andrew as a witness in the case, and has requested assistance from the Home Office to facilitate this.
Prosecutors in the US have accused the duke of refusing to help them with their inquiries, but his legal team insists it have written five times to authorities offering to co-operate.
Andrew’s friends fear that he is being scapegoated for previous errors made in the earlier police investigation into Epstein, in which the financier received a short prison term in return for a plea bargain.
Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell, is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn.