Prince Andrew refuses to deny he stayed in Jeffrey Epstein mansion
Prince Andrew’s spokeswoman has refused to comment on a report that he stayed in the New York mansion of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in April 2001, despite the duke denying doing so in his infamous Newsnight interview.
The refusal to repeat the denial comes after the Daily Mail uncovered a fax that said the prince had stayed at a “private address in New York” on 11 April and its sources confirmed this was Epstein’s £60m home in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
This directly contradicts Prince Andrew’s account of his movements that day in his interview with the Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis last year, when he said: “I wasn’t staying there. I may have visited but definitely didn’t, definitely, definitely no, no, no activity.”
Virginia Roberts, who was 17 at the time, alleges Epstein flew her to New York to have sex with Prince Andrew – something he continues to vehemently deny.
The Mail uncovered an itinerary of the prince’s three-day trip to the US that April, which it says included three hours of “private time” on the afternoon of 11 April. Its investigation also found flights logs that showed Roberts boarded a plane from Teterboro, New Jersey, to St Thomas in the Caribbean on 11 April, meaning she could not have stayed in New York that night.
The logs also show that on the same flight were Epstein, who died in jail in 2019, and his friend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is on remand in the US charged with helping in Epstein’s alleged sex crimes.
Asked about the Mail’s report the spokeswoman said: “We are not issuing any comment. Nothing at all.”
But asked about the flight logs showing Roberts, Maxwell and Epstein were not in New York that evening, she said: “The flight logs are public source information. They are there for all to see about who flew in and who flew out. If the flight logs shows they flew out on 11 April and he was there overnight, they weren’t there overnight.”
Asked if the prince planned to take any legal action against the Daily Mail, she said: “As I have said, there is no comment from us.”
When it was pointed out that readers would note this meant she was not denying that the prince stayed at Epstein’s mansion on 11 April, the spokeswoman said: “They can note what they like. It’s no comment.”
Virginia Roberts, now Guiffre, says she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with the prince three times in 2001. The prince has always denied any wrongdoing and says he cannot recall meeting Roberts or having his picture taken with her.
In November he said: “I continue to unequivocally regret my ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein … Of course, I am willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required.”
Since then he has not spoken to US authorities investigating Epstein’s alleged crimes.