‘Bewildered’ Andrew’s Mexican standoff with US lawmen
ANDREW AND U.S. AT WAR ON EPSTEIN
PRINCE Andrew is in a ‘Mexican standoff ’ with US prosecutors who have made it impossible for him to help them, friends claimed yesterday.
The duke was said to be ‘utterly bewildered’ after he was again accused of refusing to be interviewed by Jeffrey Epstein investigators.
Yesterday friends said they were mysticooperation’ fied by claims Andrew refused to cooperate with the probe – yet stopped short of denying it was true. US prosecutor Geoffrey Berman said the duke had ‘repeatedly declined’ a request to be interviewed and had ‘unequivocally’ stated he would not come in for one. But Andrew’s London lawyers say he offered to provide a witness statement.
It suggests the prince is at loggerheads with the Americans because they want a face-toface interview, whereas he wants to provide evidence in writing.
Last night a friend of the duke described the deadlock as a ‘Mexican standoff’ and said US prosecutors had made it all but impossible for him to cooperate.
But victims of Epstein called on Andrew to ‘take the oath and just tell the truth’.
US lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents some of Epstein’s victims, told BBC Breakfast: ‘I think Prince Andrew, at this point, has very little credibility.
And I have a lot of suspicion about what he is saying, through his representatives.’ She added: ‘There shouldn’t be conditions, there shouldn’t be delay, there should be transparency and the victims deserve the truth.’
Andrew’s extraordinary public spat with Epstein investigators blew up on Monday when it emerged the US Department of Justice had filed a bombshell request to the UK Home Office to formally interview the 60year-old prince.
They claimed he offered ‘zero with their probe into paedophile Epstein, who took his own life last August while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges.
Andrew, who emphatically denies any wrongdoing, is not accused of any crime and would be a witness rather than a suspect in the FBI’s inquiry. On Monday, he launched an unprecedented attack on the US justice system, complaining he was being treated like a second-class citizen and insisting he had already offered himself as a witness three times this year. That prompted Mr Berman, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, to hit back: ‘The prince has not given an interview to federal authorities, has repeatedly declined our request to schedule such an interview and nearly four months ago informed us unequivocally that he would not come in for such an interview.’
Yesterday a friend of the duke called this a ‘false characterisation’ of the chain of events – but stopped short of saying that it was a false statement. They said: ‘What really happened was the ball was left in the duke’s court to work out the modus operandi [of how to offer evidence] when the US prosecutor suddenly made his statement about “zero cooperation”, which came out of the blue.
‘The duke is totally committed to trying to cooperate, but the Americans have breached their own rules on confidentiality.
‘Trust will never be restored if they continue to act in this way. We were utterly bewildered by Berman’s statement. It is mystifying why this man continually breaches his own rules. What power does he have to try to use the duke in this way?’
Asked if Mr Berman’s claim the duke ‘repeatedly’ declined to be interviewed is true or false, the friend did not answer.
‘Trust will never be restored’