He could be summoned to Paris to give evidence
THE Duke of York could be summoned to Paris to help French prosecutors investigating suspected rape and sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein.
The American financier and convicted sex offender owned a luxury apartment – which featured photographs of naked young women on its walls – on the French capital’s most exclusive street.
The Mail on Sunday understands that US authorities have begun sharing information with France’s judicial police, who will examine claims that two 12-year-old girls were abused after being flown from France to the US as a ‘birthday present’ for Epstein.
Remy Heitz, Paris’s chief prosecutor, said the inquiry will focus on ‘potential crimes committed on national territory as well as abroad’.
It is not known if the Duke – who has always denied any wrongdoing – ever visited Epstein in Paris.
A source close to the investigation said: ‘The nature of the inquiry allows anyone who might have useful information to be called to give evidence. They can do this as a witness, without initially facing criminal action. Prince Andrew would certainly be an obvious person to assist with this.’
Epstein bought an apartment on Avenue Foch close to the Arc de Triomphe in 2002 and neighbours said yesterday that they occasionally saw him smuggling ‘teenage’ girls into the building through a side entrance. ‘He appeared quite furtive,’ said one. ‘A lot of people around here knew he had this thing about young girls.’
A builder who did some work at the apartment described ‘a corridor with several pictures of naked young women’.
Epstein is reported to have been on 11 trips to Paris in the year before he killed himself in his New York prison cell on August 10 while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges.
Innocence in Danger, the French advocacy group for abuse victims, claimed last week that about ten women had provided it with testimony linked to Epstein.