A ROYAL PAIN Feds: ‘Zero’ help from Andrew in Ep probe
Federal prosecutors have received “zero cooperation” in their request to interview Prince Andrew about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said Monday.
Andrew has long denied allegations Epstein loaned him a trafficking victim for sex. The ongoing scandal prompted Andrew to take a step back from his public role in the British royal family after he gave a disastrous TV interview about his ties to the multimillionaire perv.
Federal investigators said after Epstein’s suicide behind bars while awaiting trial for sex trafficking that they are continuing to investigate his circle of enablers.
“Ordinarily, our office doesn’t comment on whether an individual cooperates or doesn’t cooperate with our investigation. However, in Prince Andrew’s case, he publicly offered … to cooperate with law enforcement investigating the crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein and his coconspirators,” Berman said at a press conference outside Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse.
“I think in that context it’s fair for people to know whether Prince Andrew has followed through with that public commitment. So let me say that the Southern District of New York and the FBI have contacted Prince Andrew’s attorneys and requested to interview Prince Andrew, and to date Prince Andrew has provided zero cooperation.”
In November, Andrew caused a furor when he said in an interview with BBC that Epstein had “quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming.”
The prince then pledged to cooperate with authorities.
“Of course, I am willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required,” he said.
Berman spoke at a press conference organized by Safe Horizon, which provides services for abuse victims. The group is pushing to extend the window for victims to file suits in state court against their abusers that would ordinarily be barred by the statute of limitations. Currently, victims have until
Aug. 14 to file lawsuits under the Child Victims Act.
Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre alleges that the sadistic financier pimped her out to Andrew for sex when she was 17. Andrew claims to have no memory of meeting Giuffre, though there is a notorious photo of the two together.
Andrew was “sweating all over” Giuffre on a dance floor in 2001, she alleged. But Andrew argued in the bizarre interview that couldn’t be true because he has a medical condition that prevents him from sweating.
“There’s a slight problem with ... the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition, which is that I don’t sweat — or I didn’t sweat at the time — because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at,” Andrew said. “And it was almost impossible for me to sweat.”