Newly released emails show that the Duke of York expressed a desire to meet Jeffrey Epstein in person months after the convicted sex offender was released from prison in 2010. The correspondence, made public on Friday, comes two days after Andrew Mountbatten Windsor was stripped of his titles and removed from the peerage roll.
In an email exchange on April 15, 2010, Epstein suggested that Andrew meet former JP Morgan executive Jes Staley. Andrew replied that he would not be in the UK but would “make sure I meet [Staley] soon on another trip.” He added, “Also I have no immediate plans to drop by New York but I think I should at some stage soon. I’ll look and see if I can make a couple of days before the summer. It would be good to catch up in person.”
The pair were photographed together in Central Park in December 2010, a meeting Andrew later called a “wrong decision” during his 2019 Newsnight interview. He claimed the purpose was to end contact, but he stayed at Epstein’s New York mansion for several days. Another cache of court documents released in January showed a “member of the British royal family”, believed to be Andrew, emailing Epstein: “Keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
The emails were unsealed as part of a 2023 legal case between the US Virgin Islands and JP Morgan, which settled without admitting liability. The documents also revealed that JP Morgan warned the US government about over $1bn in transactions linked to Epstein possibly related to human trafficking.
Pressure had mounted on Buckingham Palace to act after the posthumous publication of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir, which repeated allegations that she was forced to have sex with Andrew on three occasions. Andrew vehemently denies the claims. On Friday, it was revealed that Andrew is in line to receive a large one-off payment and an annual stipend after leaving Royal Lodge.
