Prince Andrew told Jeffrey Epstein in an email “we are in this together” after a picture of the British royal with his arm around a teenage Virginia Giuffre was published in 2011, according to correspondence obtained by the Mail on Sunday and the Sun on Sunday.
The email, sent on 28 February 2011, shows the Duke of York telling the convicted child sex offender to “keep in close touch” and expressing a wish to “play some more soon”. It directly contradicts Andrew’s earlier statement that he had ceased contact with Epstein in December 2010.
In a 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, Andrew told Emily Maitlis that he broke off his friendship with Epstein after the pair were photographed together in New York in December 2010. However, the newly revealed email, written the day after the photo with Giuffre emerged, suggests otherwise.
Epstein was found dead in his cell in Manhattan in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to charges of solicitation of prostitution with a minor.
The email emerged in court documents relating to a legal case involving former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley, who was appealing a Financial Conduct Authority finding that he had misled regulators about his relationship with Epstein. Separately, it emerged that former Prime Minister Tony Blair met Epstein in Downing Street in 2002 after a recommendation by Peter Mandelson, then a backbench Labour MP.
