Prince Andrew is caught up again by the Jeffrey Epstein affair. British police on Thursday promised they would reconsider the charges against him, days after Virginia Giuffre filed a complaint against him in federal court in Manhattan, United States. This American affirms that the second son of the queen of Elizabeth II is “one of the powerful men” to whom she was “given for a sexual purpose”. Between 2000 and 2002, the latter was the victim from the age of 16, of the vast sex trafficking for which the financier Jeffrey Epstein was accused and imprisoned, before killing himself in a Manhattan prison, in summer 2019.
“I asked my team to look at the documents again,” London Police Chief Cressida Dick told LBC radio, adding that the charges had already been investigated twice, in cooperation with the prosecution. . “We are of course ready to work with the foreign authorities, we will give them all the assistance requested within the framework of the law”, she added. “No one is above the law,” she said.
Charges denied by the Duke of York
In her complaint, she accuses him of having “sexually assaulted” her when she was a minor, on three occasions: in London at a very close to Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and in the properties of the businessman. in New York and the Virgin Islands. Neither Prince Andrew’s services nor the royal family were willing to comment. Aged 61, the Duke of York had already “categorically” denied such accusations in an interview deemed calamitous to the BBC in November 2019, where he did not express a single regret for his friendship with Epstein, nor the slightest empathy for its victims.
Despite his denials, his association with the American businessman had plunged him into turmoil and forced him to withdraw from public life. He continues to appear in public alongside the Royal Family, however, and was seen this week arriving at the Scottish residence of Balmoral, where the Queen is located. According to a source close to Prince Charles quoted Thursday in The Times, the complaint “will probably strengthen the opinion (of the heir to the throne) that a return of the duke is impossible”.
In June 2020, Manhattan federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman, then in charge of the investigation, accused Prince Andrew of pretending to cooperate. The Duke of York’s lawyers had assured them that their client had offered to testify three times.