Emails reveal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor partied with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2010 New York visit. Photo / Getty Images
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has always insisted he went to New York in December 2010 “with the sole purpose” of breaking off his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. In his telling, there was no socialising of any sort.
“I felt that doing it over the telephone was the chicken’s way of doing it. I had to go and see him and talk to him,” the former prince said in his Newsnight interview in 2019.
“If there was a party, then I’d know nothing about that.”
But emails released in the latest cache of Epstein files shed new light on that visit, known for the picture of the pair walking together in Central Park, which reignited the scandal over their association.
They suggest that Mountbatten-Windsor’s assertions are about as credible as his claim to not be able to sweat.
Documents reviewed by The Telegraph – many for the first time – show that far from cutting ties with Epstein during a week-long stay at his New York mansion, the then prince partied with the convicted paedophile, made dinner plans with Naomi Campbell, and even considered visiting the financier’s private island as part of his visit.
Epstein also appears to have arranged for young women to visit his Manhattan mansion during the then prince’s trip, and at one point he sent an employee to collect $5000 in cash.
The revelations risk causing further embarrassment for the former prince, who was released under investigation last week after his arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
Police are looking into allegations that Mountbatten-Windsor leaked confidential information to Epstein and others during his time as United Kingdom trade envoy.
The former duke held the role from 2001 to 2011, and was forced to step down shortly after his 2010 visit to New York on a trip that would prove to be his undoing.
The pair plotted the visit for months, with Mountbatten-Windsor first floating the idea in April 2010 – while Epstein was still under house arrest after serving time for a child sex offence.
“I have no immediate plans to drop by New York but I think I should at some stage soon,” he emailed his friend on April 10.
When Epstein was finally allowed to leave his Palm Beach property in July 2010, he received a jubilant message from the royal: “Congratulations! DS told me you were allowed out from yesterday”.
Epstein’s release paved the way for an evening together at Buckingham Palace months later, as well as a dinner in London that the financier arranged for Mountbatten-Windsor to have with a woman he described as “26, russian, clevere [sic] beautiful, trustworthy”.
After dates were fixed for the prince’s visit to New York between November 29 and December 7, Epstein set about making sure the right people would be there.
The week before the then prince’s arrival, the paedophile emailed his publicist, Peggy Siegal.
Mountbatten-Windsor was 50 at the time, and Epstein 57. The fact did not escape them, with Epstein teasing his friend before his milestone birthday months earlier.
Epstein fired off emails announcing the then prince’s imminent appearance to people whose names have been redacted by the US department of justice, suggesting they may have been women in the financier’s orbit.
“Prince Andrew is staying with me . Tomorrow? Wed?” Epstein emailed one.
At the same time, Epstein appeared to have used the prince’s presence as bait to secure business meetings.
“Prince andrew will be staying with me for the next two weeks in new york . do you think we will know aschedule [sic] from karem soon?”, he emailed Sultan Bin Sulayem, who was forced to step down as chief executive of the ports company DP World earlier this month over his links with Epstein. He said much the same to Tom Pritzker, who stepped down as executive chairman at the Hyatt hotel chain last week for similar reasons.
No expense was spared in Epstein’s efforts to roll out the red carpet for Mountbatten-Windsor. He tried to book him in for a skin treatment at an upmarket New York spa club, and told the then duke he had “set aside a car and driver for your use for the week”.
Mountbatten-Windsor was pleased with the offer, but had some sartorial questions.
The paedophile suggested they may indeed “go south for a few days” – probably either to his sprawling property in Florida or his private island of Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands. “That would mean a bathing suit and easy shirt,” he told his British friend.
Mountbatten-Windsor informed Epstein he would “bring something in case of all contingencies”, adding: “Really looking forward to seeing you and spending some time with you after so long. Some interesting things to discuss and plot.”
The Telegraph revealed earlier this month that the pair was in talks to launch their own business together in China at the time, under the name of The Witan Group.
Epstein had also offered to help Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, with money troubles a month earlier, after a dispute with her long-time personal assistant, who was owed $126,721 when she went bankrupt in the US.
The billionaire made his way to New York from his private island especially for the prince’s visit on November 29, first taking a helicopter to Puerto Rico and then a business-class seat on a commercial flight to JFK airport.
Mountbatten-Windsor was picked up separately by Janusz Banasiak, one of Epstein’s house staff, and offered a room on the fourth floor of the Manhattan mansion. His two personal protection officers from the Metropolitan Police, who had travelled with him, also stayed at the house.
Their movements on the first few days are unclear. Epstein had secured Mountbatten-Windsor an invitation to a party in the Boom Boom Room, an opulent penthouse lounge in the Standard Hotel, on the night of his arrival in the Big Apple, but it is not known whether they went.
On Wednesday, December 1, they had an 8.30am breakfast with Andrew Farkas, an American businessman, and later had lunch with two others at Bill’s Burgers. Epstein and Mountbatten-Windsor were offered tickets to a film premiere starring Ryan Gosling that night.
The following evening, Epstein laid on an exclusive dinner party for the prince, where they brushed shoulders with Woody Allen, the film director, George Stephanopoulos, a political strategist and Katie Couric, a US journalist.
Epstein had hand-picked Allen for the party with Mountbatten-Windsor, emails showed, despite protests from the financier’s publicist that this could cause publicity problems. The Hollywood director had faced significant backlash after marrying Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his ex-wife Mia Farrow, in 1997.
The guest list for the dinner party was still being brushed up on the day, and Siegal, Epstein’s publicist, hoped it might stretch to include the actresses Kate Winslet, Meg Ryan and Julianne Moore.
Epstein received an email hours before the dinner was due to start suggesting other last-minute call-ups: “Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman ... they know Andrew”.
The disgraced film producer and his then-wife are not thought to have gone.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s police protection officers served as bouncers for the night. Epstein, who was known not to have cared much for lavish food or drink, chose lasagna for the meal.
The following day, December 3, news reports began to trickle out about the royal’s arrival on the scene in New York.
Presumably emailing Epstein from another part of his Manhattan mansion, Mountbatten-Windsor sent the paedophile a link to a press report about their partying with the city’s “glamorous” elite at Ghislaine Maxwell’s house, in an event thought to have taken place a day or two earlier.
There was more to come. Epstein would soon send a furious email to Siegal after she admitted to providing anonymous quotes for a newspaper report about the evening, which suggested dinner guests had been more interested in the upcoming wedding of Prince William than in his royal uncle.
“Not good for andrew, not good for me -not good for you,” he told her.
Epstein and Mountbatten-Windsor appeared to have made dinner plans on December 3 with Naomi Campbell, the British supermodel, and her Russian boyfriend at the time, Vladislav Doronin. A spokesman for Campbell said she never attended the dinner.
Epstein had emailed a day earlier, in a message believed to have been sent to Doronin.
Campbell signed off some emails to Epstein as “Omi”
The next afternoon, a young female socialite was invited over for tea at Epstein’s 71st Street home. He and Mountbatten-Windsor watched The King’s Speech later that evening – a film produced by Weinstein that Siegal had been trying to get the Royal family to support for months.
They appear to have gone out later that evening on December 4. Epstein received an email from an unknown sender at 1.36am on December 5, asking: “Are you okay? Please ask Andrew to call me.”
The pair was photographed together by a paparazzo while taking a walk in Central Park later that day, in an image that would be circulated worldwide. It would serve as the first domino in a mounting pressure campaign for Mountbatten-Windsor, then a serving member of the Royal family and UK trade envoy, to cut ties with the convicted paedophile.
The former prince would later claim that he “never had any contact with him from that day forward”. But the next day, on December 6, Epstein invited a woman over for lunch with Mountbatten-Windsor.
A female staff member later that day ordered another household employee to go on a cash run. “Can I pls get $5000 for JE... he is out of cash again. Thanks.”
They plotted a final dinner for Mountbatten-Windsor before his return to the UK the next day. In an email headed “Andrew dinner”, Epstein and Siegal planned for “another one at the house on monday will Bill Gates.. Larry summers. and one of the middle Eastern Sheiks. Who would we invite?”.
It is not known whether the plans went ahead, but at 4.03am on December 7, a female associate of Epstein’s sent an email to his male assistant. “Still at 71st hanging with everyone. P Andrew is still here leaving tomorrow,” she said.
The Telegraph understands that the picture of Mountbatten-Windsor on all fours, leaning over a young woman, was taken in the dining room of Epstein’s New York home at some point during the New York trip. The royal was pictured in a similar pair of jeans to the ones he was wearing in the Central Park photograph, and a distinctive red-and-white striped tablecloth was seen on the dining table behind him.
Epstein emailed a friend later that week with a separate photograph of two young women perching on the distinctive leopard armchairs also seen in the picture. It is the only other known image in which the red-and-white tablecloth is draped over the dining table, and most other pictures of the room taken at different times show other coverings.
A female dance student would also message Epstein later that week to state that she had recently “massaged [redacted] and Andrew”.
Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein parted ways on December 7, with the royal flying back to the UK and his friend heading off to his ranch in New Mexico, where he would be joined by several young women.
They would soon be back in touch.
“God it’s cold and dank here! Wish I was still a pet in your family!,” the former prince messaged Epstein the following day, in an email titled “Troublesome one”.
His final word on the matter would come on January 1, 2011, in a message wishing Epstein “Happy New Year!”
“Just going into my annual retreat for the next eight days. This week is all about me; for one week of the year it’s great,” he said.
“Time to put something back into me before the rest of the world starts sucking it out in all their greed and demands. Have a great day.”
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