Sarah Ferguson visited Jeffrey Epstein just five days after he was released from prison for child sex crimes and took Beatrice and Eugenie with her, newly released emails suggest.
The former Duchess of York apparently waited less than a week to see the paedophile, who was under house arrest after serving 12 months in a Florida jail for soliciting a child for prostitution.
Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice would have been 19 and 20 at the time.
Epstein emailed Ghislaine Maxwell, his ex-girlfriend who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, on July 28, 2009, and said: “ferg and the two girls come [sic] yesterday”.
Epstein had referenced Ferguson’s visit in emails released in October. Writing to British lawyer Paul Tweed on April 7, 2011, Epstein spoke of his frustration with Sarah and her failure to defend him publicly.
He said: “She was the first to celebrate my release with her two daughters in tow. She visited me with [a] policeman sitting at my front desk. She has asked for help with her charities,” according to the Mail on Sunday.
In an email sent on July 27, 2009, the day of the visit, Ferguson wrote to Epstein: “What address shall we come to. It will be myself, Beatrice and Eugenie. Are we having lunch?”
Emails show the paedophile served vegetable lasagne made by a Parisian chef at his Palm Beach mansion during the meeting.
Other emails seen by the Telegraph, part of the three million made public by the US Justice Department on Friday, appear to show Epstein arranging for Eugenie and Beatrice to get together with his goddaughter Celina Dubin and her mother Eva, the wife of billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin.
On June 22, 2009, while he was still in prison but allowed to work at a nearby office during the day, Epstein messaged Ferguson and Dubin.
He wrote: “My goddaughter will be in London from July 8-9, eva will be with her….lets [sic] come up with a fun idea”.
Ferguson and her ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor were friends with Epstein for more than a decade.
In a separate email in 2010, Ferguson told the late financier: “Just marry me”. She called him a “legend” and said he was the “brother I have always wished for”.
Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison in June 2008 after pleading guilty to one count of prostitution and another of soliciting an under-18-year-old for prostitution.
He was released five months early on July 22, 2009. Under the terms of his release Epstein was required to register as a sex offender.
For the following 12 months he was placed under house arrest but was allowed to move around his properties in New York, Florida and other locations.
In another message to Ferguson on July 8 that year, Epstein said: “Will you see them before they leave. Not urgent just curious they met beatrice and said she was terrific.”
Epstein also appears to have arranged accommodation for Ferguson during one of her trips to New York.
Writing on September 7, 2009, Epstein told Ferguson and one other person, likely one of his schedulers: “Please organise at least one apt for sarah ferguson, she might need one for staff as well.”
The visit appears to have gone ahead as, on December 4 that year, Epstein told Ferguson: “call me when you get a chance great seeing you.”
It is unclear where Ferguson could have stayed. Epstein often put his friends up at an apartment block on the Upper East Side of Manhattan owned by his brother, Mark.
Reached by phone, Mark Epstein said he had no recollection if Ferguson ever stayed there.
In March 2011, Ferguson admitted borrowing £15,000 ($34,154) from Epstein.
In an interview with the Evening Standard she said she made a “terrible, terrible error of judgment” and said “I abhor paedophilia”.
However, emails show that Ferguson repeatedly turned to Epstein for help as her business ventures failed.
In one message from 2009 she told him: “I urgently need £20,000 for rent today. The landlord has threatened to go to the newspapers if I don’t pay. Any brainwaves?”
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.