Newly released documents from the US Department of Justice’s extensive Jeffrey Epstein files have once again brought former British royal Andrew Windsor under the scanner.
A new batch of released transcripts include emails that appear to show Andrew asking Epstein’s long-time partner Ghislaine Maxwell to find him “inappropriate friends.”
When were the emails sent?
The correspondence, dating to August 2001 and early 2002, was signed by someone identified only as ‘A’ and includes details that strongly suggest the sender was Andrew, such as references to Balmoral, the British royal family’s Scottish estate, according to multiple reports.
In one August 2001 email sent from an address labelled “The Invisible Man,” the sender wrote that he was at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family and asked Maxwell, “Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”
Maxwell responded that she was “sorry to disappoint,” adding she had only been able to find “appropriate friends.” The writer replied simply, “Distraught!” and then discussed the recent death of his long-time valet and his recent resignation from the Royal Navy, details consistent with Andrew’s life at the time, according to ITV X.
What has been Andrew’s stance?
Andrew has repeatedly denied wrongdoing related to Epstein and Maxwell, and the disclosures are likely to intensify calls for him to cooperate with US inquiries.
In 2022, Mountbatten-Windsor settled a civil suit with Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17 years old. While he did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, he did acknowledge Giuffre’s suffering as a victim of sex trafficking, according to NBC News.
Andrew, who had to relinquish his royal titles in the UK as the controversy gathered steam, repeatedly denied ever meeting Giuffre and claimed that a widely circulated photograph of the two of them was not real.
Giuffre died by suicide in April this year. In her posthumous memoir, she had accused Andrew of having assaulted several underage women who “didn’t really speak English”, as per NBC.