Britain's Prince Andrew 'categorically' denies sex claims

LONDON -- Britain's Prince Andrew said he could not have had sex with a teenage girl at a socialite's London home because he returned to his house after a children's party on the night in question and has no recollection of ever meeting her.

The rare interview was an attempt to draw a line under a scandal after months of headlines about Andrew's ties to the U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in August while being held on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Speaking publicly for the first time about his relationship with Epstein, Queen Elizabeth's second son gave an at times rambling and contradictory account. He said Epstein's behavior had been "unbecoming," but that he does not regret their friendship because of the opportunities it gave him to meet business people.

One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, has said she was forced to have sex with Andrew in London, New York and on a private Caribbean island between 1999 and 2002, when she says Epstein kept her as a "sex slave."

During the hour-long BBC interview broadcast on Saturday, Andrew gave a series of reasons why her account of meeting him sweating and dancing almost two decades ago at a London nightclub before having sex with him could not be true, including the fact he suffered from a medical condition that stopped him perspiring.

He also said that on the night he was alleged to have met her he was at home with his family after visiting a Pizza Express restaurant in Woking with his daughter Beatrice.

"I can absolutely, categorically tell you it never happened," Andrew said. "I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever."

He defended his relationship with Epstein, saying it opened up opportunities as he transitioned out of the Navy.

"The people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful," he said.

Andrew also said he stayed at Epstein's home in New York after the financier's conviction because he was "too honorable". Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida state prostitution charges.

"It was a convenient place to stay," Andrew said. "But at the time I felt it was the honorable and right thing to do and I admit fully that my judgment was probably colored by my tendency to be too honorable but that's just the way it is."

Giuffre, who was previously named Virginia Roberts, has said that she first had sex with Andrew when she was 17 and underage.

A picture showing the prince with his arm around Giuffre's waist from 2001 has appeared in British media. Andrew said that he recognized himself in the photograph, but he questioned its authenticity.

"I don't believe that photograph was taken in the way that has been suggested," Andrew said in the interview. "I don't recollect that photograph ever being taken."

He has previously denied any inappropriate relations with Giuffre.

Gloria Allred, a lawyer acting for alleged victims of Epstein, said Andrew should answer questions under oath.

"There is so much truth that is yet to be revealed," she told Reuters. The prince should "should agree to testify under oath and also he should voluntarily agree to speak to law enforcement."

PREVIOUS DENIALS

When the allegations were first made, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said it was "emphatically denied" that Andrew had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Giuffre.

Andrew has previously said he stood by the palace statements and recently apologized over his friendship with Epstein.

The prince said he only visited Epstein's New York home in 2010 after his release from prison in order to break off the friendship. The former investment banker was then a registered sex offender.

Epstein, 66, died by hanging himself in his Manhattan jail cell on Aug. 10.

Andrew said he had seen no signs Epstein was procuring young girls for sex trafficking and that as patron of a UK charity campaign against child abuse he was alert to the dangers.

"I knew what the things were to look for, but I never saw them," he said.

He appeared to be open to giving a statement under oath, saying in the interview: "If push came to shove and the legal advice was to do so, then I would be duty-bound to do so." 

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Jeffrey Epstein death ruled as suicide by hanging - US media

NEW YORK, United States—An autopsy on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell, has concluded that he committed suicide by hanging, US media reported Friday.

The ruling, first reported by The New York Times, comes 6 days after the 66-year-old, who was accused of trafficking girls as young as 14 for sex, was found dead.

The newspaper said the official results of the New York city medical examiner's investigation into how Epstein had died showed that the wealthy hedge fund manager had killed himself.

It cited officials as saying that Epstein had used a bedsheet to hang himself.

The report came a day after US media reported that preliminary findings from the post-mortem examination had found broken bones in Epstein's neck.

The Washington Post and The New York Times cited sources familiar with the autopsy report as saying Epstein had broken the hyoid bone near his Adam's apple.

Epstein, a multi-millionaire who counted Britain's Prince Andrew and Donald Trump as friends, was charged with 1 count of sex trafficking of minors and 1 count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.

According to prosecutors, Epstein sexually exploited dozens of teenagers at his homes in Manhattan and Florida between 2002 and 2005.

He denied the charges but faced up to 45 years in jail if found guilty. 

The FBI and Justice Department are investigating how America's most high-profile inmate managed to take his own life just weeks after an earlier reported suicide attempt.

The warden of the Metropolitan Correctional Center where Epstein was housed has been temporarily reassigned and 2 guards put on administrative leave pending an investigation. 

They guards were reportedly asleep when they should have been checking on Epstein.

Epstein's death came a day after a court released documents in which an alleged victim said he used her as a "sex slave" and that she was forced to have sex with well-known politicians and businessmen.

Prosecutors have pledged to pursue cases against anyone else involved in Epstein's alleged crimes.

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Democratic 2020 contenders condemn Trump for spreading Epstein conspiracy theories

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential contenders Beto O'Rourke and Cory Booker slammed U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday for promoting unfounded conspiracy theories about the apparent suicide of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in his New York jail cell.

After the death on Saturday of Epstein, a millionaire charged with sex trafficking who once counted Trump and former President Bill Clinton as friends, Trump retweeted a baseless claim from a conservative comedian that Clinton was involved in the death.

"This is another example of our president using this position of public trust to attack his political enemies with unfounded conspiracy theories," O'Rourke, a former congressman from Texas, said on CNN's State of the Union.

O'Rourke said Trump was trying to shift the public's focus away from last weekend's two deadly mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, which have led to new calls for gun restrictions and criticism of Trump's divisive anti-immigrant and racially charged rhetoric.

"He's changing the conversation, and if we allow him to do that then we will never be able to focus on the true problems, of which he is a part," O'Rourke said from his hometown of El Paso.

Booker, a U.S. senator from New Jersey, said Trump's retweet was "just more recklessness."

"He is giving life to not just conspiracy theories but really whipping people up into anger and worse against different people in this country," he said on CNN.

The FBI and the Department of Justice's Inspector General have opened investigations into the death of Epstein, who a source said had been taken off suicide watch. Last month, Epstein was found unconscious on the floor of his jail cell with marks on his neck, and officials were investigating that incident as a possible suicide or assault.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said he was "appalled" to learn of the apparent suicide in federal custody. "Mr. Epstein's death raises serious questions that must be answered," Barr said in a statement on Saturday.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic congresswoman from New York City and a leading progressive voice, tweeted: "We need answers. Lots of them."

White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said investigation of Epstein should continue despite his death.

"Jeffrey Epstein has done some very bad things over a number of years, so let's continue to investigate that," she said on Fox News Sunday. "I don't think that somebody's crimes and the accountability for that necessarily perish with them."

More than a decade ago, Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of solicitation of prostitution from a minor in a deal with prosecutors that has been widely criticized as too lenient.

Then in July, Epstein was indicted, federal prosecutors in New York accusing him of knowingly recruiting underage women to engage in sex acts with him, sometimes over a period of years while paying the women for each encounter. He pleaded not guilty.

O'Rourke and Booker are among two dozen candidates seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Trump for the White House in 2020. Nearly all of those Democrats have condemned Trump's incendiary rhetoric for inflaming racial tensions and anger.

"We've seen people's lives being threatened because this president whips up hatred. This is a very dangerous president that we have now," Booker said.

Trump had retweeted on Saturday a message from conservative comedian and commentator Terrence K. Williams, who said in part that Epstein "had information on Bill Clinton & now he's dead."

Clinton spokesman Angel Urena blasted Trump for making the suggestion. "Ridiculous, and of course not true - and Donald Trump knows it. Has he triggered the 25th Amendment yet?" he said, referring to the procedures for replacing the president in event of removal or incapacitation.

Trump has a history of promoting conspiracy theories about political rivals. Even before he was a presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly questioned whether former President Barack Obama was born in the United States, even after Obama produced a birth certificate proving that he was.

During the Republican presidential nomination race in 2016, Trump spread an unfounded conspiracy theory linking the father of rival U.S. Senator Ted Cruz to the assassination of former President John Kennedy, a claim Cruz denounced as a lie.

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Epstein death anger soars, conspiracy theories swirl

NEW YORK - Outrage and intrigue over the apparent suicide in prison of well-connected accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein soared Sunday as US lawmakers pushed for answers, including whether "criminal acts" played a role in his death.

Epstein, a convicted pedophile who hobnobbed with countless politicians and celebrities over the years, was found dead in his cell Saturday while awaiting trial on federal charges he trafficked underage girls for sex.

The discovery came a day after a court released documents in which one of Epstein's alleged victims claimed she was forced to have sex with well-known American political and business personalities. They have all denied the allegations.

Epstein's death in a high-security New York jail, an apparent suicide that came just weeks after an earlier possible attempt on his own life, meant he should have been under close watch and has fueled anger and a conspiracy theory frenzy.

"These survivors deserved a day in court. They deserved justice," Democratic Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said Sunday.

"It is a shame that he committed suicide," she told CBS's "Face the Nation."

New York's chief medical examiner Barbara Sampson said Sunday that an autopsy had been completed, but the determination of cause of death was "pending further information at this time."

The procedure was observed by an outside pathologist at the request of Epstein's representatives, she added.

CELLMATE REPORTEDLY MOVED

US Attorney General Bill Barr has instructed the Justice Department's inspector general to probe Epstein's death, saying it "raises serious questions that must be answered."

The FBI is also investigating.

The New York Times reported Sunday that guards were supposed to check Epstein every half hour but that procedure was not followed the night before he was found, citing an unnamed law enforcement official.

The jail had also transferred his cellmate, leaving him alone, the Times said, citing two officials.

Epstein, 66, had been charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. 

Prosecutors said Epstein sexually exploited dozens of underage teens, some as young as 14, at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005.

The young women were paid hundreds of dollars in cash to massage him, perform sexual acts and to recruit other girls, prosecutors alleged.

Epstein denied the charges and faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted. 

Last month, Epstein was found unconscious with marks on his neck after a possible suicide attempt. 

He was put on suicide watch for six days before being returned to his cell in a high-security section of the prison, the Times has reported.

"Pedophiles facing federal criminal charges are at high risk for suicide," tweeted Rod Rosenstein, the former US deputy attorney general.

"Detained pedophiles require special attention. Stopping people from harming themselves is difficult."

'UNFOUNDED CONSPIRACY THEORIES'

Epstein -- whose friends included Donald Trump, former president Bill Clinton and Britain's Prince Andrew -- had been convicted in 2008 in a Florida state court of paying young girls for sexual massages at his Palm Beach mansion.

Those men have all denied knowing anything about Epstein's alleged crimes.

The two thousand pages of previously sealed court documents released Friday focused on testimony by a woman who claimed she was Epstein's "sex slave."

Virginia Giuffre detailed new allegations against Epstein and his high-profile acquaintances. 

"Some of wealthiest people in the world committed a horrible crime. If they think for a second that they got away with it because Jeffrey Epstein is dead, they're dead WRONG," tweeted New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, as prosecutors pledged to pursue the indictment.

Trump weighed in on Saturday, retweeting a conspiracy theory alleging -- without any evidence whatsoever -- that Bill Clinton may be connected to Epstein's death.

"This is another example of our president using this position of public trust to attack his political enemies with unfounded conspiracy theories," Beto O'Rourke, another Democrat running for president, told CNN.

Senator Cory Booker, also in the 2020 race, described Trump's retweet as "more recklessness" and "dangerous."

Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, asked on "Fox News Sunday" about her boss's retweet, said that "the president just wants everything to be investigated."

Epstein avoided a lengthy jail sentence when facing the charges in Florida over a decade ago. 

He served just 13 months under a secret plea deal struck with the then federal prosecutor in the state, Alex Acosta, who was forced to resign as US labor secretary last month over the issue.

Alleged victims were hoping for more justice this time around.

"I really wanted him to... be put in jail and have to sit there and think about what it is he exactly did to so many people," one accuser, Michelle Licata, told ABC's "This Week."

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Disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein commits suicide at Manhattan jail

NEW YORK — Jeffrey Epstein, the financier indicted on sex trafficking charges last month, committed suicide at a Manhattan jail, officials said on Saturday.

Epstein hanged himself and his body was found at roughly 7:30 Saturday morning at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.

Manhattan federal prosecutors last month charged Epstein, 66, with sex trafficking of girls as young as 14, and details of his behavior have been emerging for years.

Epstein, a financier with opulent homes, a private jet and access to elite circles, had been dogged for decades by accusations that he had paid dozens of girls for sexual acts in Florida.

He previously avoided federal criminal charges in 2008 after prosecutors brokered a widely criticized deal that allowed him to plea to state charges of solicitation of prostitution from a minor and serve 13 months in jail. Even while in custody, Epstein was allowed to leave the jail for 12 hours a day, six days a week, to work at his office in Florida.

Last month, a week after being denied bail, Epstein was found unconscious in his cell at the jail in Manhattan with marks on his neck, and prison officials were investigating the incident as a possible suicide attempt.

It was not immediately clear on Saturday whether authorities had put in additional safeguards to watch him after the incident. The federal Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Martin Weinberg, Epstein’s defense lawyer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A cache of previously sealed legal documents, released on Friday by a federal appeals court, provided new, disturbing details about what was going on inside Epstein’s homes and how his associates recruited young women and girls, including from a Florida high school.

The documents — among the most expansive sets of materials publicly disclosed in the 13 years since Epstein was first charged with sex crimes — include depositions, police incident reports, photographs, receipts, flight logs and even a memoir written by a woman who said she was a sex trafficking victim of Epstein and his acquaintances.

The documents were filed as part of a defamation lawsuit in federal court that Virginia Giuffre brought in 2015 against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime companion and confidante. Giuffre and Maxwell settled the lawsuit shortly before the trial was to begin in 2017.

The Miami Herald and other media outlets petitioned the court to have the lawsuit documents unsealed. The request was initially denied, but an appeals court ordered them released last month.

Days after the ruling, on July 3, Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport after his private plane landed on a flight from Paris. Federal prosecutors charged him with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy.

Prosecutors said in their indictment that he and his employees engaged in a sex trafficking scheme, bringing girls as young as 14 to both his Upper East Side mansion and his palatial waterfront home in Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted, he would have faced up to 45 years in prison.

Epstein had sought home detention at his Upper East Side mansion while he awaited trial. His lawyers had proposed allowing Epstein to post a substantial bond and stay in his luxurious seven-story townhouse, watched by 24-hour security guards, at his expense.

But a federal judge denied the request, concluding that Epstein was a flight risk, citing his “vast wealth,” which prosecutors have placed at more than $500 million.

Epstein, a former money manager with Wall Street experience, depicted himself as a wealthy financier with stellar investment savvy.

In addition to his homes in Florida and New York, he also owned a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a massive ranch in New Mexico and a residence in Paris. He had numerous high-end vehicles and access to private planes and helicopters.

Epstein levied his supposed financial prowess to cultivate connections to a dazzling assembly of elected officials, prominent scientists and business elites. His acquaintances, at various moments, included President Donald Trump, Stephen Hawking and Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.

Even after he served time in a Florida jail and became a registered sex offender, Epstein successfully maintained a reputation as a billionaire investor, philanthropist and sophist.

In the time since Epstein’s arrest, evidence has suggested that the former money manager’s business acumen was more myth than fact. His client list was not as extensive as believed, and the services he offered were less remarkable than once portrayed.

Earlier this week, perhaps Epstein’s most notable client, Leslie H. Wexner, the executive behind Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, accused Epstein of misappropriating “vast sums of money” from him and his family.

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Prince Andrew steps up denial of underage sex

LONDON/NEW YORK - Buckingham Palace stepped up its denial that Prince Andrew had sex with an underage girl introduced to him by a disgraced U.S. financier, and named the alleged victim whose anonymity was preserved in court documents filed last week.

Buckingham Palace had already denied on Friday allegations made in Florida court documents by the woman, who said she was forced as a minor by financier Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with several people, including Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth.

Another of those named by the woman, well-known American attorney Alan Dershowitz, said he has assembled a team of "eminent" lawyers to fight the sexual abuse allegations made against him in last week's filing in Florida federal court.

The allegations come from a woman who is named in the filing as Jane Doe #3, but Buckingham Palace referred to her as Virginia Roberts. Several British newspapers have also named the woman.

Dershowitz represented Epstein against criminal sex abuse charges, which ended in a plea deal six years ago under which Epstein served jail time for state charges but avoided federal prosecution. Last week's filing was made in a long-running civil litigation brought against the U.S. government over the plea agreement by women who say they were abused by Epstein.

On Sunday, Buckingham Palace issued its second denial of wrong-doing by Prince Andrew. "It is emphatically denied that HRH The Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. The allegations made are false and without any foundation," a palace spokesman said.

Dershowitz told Reuters that his team of attorneys included Thomas Scott, a former Florida U.S. attorney and former federal judge, and Kendall Coffey, another former Florida U.S. Attorney, as well as lawyers in Boston, New York and London whom he declined to name.

He said the allegations against him were false, and that the attorneys who filed them - Florida attorney Brad Edwards and University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell - knew they were false.

Dershowitz, a Harvard University professor emeritus, said he planned to file complaints with the attorney disciplinary boards of Florida and Utah seeking to have them disbarred. Knowingly making false court filings is grounds for disbarment in both states.

Dershowitz also said he would file a motion to join in the Florida civil action, by making a sworn statement in Florida federal court denying the charges.

He said the allegations against him were especially unfair because they were made in a court case where he was not a party, so that he had no chance to respond directly.

"It's like Josef K in Kafka," he said. "The difference is that Josef K lost. In the end I will prevail. They took on the wrong innocent person."

Edwards and Cassell said in a joint statement that they looked forward to Dershowitz's filing.

"It is not unethical to provide legal representation to the victim of international sex trafficking ring and to believe in the allegations such a victim makes - even when those allegations are made against powerful people," they said.

Buckingham Palace also denied on Sunday that the Queen had met Virginia Roberts.

The woman's father, Sky Roberts, was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying that his daughter had been introduced to the Queen while visiting London with Epstein.

When asked about this, a palace spokesman said: "there is nothing to suggest that this claim is true. We have no record of such a meeting."

On Saturday, some British newspapers published an old photograph of Prince Andrew holding the waist of the woman, then aged 17. The age of consent is 16 in Britain, but it is 18 in much of the United States.

People making a criminal complaint of rape in England have a legal right to anonymity unless they choose to waive it.

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