"Would Be Good To Catch Up": Andrew Planned To Meet Epstein After His Release From Jail

Former Duke of York Andrew told Jeffrey Epstein it would be “good to catch up in person” months after the financier was released from jail for sex crimes involving a minor, newly released emails revealed.

Epstein was jailed in July 2009 for soliciting prostitution from a teenager. The emails, dated April 15, 2010, as per The Guardian, show the convicted sex offender suggesting that Andrew meet Jes Staley, a former JPMorgan Chase executive who was banned for life from the UK banking sector in June for misleading regulators about his relationship with Epstein.

Andrew responded, "I have no immediate plans to drop by New York but I think I should at some stage soon. I'll look and see if I can make a couple of days before the summer. It would be good to catch up in person.”

The pair was later photographed together in New York's Central Park in December that year.

The messages were made public on Friday, two days after Buckingham Palace stripped Andrew Mountbatten Windsor of his titles and removed him from the official roll of the peerage over growing pressure over his scandals and links to Epstein.

Buckingham Palace has faced mounting pressure to further distance itself from Andrew following the publication of Virginia Giuffre's memoir and reports about his rent-free arrangement at Royal Lodge.

Giuffre, who died by suicide in April aged 41, repeated in her memoir that she was forced to have sex with Andrew on three occasions, including when she was 17 and during an orgy arranged by Epstein. Andrew has consistently denied the claims.

The newly released correspondence came from unsealed court filings in a 2023 case between the US Virgin Islands and JPMorgan. The territory's government, where Epstein owned a private island and managed much of his business, sued the bank over its alleged dealings with him. JPMorgan denied wrongdoing and later settled without admitting liability.

The filings also revealed that JP Morgan had alerted US authorities to more than $1 billion in transactions linked to Epstein that could have been connected to human trafficking.