LONDON — The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office is the latest development in a yearslong saga over his dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which has plunged the British monarchy into its biggest crisis in decades.
Britain’s Thames Valley Police department said Thursday it was “carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk” after arresting a man in his 60s on suspicion of misconduct in public office. In line with British policing convention, it did not name the former Prince Andrew.
The arrest followed the release last month of millions of files connected to Epstein, including emails and photographs linked to the former prince. Following the U.S. Department of Justice’s releases, police said they were looking into allegations that confidential documents were shared with Epstein in 2010, when Mountbatten-Windsor was serving as a U.K. trade envoy.
Some emails Mountbatten-Windsor sent Epstein appeared to show that Epstein was forwarded reports connected to the former prince’s visits to Vietnam, Singapore and China, which he undertook in his role as Britain’s trade envoy, as well as information on investment opportunities.
Mountbatten-Windsor was appointed as the United Kingdom’s special representative for international trade and investment in 2001, a role he held until July 2011.
The files that surfaced in the DOJ’s document dump also included photographs of Mountbatten-Windsor kneeling on all fours over an unidentified female who is lying on the ground, both fully clothed, as well as emails in which Mountbatten-Windsor appeared to invite Epstein to Buckingham Palace after the latter’s 2010 release from prison.
The former prince has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein, but has expressed regret over his yearslong friendship with the wealthy American businessman, which continued after Epstein's conviction in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
A fuller picture of Epstein’s crimes only began to come to light years later, and in 2019, Epstein was arrested again on federal charges of sex-trafficking of minors. He died in prison months later while awaiting trial on those charges.
Here, we look at a scandal decades in the making.
A yearslong friendship
Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein were introduced in 1999 by Epstein’s then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, according to Mountbatten-Windsor’s recounting of their friendship in a 2019 BBC interview. Maxwell, a British socialite, was jailed in 2022 for her role in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
Mountbatten-Windsor told the British broadcaster he saw Epstein “once or twice a year” before Epstein’s first criminal conviction in 2008.
In December 2010, months after Epstein’s release from prison, the two men were photographed together in New York’s Central Park.
Mountbatten-Windsor told the BBC in 2019 he had visited Epstein and stayed at his home on that occasion with the intent of breaking off their friendship, though subsequently released emails show he sent messages to Epstein months later telling him “we are in this together” and “we’ll play some more soon!”
A growing scandal
In 2011, a British newspaper published a photograph of Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who had publicly alleged that Epstein trafficked her to his powerful friends.
Mountbatten-Windsor questioned the authenticity of the photo and later denied ever meeting Giuffre, who alleged in 2015 court filings that she had been forced to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor on three occasions in New York, London and on Epstein’s private Caribbean island when she was 17. The age of consent in the U.K. is 16.
Mountbatten-Windsor continued to serve as a working member of the royal family until 2019, when, in the wake of Epstein’s second arrest, he attempted to address questions over their relationship in the high-profile BBC interview.
“I admit fully that my judgment was probably colored by my tendency to be too honorable, but that’s just the way it is,” he said in the BBC interview, also citing a claimed inability to sweat, as well as a family visit to a budget pizza restaurant, as factors he claimed contradicted Giuffre’s allegations.
The interview was widely regarded as a car crash, immediately prompting more scrutiny for the prince, who announced days later he would step back from public duties “for the foreseeable future.”
Legal fallout
Giuffre filed a federal lawsuit against Mountbatten-Windsor in 2021, alleging that he sexually abused her. He agreed to settle the case for an undisclosed amount in 2022, without admitting wrongdoing.
