In March 2024, two separate legal developments led some to believe that the controversial British royal Prince Andrew may be headed for major fallout on a couple of problematic fronts.
That month, the British High Court reexamined allegations that Andrew and his family, including his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and their two children, received more than £1 million from a corrupt Turkish financier. Meanwhile, in an unrelated but also-disturbing revelation, court documents were made public in Florida stemming from the late convicted sex offender and billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein.
As has long been suspected, those Florida documents may reveal that in 2008, Andrew — a known Epstein associate who has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking — helped secure his friend lesser sentencing in a plea deal.
First, the Turkish payout allegations
Unrelated to the Jeffrey Epstein case, in March 2024, the British High Court heard arguments that Prince Andrew and his family, including his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and their daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, received £1.4 million from Nebahat Isbilen, a Turkish millionaire, via a Turkish businessman named Selman Turk.
Ostensibly, the payment was to help Isbilen secure her U.K. passport, but the arrangement between Turk and Isbilen was revealed to be a scam. Ibsilen’s lawyers have alleged, however, that Turk and another man conspired to funnel Ibsilen’s money to Andrew, the Duke of York, for unknown reasons.
Keep in mind, there is no evidence Andrew was aware the money was stolen, and Andrew and his family have not been accused of any crime. And in 2022, the Daily Mail reported that Andrew repaid the money. As of 2024, however, Turk was on trial for the fraudulent handling of Isbilen’s money, including his payments to Andrew’s family, which renewed interest in Andrew and Turk’s relationship.
Andrew previously settled with Ibsilen out of court to absolve any involvement in future Turk litigation. British High Court judge Sir Anthony Mann observed, however, there was “something odd” about Turk’s payments to Andrew and his family.
The 2008 Epstein case
Simultaneous to the British High Court hearing regarding Selman Turk, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill allowing grand jury testimony to be made public stemming from a 2006 state investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. According to the Mirror, that testimony reveals that Prince Andrew, Epstein’s friend, leveraged his influence to get Epstein a favorable plea deal.
Facing up to 15 years in jail, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to just one charge, and served less than a year before spending the rest of his 18-month sentence on probation at Epstein’s Palm Beach home. The FBI interviewed as many as 40 of Epstein’s sex trafficking victims in the case.
Previously released legal documents, meanwhile, have stated that Epstein relied on Andrew to help broker the plea deal, which Andrew has denied. Those documents read,
” … [M]aterials are needed to prove their allegations that, after Epstein signed the non-prosecution agreement, his performance was delayed while he used his significant social and political connections to lobby the justice department to obtain a more favorable plea deal.”
via the Mirror
Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein sex trafficking victim, accused Prince Andrew of sex abuse when she was a teenager. Andrew denied those accusations and said he never met Giuffre, despite the fact Andrew and Giuffre were photographed together several times.
In a 2019 statement, Andrew said,
“I deplore the exploitation of any human being and would not condone, participate in, or encourage any such behavior. At no stage during the limited time I spent with [Epstein] did I see, witness, or suspect any behavior of the sort that subsequently led to his arrest and conviction”
via The New York Times
In 2022, Andrew agreed to pay Giuffre $16 million to settle Giuffre’s civil case. The next year, The Guardian reported that Andrew may try to walk back the Giuffre agreement — that same year, the late Queen Elizabeth II, Andrew’s mother, stripped Andrew of his royal titles shortly before she died, after Epstein and other of Andrew’s scandals came to light. In 2019, Epstein died by suicide in a New York detention center, awaiting trial on separate sex trafficking charges.
Referring to the new Florida law allowing grand jury testimony to be made public — and that may prove Andrew’s influence on Epstein’s plea deal — one Epstein victim said, “For years, Andrew has evaded speaking to the FBI, instead giving his own ludicrous version of events to the BBC. Finally, we will have a day of reckoning the Prince has long avoided. What more must it take for him to realize his friendship with Jeffrey will never go away? Speak up, man.”
