a snowy

a snowy Friday afternoon last February. Ed Perkins received an urgent phone call in his ground- floor office at Buckingham Palace. Perkins has the thankless task of serving as press sec- retary to the Queen's wayward second son. His Royal Highness Prince Andrew. Duke of York. The female voice on the other end of the phone line belonged to Sian James, an as- sistant editor at The Alai! an Sunday. a tabloid that's been unsparing in its coverage of An- and arranged for her to see Andrew three times. in London and New York and on Epstein's private Caribbean island, Little Saint James. She said she'd been "sexually exploited by Epstein's adult male peers. in- cluding royalty." (Prince Andrew denied that he had had sexual contact with Rob- erts or any other of Epstein's girls. Ghis- laine Maxwell also denies the allegations and says that she plans to take legal action against a number of British newspapers.) "Would you put all that in an e-mail. please?" said the unflappable Perkins. "It might take a few hours to get buck to you." After he hung up the phone. Perkins as- sembled a crisis team consisting of senior Palace officials and lawyers. Many of these were old hands at dealing with Andrew's in- discretions. Only the week before. another damaging photo had surfaced in a different British tabloid. the .%i'in (Ow Maid show- ing the 51-year-old Duke of York. fourth in line of succession to the throne. strolling in New York's Central Park with Epstein. 58. a registered sex offender. The two photos capped months of neg- ative press coverage of Andrew. which mong other things, An- drew has been accused of hosting a lunch at Buck- ingham Palace for Mo- hamed Sakher El Materi. the billionaire son-in-law of [know deposed Tunisian strongman Zinc El Abidine Ben Ali. and of accepting a gift of a 530.000 gold necklace for his daughter Bea- trice from a convicted Libyan gun smuggler. (A spokesman for the Palace says it doesn't comment on private gifts to members of the royal family.) Andrew earned the nickname "Air-Miles Andy" after he was criticized by the National Audit Office for taking a hel- icopter just 50 miles to a lunch with Arab dignitaries. at a cost of almost $5.000. Then there was the story of a secret trip Andrew had made in 2008 to Libya, where he met Muammar Qaddafi and reportedly discussed the release from a Scottish prison of Locker- bie bomber Abdellxiset al-Megrahi (who was. in fact, released the following year). In addi- tion, it was reported that Andrew had flown to Sharm el Sheikh with David "Spotty" Rowland. a controversial Bntish businessman wino provided 566,000 to help pay Sarah Fer- M.P. CHRIS BRYANT DECLARED, "IT'S JUST UNSUSTAINABLE THAT PRINCE ANDREW SHOULD REMAIN AS THE PUBLIC F OF BRITISH I NM SIR\ \ BROAD." drm's dissolute private life and dodgy friends. "We're planning to publish a story about the Duke of York:' James told Perkins. "and we'd like a comment from the Palace." Perkins listened in stunned silence as James unfolded a shocking tale. Her news- paper had obtained a young woman named who claimed that the billionaire American money manager Jeffrey Epstein had trained her as an under-age prostitute and flown her to London in 2001, when she was just I? years old, for the express purpose of spend- ing time with Prince Andrew. Virginia. now a mother of three living in Australia. had waited a decade to break her silence. but the newspaper had evidence to support her story flight logs from Epstein's Boeing 727 and Gulfstream jet. and a photo show- ing Prince Andrew with his arm around Virginia's bare midriff. Standing off to one side in the photo was Ghislaine Maxwell. 49, the stylish and well-connected daugh- ter of the late. disgraced British newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell. According to Vir- ginia. Ghislaine recruited her as Epstein's "sex slave" when she was 15 years old 76 WANiI7 'AIR wr..onafollt tta began when an undercover reporter. pos- ing as a businessman, secretly videotaped an interview with Andrew's ex-wife. Sarah Ferguson. 51, who divorced the prince 15 years ago but still shares a home with him. The hapless Fergie was caught on tape demanding S821.000 in return for business access to her ex-husband, who is Britain's special representative for in- ternational trade and investment. "If you want to meet him in your business, look after me. and he'll look alter you." Fergie was heard saying on the video. "You'll get it back tenfold.... That opens up ev- erything you would ever wish for. And can open any door you want. And I will for you." Under a torrent of criticism. Sarah Fer- guson offered an abject public apology. returned the 540,000 down payment she had received, and offered to move out of Andrew's home. However, her claim on the video that Andrew had advance knowledge of her attempted shakedown—an accusa- tion categorically denied by Buckingham Palace- focused renewed attention on the long charge sheet against the prince. guson's staggering debts. While in Egypt. An- drew dined with Nursuhan Nazarbmtvt the corrupt president of Kazakhstan. whose son- in-law subsequently bought Andrew's white- elcpharg mansion. Sunninghill Park. for 525 million. 54.9 million more than the asking price. (Buckingham Palace denied that there was any impropriety imolved in the sale.) Later. Andrew moved into Roy-al Lodge. the late Queen Mother's residency in Wind- sor Great Park, where he continued to live with his former wife and their daughters. Princess Beatrice. 22. and Princess Eu- genie. 21. However, this has not put a crimp into Andrew's sybaritic style. He's been ru- mored to be romantically linked to more than a dozen women, including the Ameri- can actress Angie Everhart and Amanda Staveley, a successful private-equity special- ist to whom he proposed marriage. The sordid connection to Jeffrey Epstein inflicted by far the greatest damage on the prince's reputation. According to a sworn de- position by Juan Alessi. a former employee at Epstein's Pam Beach estate. Andrew attend- ed naked pool parties and was treated to mas- sages by a harem of adolescent girls. At least AUGUST 201 1 EFTA01166332