Dripping with sweat as he entertains a troupe of scantily-clad girls at his beachfront mansion in the Bahamas, these extraordinary pictures show Prince Andrew’s billionaire chum Peter Nygard presiding over what he allegedly liked to call a ‘pamper party’.
In one photo, the fashion tycoon grins as a young woman dances intimately with a female friend. Another shows Nygard inserting his fingers into the same girl’s bikini bottoms as she bends over to touch the floor, in full view of dozens of astonished onlookers.
Elsewhere, a bespectacled Nygard plays poker with six women in the casino hut at Nygard Cay, the sprawling, Mayan-themed residence which boasts a disco cabana (with cameras beneath the dance floor, reportedly to shoot images of female revellers from below) and the world’s largest sauna.
The photos, purportedly taken in 2007, emerged yesterday, just days after an explosive lawsuit was filed in New York accusing Nygard of using lavish house parties to rape and sexually abuse women at the residence, some of them as young as 14.
The photos, purportedly taken in 2007, emerged yesterday, just days after an explosive lawsuit was filed in New York accusing Nygard of using lavish house parties to rape and sexually abuse women (none of the women in the new photos have complained of being sexually assaulted)
In other photos from the 2007 party Nygard is seen at a poker table surrounded by six women
Prince Andrew with Peter Nygard on Nygard’s Caribbean island back in 2000
The Queen paid tribute to Prince Andrew as he celebrates his 60th birthday under the cloud of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. She shared this photo of the Duke of York to mark the occasion
Princess Eugenie posted this picture on Instagram with ‘Papa Prince Andrew on his 60th Birthday’
While none of the women in the new photos has complained of being sexually assaulted, they provide a hair-raising insight into the fashion mogul’s colourful lifestyle.
In the 99-page class action lawsuit, it is alleged that Nygard used wealth and status to ‘entice underage girls’ from ‘young, impressionable and often impoverished backgrounds’ into his bizarre 150,000sqft home. Its sprawling grounds are filled with fake volcanoes that belch dry ice, stone cobras that hiss steam at sunset, and giant statues of nude women.
Since the lawsuit was filed, around 100 alleged witnesses and ‘dozens’ more potential victims have come forward, according to the lawyers behind the case — and now these sleazy pictures have surfaced.
Nygard’s Winnipeg-based lawyer Jay Prober said the allegations were ‘completely false, without foundation and vigorously denied’.
For Prince Andrew, forced to withdraw from official duties amid outrage over his links to the late Jeffrey Epstein, another tycoon with a Caribbean mansion and a highly-controversial private life, the timing could not be worse.
The image above shows Nygard sweating as three women dance next to him wearing them swim wear
Prince Andrew celebrated his 60th birthday on Wednesday and the royal house hold issued the above photo
As the Mail revealed last week, he visited Nygard’s mansion and was photgraphed with him in 2000.
Yesterday, the Prince celebrated his 60th birthday, a subdued and scaled-down affair, with a private lunch at Royal Lodge attended by a dozen close friends and relatives.
Public celebrations were also less enthusiastic than might have been expected prior to that disastrous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis in which the Prince attempted to explain his friendship with Epstein.
While many town halls around the country refused to fly the Union flag as tribute, Andrew could console himself with the fact that bells were rung to mark the milestone birthday at Westminster Abbey.
Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson shared this photo of the prince on Instagram today
More poignant was the photo released by the Royal Family of Andrew as a baby, along with a recent formal portrait. His ex-wife Sarah Ferguson posted a moody black-and-white shot and a suitably gushing message, while daughter Eugenie’s choice was of her as a child on her pony with her father looking fondly on.
The Nygard pictures stand in harsh contrast to these snaps and can only damage Andrew’s battered reputation further.
The ten initial complainants against Nygard, nine from the Bahamas, say they initially visited his mansion after being persuaded that meeting him — he owns several of Canada’s leading High Street fashion brands — might lead to a career in modelling.
Instead, they claim to have been plied with alcohol and (some allege) date-rape drugs, before being taken to Nygard’s private quarters, where the elderly billionaire, now 78, would ‘assault, rape and sodomise’ them.
Sarah Ferguson (left) is seen with Nygard, her daughters, Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice, and Princess Marie-Chantal and Prince Pavious of Greece, in this photo from 1997
Several of the women (who variously claimed to have been abused between 2008 and 2015) said they were then coerced into joining a globe-trotting harem of sex workers paid thousands of dollars from Nygard’s company funds.
Their lawsuit accuses Nygard of trafficking them around the world on his company’s private jet, which reportedly boasts a stripper pole.
It claims details of individual women were kept on a database that he would consult before deciding which of them to exploit.
At the weekend, the Mail also revealed that Nygard, who has at least seven children by four women, is facing legal claims from two further women, who have each filed lawsuits in California accusing him of several counts of rape and sexual abuse.
One — named as ‘Jane Doe’ — alleges that he raped her at his Los Angeles home when she was under the age of sexual consent, before trafficking her to New York, where she was taken to a ‘swingers’ nightclub ‘and instructed to have sex with an individual so Nygard could trade and have sex with the individual’s partner’.
In one frame he is seen holding onto a woman’s bare bottom as she leans over
Another, a former employee called Maridel Carbuccia, claims she was repeatedly groped before being plied with a date-rape drug while visiting Nygard’s home. Her lawsuit claims that the following day ‘when she awoke she saw her own blood on her skin and clothes and it was apparent that while she was unconscious, Nygard had sexually assaulted her’. Nygard has denied all wrong-doing, describing each sex claim as ‘completely false and without foundation’.
His legal woes have nonetheless made headlines around the world, thanks partly to the remarkable collection of famous guests he has entertained at Nygard Cay.
On a bizarre personal website, he boasts that guests ranged from pop royalty (Michael Jackson, Lenny Kravitz) to Hollywood A-listers (Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Jessica Alba, Sean Connery) and former U.S. President George Bush Snr.
Andrew was accompanied on his 2000 visit there by ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and their two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie who were photographed alongside Nygard and others.
The details of the trip were disclosed by the billionaire in an interview with Canada’s National Post paper shortly afterwards.
A photo recently obtained by the Mail showed them walking together on the sand, with the Prince wearing boat shoes, blue shorts and shirt. Other royal guests included Princess Michael of Kent.
Nygard has been the subject of several allegations of sexual misbehaviour over the years, although there is no suggestion that any of his famous acquaintances were aware of these allegations or of any rape claims against Nygard, or that they attended ‘pamper parties’. In 1980, Nygard was charged with raping an 18-year-old girl, but the case was dropped after she decided against giving evidence.
During the 1990s, he also settled high-profile sexual harassment cases filed by three women who previously worked for him.
In the days since the latest sex claims against Nygard became public, lawyers representing his alleged victims claim to have been approached by large numbers of women making similar claims against him. ‘We have received information from over 100 witnesses, including dozens of victims, who have come forward with additional evidence relating to alleged rape and sexual abuse,’ according to a statement released this week by Greg Gutzler and Lisa Haba, their lawyers.
‘The brave women who have stepped forward made the choice to hold Nygard responsible for his actions, regardless of his attempt to intimidate them into silence.’
Mr Gutzler told a Canadian newspaper that the allegations against Nygard date back as far as 1977. ‘The pattern is very similar — the same pattern, the same practice, the same manoeuvres, the same protocol, if you will. I can’t put a finer point on it because if I give you a number [of alleged victims] now, it’ll be higher in two hours.’
Nygard’s lawyer Jay Prober called the statement released by the alleged victims’ lawyers on Tuesday ‘highly unusual’. He described the claims as ‘malicious and false allegations’ and said ‘a lot of people in that kind of situation see dollar signs and they’re right away jumping on the bandwagon’.
The victims’ lawyers say several of their clients have claimed that Nygard asked them to perform depraved sexual acts. One, who was just 14 at the time, claims in the lawsuit that Nygard raped her and paid her $5,000.
Another said her encounter with Nygard began with him showing her pornography after which he raped her, ‘causing her extraordinary trauma and pain’, the suit states. Three of his existing ten accusers were 14 at the time. Three more were 15.
The lawsuit claims Nygard ‘initiated a scheme to purchase police protection and political cover in the Bahamas by making regular payments of tens of thousands of dollars to law enforcement, government officials, regulators and even to a former cabinet minister who became the prime minister of the Bahamas’. That is believed to refer to political donations which he has for years channelled to local lawmakers. Its newspaper, The Tribune, has meanwhile revealed that six local girls made formal rape complaints against Nygard last summer. Each claim they were either ‘recruited’ via Facebook to attend parties at Nygard’s home or approached by his employees at a shopping centre called Marathon Mall and invited to ‘pamper parties’ to meet the billionaire.
Once at Nygard’s home, they would be given beauty treatments before being invited to stay for a party. If they agreed, the alleged victims said they were offered alcohol and ‘little blue pills’ — which lawyers believe may have been the date-rape drug rohypnol.
On Monday, the Bahamas’ national security minister Marvin Dames said: ‘Those are some serious allegations being made and I am certain the police would want to follow up on them. We have an obligation to do so.’
In the meantime, the nightmare for Prince Andrew continues.