A message from the Duchess of York has been unearthed in a notebook seized by police from the Miami mansion of newly-accused paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The note, penned on January 25, 2005, at 7.15pm, is from ‘HRH Duchess of York Sarah (Fergie)’ and says ‘she is expecting your call’.
Sarah Ferguson’s husband Prince Andrew was a close friend of Epstein and was accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing an underage girl – claims Buckingham Palace categorically denied and which have since been struck from the record.
The note was among dozens of messages left for the billionaire financier from the likes of magician David Copperfield, close friend Jean-Luc Brunel, and socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who dated Epstein and was part of his inner circle for decades.
A notepad taken from the Miami mansion of Jeffrey Epstein shows he received a message from Sara Ferguson, Duchess of York, on January 25, 2005, saying: ‘She is expecting your call’
The Duchess’s husband is Prince Andrew, the Queen’s son, who was accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre (pictured together), which was later struck from the record. Pictured right is Epstein’s close associate Ghislaine Maxwell
Epstein used to be close friends with Prince Andrew after the pair were introduced in the 1990s by Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the media mogul Robert Maxwell.
Andrew’s name was mentioned in a 2015 lawsuit as some of Epstein’s victims challenging a plea deal which saw him plead guilty to just two charges of sex with underage prostitutes and escape a serious jail sentence.
The court filing alleged that Epstein forced Virginia Giuffre – who was then known as Roberts – ‘to have sexual relations’ on three separate occasions with ‘a member of the British Royal Family, Prince Andrew (a/k/a Duke of York)’.
She is thought to have been 17 at the time.
A photograph shows Andrew with his hand around Roberts’ waist while Maxwell stands in the background, and is believed to have been taken at her London home.
Buckingham Palace has previously denied the claims as ‘categorically untrue’ and ‘false and without any foundation’.
Prince Andrew has also strenuously denied having anything to do with Giuffre.
His wife’s links to Epstein relate to £15,000 that Andrew arranged for Epstein to pay her to help clear a £78,000 debt she owed to her former personal assistant, Johnny O’Sullivan. The payment was reported in 2011, though it is unclear when it was made.
The Duchess subsequently apologised, saying: ‘I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me.
‘I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgement on my behalf. I am just so contrite I cannot say.
‘Whenever I can, I will repay the money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.’
In 2005, when the note was penned, the Duchess and Prince Andrew were divorced and living separately.
The couple had been separated since 1992 and officially divorced in 1996.
Until 2004 they had been sharing a home at Sunninghill Park in Berkshire, before he moved to the refurbished Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park.
Many of the messages are from Jean-Luc Brunel (above), a model agent who has been accused of sexual assault and rape by multiple women
The pair continued to be close, however, and Fergie reportedly attended the Royal Family’s annual summer getaway at Balmoral that year, at Andrew’s invite.
She also attended red carpet events in New York, including the Golden Globes.
The notes were in a pad that police took from Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion in 2005 when they first began investigating him for sex crimes, and obtained by the Dailymail.com under FOIA law.
There is one that appears to reference underage girls, another noting how much an 18-year-old woman ‘loves Jeffrey’ and another in which Brunel relays a doctor’s professional opinion on how best to treat a sexually transmitted disease.
The notes were unveiled as Epstein sits in jail charged with operating a sex trafficking ring in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005 which involved the abuse of dozens of underage girls.
Other messages in Epstein’s notepad include one from Brunel which lawyers subsequently argued could have showed him procuring two eight-year-old girls for Epstein to abuse.
At 8:08 am on the morning of April 1, Brunel called Epstein and left a message, which was relayed to Epstein via a note that read: ‘He has a teacher for you to teach you how to speak Russian. She is 2 x 8 years old not blonde. Lessons are free and you can have 1st today if call me back.’
Brunel then followed up again at 8:31am and 9:04am, asking that Epstein get in touch.
Bradley Edwards, the lawyer for a number of Epstein victims including Virginia Giuffre (née Roberts) included those three messages as evidence after Epstein filed a civil suit against him.
‘In light of these circumstances of the case, this message reasonably suggested to Edwards that Brunel might have been procuring two eight-year-old girls for Epstein to sexually abuse,’ stated one court filing submitted by Edwards and his lawyer.
‘According to widely circulated press reports reviewed by Edwards, Brunel is in his sixties and has a reputation throughout the world (and especially in the modeling industry) as a cocaine addict that has for years molested children through modeling agencies while acting as their agent — conduct that has been the subject of critical reports, books, several news articles, and a 60 Minutes documentary on Brunel’s sexual exploitation of underage models.’
That legal battle waged on for years before finally ending in December, when Epstein settled with Edwards and publicly apologized after the lawyer counter sued for defamation.
Other messages in the pad include one from Ghislaine Maxwell in August 2005 that reveals that Epstein and his age-appropriate companion were hosting Tom Ford in Palm Beach.
‘She let [Epstein’s pilot] Larry go,’ reads the note
Esptein is then told to contact Maxwell to let her know if she should just pick the designer up in the helicopter, which she was licensed to fly.
There are also messages from his good friend Leslie Wexner about business matters, and former Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman calls to ask what the best time would be for him to visit would be during a trip to Palm Beach.
None of those people have been implicated in any way in Epstein’s scandals, and are believed to have been caught completely off guard when they learned about his predatory habits.
There are also seven messages from David Copperfield or his assistant.
‘Magic David called,’ reads one note.
‘It’s jackpot,’ says another message.
These all stand in stark contrast to the frequent messages left by Brunel.