poppy wood
Sarah Ferguson visited Jeffrey Epstein twice in his office over a fake company he created while he was imprisoned for a child sex crime.
The former Duchess of York met the twice-convicted pedophile at the Palm Beach office of the fake company he set up to gain work release while in jail.
She also planned to meet him for a third time at the headquarters of the fake company, the Florida Science Foundation, but her travel plans fell through at the last minute.
Lord Peter Mandelson also called Epstein into the office and video-called him there on one occasion while staying at the financier’s New York mansion. The telegraph has discovered.
Epstein’s victims have alleged in recent weeks that he abused them at the office at 250 South Australian Avenue while he was supposed to be in jail in nearby Palm Beach County.
The sex offender had access to a generous work release program after being jailed for recruiting a minor into prostitution in June 2008, allowing him to leave his cell for up to 12 hours a day.
Roza, one of Epstein’s 1,200 sexual abuse victims, told Congress in May that he had offered her a job at the foundation while he was imprisoned between June 2008 and July 2009, and that he had abused her in the office.
Ferguson visited Epstein at the facility twice during that period. She messaged him on April 4, 2009, asking if she could stop by for “a quick cup of tea” during a stopover in Florida, nine months after Epstein’s sentencing.
She signed the email: “I love Sarah the redhead.!!” Epstein gave him the phone number and address of the office and told him it was “ten minutes away.” [the] airport”.
He followed up two days later to tell her that she seemed “great” and that he had read “everything you gave me.”
Ferguson had left behind documents related to her Mother’s Army initiative, an online network she launched the following year to connect women in need.
She responded five days later, telling Epstein: “My dear, spectacular, special friend Jeffrey. You are a legend and I am so proud of you. Thank you for taking such good care of me.”
Ferguson made plans to visit Epstein again in his office for lunch next week on his way to Canada from a trip to Grenada, but they fell through.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife had sent three emails to Epstein about the meeting scheduled for April 20, 2009, and her assistant had scheduled the visit in the financier’s diary.
Epstein was due to meet his sexual addiction therapist in the office that day.
Ferguson emailed him the morning of the planned visit saying “Aaaaghhh… I can’t make the flights.” She had previously told Epstein that she was determined to spend an hour of her time “brainstorming his great ideas.”
Ferguson called Epstein from the United Kingdom a fortnight later, on May 5, 2009, before visiting him a second time at his office on May 13, 2009.
Epstein asked 11 of his associates to help him “coordinate” the visit, and his driver apparently picked Ferguson up at the airport.
A visitor log recording Epstein’s guests at his rented office was “destroyed by PBSO [the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office] in accordance with records retention schedules,” according to a 2021 investigation by Florida authorities.
The same week, Mandelson called Epstein at his Palm Beach office from London, and the then-business secretary told Epstein that things were “still in turmoil here politically” in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal.
A month later, Mandelson Skyped with Epstein at the Florida Science Foundation office while staying at the disgraced pedophile’s New York home. Four weeks later, Epstein was released from prison.
Epstein’s assistant said she would schedule the call in the mogul’s own version of “Mr. Mandelson’s Oval Office.”
Mandelson, who has been stripped of several titles and honors for his links to Epstein, has previously insisted that he “never saw any evidence of criminal activity” during his relationship with the pedophile.
Ferguson and Epstein continued to discuss their Mother’s Army initiative via email for several months, and Ferguson sent documents to the fake headquarters in June of that year.
The former Duchess of York has already faced backlash after emails emerged earlier this year suggesting she had later visited Epstein with his two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, when the pedophile was released from jail and placed under house arrest a month later in July 2009.
“Ferg and the two girls came,” Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking girls and women for the pedophile.
When Ferguson attempted to distance himself from Epstein years later amid scrutiny over his abuse of women and girls, the financier joked to an associate that it was a bold move for someone who had visited him while he was in prison for a child sex crime.
Reply to a contact about a query The telegraph In March 2011, regarding her relationship with then-Prince Andrew, Epstein said to tell them about Ferguson instead.
He described to another associate “the absurdity of Fergie’s statements” and added: “There were law enforcement officers in my office when I was on work release who let her in.”
Sarah Kellen, a former Epstein aide, also told Congress in early June that she had helped arrange meetings with Ferguson “at Jeffrey’s office in Palm Beach while he was on work release and at his Palm Beach home.”
A Ferguson spokesperson he previously told the BBC: “The Duchess spoke of her regret for her association with Epstein many years ago and, as has always been, her first thoughts are with his victims.
“Like many people, she fell for his lies. As soon as she learned of the extent of the accusations against him, she not only cut off contact, but publicly condemned him, to the point that he threatened to sue her for defamation for associating him with pedophilia.”
Lord Mandelson has been contacted for comment.
