Poppy Wood
Sarah Ferguson visited Jeffrey Epstein twice at his office for a bogus firm he set up while imprisoned on a child sex offence.
The former Duchess of York met the convicted paedophile on two occasions at the Palm Beach office of the fake company he invented to secure work release while in jail.
She also planned to meet him a third time at the headquarters of the bogus firm, the Florida Science Foundation, but her travel plans fell through at the last minute.
Lord Peter Mandelson also phoned Epstein at the office and video-called him there on one occasion while he was staying in the financier’s New York mansion, the London Telegraph has discovered.
Epstein victims have alleged in recent weeks that he abused them at the office on 250 South Australian Avenue while he was supposed to be in jail at the nearby Palm Beach County Stockade.
The sex offender was granted access to a generous work release program after he had been jailed for procuring a minor for prostitution in June 2008, which allowed him to leave his cell for up to 12 hours a day.
Roza, one of Epstein’s estimated 1200 victims of sexual abuse, told Congress in May that he had offered her a job at the foundation while he was jailed between June 2008 and July 2009, and that he had abused her at the office.
Ferguson visited Epstein at the premises twice during that period. She messaged him on April 4, 2009, to ask whether she could stop by for “a quick cup of tea” during a layover in Florida – nine months into Epstein’s sentence.
She signed off the email: “Love Sarah The red Head.!!” Epstein gave her the phone number and address of the office and told her it was “ten minutes from [the] airport”.
He followed up two days later to tell her she looked “great” and that he had read “everything you gave me”.
Ferguson had dropped off documents relating to her Mother’s Army initiative, an online network she launched the next year to connect women in need.
She replied five days later, telling Epstein: “My dear spectacular and special friend Jeffrey. You are a legend, and I am so proud of you. Thank you for looking after me so well.”
Ferguson made plans to visit Epstein at his office again for lunch the next week on her way to Canada from a trip to Grenada, but they fell through.
The former wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had emailed Epstein three times about the meet-up planned for April 20, 2009, and his assistant had scheduled the visit in the financier’s diary.
Epstein was due to meet his sex addiction therapist at the office that day.
Ferguson emailed him on the morning of the planned visit saying “Aaaaghhh … Cannot make the flights”. She had previously told Epstein that she was determined to spend an hour of his time “for a brainstorming of your genius ideas”.
Ferguson called Epstein from the UK 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 “coordinate” the visit, with his driver apparently picking Ferguson up from the airport.
A visitor log that recorded Epstein’s guests at his rented office was “destroyed by PBSO [the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office] pursuant to records retention schedules”, according to a 2021 investigation by Florida authorities.
The same week, Mandelson called Epstein at his Palm Beach office from London, with the then-business secretary telling Epstein things were “still riotous here politically” in the fallout from the MPs’ expenses scandal.
A month later, Mandelson Skyped Epstein at the Florida Science Foundation’s office while he was staying at the disgraced paedophile’s New York townhouse. Four weeks later, Epstein was released from jail.
Epstein’s assistant said she would set up the call in the tycoon’s own version of the “Oval Office for Mr Mandelson”.
Mandelson, who has been stripped of various titles and honours over his links to Epstein, has previously insisted he “never saw any evidence of criminal activity” during his relationship with the paedophile.
Ferguson and Epstein continued to discuss her Mother’s Army initiative via email for several months, with Ferguson posting documents to the fake headquarters in June that year.
The former Duchess of York has already faced a backlash after emails emerged earlier this year that suggested she had later visited Epstein with her two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, when the paedophile 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 now serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking girls and women to the paedophile.
When Ferguson tried to distance herself from Epstein years later amid scrutiny over his abuse of women and young girls, the financier joked to an associate that it was a bold move for someone who had visited him while he was in jail on a child sex offence.
Responding to a contact about an inquiry from the Telegraph in March 2011 about his relationship with the then-prince Andrew, Epstein said to tell them about Ferguson instead.
He described to another associate “the absurdity of Fergie’s statements”, adding: “There were law enforcement people in my office when I was on work release that let her in.”
Sarah Kellen, Epstein’s former assistant, also told Congress earlier in June that she had helped organise meetings with Ferguson “at Jeffrey’s office in Palm Beach while he was on work release and at the house in Palm Beach”.
A spokesman for Ferguson previously told the BBC: “The duchess spoke of her regret about her association with Epstein many years ago, and as they have always been, her first thoughts are with his victims.
“Like many people, she was taken in by his lies. As soon as she was aware of the extent of the allegations against him, she not only cut off contact but condemned him publicly, to the extent that he then threatened to sue her for defamation for associating him with paedophilia.”
Lord Mandelson was approached for comment.
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