(Bloomberg) -- Britain’s Prince Andrew has provided “zero cooperation” to U.S. investigators probing the case of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in prison last year, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan said.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman took the unusual step of commenting on his office’s investigative efforts in response to a question at a conference to raise awareness about a child victims’ law. Prince Andrew stated publicly that he was willing to cooperate, but Berman “felt it appropriate to set the record straight on that issue,” according to his spokesman, James Margolin.
Prosecutors and FBI agents don’t normally publicly disclose steps they are taking during an active investigation. Margolin said the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the New York office of the FBI had reached out to Prince Andrew through his lawyers in the U.K. but received no response. It is unclear if efforts to secure Prince Andrew’s cooperation are ongoing.
A spokesperson for the royal family declined to comment.
The prince stepped away from his royal duties in November after comments he made during a television interview about his relationship with Epstein sparked outrage, and said that he was willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations.
In the interview broadcast by the BBC, the prince was also questioned about allegations made by one of his victims, Virginia Giuffre, who has said she was forced into sexual encounters with the prince as a teenager. The prince denied those allegations and claimed he was at a pizza restaurant in southern England on a night in 2001 when one incident is alleged to have taken place.
U.K. police said after the interview that they wouldn’t reopen a probe into Epstein. Authorities there received a human-trafficking complaint concerning an individual brought to London in 2001. Police declined to open a full criminal investigation after interviewing the accuser.
Epstein died in his Manhattan jail cell, about five weeks after he was arrested on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex. While New York’s chief medical examiner ruled that he hanged himself, his death has been the subject of mass speculation as to how a high-profile prisoner was able to harm himself in such a secure facility.
Berman was speaking at an event held by the nonprofit group Safe Horizons to raise awareness for New York’s Child Victims Act, a law enacted last year that extends the statute of limitations for adult survivors of child sexual abuse. The event was held outside Epstein’s former townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
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