LONDON — British police on Friday were searching a mansion occupied until recently by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, a day after his stunning arrest over links to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Mountbatten-Windsor was questioned until late Thursday at a police station in Norfolk over allegations of misconduct in public life.
A photograph of him leaving the building, looking shell-shocked in the back of a vehicle, dominated the front pages of British newspapers Friday. The arrest plunged the British monarchy into one of its biggest crises in decades.
Mountbatten-Windsor, who turned 66 on Thursday, was formerly known as Prince Andrew and is a younger brother of King Charles III.
His arrest came after the U.S. Department of Justice released millions of documents last month in connection with Epstein. Reports based on those documents suggest that Mountbatten-Windsor may have shared confidential government information with Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy, a position he held from 2001 to 2011.
Mountbatten-Windsor has not so far been charged. British police did not mention the accusations of sexual abuse made against the former prince by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, nor the trafficking allegations Epstein was facing when he died in a New York City jail in 2019.
Mountbatten-Windsor, who has not spoken publicly or responded to requests for comment in recent months, has always denied any wrongdoing.
The police search underway Friday was at Royal Lodge, a 30-room mansion on the estate surrounding Windsor Castle that the former prince occupied until earlier this year, when he moved to a smaller property on the royal estate in Sandringham, Norfolk.
Mountbatten-Windsor used an office in Buckingham Palace while working as a trade envoy, raising the possibility that it, too, might be subject to some form of police search.
British police have said nothing about the specifics of the investigation. Misconduct in public office takes place when someone performing a job on behalf of the British public “willfully neglects to perform their duty” or “willfully misconducts themselves” in abuse of the public trust. Theoretically, it carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
While other members of the royal family have continued their normal round of engagements, the allegations swirling around Mountbatten-Windsor have created an extraordinary moment of jeopardy for the monarchy, which has been shaken by several crises over the last century.
Until Thursday, no senior royal family member had been arrested in connection with a serious crime since the 17th century.
Charles issued a public statement after the arrest promising full cooperation with the investigation and stating that “the law must take its course.”
On Thursday, Sky Roberts, Giuffre’s brother, praised the British authorities, contrasting what had taken place in Britain with what he described as inaction in the United States.
“I will continue to commend the king for the actions he has taken, we have yet to see that from our own government here,” he said in a BBC interview.
Amanda Roberts, Giuffre’s sister-in-law, added in that interview: “We are hopeful that this investigation now starts to open up that further probe into the sexual assault allegations.”
In 2022, Mountbatten-Windsor paid Giuffre an undisclosed sum to settle a lawsuit in a New York court, in which she accused him of raping her when she was 17. He did not admit any wrongdoing in the case.
Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal title and honors last year after earlier revelations from the Epstein files. But he remains eighth in line to the throne and, while it seems unlikely that Mountbatten-Windsor could ever become king, some politicians are pressing for his right to succession to be revoked formally.
That would require legislation in Parliament, a process that could expose the monarchy to more scrutiny.
Mountbatten-Windsor has said that he first met Epstein in 1999 through Ghislaine Maxwell, then the financier’s girlfriend and a well-connected Briton and daughter of media tycoon Robert Maxwell.
In 2008, Epstein was jailed after pleading guilty in Florida to a charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution. Two years later, Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein were photographed walking in Central Park in New York City. The former prince later claimed that the meeting was to end the friendship and that he wanted to do so in person.
From the New York Times News Service.
