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(NewsNation) — Daphne Barak, a journalist who exposed 2011 emails between the former Prince Andrew and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, told NewsNation that the royal palace called tabloids to ask about the emails before the king decided to strip his brother of his remaining titles.
“I’m revealing it to you exclusively, the palace called one of my two papers after I revealed [Andrew’s] email and said, ‘how many emails?’ And my paper said plenty. I think that was the nail on the coffin,” Barak told NewsNation.
“They knew there were more. There was lots of traffic between Sarah [Ferguson], Andrew and Epstein.”
Thursday, King Charles III stripped his brother of his remaining titles and evicted him from his residence at Royal Lodge. He will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, the palace said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Andrew voluntarily gave up his title as duke of York. Following Andrew’s removal from Royal Lodge, Charles will privately fund his living accommodations while he resides at the privately owned Sandrigham Estate.
“He was still very entitled, I think he thought he was invincible, Barak told NewsNation. “He thought nothing could ever touch him.”
The former prince has been hit with a new wave of scrutiny after the posthumous publication of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir.
In the book, Giuffre said Epstein trafficked her to Windsor, where he sexually abused her when she was under the age of 18.
Other recent revelations include that Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, attended a gathering at Royal Lodge in 2006 and that Windsor had remained in contact with Epstein longer than he previously admitted.
Pressure to evict him came after it was revealed that while he invested a substantial amount of money into Royal Lodge at the start of his residence, he was paying a symbolic annual rent of one peppercorn.
There were reports that Windsor was seeking financial compensation to move out of the royal residence, which is on the grounds of the Windsor Estate.
Before Andrew was evicted from Royal Lodge, he was reportedly dragging out negotiations to leave the property because he wanted to be paid “fairly,” in the region of “a couple of million,” for the unexpired 50 years remaining on his lease, according to NewsNation’s Paula Froelich.
The former duke of York prepaid approximately $10.9 million for a 75-year lease on the property, effectively purchasing a lifetime tenancy at the rate of around $145,000 per year. Andrew remains eighth in line for the British throne.
NewsNation’s Teddy Grant and Stephanie Whiteside contributed to this report.
Go To Source | Author: Patrick Djordjevic
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