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Suffering a mass exodus of staff, Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace charity looks to be on the verge of an utter collapse thanks to the ongoing scandal of his connections to the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, The Express reports.
Royal expert Russell Myers has insisted that the company, which connects wealthy investors to tech start-ups, will remain “toxic” to staffers so long as Prince Andrew lives under the dark cloud of Epstein.
Over the past year, as Epstein-related headlines have continued to plague Prince Andrew, Johan Eliasch, a billionaire pal of Prince Andrew, quit the company along with 15 staff members.
Andrew, who was forced into early retirement from royal duties over his connection to Epstein, has only seen his troubles worsen over the past year. He faces questions over his connections to Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and alleged former madam to the House of Epstein Horrors awaiting a sex trafficking trial in the United States. What’s more, his pal Jean-Luc Brunel, the French fashion agent, was also recently arrested for sex trafficking. U.S. federal agents have long sought to interview Andrew about his ties to these alleged ne’er do wells, but he has endlessly dragged his feet.
It has now been over a year since his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview, after which he promised to cooperate with “any appropriate law enforcement agency”.
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace staff ‘jumping ship’ amid ‘toxic’ Jeffrey Epstein scandal
Prince Andrew’s team has pushed back against claims that his staffers’ departures amount to a harbinger of Pitch@Palace’s implosion beneath the weight of the Epstein scandal.
They insist that Pitch@Palace is an events-based operation and that staffers only departed because the company is in hibernation mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic–related restrictions and not reduced to a pile of rubble thanks to Prince Andrew’s ties to Epstein.
A spokesperson for the Duke of York stressed that characterizing the company’s status in any other was amounts to “baseless speculation.”
The Daily Mail reports that a trove of newly unsealed court documents from a defamation case against Maxwell has only worsened the PR crisis Prince Andrew has been suffering thanks to his ties to the alleged sex trafficker.
Although the evidence comes from previously sealed interviews with Maxwell when she was sued for defamation by Roberts five years ago, it is sure to be on the FBI’s radar. In the papers, The Duke of York, 60, is mentioned once in evidence given by Andrew Figueroa, the ex-boyfriend of Ms Roberts, who claims she was ordered to have sex with Prince Andrew three times at Epstein and Maxwell’s behest when she was 17. But the royal strenuously denies the allegations.
More pressure on Prince Andrew over Epstein: Unsealed Ghislaine Maxwell court papers claim ‘Jeffrey Epstein wanted Virginia Roberts to have sex with Royal’ and she told lawyers she ‘couldn’t remember’ trip to London
On a recent episode of Pod Save the Queen, hosted by Ann Gripper, Russell Myers said of the duke’s Epstein-related staffing nightmare at his company and other related woes, “Now, the issue for Prince Andrew is that he had been forced to step away from Buckingham Palace, forced to step away from his patronages, at least a lot of them.”
He continued in his analysis of just how much Prince Andrew’s existence has been impacted by his Epstein ties: “And it seems as though his flagship project Pitch@Palace and Pitch@Global have had a plethora of staff leave; they have had at least 15 staff leave the business over the past few months.”
Myers concluded: “And I think it’s been widely reported that he is considered so toxic in nature until this business with the cases surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and cases surrounding Ghislaine Maxwell, who has recently been denied bail and is languishing in jail at the moment awaiting trial, whether he has any shot of ever returning.”
The Herald Sun notes that Prince Andrew has long strenuously denied the accusations that he had sex with one of Epstein’s alleged sex-slave staffers, Virginia Giuffre, three times when she was 17. Giuffre has alleged that Maxwell recruited her into the Epstein harem.
He also denies being aware of any wrongdoing during his friendship with Epstein.
Compensation fund for Jeffrey Epstein victims halts payments
On his recent podcast appearance, Myers insisted that Prince Andrew appears to be coming to terms with the fact that he can never resume his old life and bring his business back to fully-staffed life, considering how badly Epstein has damaged his reputation.
“I saw recently that, certainly a source close to him was saying, he does realise and recognise the fact that he can’t just step back into his old life until this is all sorted, and I thought that that was sugar-coating it somewhat,” Myers stated.
“Because even if it does get sorted, he speaks to the FBI, it’s a long long road back for him and I imagine that’s what other people are thinking and probably trying to safeguard their own future by jumping ship.”
Yahoo! News reports that not only Prince Andrew but also Bill Clinton may be in for further negative publicity considering that their names are in the flight logs of Epstein’s private plane, dubbed the Lolita Express. What’s more, the plane’s pilot staffer is cooperating with investigators.
When Epstein died of an apparent suicide in his jail cell in 2019, the FBI investigation of his crimes continued, largely in hopes of discovering the many accomplices who had made his worldwide practice of procuring young girls and forcing them into sex work possible. Celebrities named on Epstein’s flight logs have been the starting point in ascertaining who exactly spent the most time with Epstein on these travels — and a trusted pilot of Epstein’s who reportedly has been working with the FBI could create a whole new world of trouble for Clinton and Andrew especially, two guests he claims were often onboard Epstein’s plane.
Bill Clinton & Prince Andrew Could Be Facing New Trouble Over Jeffrey Epstein’s Flight Logs
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