The spat over whether the prince is willing to help in a sex-trafficking inquiry escalated, with a top federal prosecutor effectively calling the British royal a liar.
For four months, federal prosecutors in New York have been locked in a nasty public spat with Prince Andrew of Britain about what they say is his refusal to aid their investigation into allegations of sex trafficking and other crimes by the financier Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.
In March, Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan, took the unusual step of announcing at a news conference that the British royal had “completely shut the door” on helping with the inquiry. The comments came two months after Mr. Berman complained that the prince was offering “zero cooperation” in the case.
On Monday, the trans-Atlantic sniping escalated, with the prince’s lawyers saying in a statement from London that he had agreed three times to help the New York prosecutors, though on his terms, with a written statement, and not by sitting for an interview.
In the statement, the prince’s lawyers accused Mr. Berman by name of misleading the public with “inaccurate” comments about the prince that “should not have been made.” They also suggested that Mr. Berman and other U. S. prosecutors hoped to bask in the limelight by loudly and repeatedly attacking Prince Andrew.
“They are perhaps seeking publicity rather than accepting the assistance proffered,” the prince’s lawyers wrote.
Within hours, Mr. Berman shot back, issuing a statement of his own in which he effectively called Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, a liar.
“Today, Prince Andrew yet again sought to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to cooperate with an ongoing federal criminal investigation into sex trafficking and related offenses,” Mr. Berman wrote.
“If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation,” Mr. Berman added, “our doors remain open, and we await word of when we should expect him.
