A former employee of Jeffrey Epstein has told how she was ordered to give massages to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Mandelson during a visit to the island retreat where a photograph of the three men was taken.
A picture emerged on Friday showing Mandelson and Andrew in bathrobes on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
The image came from US department of justice (DoJ) files documenting its investigation into the late sex offender. It is the first picture showing the three men together and it has been reported that it was taken between 1999 and 2000.
Christine Kenneally, a former employee of Epstein, said she was flown to the island in 1999 by the financier and his girlfriend at the time, GhislaineMaxwell, where she was instructed to massage Andrew and Mandelson.
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In an exclusive interview Kenneally, who was 30 that year, described the pair as “perfect gentlemen” and said nothing inappropriate happened, unlike when she was made to massageEpstein. She said she was paid for the trip and given a bonus for “important people” she massaged.
“If they ever did anything untoward with others, they did not with me. They were perfect gentlemen and thanked me when I was finished,” she told The Times in September.
Kenneally’s claims are corroborated by Jess Michaels, her former roommate in New York, who called the FBI Epstein victim hotline in 2021 to say her former friend “bragged about massaging Andrew twice”. A reference to this call appears inthe Epstein files. Kenneally also appears several times on the flight logs of Epstein’s private jet.
Mountbatten-Windsordenies any wrongdoing. Mandelson is understood to categorically deny that he had the massage alleged by Kenneally. It is thought to be the only time he met Andrew and Epstein together.
There are several references inthe filesto Epstein spending time in Martha’s Vineyard. The island has been a favourite summer holiday spot for celebrities and former presidents, including Bill Clinton andBarack Obama. It was also a favourite for the Kennedys.
Mandelson appeared to confirm the visit in the files. One of Epstein’s assistants emailed Mandelson with the subject line “Photograph from Jeffrey Epstein” and asked where it was taken.
“I think it was Martha’s, the first time I met Jeffrey, staying with Lynn Forester,” the formerLabourpolitician replied.The connectionappeared to be Lady de Rothschild, at the time Lynn Forester, a New Jersey-born telecoms businesswoman turned investor who chairs EL Rothschild, a wealth management firm, and had a home on Martha’s Vineyard. Lady de Rothschild said: “Epstein never stayed at my residence (…) I never saw or spoke to him after 2000.”
Maxwell gave an account of the 1999 trip to Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, in an official interview from prison conducted last year.
“I did not introduce him to Prince Andrew or toSarah Ferguson. That is a flat untruth. I’ll start with that,” she told Blanche.
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