Prince Andrew continuously faces enormous problems with his involvement with the disgraced criminal offender Jeffrey Epstein. Aside from being pressured to speak to the FBI amidst the new exposés, his charity is also in trouble with the regulators for failing to submit annual accounts.
According to Express, the Charity Commission confirmed it contacted the trustees of The Prince Andrew Charitable Trust due to a several regulatory issues that include the late filing of its yearly return. The Duke of York's foundation has been flagged with a red warning notice after failing to provide its annual accounts for 51 days.
The annual accounts should have been filed by the end of January after receiving, at least, two reminder notices, but to no avail. Aside from the missed deadline, other issues about its operations sparked other concerns about the charity's future.
In 2019, Prince Andrew's trust in question filed an income of around £1.4 million. The said amount was meant to help young people in business, education, and sports sectors. Although it is its trustees' legal responsibility to file its accounts, Princess Beatrice's father has been its public face since founding it in 1984.
The Charity Commission said that a failure to file annual accounts on time only shows "a lack of transparency" on the charity's part. It can also ultimately result in damaging its reputation and ability to raise funds in the future.
"We are currently engaging with the trustees of the Prince Andrew Charitable Trust about a number of regulatory issues, including their failure to file the accounts on time," the watchdog said. "Whilst our engagement is ongoing, we cannot comment further."
Aside from this issue, Mirror Online reported Prince Andrew is also under renewed pressure to speak to the FBI after Epstein's lawyers refused to deny that the late American financier paid a teenager to have sex with the duke. One of the attorneys, Alan Dershowitz, allegedly said he had no idea when asked if the pedophile's sex slave, Virginia Giuffre, got paid to sleep with the prince when she was only 17 years old.
In the book, Relentless Pursuit: My Fight for the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein, author Bradley Edwards, the lawyer that represents over alleged 20 Epstein victims, revealed Dershowitz's statement about Giuffre's claims. The victim alleged that she was paid $15,000 (£12,875) after Epstein loaned her out to have sex with Prince Andrew in 2001.
Dershowitz allegedly said that if Giuffre got paid, she should be guilty of prostitution. So when Edwards asked him if Giuffre was lying, Dershowitz said he had no idea. Anyhow, Dershowitz already denied all the claims Edwards made in his book.
