By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-08-15 12:22:35 | Updated at 2026-08-15 13:22:51
2 hours ago
Sarah Ferguson tried to contact FBI director Kash Patel to hand over the phone number of a controversial British socialite who has staunchly defended Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor over his part in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
The bizarre intervention was said to have occurred last March when the former Duchess of York, herself a dedicated ally of her ex-husband, contacted the FBI in an apparent attempt to provide Mr Patel with Lady Victoria Hervey's details.
The FBI has led the investigation into the Epstein scandal, seizing documents and material from his homes which would later be partly publicly released in what has become known as the Epstein Files.
Meanwhile, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has famously failed to comply with its request to be interviewed despite his earlier promise of co-operation.
Hervey, 49, who briefly dated Andrew in 1999, has previously caused outrage by claiming the infamous photo of Andrew with his arm around the late Epstein trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre was faked and accusing Epstein victims of 'jumping on the bandwagon for money'.
She has also repeatedly criticised Ms Giuffre, who died last April aged 41, even posting 'when lies catch up to you there's no way out' in the wake of her death by suicide
Her flippant remarks on being a 'bit of a loser' if you were not named in the Epstein Files also caused widespread disgust.
Earlier this year, Hervey, who is known to be a fan of the Trump administration and has previously posted a picture of herself with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January 2025 and even one with Mr Patel on social media, told LBC radio: 'To be honest, if you are not in those files, it would be an insult because it would just mean you were a bit of a loser.'
Sarah Ferguson pictured attending the traditional Easter Sunday Mattins Service at St George's Chapel last year
FBI Director Kash Patel holds a press conference at the Department of Justice on July 1
Lady Victoria Hervey attends Broadwick Soho's 2nd Birthday Party in London last year
Ferguson, 66, whose deep embroilment with disgraced paedophile financier Epstein caused public revulsion as the scale of her involvement with him became clear on the release of the Epstein Files, is well known for leaping to the defence of her former husband.
But in an email sent by an FBI attaché David Walker to Mr Patel on March 6, 2025, it becomes clear that she was also incredibly taking steps to intervene in his favour at the highest levels of the US investigation.
Mr Walker's email informs Mr Patel that Sarah Ferguson, who stopped using her title in the wake of the Epstein revelations, had made contact with the FBI, it was reported by Bloomberg.
The US news service says the email, which was published by the FBI in a collection of documents entitled 'Records regarding the review of the investigative holdings related to Jeffrey Epstein', said:
'Director Patel, the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, reached out and wanted to provide contact information for Victoria Harvey [sic].
'The duchess was under the impression you requested this contact information.
Former model Hervey, the daughter of the late sixth Marquess of Bristol and sister of the dissolute seventh Marquess John Hervey, who squandered much of the family fortune including ancestral home Ickworth House on his drug habit, before dying in 1999 aged 44, has regularly commented on the scandal.
Hervey, also a regular on reality TV, has previously claimed that Epstein, who committed suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, who is still in prison, had set up Andrew, who lost all of his titles last year because of the scandal, and Epstein was a 'blackmailer'.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Lady Victoria Hervey at a Chinese New Year party in 2002
The disgraced royal speaking during a television interview outside the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor
'I still believe Jeffrey and Virginia worked together on this,' she told LBC in February, claiming they 'worked together on setting up Andrew with the fake photo'.
She has even alleged that a 'body double' was used to 'fake' the photo of Andrew and Virginia even though it has been revealed that even Ghislaine Maxwell has admitted it is genuine.
US authorities have previously said that the former Prince Andrew has provided 'zero co-operation' in its investigation.
In 2020, US attorney Geoffrey Berman announced from the steps of Epstein's Upper East Side mansion in New York, that prosecutors and the FBI had repeatedly contacted the Duke of York's lawyers to follow up on his previous pledge that he was 'willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency'.
'It's fair for people to know whether Prince Andrew has followed through with that public commitment,' Berman said, adding that he had 'provided zero cooperation'.
The Epstein Files revealed that Ferguson sought and maintained a close friendship with Epstein even after his conviction for child sex offences, notably bringing daughters Beatrice and Eugenie to see him five days after he was released from prison.
He was released from prison on 22 July 2009 after serving 13 months of an 18 month sentence.
An email from August 2010 reads: 'I am feeling very traumatised and alone. I am wanting to work for you at organising your houses.'
In September 2010, she asks 'when are you going to employ me', and the same day 'phew.. you still love me'.
She also jokes with him in 2009 about another woman: 'You can marry her too. She is single and a great body.'
In 2010, referring to their mutual fondness for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, she writes: 'I do know that my handsome Prince is a saint.. And you worship him, I do too. But then I did marry him. And still love him.'
