The Middleman

As you’ve probably seen in other reporting, for years Epstein was in contact with the person now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife (but still close friend) Sarah Ferguson, also known as “Fergie,” formerly known as Sarah, Duchess of York. The contents of those emails have already been pretty thoroughly reported.

However, if you’re interested in the British royals, a deep dive into the Epstein Files will show you that there’s a person whose emails reveal more about the Windsors than actual members of the family: David Stern. Although Andrew and Sarah would regularly check in with Epstein about various things, years of emails make it clear that Stern was essentially the go-between for the then-Duke and Duchess of York and Epstein. There are hundreds of emails wherein Stern is passing along a message from Andrew (often referred to as “PA”) to Epstein.

So who is Stern? The Sun and the Guardian describe Stern as a “businessman.” Thanks to official records, we know that he was a director at Andrew’s now-defunct “Pitch @ Palace” initiative, which, according to the royal family’s official website, was “an initiative set up by [Andrew] to guide, help and connect entrepreneurs with potential supporters, in order to accelerate and amplify their businesses.” Fun fact: the initiative wasn’t founded until 2014! Thanks to the emails, however, we know that Epstein introduced Stern to Sarah (and Andrew, by proxy) in early 2010.

As you can see in the email above, on Feb. 6, 2010, Sarah sends Andrew an email praising Stern and instructing her ex-husband to contact him (with the detail that she’d hosted Stern at Royal Lodge for dinner). 

From this point on, there are years of emails (numbering in the thousands) between Stern and Epstein, nearly all of which are about (and in some cases from) Andrew and Sarah. 

What was Stern’s role? If you read the emails without knowing any context, some of Stern’s communications with Epstein give the impression of a clandestine asset reporting to his collector and receiving instructions to take back out into the field.

Then again, it’s not accurate to call him Epstein’s spy, because Andrew clearly knew about (some of) his communications with the financier, and would often send information to Epstein via Stern or use him to arrange their telephone calls. And it’s not accurate to call him Andrew’s handler, because while Epstein often tells Stern to get Andrew to perform certain actions, in many cases, he only does that because Andrew has requested help.

That being said, it’s very obvious that Andrew was never meant to see most of the emails between Stern and Epstein. I mean, I found a message referring to one of Andrew’s daughters — seemingly Beatrice — as “not the cute one.” (Note: since Princess Eugenie was still in college and Princess Beatrice was very visibly seeking a job around this time, I’m going to go with her.)

Let’s call Stern the middleman — a word that has no negative connotation and matches the description of Stern’s role in Epstein’s world and Andrew’s world. 

Reporter’s Note: I know it’s weird to start with a person instead of jumping right to the newsy content, but it’s important to know about Stern and the part he appears to play in order to understand most of the emails.

Additional Reporter’s Note: This one is for the pedants among us. Since Mountbatten-Windsor was still Prince Andrew, Duke of York during the time relevant to this story, I’m going to style him as such.