Britain’s former Duke of York, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly, ‘Prince Andrew’), was arrested and taken into custody early on Thursday (February 19, 2026) morning, over his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased American child sex offender and financier. The extraordinary arrest of a member of the Royal Family, which has not occurred in centuries, underlies the gravity and reach of the unfolding Epstein scandal, which has shaken both the family and the Keir Starmer government.
Notable names in newly released Epstein file dump
Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of Britain’s King Charles, who turned 66 on Thursday (February 19, 2026), was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office — in connection with passing on confidential official documents to Epstein, when he served as an unpaid trade envoy for the U.K. between 2001 and 2011. The revelations have emerged from the release of files running into millions of pages related to Epstein by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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The alleged sharing of documents is just one of several ways in which Mountbatten-Windsor’s name has surfaced in connection with Epstein. In 2021, an American woman said that Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell had allegedly trafficked her to Mountbatten-Windsor for sex when she was 17. The woman died by suicide in April 2025. In 2022, the former prince, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, reached an out-of-court settlement with the woman.
