Epstein 'sent money to Mandelson's husband'

Jeffrey Epstein sent thousands of pounds in bank transfers after his release from prison in 2009 to Peter Mandelson's husband, according to emails published by the US Department of Justice yesterday.

- Emine Sinmaz Joseph Gedeon Washington

The US justice department last night announced it was releasing more than 3m pages of documents related to its investigation into disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the largest cache of files released to date.

The latest documents raise fresh questions about Epstein's relationship with Mandelson, who was sacked as the UK ambassador to Washington when details of his support for the disgraced financier emerged in September.

In a testy news conference, the US deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said the release would include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, with “extensive redactions”.

He added that the Trump administration had produced roughly 3.5m pages in an effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He said they included large quantities of commercial pornography and images “seized from Epstein's devices”.

“The department’s collection effort resulted in more than 6 million pages being identified as potentially responsive, including department and FBI emails, interview summaries, images, videos and various other materials collected and generated during the various investigations and prosecutions that the act covered,” Blanche said.

The latest dataset shows Mandelson’s husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, emailed Epstein on 7 September 2009, around two months after Epstein was released from prison. Epstein had served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor, for which he was registered as a sex offender. Mandelson was business secretary at the time.