Prince Andrew faces renewed calls to meet FBI investigators after Duke of York’s friend and fashion mogul Peter Nygard was convicted on four counts of sexual assault

Prince Andrew is facing renewed calls to meet with FBI investigators after the Duke of York’s friend and fashion mogul Peter Nygard was convicted of four charges of sexual assault.

Nygard – who once hosted Andrew in the Bahamas – was found guilty of assaulting four women in his Toronto home after luring them to a room without a door handle.

The Canadian designer, 82, was convicted on Sunday after a six-week trial.

Now victims of Prince Andrew’s friend, pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, have accused the prince of being dishonest about his claim that he wants to help them get justice.

Spencer Kuvin, who represents several women abused by Epstein, said The mirror: ‘If Prince Andrew is innocent, he should give a full interview to the FBI.

“His continued silence in the face of several close friends being convicted of sexual assault – Ghislaine Maxwell and now Peter Nygard – smacks of a guilty conscience.”

Another victim of Epstein’s abuse, 35, said: ‘Andrew’s words were just hollow. It is clear to many that he never intended to help any of us.”

Andrew reportedly agreed to a £12million payout to Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was ‘Epstein’s sex slave’ and said the Duke had slept with her. Andrew denied the claims and admitted no liability.

Nygard appeared emotionless as the verdict was handed down after the fifth day of jurors’ deliberations.

Prosecutors said he used his “status” to attack five women between the ages of 16 and 28 in a series of incidents from the late 1980s to 2005. Nygard denied the allegations and his lawyers labeled his accusers “gold diggers.”

But he was found guilty of four charges of sexual assault. He was acquitted of one charge of sexual assault and one charge of forcible confinement.

During the month-and-a-half trial, the jury heard graphic testimony from all five complainants, four of whom said they were in their late 20s when they were attacked, and one who said she was 16 when the alleged attack occurred.

Each of the women ended up in Nygard’s private bedroom.

Some women testified that there was a mirrored door leading to Nygard’s bedroom and that it had no handle on the inside and that two of the doors leading to the outside of his bedroom had to be unlocked and opened by pressing a button in the room or by entering a security code.

Two of the complainants told the court they felt trapped in that room as they believed there was no way out.

One of the women told the court she repeatedly begged Nygard to let her out of the room, and he eventually relented. It was this accusation that led to the charge of forcible confinement.

The disgraced mogul testified in his own defense for five days. He said he could not remember four of the five women or that he had had contact with any of them.

He further claimed that the allegations of sexual misconduct against him could not have occurred because he would never engage in such behavior.

Nygard contradicted some of the complainants’ testimony, arguing that there was a latch on the interior door of his private bedroom and denying a person could become trapped or trapped inside.

Prosecutors closed their case by arguing that Nygard’s testimony was inconsistent, unreliable and not credible and should be dismissed.

In contrast, the prosecutor argued that the testimonies of the five women were consistent and that the similarities between their stories defied chance, thus proving Nygard’s guilt.

However, Nygard’s attorney argued that it was the testimony of the five women that was not credible.

Brian Greenspan – Nygard’s lawyer – told the jury that they should carefully consider all the evidence and consider the “fatal flaw and lack of reliability of the testimony” of the five women.

In addition to the trial that ended Sunday, Nygard also faces a civil lawsuit in New York that is currently on hold. It involved 57 women and the allegations date back to 1977, some of whom claim they were attacked when they were as young as 14 or 15.

He is fighting extradition to the US to face the charges in New York.

He faces a series of other charges across Canada stemming from other alleged acts of sexual misconduct and assault.

Born in Finland and raised in Canada, Nygard was the founder of Nygard International, once the largest manufacturer of women’s clothing in Canada.

Before the mogul was arrested, his company employed 1,450 people and operated more than 150 stores in North America and more than 6,000 stores in department stores.

In 2020, the company began to fall apart when 10 unnamed female plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan, accusing the elderly businessman of raping women and underage girls at his estate in the Bahamas.

The lawsuit was subsequently expanded to include 57 unnamed plaintiffs.

The Duke of York visited the Canadian businessman at his home in the Bahamas in 2000, shortly after Nygard reached a settlement with three employees who had accused him of sexual harassment.