A FORMER US cop is at the centre of claims he is in possession of the sex tapes secretly recorded by depraved Jeffrey Epstein.
Court papers released in New York this week alleged that the tycoon had footage of the Duke of York.
Former US cop John Mark Dougan claims to have footage of CCTV recorded by Jeffrey Epstein
Dougan says the FBI seized the footage but not before he took a copy
And now controversial US former cop John Mark Dougan says he has a computer hard drive containing Epstein footage.
He claims the videos were passed to him by a dead cop pal who first investigated Epstein when he was arrested for child sex in 2006.
Dougan says he does not know if it contains footage of Andrew because he cannot bring himself to watch it.
But he pointed to a report in The Sunday Times from 2019 which revealed that MI6 was “concerned” he had handed evidence involving the then-senior royal over to the Russian government after moving there.
Tracked down last week by The Sun on Sunday, he said: “Apparently the FBI freaked out and told MI6 I was in possession of compromising material relating to Prince Andrew.
“At that point I’d never been through the content of the hard drive and even after that I’ve only taken a quick glance, enough to know it’s s**t I don’t want to see.
Corruption claims
“The couple of videos I saw were very grainy and it was hard to see who was who.
“But it’s my contention that the FBI knows who is on those videos.”
Dougan has previously said he moved to Russia after the FBI raided his Florida home in 2016 and seized the hard drive.
But he added: “They thought they had the only copy until they found out in 2019 that I’d had a back-up copy sent to me in Russia.”
It is the latest astonishing twist in the case of paedophile financier Epstein and his decade-long friendship with Prince Andrew.
Dougan suspects there is footage of Prince Andrew on the recordingsJae Donnelly
He says the the videos were passed to him by a dead cop pal who first investigated EpsteinReuters
Epstein committed suicide in a New York prison in 2019 amid suspicious circumstances while awaiting trial for sex trafficking offences.
The sex tape claim resurfaced when Epstein victim Sarah Ransome claimed in court papers released this month that she had seen videos of Prince Andrew, Virgin mogul Richard Branson and former US president Bill Clinton having sex with an unnamed friend of hers.
Ransome, 39, who worked as a masseuse for Epstein at his New York mansion, later told reporters she had made up the claims.
Then she insisted in an appearance on Good Morning Britain this week that the secretly filmed footage DID exist.
She said: “There are videos that exist. The people that know they exist — I’m sure are very frightened of them being released.”
Dougan says his late friend Joe Recarey, a detective for the Palm Beach Police Department, took CD-ROMs to Dougan’s home containing the evidence and Dougan then “burned” them on to his hard drive.
Recarey was lead investigator when Epstein was first arrested there for child sex offences in 2006, and discovered hidden cameras at his Palm Beach mansion.
The detective was disgusted, said Dougan, when the paedophile financier was allowed to plea-bargain his way to a “sweetheart deal” in 2008 which saw him serve less than 13 months in jail for procuring a child for prostitution.
Dougan was never involved in that case but resigned in 2009 and became a whistleblower after making a series of claims about corruption in Florida police.
Recarey then enabled him to make copies of the tapes for safekeeping, he said, in case someone “above his pay grade” came looking for it.
Dougan claimed he didn’t give much thought to it until the FBI raided his home and took his computers in connection to whistleblowing and seized the evidence.
He fled to Russia to avoid any charges related to the raid. In 2017 he was eventually charged in his absence with wiretapping and extortion.
Last year US journalist Craig Unger claimed he had been sent proof by Dougan purportedly showing that one of the sex videos in his possession features an unidentified media executive.
Unger also pointed to a picture of Dougan with Russian government official Pavel Borodin, said to be a mentor to President Vladimir Putin.
The writer said: “When you see John Mark Dougan with this guy, the inevitable conclusion is, ‘Is Dougan selling them these sex tapes?’”
Dougan claims he met Borodin only once in 2013 on a business matter and insists any suggestion he has been paid by the Russian government or granted asylum there in exchange for the sex tapes is wrong.
Epstein died in jail in 2019 with US investigators ruling it as a suicideGetty
‘I have goosebumps’
He said: “No one from the Russian government has ever approached me about the videos.”
After it emerged that he was in possession of a back-up of the videos in 2019, Dougan claims he had his American passport revoked by the US State Department.
He has since been granted Russian citizenship and has been accused of working for the country’s Sputnik TV channel.
He denies that and says he has never been paid for any of his appearances on Russian TV.
In July 2022 he appeared in a video with captured British fighter Aiden Aslin, who was serving as a Ukrainian marine, while Aslin sang the Russian national anthem.
The clip was picked up by Russian state TV. In it, Dougan tells Aiden after the rendition: “I have goosebumps.”
Meanwhile, the FBI faced fresh calls this week to release hundreds of missing pieces of evidence, including tapes, CDs, passports and photos found in a safe at Epstein’s New York home in July 2019, when he was arrested for sex trafficking minors.
He died a month later in his New York jail in what was ruled to be suicide by hanging.
Prince Andrew strenuously denies all claims made against himAFP
Prince Andrew — who paid millions in a civil settlement to Epstein victim Virginia Guiffre — has not responded to the tape claims but has repeatedly denied all the allegations against him.
As for Sir Richard Branson, a Virgin Group spokesperson said: “We categorically reject all allegations made by Sarah Ransome.
“In 2019 she admitted to The New Yorker that the ‘tapes’ had been ‘invented’.
“Any suggestion that Sir Richard Branson was involved in a ‘sex tape’ is entirely false. The allegations are baseless.
“The actions of Jeffrey Epstein were abhorrent and we support the right to justice for the many victims impacted by his abuse.”
In 2020, following Epstein’s death a spokesman for Bill Clinton said: “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.
“In 2002 and 2003 President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane, one to Europe, one to Asia and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation.
“He had one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time made one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail.”
Despite the released court papers that claim Bill Clinton had twice visited Epstein Island, his spokesperson said in 2020: “He has not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to (Epstein’s) Little St James island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.”
Prince nod in FBI doc
PRINCE ANDREW was mentioned in an FBI interview report linked to Jeffrey Epstein, we can reveal.
The Duke of York’s name appeared in paperwork, known as a 302 form, revealed by lawyers for Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre.
Unredacted files name Prince Andrew in an FBI interview linked to Jeffrey EpsteinAP
It is unclear if it was the result of an FBI interview with Giuffre.
Her lawyers have touted the strength of their defamation case in 2016 against Epstein’s madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Listing an alleged cache of evidence, Sigrid McCawley wrote: “We have pictures, hospital records from when my client was a minor in New York with them.
“We have time and travel records, message pads, the FBI 302, which was taken in 2011, mentions Prince Andrew in it, in the unredacted part.”
A legal source in the US said: “The FBI takes these reports seriously.”
The status of the bureau’s probe into Andrew is unclear. It has not commented.
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