A former model jailed hours after claiming she enjoyed a “drunken fumble” with a naked Prince Harry in a Las Vegas hotel room has blamed the British secret service for her month-long stay in prison.
10:46PM BST 23 Oct 2012
Carrie Reichert, who claims she is 32 but according to police records is 40, said in August that she had spent 20 minutes alone with Prince Harry after being hand-picked to attend the hotel party.
Within hours of going public, she was arrested for allegedly bouncing £13,000 worth of cheques and spent almost a month in one of the toughest prisons in the US.
Yesterday, Miss Reichert said she had not been treated fairly and blamed her incarceration on the intervention of British security services. She said: “I believe the British secret service or whoever protects the royals have something to do with my situation.”
In August, Prince Harry was photographed playing strip billiards with a girl in a £5,100 eight-room suite at the Encore Wynn resort.
Miss Reichert, a beautician, claimed she was one of 10 “really pretty girls” who were hand-picked to attend the party and described Prince Harry as a “gentleman”. She said that they shared a kiss that was “fun” and “not romantic”.
She said the pair then had a conversation about her childhood in Britain before enjoying a “drunken fumble”. She told the People newspaper: “I’m not going to pass an opportunity to party with Prince Harry. Harry was already undressed [when I arrived]. It was just crazy, he looked actually delirious.
“There was a pool table and he was playing air guitar with pool sticks. We kissed for 15 to 20 minutes. I am sure someone stumbled in as there were people going in and out of rooms all the time. We kissed again and he said ‘that was great’.”
Her claims are strongly denied by royal aides, who said they were “completely untrue” and that she was not even present on the night of the party.
Miss Reichert told the newspaper that she was 32, but the warrant issued for her arrest in the US disclosed her true age.
She was arrested at San Diego airport shortly after the interview was published on Aug 24 for allegedly writing four “rubber” cheques worth a total of £13,000.
She denies the charges, which date back to 2003, claiming that the cheques related to a failed business venture. She spent almost a month in Harrison County jail in Mississippi, which is known as one of the toughest prisons in the country.
Donald Rafferty, her lawyer, said her treatment appeared excessive. He said: “She became very high-profile very quickly because of an interview she gave that had an impact.
“I am not convinced that Mississippi authorities were the ones necessarily stirring [things], but something was. She is disappointed and very upset over the way this is going down. She has several legitimate defences.”
In the US, writing cheques which do not clear can be a criminal offence. Officials at the circuit court of Harrison County confirmed that Miss Reichert had been arrested on a “felony bad cheque” charge.
According to Mr Rafferty, US authorities did not need to jail Miss Reichert but could have released her on bail. The Mississippi attorney general, however, treats “bad cheque” charges seriously and Miss Reichert could spend up to five years in prison if found guilty.
The attorney general in Mississippi said: “It is an open case and it would be inappropriate for us to comment.”
Prince Harry’s trip raised concerns about his royal security officers, who accompanied him but failed to intervene and stop photographs being taken.