“During this time it has been brought to my attention that you maintained a friendship with Ms. Jennifer Arcuri, and as a result of that friendship allowed Ms. Arcuri to participate in trade missions and receive sponsorship monies in circumstances where she and her companies could not have expected otherwise to receive those benefits,” the letter said.
But the letter added that it was not the monitoring officer’s role “to investigate or determine whether any offense has been committed. Similarly, I do not investigate the veracity of the allegations or whether they are substantiated.”
The letter did not mention who had passed on the accusations to the monitoring officer.
On Tuesday,
the elected London Assembly asked Mr. Johnson to explain his relations with Ms. Arcuri, and earlier on Friday he said he would comply.
Ms. Arcuri, a former model, was 27 when her path first crossed Mr. Johnson’s in 2012.
According to
The Sunday Times of London, which first reported the matter last weekend, Mr. Johnson also made afternoon visits to the apartment where Ms. Arcuri then lived in Shoreditch, in East London, while on breaks from his duties as mayor. The article was illustrated with a photograph of Ms. Arcuri using a dancing pole fitted in her home.
A subsequent explanation for the visits — that the mayor had been receiving technology lessons — prompted mockery
on Twitter and
in Parliament.
One of Ms. Arcuri’s businesses, Hacker House, was awarded a central-government grant of 100,000 pounds, about $120,000, in February, before Mr. Johnson became prime minister.
Matt Warman, a junior culture minister, told lawmakers that Mr. Johnson
had no role in the awarding of that grant. But the national Department for Culture, Media and Sport is reviewing the grant following reports that Ms. Arcuri had moved back to the United States and her business might not be sufficiently British-based to qualify for the money.
Police Watchdog Is Asked to Review Boris Johnson’s Ties to U.S. Businesswoman
