EPSTEIN

I have been remiss in posting anything on my blogs recently because I’ve been devoting most of my time to re-reading the manuscripts of my various books and making edits, if needed. There are things on my mind I want to talk about. For one thing, I live in Texas where most people were touched by the recent Guadalupe River flooding. That was going to be my first topic, but since there’s renewed interest in Jeffery Epstein, I decided to address that first.

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EPSTEIN

(WARNING! This article contains sexually explicit material.)

Recently, the so-called “Epstein Files” have become a major topic of discussion by political pundits, journalists and pseudo journalists, podcasters and diehard political junkies due to the Trump Administration promising to release “the files” on the case of the late Jeffrey Epstein, a mysterious financier who was convicted of solicitation of prostitution of underage girls in 2008 and served twelve months in the Palm Beach County Jail followed by twelve months of home confinement. He committed suicide while in Federal custody a decade later after new charges were filed against him.

The case initially became controversial because many believed Epstein had paid off Federal and state officials in order to get a lighter sentence. Critics referred to his sentence as a “sweetheart deal.” Epstein’s case resurfaced when President Donald Trump appointed Alexander Acosta, the US Attorney for the South District of Florida during the Federal investigation of Epstein, as Secretary of Labor and was rumored to be preparing to nominate him for Attorney General to replace Jeff Sessions. The Miami Herald, a leftist paper – it has endorsed Democrats in presidential elections since 2000 – assigned reporter Julie Brown to do a piece that appears to have been designed to embarrass Acosta and, by extension, Trump. The article ran in three parts in November 2018. She states at the beginning of the first article and mentions several times that Acosta dropped out of the AG race after her article ran online the day before it was published in print. She seemed quite proud.

The series of articles attracted national attention and led to new Federal charges against Epstein, this time brought by the notorious Southern District of New York after a Florida Federal judge declared in a civil case that victims’ rights had been violated because they hadn’t been notified of Epstein’s plea so they could appear in court. The DOJ appealed the decision. After being indicted, Epstein was held without bail while the court decided whether or not a plea agreement from 2008 still applied. Before the court reached a decision, Epstein was found dead in his cell. His death was ruled a suicide. The finding was controversial; many believed Epstein had been murdered to protect influential people. Since then an army of podcasters, internet junkies and pseudo-journalists have speculated that Epstein was a pedophile and was running a “pedophile ring”, that he procured young girls for wealthy clients and was murdered to protect them. Never mind that the definition of a pedophile is someone who is sexually attracted to prepubescent children, children younger than thirteen. None of the Palm Beach girls were younger than fourteen; they were generally in their mid-teens when they met the financier, who paid them for massages, some of which became sexual. None of them mentioned contact with anyone other than Epstein, his guards and caretaker and young women in his employ. All files from the Florida State Attorney Palm Beach are available on their web site. In 2024 a judge released the Grand Jury testimony and it is available on the Internet and will be linked to this article. It does not appear that many of those harping about the Epstein files have ever read them. The report of a 2019-20 DOJ review of the case is also available. 49b577fa-6ad8-415d-8efc-c553423af314. The State of Florida also conducted an investigation. Both investigations determined that allegations that Epstein somehow influenced either investigation are unfounded.

The Epstein case began way back in early 2005 when the Palm Beach, Florida police department began an investigation of allegations that wealthy part-time resident Jeffery Epstein was sexually abusing teenagers. Epstein was a New Yorker who, like many wealthy New Yorkers, had a home on Palm Beach Island. Not much was known about him at the time; he had never appeared on police radar. The investigation started after a 14-year-old Palm Beach County student got in a fight at school and school officials found $300 in her purse.[1] Fearing she was dealing drugs, school officials notified the stepmother. The stepmother overheard her daughter talking to another girl. During the conversation, the girl said she had been paid $300 for giving a massage to a wealthy man on Palm Beach Island. The stepmother called the Palm Beach police. She didn’t initially identify the girl, but she called back and reported that she believed the girl was a victim of a crime.

The girl was interviewed by Michelle Phagan, a Palm Beach Police Department officer. She initially told Phagan that nothing had happened, but later admitted that she had given Epstein a massage in her underwear and was paid $300. The fourteen-year-old, who is identified as SG in police files, initially only told the interviewer that she had given Epstein a massage after removing part of her clothes.[2] She later revealed that Epstein had run a vibrator over her privates while she was massaging his chest and he was masturbating. He had not penetrated her, however; she was wearing panties and he touched her outside the material. She later recanted the claim that Epstein had touched her with a vibrator.

She revealed that the massage had been set up by Haley Robson, an older girl who had graduated from high school and was enrolled at a local junior college by the time police questioned her several months later. Police had the girl call Robson while they monitored the call. However, it was several months before they actually started interviewing girls. Phagan initiated surveillance of Epstein’s house including trash pulls. She was transferred to patrol and turned the case over to Detective Joe Recarey of the PBPD special investigations unit. Consequently, it wasn’t until September that Recarey, who would conduct most of the interviews, was assigned to the case. He didn’t begin interviews until October. IMPORTANT-Part-1-Recarey-Depo.pdf Epstein evidently became aware of the interviews soon after they started and left Florida.

Haley Robson told police that she had been recruited by another girl a year or so before when she was a minor.. The interview, along with others, is available from the Palm Beach SA website - Public Records – Office of State Attorney 15th Judicial Circuit. Haley Robson was the young girl’s boyfriend’s cousin. She picked her up at home – she told her father they were going shopping – and drove her to Epstein’s house where the guard informed them that Epstein was gone but would be back soon. A Hispanic girl was also with them. He took them in the kitchen to wait. A few minutes later, Epstein returned with his assistant, Sarah Kellen, who told the girl she would be paid $200 for the massage but could get more if she was willing to do other things. She took the girl upstairs to where a massage table was set up. Kellen showed the girl where the lotions were kept and got some out for her to use. Epstein came out wrapped in a towel. Robson had told her he might want her to strip and if she did, he’d pay her more. The girl, who is identified in police reports as SG, told detectives that Epstein told her in a stern voice to take off her clothes and she obediently stripped down to her thong panties. He laid down on the table face down and told her how to rub him. At one point he told her to get on the table and straddle him. After a time, he rolled over onto his back. He reached into a cabinet next to the table and pulled out a purple vibrator. At some point he either removed the towel or pulled out his penis. The girl told Officer Pagan that his “wee wee” was tiny![3] Epstein rubbed the vibrator against her vagina while he masturbated but did not penetrate her because she was wearing thong panties. When he ejaculated, he told her the massage was finished and paid her $300 for the “work.” [4]

Palm Beach detectives interviewed numerous girls, as many as thirty, but seem to have focused on those brought to Epstein by Haley Robson. She was not the only girl bringing other girls; each girl was offered the opportunity to recruit other girls, for which they were typically paid $200.[5] Girls who only gave a massage while clothed were also paid $200. If they stripped, they sometimes got $300. One girl, who agreed to sexual intercourse, told police she got $350 but later told the Grand Jury she was paid $300. In one instance he gave a girl $1,000 after she protested when he threw her over a table and entered her from behind without her permission. Detectives identified four girls who engaged in intercourse, which included digital as well as penile penetration. Two girls revealed that Epstein had penile intercourse with them, one forcibly.[6] Both instances constituted statutory rape because the girls were underage.

Masturbation was part of every session and may have been the purpose of it. Epstein seems to have had a drive to ejaculate. He is alleged to have told someone he had to ejaculate three times a day. He evidently wanted to have someone, preferably a teenage girl, massage him when he did it. He also had a strong desire to be massaged. Some of his employees told detectives he had masseuses brought in for two to three sessions a day.[7] His former house manager, who was employed by Epstein for eleven years, told police he had several masseuses in his employ and that some of them traveled with him.[8] The detective asked if they were young, but the employee said that up until the last year or so of his employment, they were older. When asked how young, he said 15 to 16.

While the Palm Beach Police were aggressive in gathering evidence, they were not focusing entirely on Epstein. They were also after Sarah Kellen and Haley Robson, who had commented to police officers when they were taking her home after her interview “I’m like a Heidi Fleiss.”[9] Robson was informed after her interview that based on what she had told the detective, she was subject to prosecution. Miss Robson agreed initially to cooperate with the investigation, but she talked to her family and they told her not to. The Palm Beach PD prepared probable cause affidavits for the arrest of all three of them for Lewd and Lascivious Act on a Child Under 16. Robson told detectives she was introduced to Epstein by a friend she saw at the Canopy Beach Resort in Riveria Beach. The friend told her she could give a rich guy a massage and be paid for it. She went to Epstein’s house and went upstairs to give him a massage, but she was uncomfortable with the idea of removing her clothes and balked. After the massage, for which she was paid $200, Epstein commented that he could tell she was uncomfortable and he wouldn’t ask for her again, but she could bring other girls and he would pay $200. Most of the girls she recruited were, like her, students at Royal Palm Beach High School. Royal Palm Beach was not the only high school from which girls were recruited, but it was a fertile ground for girls for Epstein.[10] She claimed she only brought six girls, but so many girls from the school “worked” for him that word got around. Other students began calling the girls they had heard had given massages to a rich man on Palm Beach “prostitutes.”

Technically, the girls who let Epstein perform sexual acts on them, meaning they allowed him to penetrate them either digitally or with his penis or engaged in oral sex, WERE prostitutes. They engaged in sexual activity for pay. And that was a problem. Unlike the US Justice Department, which referred to the girls as “victims,” the Florida State Attorney referred to them as “witnesses.” She said she didn’t know what to call them; they were victims, but they were also potential suspects and could have been charged with prostitution. They would have been subject to cross-examination if called to testify. Many of them had troubled and even unsavory pasts and many foolish girls made questionable posts on social media, particularly My Space – and the Epstein defense had found them as had investigators for the State Attorney. By their posts, in which they bragged on drug use and underage drinking among other things and posted pictures of what could be construed as wild partying, the girls compromised the case.

One of the girls who had been most involved with Epstein came to police attention when she was arrested for marijuana possession. She revealed to police that she had a lot to tell them about the Epstein investigation, which had become common knowledge among the girls who had sold their services to him.[11] The girl, who was identified by police as AH, told detectives she met Epstein in 2002 when she was sixteen.[12] (She was arrested in late 2005 and was no longer a juvenile. She was enrolled in college and was living away from Palm Beach.) She went to his house at the invitation of another girl who was also a student at Royal Palm Beach High School three years before she was interviewed by police. Since that time, she had gone to Epstein’s house “hundreds of times” and claimed she was his “number one girl.” She told investigators that she saw Epstein every time he was in Palm Beach for about a year. She told her mother she was doing secretarial work for Epstein, which was sort of true, although the “secretarial work” sometimes consisted of sitting with Epstein naked while he worked. She allowed Epstein to insert his fingers into her vagina and masturbate her while he masturbated himself. He sometimes used a vibrator. Over time, their activities escalated, but she would not have intercourse with him because she was put off by the shape of his penis and refused to touch it. Epstein paid her to have sex with Nada Marcinkova[13], one of his assistants, in front of him. She and the woman, Marcinkova was 19, used strap-on dildos, a large rubber penis and other toys they had bought at a sex store along with oral sex to entertain Epstein, who masturbated as he watched them perform. On one occasion, Epstein became particularly aroused while watching her and Marcinkova and threw her over the massage table and inserted his penis even though she had told him she drew the line at penile intercourse. She related that he was holding her head against the table. She screamed NO![14] Epstein withdrew and apologized, then gave her $1,000 for that session. The girls were told to tell Epstein they were eighteen if he asked, but AH had told him her real age. AH claimed Epstein was so attached to her he tried to get her to have her parents emancipate her so she could move in with him. He also bought her a brand new Dodge Neon to use.[15] She quit seeing Epstein when she moved away to college.

Epstein told one girl he would give her more money if she would have sexual intercourse with him and she agreed. She told the Grand Jury the incident occurred the day before her eighteenth birthday. Epstein gave her $350. (She later told the Grand Jury it was $300.) Because the girl was a minor, this constituted statutory rape, but it also constituted prostitution. This particular girl was one of those recruited at Royal Palm High School. The first time she massaged Epstein, she stripped down to her thong panties. The massage was over when Epstein climaxed. He paid her $200. She said she felt the situation was “weird,” but she went back fifteen times. After initially just giving him massages, the seventeen-year-old was subjected to more and more familiarity, with Epstein touching her buttocks then fondling her breasts while she massaged him. On subsequent visits, Epstein had Nada participate in the sessions. He had the two girls kiss and fondle each other while he watched and masturbated. He sometimes used the vibrator.

Other girls told police they had used sex toys and described Epstein’s vibrator, as did his former house manager. His later house manager told police he found the sex toys in the bathroom after they had been used and had to wash them and put them away. However, when police searched the house, they only found one sex toy and it was in the room where Nada slept, not in the room where he had his massages.[16] The absence of the sex toys was a slap at the girls’ credibility. Someone had evidently tipped Epstein off that the police were investigating him and he had the sex toys and other incriminating evidence removed along with his computers, although the wires were still there. The girl Epstein paid to have intercourse reluctantly testified before the Grand Jury and told the court that she would testify against Epstein in a trial, but would only do so reluctantly. Since she had sex with Epstein for money, she was technically a prostitute and could have been prosecuted. She didn’t want to press charges against Epstein for statutory rape – it occurred the day before her eighteenth birthday. She told the jury she just wanted to put it all behind her, and had until she got the subpoena to appear before them a few days before.[17]

Articles about Epstein claim that he preferred very young girls, but the lead detective told the Grand Jury only one victim was fourteen. Haley Robson told police Epstein said he wanted young girls, “the younger the better” but SG, at fourteen, was the youngest girl she took to him.[18] Girls sixteen and up had drivers licenses and could get to the island easier than those who didn’t drive. Older teens also were more able to get out at night, which seems to be when Epstein had his fun with the teenagers.[19] Some saw him multiple times and some said they only saw him once. The ones that saw him multiple times said they were only taken to him by other girls the first few times. After that, Epstein’s assistant Sarah Kellen would call them and set up the appointments, which lasted from forty minutes to an hour and for which the girls were paid from $200 to $300-350 depending on what they let him do. Girls also brought other girls. Just how many girls were involved is not known, but estimates are there were as many as eighty.[20] The lead detective told the Grand Jury most of the girls were from one high school, probably Royal Palm. Kellen, who traveled with Epstein, would call the girls on their cell phones and set up appointments whenever he was in town. Kellen was Epstein’s go-between with the girls and took them upstairs for the massages but was not reported to have participated. Only Nada Marcinkova was mentioned as having participated. Gislaine Maxwell was not mentioned by any of the girls in their interviews.

There is no doubt that Epstein had a penchant for massage. A health nut, he believed massage was beneficial to his health and well-being. He donated a large sum of money to a local Palm Beach ballet to be used for massages for the dancers. His Palm Beach caretaker, who was with him for eleven years, told police that Epstein had three massages a day and he employed a number of masseuses, both female and male, some of whom traveled with him. The caretaker told police that the masseuses were adults until the last year or two of his employment when they started getting younger and younger. He said that girls were being brought in he judged to be no more than sixteen or seventeen. A high school transcript for one girl was found in Epstein’s office.[21] One caretaker said that Epstein had him deliver a bucket of roses to one girl at her high school after her participation in a school play. The visit is documented by a note Epstein wrote instructing the man to make the delivery.

Police interviewed one adult massage therapist who had worked for Epstein. She was evidently Johanna Sjoberg, who was a student at a local Christian college when she was recruited. She is identified in a deposition for Virginia Giuffre, a former Epstein employee who sued Gislaine Maxwell for defamation. Police identified her and another professional masseuse through notes found in Epstein’s trash. Although reluctant at first, the woman, who was in her twenties, finally revealed that she had been brought to Epstein while a college student. She first told police that whatever happened between them was that of two consenting adults. Her experience was identical to that of the younger girls police interviewed: Epstein had her give him a massage while naked or partially clothed then had progressed to more intimate activities. He paid the rest of her way through college and employed her as a masseuse after she went to massage therapy school. She traveled with him. The other professional was strictly business. She was a specialist in a particular type of massage and was paid $100 per visit.

If the therapist was Johanna Sjoberg, she gave a different account to the Daily Mail then she gave police. She said that she had been approached by Gislaine Maxwell on the campus of Palm Beach Atlantic, a Christian college where she was a student, and offered a job for $20.00 an hour as a receptionist. Maxwell later asked if she would like to massage people’s feet. She was studying to be a therapist and felt it was in line with her goals. She often flew with Epstein to give him foot messages inflight. She said Epstein often talked to her about things he’d like to do to the girls and to her. She said Maxwell was like a mother to all the girls and felt that while she thought she might have known about Epstein’s activities with the teenage girls, she wasn’t involved with them. She related that she and Virginia Roberts met Prince Andrew at Epstein’s New York home, that they were photographed with her sitting on the prince’s lap – of her own volition – with him holding a toy in his image over Robert’s breast with his hand on hers. She said she saw it as a joke and thought nothing of it. Sjoberg told the Daily Mail the police made it sound like there was one big orgy going on at Epstein’s house, but there was nothing of the kind, his sordid activities were carried on in private away from other occupants.

None of the girls used in the evidence the PBPD submitted to support charges said that they gave anyone a massage or had any kind of interaction with anyone but Jefferey Epstein. Except for AH, who made a trip to New York to sight-see, none of them mentioned traveling to the Virgin Islands or anywhere else. None of them mentioned Gislaine Maxwell. Epstein’s former house manager mentioned her as being responsible for the house and her name is on a joint bank account. Manifests for flights on his airplanes show her on the airplane. She owned a charter company in Florida.[22] Women in New York claimed she participated with Maxwell in Epstein’s assaults on them, but not a single Palm Beach girl accused her of anything. The only alleged victim with a Florida connection who mentioned Maxwell was Virginia Roberts, an Epstein employee who claimed Maxwell recruited her while she was working as a towel girl in the spa at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Roberts didn’t enter the picture until after Epstein was convicted when she gave an interview to the Daily Mail in 2011. A couple of girls mentioned that Epstein paid them to engage in sexual acts with Nada, who the girls believed was his “sex slave.” Epstein paid at least one girl to watch him and Nada have intercourse and one other girl reported that she had engaged in sexual activities with Nada while Epstein watched. Nada lived in New York and traveled with Epstein as one of his assistants as did Sarah Kellen, or as the copilot on his Gulfstream II.[23]

Epstein was a New Yorker and he maintained a home there that had formerly been the headquarters of Random House. The nine-story building was purchased by mall clothing store and catalogue magnate Lex Wexner who allegedly sold it to Epstein, with whom he was closely associated, for one dollar. Epstein was Wexner’s finance manager and had close connections to him until 2007 when he was convicted. Epstein then spent ten million dollars to refurbish the building to his liking. In addition to the home in Palm Beach he purchased in the early nineties, he also had a massive home on the Zorro Ranch outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico and a private island (Little St. James just off of St. Thomas) in the US Virgin Islands. The lead detective told the Grand Jury he also had homes in London and Paris. Journalists claim he had “a fleet of airplanes” to travel back and forth between his homes and for other purposes, but he actually only used two and they were registered to Delaware corporations (which he is said to have owned.) Police obtained copies of one of his pilots’ logbook, which showed him first flying in a Hawker 400, a British-built airplane developed in the 1960s, followed by a Hawker 700 then a Gulfstream 1149B, commonly known as a Gulfstream II or G-II. He later purchased (or leased) a Boeing 727.[24]

Police managed to obtain copies of flight manifests for the two airplanes.[25] The manifest contained the names of frequent passengers that had been typed in, usually with Jeffery Epstein at the top. Names of other passengers were written in. Some manifests had “female” instead of a name, which led police to suspect they were minor girls Epstein was taking with him.[26] However, the pilot said that whenever they had a woman on board they didn’t know, they wrote the word “female” instead of a name. They did the same with unknown male passengers. Only one of the minor girls interviewed by the PBPD mentioned traveling with Epstein. YH said she met him once in New York.

Epstein came to public attention when he flew ex-president Bill Clinton and actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker to Africa for a tour of HIV/Aids facilities. Prior to that, the media had paid little attention to him. The Africa trip with Clinton led to a profile piece in Vanity Fair by British writer Vicky Ward. During her research, Ward allegedly found Paducah, Kentucky-born Marie Farmer, an artist who worked for Epstein. Epstein hired her as his art consultant after buying some of her artwork and gave her a job as a receptionist at his New York residence. She interviewed Farmer, her younger sister Annie and their mother. The two women told Ward that Epstein had assaulted them, Marie in Ohio and Annie in New Mexico. According to them, Annie got involved with Epstein at the age of sixteen in 1995 in hopes that he would help her with college applications. Epstein invited the girl to go with him to his ranch in New Mexico for a weekend. She alleged that Epstein molested her and Gislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s associate and alleged girlfriend, participated.[27] Marie, who was an adult, related that the duo assaulted her in New Albany, Ohio in a guest facility belonging to Lex Wexner. She claimed Epstein arranged for her to stay there while she was doing artwork for a movie or TV show. Wexner said she was never on his property. Annie, who was a teenager, flew to New Mexico for her home in Pheonix at Epstein’s invitation. Just what happened there is uncertain. She claimed Epstein assaulted her and Maxwell assisted. Some accounts are that she slept with him, which would have been legal in New Mexico where the age of consent is sixteen.[28] However, when she testified against Maxwell, she merely testified that Maxwell had given her a massage and that Epstein had come into her room and wanted to cuddle, to which she agreed. She did not mention any kind of sexual contact by either of them. After hearing of her sister’s experience, Marie went to the New York PD, but nothing came of it.[29] The two sisters later went to the FBI.[30] Ward allegedly included the Farmer women’s account in her article, but Vanity Fair’s editors took it out. Jeffrey Epstein allegedly went to the VF office and threatened the editor.[31] The VF editor maintains that he struck the Farmer story because Ward didn’t have the required three independent sources to support it. Ward, who was pregnant at the time, also claims he made threats against her and her unborn children if there was anything in the article putting him in a bad light.[32]

The Farmer women’s accounts are not consistent with reports given to PBPD investigators. Nor are accounts later given by women who claimed Epstein assaulted them in New York consistent with what girls told police in Palm Beach nor is Virginia Roberts’ account or what Sarah Ransome wrote in her book. Gislaine Maxwell is not mentioned by any of the Florida girls; she is barely mentioned at all in PBPD reports. They also have Epstein as forcing himself on them while the Florida girls reported that they had been told before they went upstairs with Epstein that while he might try to get them to do things, if they told him they weren’t comfortable with it, he would stop. They said that he would.[33] Only AH said that he had forcibly entered her and that he stopped when she shouted “NO!’ Sometimes he would offer them more money if they would strip, allow him to grope them or do something sexual. Marie Farmer was an adult well into her twenties when she met and went to work for Epstein as his art advisor. She introduced her younger sister to Epstein when she came to visit her in New York. Marie Farmer claims the FBI visited her in 2006 after the FBI got involved with the Palm Beach case.[34]

PBPD began their investigation in March 2005 after SG’s stepmother contacted them although it wasn’t until that fall that detectives began interviewing any of the girls other than SG. The investigation continued into 2006. Epstein found out about the investigation early on and did not come back to Palm Beach after October 2005 according to the lead detective. Police had the house under surveillance and were also watching Jet Aviation at the Palm Beach Airport where Epstein’s airplane was hangered when he was in town. Some investigators and the PBPD police chief, Michael Reiter, got impatient. The police wanted the State Attorney to issue an indictment without having arrested Epstein. Reiter wrote a threatening letter to Florida State Attorney Barry Krischer in which he said that if Krischer wasn’t going to move the case along, he should disqualify himself. Reiter would later do some things even more questionable.

Under the US Constitution, those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty. The Founders took steps to ensure the rights of the accused in the Fourth through Sixth Amendments to the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment requires that all capital crimes as well as those that are infamous be presented to a grand jury. Although Hollywood and the media give the impression that police are responsible for charging someone with a crime and the case ends when police officers arrest a “perp,” this is not true. They have to be prosecuted and convicted, meaning they must be found guilty at a trial or plead guilty. All suspected criminals have the right to a trial before a jury of their peers and only the state’s or US attorney has the power to make a charge. Police can make an arrest but are limited as to how long they can hold a subject without them being charged with a crime. For the accused to be convicted by plea, they have to plead guilty in a court of law.

The State Attorney in Palm Beach knew they had problems with the case. For one thing, while police were eager to charge him with sexual exploitation of a minor, some, if not all, of the girls had told Epstein they were eighteen. They were told before they went to massage him the first time to tell him they were eighteen, the age of consent in Florida. SG, the girl whose stepmother made the complaint that initiated the investigation, admitted that she had told Epstein she was eighteen and that she was a college student when she was actually fourteen and in high school or middle school. Epstein’s defense also uncovered some issues that they planned to use to undermine her credibility. She and her twin sister got into it with their dad and ran away and were gone overnight. The father called police. The two girls were either drunk or high on drugs when they came home the next morning. She was sent home from school because she appeared to be intoxicated or high. The defense also discovered that both her father and stepmother had served time in Federal prison for financial crimes.

There were other issues. Epstein had hired Roy Black, a prominent Miami attorney with a reputation for representing the rich and powerful, to represent him. One of Epstein’s friends was prominent attorney and legal scholar Allan Dershowitz, and he was helping with the case.[35] Dershowitz went to the State Attorney with “evidence” showing some of the accusers in a bad light, mostly material from the girls’ My Space pages in which they used profanity and talked about using drugs and posting pictures that could be taken that they were wild partiers. Black or somebody in the defense hired private detectives to trail the girls in an attempt to produce “evidence” to help Epstein. The defense’s tactics were to paint the girls as liars. Some of the girls were threatened and some were offered bribes to keep their mouths shut. One girl (apparently AH) refused to talk to Black’s detectives and cursed them out, which Dershowitz used to imply she could not be believed.

Then there was the matter of evidence. Police had none. When police searched Epstein’s house, they found nothing to substantiate the girls’ claims or their suspicions. They found massage tables and lotions and oils but nothing of a sexual nature. Epstein had got wind of the investigation and got rid of the vibrators, sex toys, incriminating photos of underage girls, etc. Police found something in the trash that Michelle Phagan initially identified as a sex toy, but it turned out to be the handle off of a broken eating utensil. Epstein’s computers had been removed and the images off of two hidden cameras were too grainy to positively identify the subjects. All police had were the girls’ claims and their own suspicions. And the State Attorney realized it.

Epstein somehow got wind that he was being investigated. Journalist Michael Wolfe, who was friends with Epstein, claims that he thought Donald Trump had turned him in to police for relationships with underage girls. Epstein and Trump were close friends, but they got into a dispute over a house in Palm Beach that Epstein thought he had bought. Trump offered a higher price and took it away from him and their friendship frayed. However, he most likely found out from some of the girls, some of whom had feelings for Epstein and did not want to testify against him. One girl named Brittany, who was possibly in Epstein’s employ, told AH that girls who testified on Epstein’s behalf would be rewarded while things would be bad for those who testified against him. One girl, apparently AH based on some comments made by the defense during a deposition of SG several years later in relation to another, but related, matter, failed to show up for the grand jury. One girl, who was living in Jacksonville, claimed she didn’t get the subpoena. Whichever girl it was, it was one who had told investigators she had intercourse with Epstein. AH was one of two girls who told police Epstein had inserted his penis into their vagina and the other girl testified before the Grand Jury.

AH may have been victimized by Epstein’s defense. After she went to college, she got a job with Victoria’s Secret as a sales clerk. Victoria’s Secret was one of the chains owned by Lex Wexler’s Limited brand. She mentioned the job on her My Space. Shortly afterwards, she was accused of stealing merchandise and was let go. Considering that Epstein had a connection to Victoria’s Secret through his connections to Lex Wexner, it’s possible, even likely, that the store was told to get rid of her because of her connection to the case. AH was perhaps the one girl with the closest relationship with Epstein. She said on her My Space that she was being set up.

The defense also possibly did some questionable things. There is a letter in the Palm Beach State Attorney’s files shown to be from the Standards Division of the PBPD to the state law enforcement division asking for an investigation of the lead detective in the Epstein case. There is a note that this letter was released to the press. The wording in the letter is practically identical to wording in an objection from Epstein’s lawyers complaining about the charging documents, particularly that the lead detective didn’t mention “evidence” raised by the defense. Why would the standards division want the state to investigate one of their officers? That’s what standards divisions are for! The defense hired a polygraph examiner to examine Epstein and claimed he “passed”. The defense complained that the PBPD didn’t bother to send anyone to observe the test. The polygraph is mentioned in the “letter” purported to be from the standards division. [36]

The prosecution also had problems with the girls, at least some of whom were hardly the epitome of innocent teenagers. SG, the fourteen-year-old who started it all, admitted in a deposition four years later that she had had sex before she met Epstein with two different “men,” actually teenagers, one of whom was a year older and one who was two years older. The girl must have had some experience since she told police investigators that Epstein’s “wee-wee” was tiny. Other girls had remarked on his size as well as the shape. One girl said his size was out of proportion to his well-toned body. They said he was “deformed,” that his penis was egg-shaped. That was why AH refused to allow him to penetrate her, she was turned-off by the shape of his organ. SG also had a lot of problems with her family and was alleged to have been involved with drugs, although she claimed she only smoked pot and only drank beer at parties. Her My Space contained incriminating information. Some of the girls didn’t want to testify against Epstein. One girl said she loved him and wouldn’t testify against him. Very few of the girls wanted him to go to prison. The prosecuting attorney, Lanna Belohlavek, knew she would have problems getting a conviction.

The girls who had been recruited were mostly from low-income homes and many had problems with drugs. They were what is sometimes referred to as “trailer trash” – some lived in trailers. Some claimed to have been raped or sexually abused as children. Many were from broken homes and bounced back and forth between parents. SG’s parents were divorced and she was living with her father and stepmother when Haley Robson took her to Epstein. Soon afterwards, she and her sister had a falling out with their father and went to live with other relatives.

There was also the issue of prostitution. Although the girls had been minors at the time of their contact with Epstein, several years had passed and they were adults. One girl admitted that Epstein had paid her $350 (she said $300 when she appeared before the Grand Jury) for sex. He gave AH $1,000 after he entered her without her permission and she protested. While that might not have counted as prostitution, she had let him do other things which did. Other girls told investigators they let him put a vibrator on their privates and some admitted that they had allowed him to penetrate them digitally, which constituted intercourse. Some let him perform oral sex on them, a couple had engaged in oral sex with Nada in front of Epstein. He paid them extra for allowing such liberties. Payment for sexual favors constitutes prostitution, as detectives and the State Attorney pointed out to the girls. The one girl who said Epstein paid her to have intercourse testified to the Grand Jury that she was only there because she feared prosecution. She said she would testify against Epstein, but only if she was pressured and to stay out of jail.

Each of them told more or less the same story. When he came in, he laid down on the massage table and had the girl massage his legs and back first, telling them how he wanted them to do it. He usually kept a towel wrapped around him but would sometimes position it so there was a flap in front to allow access to his penis. After a time of the girl massaging his feet, legs and back, he’d turn over and tell her to massage his chest. It was then that he began masturbating. Some girls said he was exposed and some said he remained covered by a towel, but they could tell what he was doing by his movements. One girl said she could tell by his breathing. Once he ejaculated, he told the girl the massage was finished; she could get dressed and leave.

Assistant State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek did not believe there was enough evidence to convict Epstein. She also did not believe the girls were credible witnesses and the defense would tear them apart if the case went to trial. She wanted to get some kind of conviction but didn’t think the state would be able to prevail in court. The prosecutors wanted to convict Epstein, but they feared that if the case went to trial he’d be acquitted and walk out Scot-free. They felt a plea would be their best avenue. With the possibility of an acquittal looming before them, the State Attorney decided to offer Epstein a plea bargain. If he pled guilty, he would be placed on probation and wouldn’t serve jail time. Epstein refused the plea offer. The cops thought she was dragging her feet. PBPD detectives went to the local FBI office and discussed their concerns with them. Police wanted him charged with lascivious conduct with a minor, but prosecutors feared they would not be able to get a conviction due to witness problems and Epstein’s denial that he knew the girls were underage. State Attorney Krischer decided to put the case before the grand jury, which concerned PBPD chief Reiter and the detective. The grand jury indicted Epstein on one count of felony solicitation of a prostitute, a charge that would probably not result in jail time.

PBPD chief Reiter was livid at the indictment. He wanted Epstein to go to prison and be registered as a sex offender, but he didn’t seem to recognize that the PBPD investigation depended solely on the word of teenage girls, many of whom had reputations for drug use, drinking and, in some cases, shop-lifting and other crimes. Some of them were not reputable. One girl was working as an exotic dancer, a stripper. The failure of the search of the house to turn up the vibrators and sex toys the girls had described was a major setback, even though they found massage tables and lotions. Instead of accepting the opinions and actions of the prosecuting attorneys, Reiter went to the FBI. He also wrote letters to the five girls the PBPD had used in their filing advising that he did not believe the State Attorney’s actions brought justice for their cases. He believed that Epstein and/or his associates was somehow influencing the prosecution. He notified the FBI in the apparent belief that Epstein was paying off the prosecution. However, the FBI case agent either chose not to conduct an investigation of the State Attorney or found nothing and instead turned her attention toward the accusations against Epstein and began conducting her own investigation of what she saw as a case of molestation of minor girls.

The FBI case agent went to local Assistant US Attorney Ann Marie Villifana and told her about the State investigation. Neither of the two women knew anything about Epstein, nor did anyone else around Palm Beach except for a few of his friends, one of whom was Donald Trump, who had once commented publicly that Epstein liked young women. The FBI case agent told Villifana that the PBPD had come to her because they were concerned that the State Attorney was either not going to charge Epstein or allow him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor rather than a felony. Villifana, whose office was in Palm Beach, handled most child exploitation matters in the Palm Beach area. She reported to Andrew C. Laurie, who was deputy chief of the criminal division of the Miami-based US Attorney Office. Laurie reported to Criminal Division Chief Matthew I. Menchel. Menchel reported to First Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey H. Sloman, who reported to Alexander Acosta, who had just been appointed Interim US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and was awaiting Senate confirmation. Acosta would be sworn in as the US Attorney the following October.

At this point, the PBPD had made no formal complaint. They told the case agent they wanted to wait and see what the State Attorney did. However, in May 2006 the PBPD lead detective met with the FBI case agent and Villifana and expressed his concerns. During the meeting, Villifana consulted Federal regulations to see what they could possibly charge Epstein with and concluded that there were two possibilities, the use of a building used for interstate commerce to persuade a minor to engage in prostitution or other illegal sexual act and travel for purposes of engaging in illegal sexual conduct. Although Villifana informed her immediate superior, it wasn’t until mid-July that US Attorney Acosta was notified of the case. At this point, Acosta had yet to be appointed as the USA. His name had been submitted to the Senate but he wouldn’t be confirmed until August and wouldn’t be sworn in until October.

In the mid-July meeting, Villifana reported claims by PBPD that Epstein had used “various types of pressure” to avoid prosecution, including hiring attorneys with connections to the State Attorney’s Office. One of his first lawyers had been the Palm Beach Assistant State Attorney before going into private practice. The original prosecuting attorney was married to attorney Jack Goldberger’s partner. Epstein hired Goldberger to join his defense after Allan Dershowitz got involved and pressured the State Attorney with “evidence” putting the girls in a bad light. She had been removed from the case due to conflict of interest. PBPD was unhappy with her removal because they had perceived her as being more aggressive than the attorney who replaced her. State Attorney Barry Krischer had “a working relationship” with Goldberger. State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek, who was Chief of the Crimes Against Children Unit, took over the case. Belohlavek told investigators who looked at the case in 2020 that she and the previous attorney were in disagreement over whether the evidence presented by the PBPD was sufficient to charge Epstein with the two crimes police wanted to charge him with, unlawful sexual activity with a minor and lewd and lascivious molestation of a minor. She was concerned that the accounts of the girls were contradictory. Furthermore, SG, the original complainant, had retracted her allegation that Epstein had touched her sexually. She didn’t feel she had a case, which infuriated the PBPD. She offered Epstein a plea to the third degree felony of aggravated assault with the intent to commit a felony with a penalty of five years probation with no unsupervised contact with minors. Epstein rejected the offer.

Even though State Attorneys were telling them they didn’t have the evidence to convict Epstein, the PBPD were insistent that he be charged. However, they never arrested him, possibly because he wasn’t in Florida. Files pertaining to the case were posted on the Palm Beach State Attorney web site around 2015. Public Records – Office of State Attorney 15th Judicial Circuit. The files contain the PBPD reports of interviews with potential witnesses as well as other documents pertaining to the case. The State Attorney took the case to the Grand Jury, the record of which was released in July 2024. Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller Palm Beach County However, the record revealed nothing new. The court order to release it emphasized that THERE WAS NO NEW INFORMATION IN THE REPORT. Critics complain that ASA Belohlavek was harsh with the girl who originally launched the investigation due to information that had emerged about her, information that the defense would have brought up in court. However, a reading of the report shows that she was merely questioning her about things that could be detrimental to the case.

Epstein pled not guilty to the charge in the indictment handed down by the Grand Jury and asked for a trial by jury. Documents in the State Attorney files indicate that he was scheduled for trial numerous times, but his lawyers kept having the case continued. The FBI and the US Attorney Office had got involved.

The DOJ Department of Professional Responsibility conducted a review of the DOJ actions in the case in 2019-20. They interviewed the attorneys involved in the case as well as others at the Federal and State level. They found that while AUSA Villifana was confident that they had grounds to charge Epstein, her superiors were not so sure. Her case was based solely on Epstein traveling to Palm Beach in order to have sexual relations with minor girls. Acosta, who was a Republican, was concerned about federalism, the separation of powers between the Federal government and the states. Prostitution and sexual molestation of a minor, the issues involved in the Epstein case, were state issues. Villifana thought the Federal government could be involved based on the travel issue. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her (or to the myriad of writers and podcasters who claim the state was complicit) that if she took Epstein to court, the judge could dismiss the case on the basis that it was not a Federal issue. The defense had been arguing all along that it was a state case, not Federal, and was sure to petition the court for a dismissal if charges were filed.

During their investigation, the FBI discovered a number of alleged victims who were not part of the State case. Reiter’s letter to the five young women who had been presented as victims in the State case led them to believe the FBI was taking over the case. Later on, when the case was resolved, the State only notified the women who were part of its case. Other alleged victims who were not part of the case received no official notification, not that notification was required since Epstein was never charged by the Feds and no Federal court action ever occurred. There was a Federal requirement for victims to be notified in the event of court action on a case, but it only applied if the suspect had been charged. Epstein had not been charged by the Feds. Furthermore, some of the women and girls interviewed by the FBI were not part of the state case. Other lawyers got into the act and started suing on the behalf of victims. One victim who sued is Courtney Wilde, who became an activist and tried in vain to have the case reopened on the basis of the victims not being notified. She is mentioned by name in State files, with detectives mentioning that she was set to be interviewed, but the appointment was canceled. Wilde claims to have become part of Epstein’s stable of girls in 2002 at age fourteen, and that she recruited some eighty girls, but she doesn’t seem to have been interviewed by PBPD or State investigators.[37] She came to light primarily in reporting by Julie Brown of the Miami Herald. Wilde sued after she got word that the US Attorney had negotiated a plea involving a non-prosecution agreement. Her position was that the agreement was null and void because victims had not been notified of the plea. While negotiations were going on regarding the plea, a law firm in Palm Beach filed a suit against Epstein for the father and stepmother of SG for a large sum. Another in Miami filed on behalf of another one or several of the girls or their families. The sharks were circling, trying to take a bite out of Epstein’s money.

The Epstein was wealthy is an established fact. Just how wealthy has never been determined. He had initially started become wealthy as a trader for Bear Stearns, a New York investment company. He left Bear Stearns and became a financial advisor to wealthy clients. Media reports claim he was a billionaire but his wealth at the time of his death was determined to have been a little over half a billion. However, he probably had money in various trust funds and foundations. Regardless of his actual wealth, he was definitely wealthy and had the means to hire high-priced lawyers. His wealth also made him a target for lawyers, scrupulous and unscrupulous, who wanted some of his money. Lawyers become wealthy by winning cases or settlements against wealthy subjects on behalf of clients they often recruit in order to file cases. In addition to a portion of any settlement or jury award, they also charge fees for their services. A favorite tactic is to attempt to force the subject of a case to settle for a large sum plus attorney fees rather than spending millions for a trial.

Prosecutors use the same tactics in order to get a conviction. They force defendants to spend large sums on defense attorneys to the point of bankruptcy then offer some kind of plea to stop the hemorrhaging of the defendants funds. Federal prosecutors are notorious for such tactics. However, those tactics don’t work when the defendant has large sums of money to spend on high-priced – and effective – defense attorneys. Jefferey Epstein was such a person.

When the Epstein defense realized he had become the subject of a Federal investigation, they began hiring new attorneys who had a background as AUSAs. Former AUSAs were familiar with Federal procedures and would be invaluable in a defense. Some of the new defense attorneys had worked with current AUSAs in the past. One of the new Epstein attorneys had dated one of the AUSAs when they were coworkers before she left the Federal government for private practice. Epstein also hired famed attorney and legal scholar Ken Starr, who had headed the prosecution of President Bill Clinton. Allan Dershowitz was a personal friend of Epstein and had been involved with his defense from the beginning, first as an advisor then as part of the team. Epstein’s high-powered defense led to allegations of influence, however the DOJ investigation in 2019 found that there was no conflict of interest and no influence or any illegal acts on the part of the AUSA and his subordinates. The Epstein defense didn’t need to resort to bribery and other illegal actions, they knew the State and Federal cases were weak.

AUSA Acosta and other members of the AUSA staff were also aware that the case was weak, all except Villifana who was convinced she had a case that could lead to a sentence of up to 210 months in Federal prison. She wanted to file charges against Epstein and have him arrested. She drew up an 82-page memorandum to support an indictment in which she listed sixty counts related to sexual conduct with and trafficking of minors.[38] Her immediate superior felt the case was prosecutable but recognized that it was complex and Villifana was going to need co-counsel. Other AUSAs, particularly Acosta, felt that Epstein would take the case to a trial that would result in an acquittal. Even Villifana knew they had the same witness problems the State Attorneys had.

AUSA Lourie, one of the AUSAs in Villifana’s supervisory chain, felt Villifana’s justification for an indictment was good, but while the case was prosecutable, they had a witness problem in that some of the girls had credibility issues. There was also the issue of prostitution. The key witnesses were impeachable. Some of the girls had engaged in sexual activities with Epstein for pay, which constituted prostitution. Although prostitution is not a Federal offense, the defense could bring it up in their cross-examinations. Lourie felt the OUSA should use girls who hadn’t been brought up by the defense or the State as having credibility problems. Lourie felt they should only initially focus on the women who would be the “toughest cases” for Epstein to repudiate.

The case was based solely on allegations by girls who had told of their experiences with Epstein as minors, but who had become young women in the intervening years. Some were in their twenties, and some of them were not of the best repute. Some were unsavory. At least one had been working as an exotic dancer and several of the girls had drug issues. Some had been arrested. The girl who had set off the investigation had a history of shoplifting. Her My Space page, she said in a disposition she had had several over the years, had things on it the defense claimed showed she was a habitual liar and liked wild parties. Some of the girls refused to testify against Epstein. One told prosecutors she loved him. Some girls just wanted to move on with their lives and put it all behind them. Some of the younger girls didn’t want their parents to know they had been involved with Epstein.

Villifana was attempting to gain access to the computer equipment, which she somehow learned was in the possession of someone connected to the defense. PBPD had confiscated some of the computer hardware but not the computers themselves. Villifana, as did the PBPD, believed there were images that would show that Epstein was addicted to child porn.[39] They also felt there might be images of some of the girls. Villifana was operating under the assumption that Epstein had video of the girls giving him massages and engaging in sexual activity. The PBPD had not found any of the sex toys and vibrators the girls had mentioned during the search of the house. Only one sex toy had turned up and it was not in the closet next to the bed where the girls said he kept his vibrators. Police found two cameras, one in the garage and one in a clock on Epstein’s desk. There were images of what they thought was one of the girls on the one in Epstein’s office but were unable to tell for sure.

The FBI and the AUSA’s office had been investigating Epstein for more than a year and the case wasn’t going anywhere. Acosta, in particular, wanted to see Epstein sentenced for something that would require him to register as a sex offender, but was fearful they wouldn’t be able to get a conviction in a trial and that Epstein was sure to go to trial if he was indicted. He had already been indicted by the State on a prostitution charge which had yet to be resolved; he believed the OUSA could use that indictment to the DOJ’s advantage. It’s unclear exactly who came up with the idea, but the OUSA decided their best course of action in order to guarantee a conviction would be to get Epstein to agree to a State prostitution charge that would require him to serve time in confinement and register as a sex offender. They also wanted restitution for the victims. Under the terms of the plea, Epstein would accept charges by the state, serve 24 months in confinement, register as a sex offender and make restitution, and the OUSA would not prosecute. The Federal investigation would cease. Villifana was still convinced they could charge Epstein and continued to investigate and press for an indictment right up until the day almost a year later when Epstein finally accepted the plea. She would keep pressing for an indictment for the next two years while Epstein was serving his sentence.

In spite of Villifana’s confidence, charging Epstein on the basis of his coming to Palm Beach in order to get massages from underage girls was iffy at best. The statute was aimed at perpetrators, specifically men, who traveled across state lines in order to have relations with minors. Epstein had a home in Palm Beach where he spent much of his time and was a part-time Florida resident. Proving he came there in order to have sexual relations with minor girls would be difficult, if not impossible. For one thing, police had only identified a handful of girls who admitted to anything beyond giving Epstein a massage. Some of the girls had said that Sarah Kellen called them whenever Epstein was going to be in town, but convincing a jury on the basis of the girls’ testimony was going to be extremely difficult due to issues in their lives. Several of the girls had drug issues and some had been arrested. There was no doubt the defense would attack their credibility in court. Charging him for sex trafficking was iffy at best. Villifana also thought they could charge him under a new Federal law that had been passed to prosecute offenders for using the Internet to solicit minors, but some of her superiors didn’t believe it could apply to Epstein. However, if they could get Epstein to plead guilty to another offense that carried jail time and registration as a sex offender, he would be convicted based on his plea and would serve some time in incarceration. They believed state charges for prostitution and assault were their best avenue to put him behind bars.

The AUSA and the State Attorney finally came up with a plea offer under which Epstein would plead guilty to two State charges carrying a two-year sentence followed by probation, along with sexual offender registration and the establishment of a victim’s fund to compensate women who were harmed by their experiences with Epstein. If Epstein accepted the plea offer, the OUSA would discontinue the Federal investigation. They wouldn’t drop charges because there were no charges to drop – Epstein had not been charged with any Federal crimes.[40] The OUSA saw it as a certain means of getting Epstein off the streets; charging him with a Federal crime was risky because he was likely to be acquitted in a trial. If he did not take the plea, the AUSA was going to charge him with Federal crimes. Villifana was convinced she would win at trial in spite of Epstein’s high-powered defense. Members of the media, particularly Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown and local Palm Beach reporters would later refer to the deal as a “sweetheart deal” without considering that the Feds were likely to lose in court if the case went to trial. In that event, Epstein would have walked out of court a free man. He would have served no jail time, would not have had to register as a sex offender and would not have been obligated to pay restitution.

The plea was presented to the defense in July 2007. Epstein signed it and returned it to the AUSA on September 24, 2007. Villifana only notified a few people that the agreement had been signed. The defense was concerned about leaks to the media. Nevertheless, the New York Post published an article on October 1 about the agreement. On October 12, 2007, eighteen days after the plea agreement was signed, Acosta met with defense attorney Jay Lefkowitz for breakfast at the Palm Beach Marriott where Acosta was staying while in town for an event. The media, specifically the Miami Herald, would later claim that this was where and when Epstein’s “sweetheart deal” was negotiated, but Epstein had actually signed the agreement eighteen days previously. As noted above, the New York Post had reported on October 1 that there was an agreement.

After the plea was presented, the defense began trying to get the sentence whittled down. Their goal had been no jail time with the State and they pressed the AUSA not to charge him, but the AUSAs and the USA were determined to have him spend time in confinement. Meanwhile, Villafana continued the investigation and kept working on charges to be filed if Epstein didn’t take the plea. Although he had signed it, he had to report to the court and plead guilty to accept it. This led to confusion on the part of girls who asked about the status of the case and were told it was still under investigation.[41] It was during this period that lawyers started filing civil suits on behalf of certain victims, with SG the first to bring suit as Jane Doe.[42] Epstein had money and lawyers were determined to get some of it for their clients, and for themselves since they would get a portion of any settlement or award along with their fees.

The defense raised a new issue. Epstein didn’t want those who had assisted him to be prosecuted. There were four young women in his employ as assistants and some of them had played roles in his acts, particularly Sarah Kellen, who had set up the appointments, and Nada Marcinkova, who some of the girls claimed had participated in Epstein’s sordid acts. If Epstein pled guilty, no charges would be brought against his employees. There was uncertainty as to just who this applied to, was it just the four assistants or any of his employees? Epstein employed a large number of people who were involved in his movements, from his assistants who made travel arrangements and set up appointments with the masseuses to the flight crews who flew his airplanes. There was also Gislaine Maxwell, who was in charge of Epstein’s residences. None of the girls had mentioned her in their interviews, at least not the ones interviewed by the State. Maxwell would claim she had distanced herself from Epstein by 2005. Then there were the girls themselves, who had brought other girls to Epstein for a fee. The PBPD wanted to charge Haley Robson for her role as well as Sarah Kellen.[43] The FBI had identified other girls who had not been brought to the PBPD’s attention. Since the Federal investigation was discontinued and Epstein was not charged Federally, those interviews are not available.[44] There was also discussion of the appointment of a victim’s attorney to represent the girls in claims against Epstein for remuneration. The USAO had stipulated that if there were disagreements and the victims sued Epstein, he would be responsible for their attorney fees.

The defense then got into a discussion over where Epstein would be confined. They advocated that if he went to a state prison, he would be subject to extortion by his fellow inmates. They preferred a Federal prison, but that was out of the question since he would not be charged Federally. They finally agreed that he could serve his sentence in the Palm Beach County jail. However, this presented a problem. The plea bargain agreement was for a 24-month sentence, but the defense had whittled it down to eighteen months. Stays in the county jail were limited to twelve months. The State and county came up with a solution; Epstein would serve two consecutive sentences, one for twelve months and one for six. As it turned out, he would serve thirteen months in jail followed by home confinement to finish out the twenty-four months.

Epstein’s defense had been arguing that the case was not a Federal matter. They went to the DOJ in Washington in an attempt to have the case dropped, but the Assistant Attorney General responded that they weren’t going to get involved. At this point Epstein decided to accept the plea offer. The only explanation for Epstein agreeing to plea has to be that his attorneys had advised him that if the case went to trial, there was always the possibility that a jury could find against him and he would receive a long sentence based on the charges Villifana was pushing for. By pleading guilty and accepting the sentencing set for in the agreement, he would only be out of circulation for two years rather than twenty.

A question arose in the Palm Beach AUSA office. Should they notify the girls involved in the Federal case? The Crime Rights Victim Acts stipulated that victims would be notified WHEN PERPETRATORS WERE CHARGED, Epstein had not been charged with Federal crimes. The plea offer with the promise of a No Prosecution Agreement was presented to the defense on July 31, 2007, and Epstein signed it on September 24. Epstein did not agree to the final version and surrender until June 30, 2008. During the interval in between, the defense had attempted numerous efforts to have the plea modified. At times, girls who had been identified as victims or their families would contact the FBI inquiring about the status of the case. Many of the girls who had been in their mid-teens when they were involved with Epstein had turned eighteen and were no longer minors. They would be informed that the investigation was on-going, which was true since the FBI and AUSA were still gathering evidence and identifying new victims. Villifana was still pressing for an indictment. She was concerned about notifying victims that a plea was in process. The US Attorney’s office determined that it was unnecessary since Epstein hadn’t been charged with anything. In the event he was charged, the victims would be notified of any court appearances so they could be there. The Federal position was that notification of victims was not required since the DOJ wasn’t going to pursue charges. The State would be responsible for notifying it’s victims. While the State’s victims were notified of the plea, the Federal victims who had not been part of the State case were not. The AUSA and the FBI were also concerned about notifying the victims that the plea carried a requirement for restitution. They feared that in the event of an appeal, the defense could claim the girls were motivated by money.

Some of the girls appear to have been informed of the plea. Villifana reported that she and other agents had conducted interviews of at least three girls. One girl broke down in tears twenty minutes into the interview then broke down again after a break. The interview had to be discontinued because she was too emotional. Another girl told Villifana that eighteen months wasn’t long enough, that she didn’t care about the money, she just wanted to see Epstein in jail. The experience of the girl who broke down is indicative of the ordeals the girls went through. It’s likely that the numerous interviews by police and attorneys took more of a toll from them then Epstein’s actual actions. The knowledge that some of them could be charged with prostitution wore on the girls who had actual sexual contact with Epstein, meaning they had allowed him to somehow penetrate or touch their vagina and had been paid for it.[45]

Epstein finally went to court to plead guilty and turn himself in on June 30, 2008. Villifana and the FBI case agent were present as spectators. She was lauded for bringing Epstein to justice, but she didn’t feel vindicated. She told one person she wasn’t satisfied with eighteen months in jail, it should have been eighteen years. When the court asked State Attorney Belohlavek if the victims were in agreement with the plea, she said that she had talked to some of them herself and had spoken to the counsel for the other and they all agreed. When asked about families, she responded that they were all over eighteen. Just who the victims were is uncertain.

A week after Epstein pled guilty to the State charges, a woman identified as “Jane Doe” filed an emergency petition in Federal court in the South District of Florida alleging that the Federal government violated the Crime Victims Civil Rights Act by resolving the case without notifying the victims of the plea. The victim, who has since been identified as Courtney Wild (or Wilde) was represented by attorney Brad Edwards who formed the firm Edwards Henderson in Fort Lauderdale. Edwards has since represented Epstein victims in their pursuit of funds from Epstein and from his estate after his death. Edwards and Wild continued pursuing the case until a Federal judge in Florida finally found in their favor a decade later. However, the ruling was overturned on appeal. By that time Epstein was dead. The Federal government moved to drop the case since Epstein was dead. Wild appealed to the Supreme Court, but the court declined to hear the case. The OUSA for the Southern District of New York decided to press charges against Gislaine Maxwell for alleged crimes committed in the 1990s. She was convicted and sentence to twenty years in Federal prison.

The victims identified by the State received compensation from the fund that had been set up for restitution, as did Wild and another victim who had joined her in the CVCR case (possibly Virginia Roberts). Other women who had not been part of the case got wind of the payouts and hired lawyers to get their piece of the pie. They included, among others, Virginia Roberts Guiffre, the Farmer Sisters and Sarah Ransome. While Virginia Roberts and Annie Farmer were in their teens when they met Epstein in the 1990s, Maria Famer and Ransome were adults. Virginia Roberts is the only one of the four who was in Florida, but by the time of the cases involving the minors, she was no longer a minor and was living in Australia with the husband she had met in Thailand where Epstein had sent her to attend a massage school. Ransome claims she met Epstein in 2006 after she came to the United States from Europe at age 22. This would have been after he was being investigated and several years after Virginia Roberts left Epstein and moved to Australia. According to police, Epstein left Florida when he found out about their investigation. He apparently spent most of his time in the Virgin Islands.

Ransome was a South African native who was born to British parents. She wrote a book, which is basically a defense of her own actions with Epstein and Maxwell as focal points. She claims she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend at age 11, then was raped again by a classmate as a young teenager. She drank heavily and used drugs. She left South Africa for Scotland to live with her mother’s sister and get away from her own mother, who she saw as a reason for her own issues. She formed a relationship with her wealthy grandfather, but lost it when her aunt had a falling out with him. She enrolled in college but started drinking and became promiscuous. She ran up thousands of dollars on credit cards and in loans. To make ends, she became a stripper. Then she got into the escort business and then a prostitute, a word she makes clear she detests. She attempts to justify her actions as a means of survival.

Ransome decided to try her luck in the United States. She booked a flight to New York with the intentions of becoming a fashion model. Soon after she arrived, while living with a man she had met online she encountered a young woman “with a thick European accent” named Natyala Malyshev who introduced her to Epstein at the bar where she met Malyshev. Epstein told her he would help her get into the New York Fashion Institute of Technology. According to her book. Natyala contacted her and said Epstein wanted her to accompany him to his island in the US Virgin Islands. She claimed Epstein had sex with his “girlfriend” Nada Marcinkova, although she spelled her name as Nadia, on the plane. She also described Marcinkova as “petite.” Marcinkova was actually tall. Ransome claims the two had sex in sight and sound of the other passengers, which included her, Natyala and some other girls. They landed at the airport on St. Thomas and went to Epstein’s island by speedboat. She had yet to meet Gislaine Maxwell. She met her on Little St. James a day or so after she arrived there. She says she hoped Nada was meeting Epstein’s needs, but was surprised she wasn’t sleeping with him. She mentions other girls in the bungalow she shared with them as being European. Some barely spoke English. Epstein would call each night for one of the girls ot come to his room. One night it was Ransome’s turn. She claims Epstein raped her.

She claims that her sexual encounters with Epstein were “rape.” She says she had sex with Epstein on the island and in New York. She complains that Epstein was raping her, yet she stayed with him in hopes he would get her into FIT. She also claims that Epstein and Gislaine Maxwell told her she couldn’t get into FIT unless she lost weight, which is rather unbelievable since FIT is part of the New York State system. It appears that Epstein was going to fund her education in return for sex. Ransome was with Epstein from October 2006 to April 2007 when she booked a flight to Scotland. She uses the term “trafficking” throughout the book and claims there were underage girls on Little St. James Island when she was there, but offers no proof. There are some pictures in the back of the Kindle version of the book with a couple of names identified as Jane Doe. There is one photo of Epstein riding a 4-wheeler. Personally, I find Ransome’s book to be a bit unbelievable.

It appears that Epstein did, in fact, help women who worked for him and at least some of whom he had sex with, in their careers. Virginia Guiffre described a visit to LA in her unpublished manuscript where she met Days of Our Lives actress Nadia Bjorlin.[46] According to Guiffre, she and Bjorlin engaged in lesbian sex for Epstein’s entertainment then he took turns having sex with each of them while the girl not being penetrated had oral sex with the other girl. She says she went with Epstein and Bjorlin to meet with Bjorlin’s agent. Epstein had something to do with Bjorlin’s career. Bjorlin was mentioned by Epstein’s former caretaker as one of the women who came to the Palm Beach house. One of the “Jane Doe” witnesses in the case against Gislaine Maxwell was an actress. Virginia Guiffre claims in her manuscript that Epstein rewarded his girls with positions as actresses, artists, dancers and other professions and some with rich husbands from his circle.

Roberts made all kinds of claims in a manuscript she wrote and in interviews over the years, but she definitely grew up in Florida after her family moved to Loxahatchee when she was four. She was a student at Royal Palm High School, the same school that produced so many of Epstein’s students, but she claimed she ran away from home at fourteen and lived on the streets. She claimed to have lived with a known sex trafficker who specialized in illegal immigrant girls and that she was subjected to daily sexual intercourse with the man, who was well into his sixties. She then was trafficked to a night club owner from whom she was rescued by FBI agents and returned to her father, who put her in an institution from which she had previously run away. What is known for sure is that she worked for Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Resort where her father was in charge of maintenance. She claims she was working as a towel girl in the spa when she met Gislaine Maxwell. She claimed she was reading a book on massage when Maxwell saw her. According to her claims, Maxwell asked her if she was interested in massage. She replied that she was and Maxwell responded that if she would come to work for Epstein, he would send her to massage school. It was probably a legitimate offer because Epstein paid for at least one other young woman, she was in her twenties, to finish college at around the same time, then employed her as a massage therapist after she got her license. They both worked for Epstein at the same time, although the other woman was a licensed massage therapist while Virginia, who went by Jenna, was not.

Roberts worked for Epstein for at least two years during which she claimed he trafficked her to his friends and associates, including British Prince Andrew.[47] She said when she was being disposed that she was unsure how long she was with him, but it could have been two years or it could have been four. If it was only two, then she was an adult most of that time, not a minor. She got married and moved to Australia in 2002 when she was nineteen. She would come to public attention in 2011 when she sold a photo of her, the prince and Gislaine Maxwell to The Daily Mail for $120,000 and was paid $20,000 for an interview in which she claimed that Maxwell told her to sleep with Andrew, a total of $160,000. The prince denied her claims. The article brought her to the attention of the FBI, who interviewed her in Australia and informed her she could file a claim for restitution. Roberts filed a suit against Epstein and was awarded half a million dollars. She also joined Wild’s CVCR suit. She sued Gislaine Maxwell for defamation, a case which was settled in her favor for which she received a large sum. Buckingham Palace also paid her a massive amount, allegedly some ten million dollars plus a two million dollar contribution by the queen to Guiffre’s foundation. Guiffre collected millions as a result of her association with Epstein. Guiffre committed suicide this past April while in the midst of family problems.

In November 2018, the Miami Herald, a newspaper noted for its leftist bias and support of Democratic candidates, published a three-part series about the Epstein investigation. One of the women interviewed as Virginia Roberts Guiffre. Much of what is commonly believed about Epstein and Maxwell came from her. The article was obviously aimed at Alex Acosta, who had been appointed Secretary of Labor in the Trump Administration. There were rumors that he was under consideration as the replacement for US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recently resigned at President Trump’s request. The focus of the articles, written by Herald investigative journalist Julie Brown, was on Acosta’s role in what they referred to as a sweetheart deal for Jeffery Epstein. The article started out with the erroneous claim that Acosta and Epstein attorney Jay Lefkowitz had put together the deal for the non-prosecution agreement over breakfast EIGHTEEN DAYS AFTER Epstein accepted and signed the agreement. The series, which was expanded into a book, is filled with misrepresentations, emails quoted out of context, and innuendo. The articles had zero input from any of those it was aimed at. Several girls who had been Epstein’s victims are mentioned, although not the ones who had sexual relations with him other than Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who wasn’t one of those investigated by the PBPD and who was an adult during the time frame of the investigation.[48] It is that series that most Americans’ perception of the case is based on. Nowhere does Brown consider that the reason for the NPA was that prosecutors, except for Villifana, feared they wouldn’t be able to prevail in court.

As a result of Brown’s articles and books and a decision by a Federal judge in Florida that the victims’ rights had been violated and the plea agreement was thus invalidated, the FBI in New York opened a new investigation. Epstein was held without bail while the Federal appeals court in Florida looked at the case. As it turned out, they overturned the decision that the girl’s rights were violated. However, by that time, Epstein was dead. The judge who made the ruling decreed that his decision was no longer valid as a result of Epstein’s death. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear it. A bill was introduced in Congress in the name of Courtney Wild but it doesn’t appear to have ever been voted on. The Congressional site shows it as “Introduced.”

Since Epstein served out his time in Florida, conspiracy theorists have run wild with theories about him. One is that he was a CIA agent, or that he was an agent for Mossad, the Israeli secret intelligence and hit agency. The CIA claim came from an article published on the web site The Daily Beast by none other than Vicky Ward, who has a reputation as an investigative journalist and podcaster.[49] Ward claimed that she was told by somebody at the White House that Epstein told the Trump transition team that he had been told to back off. Another version is that someone in the Senate asked Acosta about Epstein during his confirmation hearing. Regardless, the sole source for this claim is Vicky Ward’s The Daily Beast article. Just where the Mossad claim comes from is uncertain. The Israeli government denies that he worked for them, at least not overtly. Like many other rich Jews, Epstein was a Zionist and was involved in Zionist causes. An expired passport with an assumed name was found at his New York estate. A rumor was started that Epstein received a light sentence because he had worked with the FBI on the case involving Bear Stearns, his former employer. However, the FBI agents who worked the case informed AUSA Villifana that they had never heard of Jeffrey Epstein.

The next and most popular rumor is that Epstein flew his famous friends to his private island “on his jet” for private massages and sexual romps with underaged girls. First, NOBODY EVER FLEW INTO EPSTEIN’S ISLAND! For there is no landing strip on Little St. James Island, the island Epstein owned. Visitors had to fly into Cyril King Airport on St. Thomas. The only way to get from there to Epstein’s island is by boat or helicopter. Epstein and Maxwell traveled between the two islands by helicopter while most others went by boat. Epstein or Maxwell had bought a helicopter and she had learned to fly it. Some articles claim that workers at the airport on St. Thomas referred to the airplane as “The Lolita Express” because of the young-looking women who sometimes came in and out on the airplane.[50] Conspiracists claim that Epstein took underage girls there for wealthy clients to exploit. If so, they weren’t high school girls from Palm Beach. None of the girls interviewed by the PBPD said anything about going to the Virgin Islands or anywhere on Epstein’s jets.[51] The only one of Epstein’s alleged underage victims who said she went there is Virginia Roberts. She was on Epstein’s payroll as an on-call masseuse/sex worker. There were other masseuses on Epstein’s payroll at various times, Johanna Sjoberg, who went to the island but they were adults. Sarah Ransome was another adult who went to the island.

Another claim is that Epstein was part of an international cabal of pedophiles for whom he procured underage girls. Again, Epstein was NOT a pedophile! To label him in this manner is irresponsible. This is a myth perpetrated by sensationalist journalists and even unscrupulous attorneys. Sarah Ransome, one of Epstein’s “victims,” uses the term throughout her book, which is largely a treatise designed to promote sympathy for her and the turmoil of her life. They use the sensationalist term because they know it will have an impact and influence thought.[52] ALL of his known victims were adolescents and young women. Terms have been invented for adults attracted to adolescents but pedophile is ot one of them. By definition, a pedophile is a person who is sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children under the age of thirteen. The youngest of Epstein’s known victims, and there was only one in Palm Beach, was fourteen.[53] Courtney Wild has claimed she was fourteen and in middle school, but court records show her as fifteen when she met Epstein and started finding girls for him. The claim seems to have come from the same sources that started the Pizzagate rumor that a certain pizzeria in Washington, DC was the go-to place for Democrat pedophiles to make arrangements for children. It was picked up by QAnon, which evolved out of Pizzagate.[54] QAnon advocates that a Satanic cult is operating a child sex trafficking ring and that Donald Trump is leading the fight against them. Whoever started the rumors seems not to have been aware that Epstein and Trump were buddies.

Most, if not all, of the “evidence” about Epstein came from depositions and files released by the attorneys representing various women in suits against Epstein for damages. A great deal of it comes from Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s claims. Roberts was not involved with the Palm Beach investigations. She was married and living in Australia. She claimed she got calls from Epstein and Maxwell telling her not to talk to police. She claimed the FBI contacted her, but it wasn’t until Australian investigators got involved that she said anything to anybody. She joined Courtney Wild’s CVCR suit although I don’t know how since she wasn’t one of the victims. She later accused Alan Dershowitz, claiming she had sex with him at least six times. Dershowitz says she was a pathological liar. She eventually admitted that she “might have been mistaken” about Dershowitz. She claimed Epstein (or Maxwell) “trafficked” her to Prince Andrew, who denies the claim. She sold a photo of her and the prince together to the Daily Mail, but the authenticity of the photo is questionable. The Royal family paid Giuffre off, reportedly to the tune of ten million dollars plus a two million dollar contribution to a fund she established, although Andrew continued to deny having anything to do with her.[55] Even if the photo is genuine, it only proves that he was with her somewhere, allegedly at Epstein’s London house, long enough for someone to take a photograph of them together. Guiffre sued Gislaine Maxwell for defamation. The case never made it to court, it was settled. Although the details of the settlement are unknown, Maxwell allegedly paid Guiffre several million dollars.

Giuffre’s main supporter in her claims was Sarah Ransome, whose own credibility is questionable. She seems to have been the main source of the claims that Epstein was taking minors to his private island, although she was in her twenties herself. She claims Epstein raped her using a vibrator soon after she met him. She claims that Epstein and Nada Marcinkova had sex on the bed in his 727 in plain sight and hearing of the other passengers. The former airliner had been extensively remodeled with compartments. It’s doubtful the other passengers would have been able to see and hear what was going on unless they were seated in close proximity to the bedroom. She is frequently interviewed by journalists about Epstein. Along with Maria Farmer, she recently sued the United States government in an attempt to get more money, this time from taxpayers, to go with that she has already collected from Epstein and the Epstein estate.

There is no doubt that Virginia Roberts Giuffre had psychological problems and they eventually led to her suicide. She committed suicide after claiming several weeks before she only had a few days to live. She was involved in an accident with a bus and claimed she suffered grievous injury, although the Australian government said it was a minor collision. She and her husband were estranged and her minor children were not talking to her. She had returned to Roberts as her last name. Her brothers and sister-in-law published excerpts from her diary and claim she and her husband Robert, from whom she was in the midst of a divorce, had an abusive relationship, that he was a heavy drinker who constantly abused her. They released photos of her showing her badly bruised in an incident when she was with her estranged husband in a house she had rented for their daughter’s fifteenth birthday. He allegedly asked her for sex, then beat her up when she refused. He told investigators she attacked him and her bruises were self-inflicted. The state investigation was inconclusive, but a restraining order was issued and Robert was given temporary custody of their minor children. She was forbidden from contacting them for six months.

I don’t know what to make of Virginia Roberts. I am confident that she had sex with Epstein, but after that I am not sure of her many claims of being trafficked to others. She claimed to have had sex with at least a half dozen well-known people. The only person who substantiated her claims seems to have been Sarah Ransome, who has her own veracity problems. NONE of the some-odd thirty girls interviewed by PBPD detectives mentioned giving anyone a massage but Epstein. Nor did they mention Gislaine Maxwell being involved in any way in their relationships with Epstein. Roberts wrote a 350-page manuscript in which she described her experiences. Her own attorneys said it is a work of fiction she wrote to clear her mind. She says she was a thirteen-year-old runaway and was sitting on a curb when a limousine pulled up and an elderly man offered to help her out. He turned out to be a sex trafficker who was recruiting young illegal immigrants to serve as sex slaves for his clients. He made Jenna, as she called herself, his own sex slave until he found out she had talked to one of her friends. He then trafficked her out to one of his associates. She said she was rescued by FBI agents. She had turned fourteen while in the hands of the sex trafficker, who fled the country and was eventually apprehended in Yugoslavia and died in prison.

After her rescue, she went back to her father and a mother that wanted nothing to do with her after running away from a juvenile center her father had put her in. Her father talked her mother into letting her come home. She took a summer job at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort as a locker room attendant in the spa where she met Gislaine Maxwell who saw her reading a book on massage. Maxwell offered her to try out for a job as Epstein’s traveling masseuse. She claims Epstein had sex with her the first time she met him and that Maxwell participated. Her description of her experiences is nothing like the Palm Beach girls, all of whom said Epstein worked up to more intimate contact during repeat visits.

The crux of the current furor over Epstein is not about him or what he did but his relationship with Donald Trump. There is no doubt that Epstein and Trump were friends, both in New York and Florida, where Epstein was a patron of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. It was at the Mar-a-Lago spa that Maxwell allegedly first noticed Virginia Roberts and offered her a job with Epstein as a masseuse. Just what their relationship was is not certain. Maria Farmer, who worked for Epstein, claims she was at Epstein’s Manhattan office when Trump came in. She claims he looked at her legs and Epstein remarked “she’s not for you.” However, at the time Farmer worked for Epstein, Trump was married to Marla Maples. She may have seen him, but her comment is meaningless. Trump’s relationship with Epstein seems to have begun in Florida when the latter joined his Mar-a-Lago Resort and began hanging out there. This is during the timeframe when Trump was involved with and later married Marla Maples. Trump was going back and forth between his offices and home in Trump Tower in Manhattan and Mar-a-Lago just as Epstein was also going back and forth to Palm Beach and they sometimes rode on each other’s airplanes. However, the claim that they were partying together must be looked at askance since Trump was married during most of this time. Trump was single during the period from 1999 when he and Maples divorced until 2005 when he married Melenia. This is the period investigated by the PBPD and FBI, but Donald Trump is not mentioned in any of the interviews by PBPD detectives used to justify charging Epstein. His name is only mentioned in passing as someone Epstein knew. Trump claims his relationship with Epstein ended in 2005, but records indicated that Epstein remained a member of Mar-a-Largo until 2007. Some accounts claim that Epstein was banned from the resort after he was caught fondling the teenage daughter of one of the members. If this is the case, he wasn’t removed from the membership rolls.

The main issue with Epstein is the belief that he didn’t pay for his crimes. Some evidently believe he was never convicted. Actually, he was. He was convicted in the Palm Beach court when he pled guilty to the state charges of solicitation of prostitution and of procurement of a minor to engage in prostitution for which he was sentenced to eighteen months in jail.

As it turned out, Epstein only served twelve months in jail and much of that was on a work release program which the USAO had not anticipated. Instead of housing him in the main detention center, the county put him in a low security stockade. The Palm Beach sheriff had also determined that Epstein was eligible for work release. The USAO was against Epstein being placed in a work release program and Villifana took steps to oppose it, but the sheriff’s office went along with it in spite of the Federal objections. Epstein served three and a half months in the stockade then was placed in the work release program, which allowed him to leave the stockade for twelve hours a day six days a week to work in the Florida Science Foundation, an organization Epstein himself had founded the previous November. The foundation office was in his attorney’s office. Epstein was able to participate in the work release program because even though he was required to register as a sex offender, the registration wouldn’t take place until he had completed his sentence.

AUSA Villifana was constantly after the defense, the state and the sheriff over things involving Epstein. She was evidently looking for any reason to nullify the agreement and indict him. Roy Black, Epstein’s attorney, complained to the USAO that Villifana took issue with everything Epstein did. Epstein was released from jail after twelve months then went into twelve months of home confinement, which in Florida is the Community Control supervision program. Under the program, the convict is released into the community under supervision. On one occasion, Epstein was spotted walking on a beach. He told police he was walking to work, which was reportedly eight miles away. However, his attorney said it was only three miles from Epstein’s house to his office.

Epstein tried to get his home confinement changed to his Virgin Islands estate but the OUSA refused to agree to a change. Epstein served out the remainder of his sentence in Palm Beach and was released on July 21, 2010.

Jeffrey Epstein: About the sex trafficking case & accusations | Miami Herald

- 49b577fa-6ad8-415d-8efc-c553423af314. - DOJ 2020 Investigation Report

Public Records – Office of State Attorney 15th Judicial Circuit

PALM BEACH RESIDENT FACES SOLICITATION CHARGE – Sun Sentinel

Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller Palm Beach County (Grand Jury Proceedings)

Lauren Stephens Website (Contains Epstein-related files, FBI files largely redacted)

Alan Dershowitz, Devil’s Advocate | The New Yorker

Southern District of New York | Jeffrey Epstein Charged In Manhattan Federal Court With Sex Trafficking Of Minors | United States Department of Justice

Prince Andrew's friend, Ghislaine Maxwell, some underage girls and a very disturbing story | Daily Mail Online

Dubin Family's Ties to Epstein Included at Least One Massage Referral - Business Insider

What really happened to Virginia Giuffre? | The Times and The Sunday Times

Virginia Giuffre, prominent Jeffrey Epstein accuser, dies by suicide - CBS News

Virginia Giuffre, Voice in Epstein Sex-Trafficking Scandal, Dies at 41 - The New York Times

Virginia Giuffre, Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein accuser, dies by suicide

Inside the rise (and ugly fall) of the Trump-Epstein friendship

Unsealed Court Documents Charge Epstein With Trafficking Girls Age 14 - Business Insider

U S v Jeffrey Epstein Indictment | DocumentCloud (2019 Indictment)

Jeffrey Epstein: Timeline that led to sex-trafficking charges : NPR

hearing-epstein-dismissal | DocumentCloud

Virgina-Giuffre-Billionaire-s-Playboy-Club.pdf

Giuffre-Exhibits.pdf

Microsoft Word - GM Complaint Final

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT (Sarah Ransome)

Nada Marcinkova Wiki [Jeffrey Epstein], Age, Height, Husband, Net Worth, Bio

How ‘godfather’ Epstein preyed on Days of Our Lives star when she was just 13 - with traumatised mum revealing sick plot | The US Sun

Jeffrey Epstein 'befriended' first victim, 13, at Michigan arts camp, book claims | Daily Mail Online

All Names – Epstein's Black Book

United States v. Maxwell, 1:20-cr-00330 – CourtListener.com

LCAVMAXF - PUBLIC VERSION (Annie Farmer testimony against Maxwell)

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[1] The fight was between the victim and her best friend, who she had told that morning about how she had given a Palm Beach man a massage and he had given her $300. She told the girl she could get paid. The other girl blabbed and it got all over the school, resulting in other students calling the victim names. She confronted the other girl and they got in a fight.

[2] Due to inadvertent revelations in some files, her first name appears to have been Sage or Saige.

[3] She later revealed that she’d had intercourse with boyfriends twice before the incident with Epstein.

[4] In her initial interview by a female police officer, SG did not mention Epstein having touched her with the vibrator but over the course of the investigation, she was interviewed numerous times and revealed more as the investigation proceeded.

[5] One girl, who doesn’t seem to have been interviewed by the PBPD although they were aware of her, claims to have brought eighty girls to Epstein.

[6] Police identified three girls who had intercourse. The third may have been a girl who was heavily involved with Epstein but who refused penile intercourse. On one occasion he essentially raped her. Since the girls were underage – the girl who submitted willingly did so the day before her eighteenth birthday – Epstein’s actions were statutory rape.

[7] Some were professional massage therapists. Epstein employed several people with training in massage.

[8] One of his traveling masseuses was Virginia Roberts, a Palm Beach teenager who was allegedly recruited to work for Epstein by his assistant/girlfriend Gislaine Maxwell. Roberts worked for him in the late 90s before moving to Australia.

[9] Heidi Fleiss was a California woman who was prosecuted for recruiting women for a madam.

[10] Media accounts claim that Epstein had people all over the area looking for girls but all of the underage girls police interviewed were high school students, mostly from Royal Palm Beach High.

[11] Sarah Kellen had asked a number of girls about the investigation within a few weeks after the PBPD started interviewing.

[12] She may have been Alexandra Hall. An Alexandra Hall is shown on a purported list of Epstein contacts and the name Hall appears, it should have been redacted, on one of the files associated with the case. There is an Alexandra Hall in Palm Beach who is of the right age.

[13] Marcinkova was a Czech girl from what later became Slovakia who had a pilot license. Epstein evidently hired her to be copilot on his Gulfstream even though she had less than 300 hours flight time. She would later change her name and become well known in aviation circles. He allegedly told some of the girls she was his sex slave, that he had bought her from her parents when she was fifteen. However, this does not appear to be true. None of the girls mentioned anything about her being a pilot. She had been a model at one time and would later refer to her life as “runway to runway” after she became an aviation professional.

[14] Investigators determined that Epstein’s act on that occasion constituted rape.

[15] Epstein presented other girls with cars as well, some were rentals he had rented in his name.

[16] Police found something they initially claimed was a sex toy in Epstein’s trash, but it turned out to be the handle of a broken eating utensil.

[17] Although the spin is that the girl’s experiences with Epstein were traumatic, at least in some cases the police and FBI interviews brought everything to the forefront of their minds and were equally traumatic, if not worse.

[18] This phrase is repeated in articles about numerous girls. Epstein either told them all that or they heard or read that he had and repeated it.

[19] He would have dinner and watch movies with the girls then have one of them massage him around 9:00 PM.

[20] A list would be released a decade later with names of over 150 women alleged to have been involved with Epstein dating back to the early nineties.

[21] AH told investigators Epstein was supposed to be trying to help her get into NYC.

[22] Epstein and Maxwell owned several aviation charter businesses in Florida, companies using a variety of aircraft ranging from helicopters and small single-engine airplanes to a Gulfstream G-II and a Boeing 727 that Epstein used for his personal travel. Maxwell was a licensed helicopter pilot.

[23] During part of the time focused on during the investigation. Epstein traveled in a Boeing 727. Nada would later call herself Gulfstream Girl in aviation circles on the Internet. She changed to Global Girl after Gulfstream complained.

[24] He would later own a G-V but that was after he served his time.

[25] After Epstein’s conviction, lawyers for Virginia Roberts Guiffre managed to obtain copies of some of the pilot’s log books. They had written the names of passengers in the remarks section, which is normally used to record training or other things relative to the flight. I was a professional pilot for 40 years. NOT ONCE did I ever write a passenger’s name in my log book. That Epstein’s pilots did is very odd.

[26] It would have been extremely unlikely for Epstein to have taken any of the girls with him since they were in high school and were concealing their activities from their parents.

[27] The author recalls reading an account that has the girl having sex with Epstein, which would have been legal in New Mexico where the age of consent is sixteen. However, flying her there in his airplane would have opened him to a Federal charge.

[28] Annie Farmer testified against Gislaine Maxwell at her trial, but the judge had her testimony stricken from the record and told the jury not to use it in the deliberations. Maria Farmer blamed her cancer on Epstein.

[29] The two alleged incidents were outside NYPD jurisdiction, one In Ohio and one in New Mexico.

[30] Marie Farmer was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The author’s youngest son died with a brain tumor. He had some weird ideas prior to being diagnosed with a slow-growing star-shaped tumor in his brainstem. He was seeing a therapist before he finally went to a doctor due to headaches and an MRI showed he had a tumor.

[31] Virginia Roberts claimed that Bill Clinton went to the Vanity Fair offices and made threats.

[32] She basically claimed that Epstein said he’d put a curse on her children.

[33] It is possible that Epstein was rougher with some women in his employ then he was with the teenage girls who came in from outside.

[34] Virginia Roberts Guiffre claimed in an unpublished (and reportedly fictionalized) manuscript she wrote that Epstein had a stable of girls he used for sexual purposes, as he did her, then rewarded them by getting them jobs as models, actresses, artists and introducing them to wealthy men to marry. Roberts’ reward was massage training.

[35] Dershowitz later claimed he had reservations about representing Epstein since they were friends.

[36] There is a major problem with polygraphs, which date back to the 1930s. Although they measure certain bodily functions, particularly breathing and blood pressure under the assumption that patterns change when the subject is lying, they have been found to be unreliable. The result is actually based on the judgement of the examiner. Tests have determined that the results are about the same as flipping a coin. Polygraph results are not admissible in court. Police sometimes use them to trick subjects into making a confession. That Epstein “passed” a polygraph meant nothing.

[37] At least one document gives her age as fifteen at the time she first met Epstein. Her name is spelled Wilde in State documents but later media spells it Wild.

[38] One of her superiors later said that Villifana was a hard-charging prosecutor whose actions sometimes bordered on insubordination. Villifana related that she was concerned that Epstein was molesting other girls and she wanted to put him away.

[39] Johann Sjoberg, who worked for Epstein, told the Daily Mail that Epstein liked to watch movies, but he didn’t watch porn.

[40] Epstein had been investigated but had not been charged. The FBI and DOJ and state agencies frequently investigate people for suspicion of various crimes but the investigation does not result in charges.

[41] The case WAS still under investigation. Villifana and the FBI continued their investigation right up to the day Epstein pled guilty in the Palm Beach court.

[42] The suit may have actually been filed by her father and stepmother with whom she either was or later became estranged.

[43] They would have probably charged Courtney Wilde as well if they had been able to interview her. She is mentioned in Palm Beach state files as being scheduled for interviews but cancelling. Wilde (or Wild) has claimed she brought eighty girls to Epstein.

[44] There are claims that FBI agents conducted interviews in New York, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands as well as Florida. They used Australian investigators to contact Virginia Roberts Guiffre, who had been employed by Epstein as a traveling teenage masseuse/mistress in the late 1990s, who was married and living in Australia. She came to the FBI’s attention after being the subject of an article in the Daily Mail in 2011.

[45] Just what happened to the charges against Kellen and Robson is uncertain, but they seem not to have been pursued. The girls who admitted to having sexual relations with Epstein and were paid for it were never charged.

[46] Guiffre describes Bjorlin as a former model from Yugoslavia turned actress. She was actually an American girl originally from Newport, Rhode Island whose father was a Swedish composer and conductor and her mother was Iranian. Epstein and Maxwell first met her at age thirteen when she was a student at the prestigious Interlochen Center For The Arts in Interlochen, Michigan, of which Epstein was a patron.

[47] Prince Andrew is touted as a friend of Epstein’s, but he was actually a friend of Gislaine Maxwell, whom he had known since his college days when she was at Oxford, where she grew up. They shared many common interests and were both helicopter pilots.

[48] Guiffre talked to the FBI but whether it was before the case was settled or afterwards is uncertain. She may have been contacted to inform her that Epstein had been convicted and there was a restitution fund for minor victims.

[49] The Daily Beast is basically a high-end Internet tabloid like the papers you used to get in the checkout lane at grocery stores.

[50] This may be a media invention. Lolita was a book by a Russian-American and published in 1955. It was made into a movie in 1962. Another adaption came out in 1997.

[51] AH related that Epstein flew her to New York commercially.

[52] Labeling a politician or other prominent person who has been associated with young women is a common tactic used by journalists and political activists. The claims against Alabama Judge Roy Moore is a classic example.

[53] Two women who accuse Gislaine Maxwell were thirteen when they met Epstein and Maxwell but just when they became involved with Epstein is not clear. One was involved with Epstein into adulthood.

[54] QAnon was an internet group built around an anonymous Internet personality who identified themselves as “Q”. Q claimed to be a member of government with a Q clearance, which is supposed to be the highest level of government clearance. Actually, there are only three levels of government classification of information, Confidential, Secret and Top Secret. The Department of Energy issues clearances known as Q clearances, which allows the individual access certain Top Secret information.

[55] Andrew possibly came into contact with her in one of Epstein’s homes. They were friends and associated together. Johanna Sjoberg testified in a deposition related to one of Guiffre’s suits that they were together with the prince in New York.