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the DON JONES
INDEX… |
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GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED
1/8/24... 15,031.69
1/8/24... 15,032.37 |
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6/27/13… 15,000.00 |
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(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 1/15/24... 37,592.98; 1/8/24... 37,466.11; 6/27/13… 15,000.00) |
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LESSON for JANUARY FIFTEENTH, 2024 –
“HERE on JEFFAGAIN’S ISLAND!”
Something
about small islands streaming and steaming in the sun as have inspired sages
from Ernest Hemingway to Bob Marley to Dolly Parton also set the salivaries of billionaires, perverts and billionaire
perverts to glowing and glimmering.
Islands
upon which a (rich) man can be King of All That He Surveys. (I’m trying to think of a small island ruled
by a woman or even women, but all that comes to mind are fictitious places like
Themyscira or that island hideaway depicted in perhaps the most prescient
political and gender movie ever created – Lina Wertmuller’s “Summer
Night”. Can’t think of anything
real. Too bad. Oprah would make a good Island Queen...
wasn’t that a lesser Elton John song?... or a Kardashian dynastic retreat. Instead, we endure… on Lanai… Larry Ellison
(fourth richest and the man responsible for more misery among poor and
working-class Joneses than any six others), Sir Richard Branson on Necker, Mel
Gibson on Mago, the Onassis clan on Skorpios. Not to mention King Kong.
(See
a few whys and wherefores of these amond the alphabetied takeaways to Attachment One, below)
So
powerful was Jeffy in life and so potently noxious in
death, that his memoirs and masquerade accounts were locked away in a lock-box
or a government vault until
On
December 18, 2023, federal judge Loretta Preska ruled
that sealed documents from Virginia Giuffre’s settled 2015 defamation lawsuit
against Ghislaine Maxwell would be released as early as January 1, 2024.
Forty-five documents were ultimately released on the evening of January 3.
New
York Magazine printed a master, alphabetized list of persons with some
connection to Epstein – said list being reproduced here as Attachment “A” with
a few more named gleaned from other media sources, five of the most comprehensive
being attached within said Attachment... designated by their source and by
colorization as well as specific reference.
A substantial minority of the Epstein contactees
were mentioned on more than one source.
(Attorneys
for the publications included have been careful to state that “None of the
documents directly implicates any of the Epstein associates named except for
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Epstein’s
trafficking scheme.”)
Between
the flight logs, Epstein’s black book, and all the reporting on his society
connections, New York... contending that “most of the names in the unsealed
documents are already known — a reason Judge Preska
cited when she ruled to release the documents” stated that “(m)ore will be
released in the coming days as attorneys of those named review the information”
and, in fact there were a total of five so-called “document dumps” – the last
taking place on Wednesday, January 10th.
The
three largest non-New York “dumps” acquired on the evening of January 3rd
and occurring to the tabloid-thirsty public on or shortly after the fourth
included offerings from the Guardian U.K. (first out of the box as Attachment “A”:One, at 5:18 EST so as to serve the earlier-rising
British market), from Time (Attachment “A”:Two,
released 12:05 PM and updated at 12:59PM)... both of which were immediately
printed on Thursday, and from the New York Post (Attachment “A”:Three, also first published on Thursday, but updated on
Saturday the sixth at 2:59PM).
GUK’s
explanation of the unsealing noted that its names were contained in court documents filed
as part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell; the documents include excerpts of
depositions and motions in this case. The British socialite was convicted in
December 2021 of sex trafficking and similar charges for procuring teen girls
for disgraced financier Epstein.
“Giuffre,
who claimed that Epstein and Maxwell forced her into
a sexual encounter with Britain’s Prince Andrew at age 17, had sued the
publishing heiress for defamation after claiming the accuser lied. Giuffre
settled her lawsuit against Maxwell in 2017.
“In
2021, Giuffre sued Prince Andrew over the alleged sexual abuse. The suit
settled in early 2022. Andrew has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing. As
part of the settlement, he agreed to donate to Giuffre’s victims’ rights
charity.”
The
documents’ release is among several tranches of filings in Giuffre’s civil case
that were unsealed following the Miami Herald’s years-long effort to make them
public.
“Giuffre
claimed that Maxwell lured her into Epstein’s perverse orbit under the false
pretense of work as a professional masseuse. Instead, Giuffre said, Maxwell
“trained me as a sex slave”, according to a filing in that set of unsealed
court papers.
Prior
to the unsealing, the names were listed in court papers as variants of J Doe.
Many of the names are people who had been publicly identified as Epstein
associates prior to this unsealing.
In
another deposition,
Maxwell appears to say that Andrew visited Epstein’s Island in the US Virgin
Islands. Epstein has been accused of abusing numerous girls on this island.
“Were
you present on the island when Prince Andrew visited?” Maxwell was asked.
She
responded in the affirmative and, when asked how many times, she said: “I can
only remember once.” When asked if there were any girls on the island at that
time, Maxwell insisted: “There were no girls on the island at all. No girls, no
women, other than the staff who work at the house.”
One
document included a deposition given by Johanna Sjoberg, whom Maxwell allegedly
procured for the purpose of performing sex acts on Epstein.
Sjoberg
said in her deposition that Epstein “said one time that Clinton likes them
young, referring to girls”.
“In
2019, Clinton’s spokesperson Angel Ureña denied claims made about Clinton’s involvement with
Epstein and wrote in a statement on Twitter that “President Clinton knows
nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida
some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.”
Sjoberg
also said that the late musician Michael Jackson was at Epstein’s Palm Beach
mansion, and that she met the famed magician David
Copperfield.
“Did
you ever meet anybody famous when you were with Jeffrey? she was asked. “I met
Michael Jackson … at [Epstein’s] house in Palm Beach.”
Asked
whether she massaged Jackson, Sjoberg said: “I did not.”
As
for Copperfield, Sjoberg said that he attended dinner at one of Epstein’s homes
and “he did some magic tricks”.
Donald
Trump, whose association with Epstein has been widely reported, was also mentioned
in the documents; the former US president is not accused of wrongdoing. In
Sjoberg’s deposition, she said that they went to one of Trump’s casinos in
Atlantic City when a storm prevented Epstein’s plane from landing in New York
City.
“Jeffrey
said, Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to – I don’t recall the name of
the casino, but – we’ll go to the casino.” Asked at one point whether she ever
gave Trump a massage, Sjoberg said “no”.
The
deposition also includes Sjoberg’s account of allegedly meeting Prince Andrew
at Epstein’s New York home. “Ghislaine asked me to come to a closet. She just
said, Come with me. We went to a closet and grabbed the puppet, the puppet of
Prince Andrew,” she said in the deposition.
“And I knew it was Prince Andrew because I had
recognized him as a person. I didn’t know who he was. And so
when I saw the tag that said Prince Andrew, then it clicked. I’m like, that’s
who it is.”
Sjoberg
and Maxwell then returned to the living room with the puppet. “I just remember
someone suggesting a photo, and they told us to go get on the couch. And so Andrew and Virginia sat on the couch, and they put the
puppet, the puppet on her lap,” Sjoberg recalled. “And so
then I sat on Andrew’s lap, and I believe on my own volition, and they took the
puppet’s hands and put it on Virginia’s breast, and so Andrew put his on mine.”
In
a January 2015 email exchange, Epstein told Maxwell: “You have done nothing
wrong and i woudl [sic]
urge you to start acting like it … go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it.”
In
another 2015 email, Epstein tells Maxwell she “can issue a reward” to any of
Giuffre’s friends to “prove her allegations are false”, including what Epstein
said was a “new version” of a claim that the renowned English theoretical
physicist Steven Hawking had participated in an “underage orgy” in the Virgin
Islands. Hawking, who died in 2018, has not been accused of a crime related to
Epstein.
A
large collection of documents in Giuffre’s civil case were also unsealed in
August 2019. Those papers included accusations, since denied, that global
leaders were participants in Epstein’s trafficking ring.
Epstein
was arrested on 6 July 2019 for sex trafficking. He
was found dead in his jail cell on 10 August of that year; authorities
determined that he hanged himself.
Maxwell
was sentenced in June 2022 to 20 years imprisonment.
She has maintained her innocence and is appealing her conviction.
Time’s list of names names derives from an order, in December, byU.S. District Judge Loretta Preska.
who ordered the documents to be released, though she gave people until Jan. 1
to appeal the order in case they did not want their name to be revealed. “The names of victims who were minors when they
suffered abuse were not released, though some have previously spoken out about
Epstein’s actions in media interviews.”
While most of the celebrities listed denied that
they had ever availed themselves of Epstein’s services, connections to Epstein had
previously led high-level executives to resign from their positions,
including Barclays chief executive Jes Staley.
Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent suspected of scouting girls for
Epstein, killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape
accusations.
Prince Andrew—the younger brother
of King Charles III—was one of the names referenced in the documents, mentioned
by a witness for touching her breast (or, as above, perhaps for inducing a
puppet to do so).
Perhaps the puppet was only hoping
that his collusion would lead to Andrew making him “a real boy.”
Andrew was also previously accused
of raping Giuffre when she was a teenager. After a lawsuit filed by Giuffre in
2021 and amid growing public pressure, Andrew was forced to relinquish his
military titles and public duties—even as he repeatedly denied the allegations.
The two settled the lawsuit in 2022 after Andrew paid Giuffre an undisclosed sum of money.
Beyond Giuffre and Sjoberg, other
“entertainers” in Jeffrey’s orbit included one Jennifer Araoz,
one of the victims, said that Epstein would invite her to his house and pay her
hundreds of dollars after her visit. While they initially spoke about her life
and goals, he later became abusive, Araoz said.
It was another incident involving
an unnamed minor that resulted in Palm Beach police eventually charging Epstein
with counts of unlawful sex with the jailbait in May 2006, in which case
then-State Attorney Barry Krischer sent the case to a
grand jury, which indicted him with one count of soliciting prostitution. This
caused the FBI to open a federal investigation against Epstein, who ended up serving
a short 18-month sentence in 2008 for recruiting an underage girl for
prostitution after he struck a plea deal with U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to
avoid being charged with any federal crimes – which convition
was revisited by the Miami Herald a decade later and then by federal
prosecutors, who looked at his behavior dating back to between 2002 and 2005.
He was facing charges for sex
trafficking and conspiracy in July 2019 when one month later, he died by suicide in a New York federal jail. The
investigation continued after his passing, leading prosecutors to convict
Maxwell for sex crimes in connection to her dealing with Epstein.
The New York Post’s roster of presumed,
assumed and tangential Epstein associates painted a “troubling picture” of Epstein’s
double life as an ace financier who used his wealth and connections to
victimize dozens of young women.
The
191 newly unsealed documents are part of a larger group of about 250 that are
expected to be released in the coming days — naming more than 170 people with ties to Epstein, including victims, former
employees and presumed innocents like late-night host Jimmy Kimmel who did not appear
in the documents, “but was forced to defend himself from trolls in the hours
before the formal release began,” the Post reported.
Among
the not-so-innocents, “Epstein’s former butler, Juan Alessi, claimed Andrew
received “daily” massages when he “spent weeks” at his boss’ Palm Beach, Florida, mansion,
causing the anti-monarchy group Republic to report randy Andy to London’s Metropolitan Police and demanded a renewed
investigation.
“It’s
simple — the royals should not be above the law. Accusations of criminality
should always be investigated thoroughly. THAT’S WHY THE MET MUST ACT,” the
group posted on X.
Another,
even more important importancer — former
President Bill Clinton, who flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times — has
denied having any knowledge of the creep’s crimes.
In
Thursday night’s Doc Dump Two, it was revealed that the former president allegedly stormed into the Vanity Fair newsroom and “threatened” staffers to
not publish stories about sex-trafficking allegations against “his good friend”
Jeffrey Epstein.
The
claim was mentioned by Epstein accuser Giuffre in a 2011 email exchange with a
journalist from the Daily Mail, Sharon Churcher.
Several
references to Clinton in the document trove relate to Giuffre’s allegation
Maxwell told her that she had flown the former president to Epstein’s private
island on a helicopter.
Also, Epstein allegedly forced a Jane
Doe 3 to “have sexual relations” with his lawyer, former Harvard Law professor
Alan Dershowitz, when she was a “minor,” according to claims in the documents.
In
a newly unsealed 2011 email, Churcher appears to remind Giuffre about
Dershowitz’s presence in Epstein’s inner circle.
“Don’t
forget Alan Dershowitz… JE’ s buddy and lawyer -good name for your pitch,”
Churcher wrote, noting Dershowitz’s ties with Claud von Bülow, who was
convinced and then acquitted of the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny.
“We
all suspect Alan is a pedo and tho
no proof of that, you probably met him when he was hanging put [sic] w JE,”
Churcher added.
In
June 2016, Judge Robert Sweet of the Southern District of New York denied
Giuffre’s attorneys’ attempt to depose Clinton in her suit against Maxwell,
writing that they had not established the “relevance” of the former president’s
testimony, a court ruling released on Friday, January fifth, revealed.
And
perhaps Epstein’s strangest (alleged) sex party partaker was theoretical
physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking.
Epstein offered a reward to Giuffre’s friends, acquaintances and even
family members in order to “help prove” that her allegations that participated
in an “underage orgy” were false, an unsealed email between him and Maxwell stated.
Other
bumps and nodes fingered by Giuffre, Sjobert and
others of Jeffy’s harem included Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, former Vice President Al Gore, former first daughter Chelsea Clinton,
Leslie Wexner, Epstein’s financial adviser and one-time business partner and
casino-hopping Donald Trump (above and Attachment One, below).
In the final doc
dumps, Forbes reported that a different “Sarah”... Sarah Ransome, another alleged victim of the financier’s sex trafficking
ring... testified that she had sex-tapes proving that the Epstein Octobus had ensnared Prince Andrew and UK billionaire Richard Branson,
among others. In a New Yorker article released in 2019, Ms. Ransome said that
“she had invented the tapes to draw attention to Epstein’s behavior, and to
make him believe that she had ‘evidence that would come out if he harmed me’”.
Monday’s
tranche of documents focused on a long legal brief referencing the emails
Ransome, one of the other Epstein accusers who filed a similar suit against
Maxwell in 2017. In the letter to the court, attorneys representing Dershowitz
argued these emails show Ransome’s “testimony was fabricated from whole cloth”
and that she “manifestly lacks credibility as a witness.” And, the Post opined,
Ransome has proven inconsistent, making shocking allegations, but later
recanting them
Transcripts of Jeff and
Ghislaine’s depositions dating back a generation reveal a chatty Maxwell while
Epstein took the Fifth Amendment upon questions such as whether he’d journeyed
with Slick Willie to China, Singapore, Bangkok and Russia in May of 2002 (by
which time Clinton was already an Ex- ), and whether he had procured companions
for former SecTreas Larry Summers, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and
Dershowitz.
“1,199. That’s the number of times
Jeffrey Epstein pleaded the fifth during his deposition by Giuffre’s lawyers in
September 2016,” Forbes reported, “exercising his constitutional right
preventing self-incrimination.”
The
last... if you believe... of the authorities’ declassified déclassé files were
sprung on a waiting, baited world Wednesday morning, revealing a few new tropes
and triumphs, a lot of old gigs and gossip (breathily denied by the named,
defamed and infamed) and erectly walking dead.
BBC
reporter Max Matza, having perused 1,400 pages of the “fifth and final batch of court
documents” cited one of Ms. Giuffre’s attorneys who asked Epstein whether the
“detailed reports” he commandeered from her about powerful men such as Andrew
were intended
to be used as "blackmail material".
Jeffy, unsurprisingly, took the
Fifth... over five hundred times within these documents. (Attachment “A”4, Jan. 9th)
The Duke of York has previously told
the BBC he had no memory of ever meeting Ms Giuffre,
who alleged she was told to have sex with him on several occasions.
In 2022, he paid her an
undisclosed sum to settle her sex-assault lawsuit against him, but did so with
no admission of wrongdoing or liability.
In her 2016 deposition released on
Tuesday, Ms Giuffre said she was paid between $10,000
to $15,000 (£7,900 to £11,800) for one sexual encounter with the prince.
She testified she had been paid
$160,000 by a media organisation for two articles and
a photo showing her with Prince Andrew.
Ms Giuffre also denied ever having
been sex-trafficked to any "presidents", but maintained she was made
to have sex with "a well-known prime minister", adding “...this is
not a good person to talk about and I'm not going to, point blank, I'm not
going to say his name."
But a new kid on the block (who,
of course, denied her claims) was former Senator and former US peace envoy
George Mitchell, who replied to the BBC: "The allegation contained in the
released documents is false. I have never met, spoken with or had any contact
with Ms Giuffre."
The fingered dead... Minsky and
Brunei included... neither confirmed nor denied her accusations.
Also reporting on the fifth and
last batch of docs, NBC (Attachment “A”5, Jan. 9th, updated Jan. 10th)
interviewed Ms. Giuffre, whose memory proved a little bit hazy... due, perhaps,
to uer use of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, as well as
ecstasy, cannabis and alcohol.
Nonetheless,
Prince Andrew declined comment on her statement that Giuffre said Epstein paid her $15,000 to have sex with him in
2011.
Giuffree also testified that she also met
former President Donald Trump but never witnessed him doing anything untoward.
Clinton and Trump were also
mentioned in more unsealed depositions from Maxwell and an Epstein accuser,
Johanna Sjoberg, who said Maxwell recruited her as a massage therapist while
she attended Palm Beach Atlantic College in 2001. Neither of the former
presidents is accused of wrongdoing in the depositions.
In response to the release of
Ransome’s 2016 emails, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said that “these baseless
accusations have been fully retracted because they are simply false and have no
merit.”
This
brings us to our undear, self-departed Jeffrey
Epstein... rather lame in the billionaire business with only slightly over half
a marker at the time of his disconveyance from the
world of work and play... but certainly high atop the hill of rockin’ rollin’ revels in his day
on his fantasy island of Little Saint James.
Epstein,
who committed suicide... perhaps, the People’s Jury’s still out on that... as
an alternative to life in prison and a probable role-switching rollover, had
more friends than Matthew Perry in his day; loyal friends, powerful friends
and, of course, rich friends. He became
the go-bro to a certain sort of influencees by
virtue, or vice, of his armada of hired, induced or coerced Island Ladies...
creatures of the night, the sun; anything a man could want for a small
consideration of cash or favors. He was
the white Rudy Ray Moore in Dolemite, Denis Hof fondling
rumps in Pahrump, “Kramer” strutting down the “Seinfeld” street in his pimp
duds.
Trump has previously said he had
not been in touch with Epstein for 15 years before his death, and in 2019, he
said he was “not a fan” of Epstein’s. Neither did Epstein have much truck with
Trump (see Attachment Seven)
Profiled
on Thursday, January 5th by Kate Gibson of CBS, the network ventured
back into the past, when Epstein... “the grandson of Jewish immigrants - raised
in Brooklyn, where he excelled in math and graduated from high school early,
briefly attending Cooper Union and New York University,” and then,
subsequently, securing a lowly teaching job at the progressive Dalton School,
from which he was fired in 1976 for “poor performance”. (Attachment One, Jan. 5th)
Downward
mobility as found him tutoring the idle offspring of the New York rich turned
around when one of his clients, Alan Greenberg, CEO of the Bear Stearns Investment Bank,
surmised something splendid and gave him a job as a money manager. When the firm collapsed in 2008, following
the housing crash, Epstein failed upwards once again, amassing a roster of
private clients... billionaires including Wexner, founder and CEO of L Brands
(including Victoria’s Secret), and Apollo Global Management Chairman Leon
Black. Black paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate planning services according to the
Senate Finance Committee.
For more than a decade, Epstein was Wexner's personal money manager and
business adviser, making hundreds of millions of dollars managing Wexner's
billions. During his tenure, he borrowed heavily from
Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and others/
According to the Guardian U.K., he
enjoyed spending money as much as he enjoyed making it.
Operating
at the center of a “globe-spanning network of the rich, famous and powerful,”
the documents released on Wednesday were shocking in revealing the sheer
magnitude of his elite circle.
They were only the first to “flesh
out the extraordinary web Epstein and Maxwell spun as they hosted party after
party at homes across the globe and as they created a horrifying
sex-trafficking network that preyed on teen girls.” The remaining four dumps added more names...
validated and rumoured to the simmering stew of
high-profile sex criminals.
GUK’s
roster of probables to certains
included Clinton, the former US president who one Epstein victim claimed she
was told by Epstein “likes them young”, to “Prince Andrew, singer Michael Jackson, French hairdresser Frédéric Fekkai, “model scout” (and sex-crime suicide) Jean-Luc
Brunel, magician David Copperfield and acclaimed physicist Stephen
Hawking.” (January 3rd,
Attachment Two)
Acknowledging
that false information may have arisen, GUK nonetheless contended that the
accusations against nearly two hundred pillars of... whatever... have fallen
into a “reputational black hole.”
The
documents with the unredacted names of about 150 people have begun to be made
public after a long legal fight. After Maxwell’s criminal conviction, she
lifted her objection to the release of files from Giuffre’s defamation suit
against her, setting in motion Wednesday’s document dump, which had been
eagerly awaited by media and the general public across the world.
A lawsuit by the Miami Herald, which broke the first stories on
Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls in Florida, then forced the release of
the sealed court documents.
In
an article soon before the release began, the outlet said that the names in
Epstein’s orbit “could finally bring to rest years of speculation about who
among the rich and powerful were participants in the Palm Beach resident’s
sordid world of sexual abuse”.
By the time that the AP released its report, updated on January
6th, (Attachment Three) the heft of the allegations had reached over
3,000 pages. Among the newer disclosures
were...
a trip to Africa by former
President Bill Clinton, actor Kevin Spacey and comedian Chris Tucker. The
five-day tour of Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa was
intended to draw attention to the fight against AIDS. (One hopes that safe sex
measures were taken.)
a New York Magazine profile in
which Florida and Gotham neighbor Trump said “(h)e’s a lot of fun to be with.
It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them
are on the younger side.”
the first of his convictions...
pleading guilty to a charge involving a single victim which earned him 13
months in a jail work-release program, after which he “quietly started
rebuilding his network of influential friends.”
Giuffre’s allegations of abuse
have “changed over time”. She initially
she was 15 when Epstein began to abuse her, “but she later acknowledged that
she met him the summer she turned 17.
“Many of the documents unsealed in
recent days involve efforts by Maxwell’s lawyers to discredit Giuffre, and
Giuffre’s lawyers’ efforts to gather evidence backing up her accounts.
“The records released in the case
have contained scant evidence of wrongdoing by famous figures, but testimony
from multiple witnesses confirmed Giuffre’s accounts of Epstein’s sexual
misconduct.”
The legal squabbles continued
postmortem as a consequence of conspiracy theories contending that Epstein had been murdered by
Clinton, or Andrew, or Hawking... someone!
“But multiple investigations, including an autopsy and FBI probe,”
contended GUK. “have concluded Epstein died by
suicide.”
In
addition to his wanderings through Florida, New York and the Caribbean, the doc
dump revealed 'disgusting' activities at
Jeffrey Epstein's New Mexico ranch.
(KOAT Albuquerque, Attachment Three)
The
station disclosed that their bailiwick was the subject of more than 900 pages of documents
describing what occurred at the New Mexico mansion he called the Zorro Ranch until
the fox lost his cunning, then freedom, then life to Ms. Giuffre’s posse of
hounds and hunters. (Don Jones now knows
why Epstein always wore that black mask during his nocturnal prowling in
commission of his “horrific acts”!)
“In the documents, Giuffre says she
was recruited at the age of 16 to give what was called massages inside
Epstein’s estate to the rich and powerful. These massages are alleged in the
documents to include nudity, sex acts and sex toys,” KOAT legal expert John Day
reported. Giuffre reportedly “met a
president of a foreign country here in New Mexico. His name was still sealed.”
Other cocky cowboys included
Richardson, then Governor of New Mexico, Dershowitz, Slick Willie, Andrew and
more, yet to be identified. “It's
definitely a list that these people wish they weren't on,” Day said.
More documents are expected to be
released, KOAT repored, and “we continue to search
through them to find more connections to the Land of Enchantment.”
There’s a strange disconnect among Jeffy’s Presidential patrons... the Washpost
on the morning after the first doc dump reporting that Trump partied with Epstein, but
his supporters are convinced the documents will ultimately “sully Democrats.”
(Attachment Four)
“Days before a federal court late
Wednesday began identifying dozens of associates of convicted sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein,” the Post predicted, “one far-right website” posted that
former president Bill Clinton would top a new “Epstein client list.”
Former Trump attorney Rudy
Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and political allies such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor
Greene (R-Ga.) all posted about the release on social media, warning of a
coverup of alleged Epstein conspirators.
And they were all right, sort
of... Slick Willie did top the list, but had to share credit with Sick Andy and
Djonald Dick.
“A widespread belief among
Epstein’s alleged victims that his wealth and connections led to a miscarriage
of justice reinforces Trump supporters’ hostility toward the legal system as
Trump faces four criminal cases while campaigning for a second presidential
term.
“This is made-up outrage in an
election year,” said Jose Lambiet, a longtime South
Florida gossip columnist turned private investigator. “The real outrage is that
this case is treated as a political pawn when it should be about underage girls
who were harassed and sexually abused.”
“Epstein, accused of sexually
abusing dozens of underage girls and young women, pleaded guilty in Florida
state court in 2008 to two felony counts and served only 13 months in jail.
Intense public scrutiny of the case, led by the Miami Herald, led to Epstein’s arrest in July
2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors. He pleaded not guilty and
died by suicide one month later,” the WashPost
recapitulated... also dredging up Sjoberg and Ransome.
“I don’t think there will be any
really big surprises, but the name Epstein has turned into such a nuclear
disaster that people in his periphery get smeared,” victim attorney Spencer Kuvin said.
Even Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is making a long-shot bid for
president as an independent, was asked recently about whether he traveled on
Epstein’s plane. He said on Fox News that he and his family flew on Epstein’s
plane twice in 1993, long before “his nefarious issues.”
“Terrific guy,” Trump said of
Epstein in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with.”
More recently, Trump has said that
he was “not a fan” of Epstein’s and that they had a falling out nearly 20 years
ago.
The Jeffrey Epstein case “involves
all the factors that make for an intriguing story — royalty, money, politics,
power and sex,” Kuvin said. “And you’ve got two
highly polarizing former presidents connected. It’s a story that will never
die.”
Time opinionator-emeritus Philip
Elliott agreed, calling the doc dump “partisan catnip—facts be damned.” (Attachment Five)
Further, the
papers were seized upon by conspiracy theorists whose imaginations ranged far
beyond the admittedly strange and gruesome facts... blood drinking, Muslim
brotherhoods and Hollywood cabals (presumably Jewish); and some moldy golden
oldies like the pizza parlour pedophiles and the hit
on Epstein sanctioned by
then-Attorney General Bill Barr. who “signed off on it to protect his boss, Trump.”
“No jury heard these witnesses in
this civil case, and a fight over opening up these interviews has gone on for
years. Some of the worst claims are based on memories of conversations with
Epstein, who is no longer around to corroborate his side of the story. A judge
might have treated other aspects of the tales as hearsay and blocked jurors
from hearing any of this at all...” just as some redacted the names and private
information of Jeffy’s underaged victims.
But, as Elliott concluded, “in an environment
that treats everything like a partisan contest, even tales of sexual
exploitation can fall to gamification..”
Forbes (Jan 9th,
updated 10th, Attachment Six) included on its abbreviated list of
whatever comes beneath persons of interest, as comes beneath suspects, as comes
beneath convicts. All the old hitmakers
were there... Trump and Clinton, Prince Andrew, Al Gore, billionaires Richard
Branson, Tom Pritzker, Glenn Dubin and Wexner, former
Gov. Richardson, Marvin Minsky, and Dershowitz plus a handful of new faces,,, one Maria Farmer, who, Maxwell stated in her
deposition, “was painting or something in Ohio, and (Epstein) let her stay at a
place that he had.” The location,
details and provenance of this Ohio hideaway wasn’t mentioned in other
testimony.
Interrogated in September, 2016, before
his conviction and mysterious or not-so-mysterious demise, Epstein took the
Fifth no less than 1,199 times.
As for Trump, a
supplement to New York Magazine’s comprehensive list (Attachment “A”) from the
Independent U.K. detailed his “proclivities” which the Brits called
“incendiary”. Ransome, whose truthiness
has come into question, said that an anonymous “friend” had told her that Ol’ 45 liked her “pert nipples” while the slightly more
reliable Sjoberg told of Trump’s airplane rides with the dead pedophile.
Newsweek, detailing New York
Southern District Judge Loretta Preska’s habit of
designating 187 of Epstein’s colluders, collaborators and clients as “Does”,
cited a Business Insider investigation wherein Doe
174, "checks all the boxes" to be Trump. (Jan. 10th, Attachment Six)
Two
of Doe 174's documents are part of Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg's
deposition, “in which she testified Epstein planned to call Trump and go to one
of his casinos. Sjoberg later testified that she never massaged Trump and
Newsweek stated that “(n)one of the papers that Doe 174 was mentioned in
includes any allegations of wrongdoing toward Trump.”
In
fact, according to The Wrap, also from January 10th (Attachment
Seven), Epstein’s brother Mark told English tabloidster
Piers Morgan that Epstein
halted his relationship with Donald Trump once he “realized he was a crook...”
pedophilia apparently not being recognized as criminality.
“What information do you think he
had on Donald Trump, for example, that could have disqualified him?” Morgan
asked.
“I don’t know any specific
information,” Epstein responded. “But I’ve also heard Jeffrey say that he
stopped hanging out with Donald Trump when he realized Trump was a crook.”
Mark Epstein also told Morgan that
he believed his brother’s jailhouse suicide was masterminded by then Aygee Bill Barr – an allegation supported by the
Trump-simpatico New York
Post which, also on Wednesday, reported that Gwendolyn
Beck, disgraced
New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s ex-girlfriend and Mordan
Stanley investment banker turned rejected Congressional candidate, allegedly
participated in orgies with Epstein and underage girls. (Attachment Eight)
Beck
had been previously photographed with Epstein and Maxwell, at former President
Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 1995.
She
was also pictured five years later back at the Florida estate with Epstein,
Prince Andrew and Trump’s then-girlfriend Melania Knauss.
Her
2014 campaign for Congress was even bolstered by a $12,600 donation from
Epstein — his only political contribution that year, according to Arlington Now. She wound up losing that Virginia race
to Democrat Don Beyer after securing only 2.7% of the vote.
Beck
said at the time she asked a number of billionaires in her Rolodex for
donations, and accepted one from Epstein out of “forgiveness,” following the
financier’s conviction for having sex with minors and subsequent jail time in
Florida.
“Although
humanly flawed, he can be a great asset to our nation because he understands
finance on a level most people can’t comprehend,” she added, prior to his next
(and last) encounter with the law.
Reporting
upon Ransome’s reporting, the Guardian U.K. (Jan. 8th, Attachment
Nine) reported that one of the documented consequences of Prince Andrew’s
jollities here and about with Epstein’s “escorts” was that he had to “(step)
down from public life” after paying millions to settle a civil sexual assault
case with Virginia Giuffre, “a woman he claimed never to have met.”
The
pervo-Prince was “cast out of the working monarchy and no longer uses his HRH
style after Giuffre, who was trafficked by Epstein, accused him of sexually
assaulting her when she was 17,” according to GUK.
In
one of the documents released last Monday, Ransome wrote in the emails: “When
my friend had sexual intercourse with Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard
Branson, sex tapes were in fact filmed on each separate occasion by Jeffrey.
“Thank
God she managed to get a hold of some footage of the filmed sex tapes, which
clearly identify the faces of Clinton, Prince Andrew and Branson having sexual
intercourse with her.
“Frustratingly
enough Epstein was not seen in any of the footage but he was clever like that.
“When
my friend eventually had the courage to speak out and went to the police in
2008 to report what had happened, nothing was done and she was utterly humiliated
by the police department where she went to report what had happened with
Epstein, Clinton, Branson and Prince Andrew.”
One might think the Rolling Stone’s “Eight Biggest Revelations”
might have something to do with decadant rockstars, diddy-boppin’ rappers and slutty honky tonk
country cousins getting their rocks off on Jeff-Again’s
Island with, maybe, a sing-along after.
But no... Epstein was apparently not much of a music fan. There were a few mentions of artistes like
Phil Collins, Simon LeBon (Duran Duran), Kurt
Cobain’s ex- Courtney Love and, of course, Mick Jagger... but solely as names
in Jeffy’s little black book.
Violinist Itzhak Perlman was also there, but none
received as much space from the New York listings as Baba Wawa or Steve
Bannon. And, also, Prince Andrew’s
ubiquitous puppet... of himself.
(Attachment Ten) Billionaire
Branson started out as a rock recording magnate and NDTV of India reported that
one of Epstein’s entourage “had sex with another Prince in France.” Could
she have meant THE Prince? The Purple
Better One ain’t talking, being conveniently
deceased. Nonetheless it’s entertaining
to contemplate a foursome of Epstein, one of his sex slaves, Prince and fellow
dead Clinton prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
NDTV focused on another billionaire Glenn Dubin... just a rich, somewhat boring investor except for
the fact that he married a former Miss Sweden who obviously was going for the
gold. “Despite Epstein's 2008 conviction,
the Dubins maintained contact,” the Indians revealed,
“even inviting him for Thanksgiving in 2009.”
The
politically leftist but culturally far-right wokesters
at GUK took an uncommon pleasure in scolding Dead Jeffrey as both a plutocrat
and a libertine.
“The Epstein associates aren’t accused of committing
any crimes,” acknowledged GUK opinionator Lucia Osborne-Crowley... well,
there’s Kevin Spacey and, of course Djonald still UnChained. “But that
doesn’t mean they didn’t do anything wrong,” she added.
They had sex.
Hot, politically incorrect sex.
“The
morals we hold as a society are laid hideously bare in this latest trove of
unsealed documents,” Lucia pontificated a week ago Saturday. (Attachment
Twelve)
Boasting
of her four years of following Epstein’s zombie around and finding the story
“staggering”, sweet Lucia declared that: “The thing that shocks me even more
than the graphic details I’ve learned from survivors that have never been made
public is that this sex trafficking ring was known about and enabled by such an
enormous group of people for perhaps as long as four decades.”
Giuffre,
for example, alleges that former president Bill Clinton “walked into [Vanity
Fair] and threatened them not to write sex trafficking articles about his good
friend,” referring, Guiffre says, to Epstein. “This is an allegation that has not been
proved. But that doesn’t mean it is not worthy of further inquiry – and the
same is true for so many other allegations in the Epstein files.
“If
a person – particularly a person who has been elected as a role model – has
knowledge of such serious allegations,” GUK raged, “they should be expected to
investigate them further, rather than shutting them down.”
Or,
if the potential for danger and destruction is too high, summon a higher
power... like the police!
So there they were Epstein, again, Virginia,
too. Some billionaires, and their
wives... some movie stars, professors, too, and freshly scrubbed Mary Anne’s
from wheresoever... all on JeffAgain’s Island.
CBS
undertook to solve the mysterious mysteries of Little Saint James – Epstein's 72-acre island paradise, as included
several villas and is about 2 miles off the coast of St. Thomas, part of
the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. (Attachment Thirteen)
They interviewed U.S. Virgin
Islands Attorney General Denise George, who took office after Epstein's death
sued his estate, ultimately garnering a $105 million settlement on behalf of the U.S. Virgin
Islands.
While Epstein made donations to
U.S. Virgin Islands government officials and schools, some said he still did
not have the best reputation in the area.
George told CBS News in
2020 that she did not "think he was regarded as an upstanding member
of the community."
"It was public knowledge that
he was a registered sex offender," she said. *Jan 5th, Attachment Thirteen)
Epstein would fly into St. Thomas
on a private jet, which "helps with the concealment," George said.
From there, he would use two helicopters from Hyperion Air "to transport
young women and underage girls between St. Thomas and Little St. James,"
according to George's lawsuit.
One 15-year-old alleged victim
even tried to escape Little St. James by swimming, according to the lawsuit.
Before he faced sex trafficking
charges in 2019, Epstein cut a deal with prosecutors in 2008 after pleading
guilty to two state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor in
Florida.
Under the non-prosecution agreement,
Epstein pleaded guilty to lesser state charges and served 13 months in jail –
spending most of that time on work release – after which JeffAgain
returned to Little Saint James, again.
Detractors have referred to the
property as “Pedophile Island” and his private jet the “Lolita Express”.
A14
x18
CBS,
Attachment Fourteen, also asked and answered a few questions about Little Saint
James and its little sinners. (Attachment Fourteen) Questions Don Jones might ask, like...
Where exactly is Little St. James,
Epstein's private island, and what did he do there?
Epstein's 72-acre island included several villas and is about 2
miles off the coast of St. Thomas, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the
Caribbean.
What allegedly happened on the
island?
A.G. George
said the island was a place for Epstein to hide his criminal activity
and when asked in 2020 why she was pursuing a lawsuit after his death, she
answered: "Why not now?"
"I cannot speak to what
happened in the past," she said. "What I do know is that because of
Epstein's wealth and power he was able to conceal a lot of [redacted]."
“What happened to Epstein's
island?”
In May, Forbes first
reported billionaire Stephen Deckoff bought
Little St. James and neighboring 160-acre Great St. James, both formerly owned
by Epstein, for $60 million. Multiple villas, pools and a helipad sit on the
islands.
Epstein’s
brother, Mark still alleges that Jeffrey was murdered by persons unknown,
acting under the guidance of then-AyGee Bill Barr.
In the months that followed
Jeffrey Epstein’s death, Barr acknowledged he held initial suspicions about the
death, but eventually placed the blame on a “perfect storm of screw-ups,”
including several irregularities at the facility where Epstein was being
held. (The Hill, Attachment Fifteen)
“The irregularities included
alleged negligence from the two officers charged with watching Epstein, chronic
staffing shortages and outbreaks of violence at the federal bureau of Prisons,”
The Associated Press reported.
“I
can understand people who immediately, whose minds went to sort of the
worst-case scenario because it was a perfect storm of screw-ups,” Barr told the AP in
November, 2019.
Mark Epstein claimed his brother
“had dirt on people,” and suggested foul play could’ve played a role.
He
also told the rest of the pess that his brother was 'just
having a good time'. (Yahoo News via the
Business Insider, Friday, Jan. 12th, Attachment Sixteen)
"He was just having a good
time. Jeffrey liked to have a
good time," Epstein told Leland Vittert of News Nation's "On
Balance". "Unfortunately,
he chose a..."
"There's, hold on," Vittert interrupted. "There's a, there's a big
difference though between having..."
"I wasn't there,"
Epstein re-interrupted. "So if you're asking me
to speculate, I really don't want to speculate because I wasn't there."
An estimated 45% of Americans
believed in conspiracy theories regarding Jeffrey Epstein's death, according
to a SurveyMonkey Audience poll by Business Insider.
|
Our
Lesson: January Eighth through Fourteenth, 2024 |
|
|
|
Monday, January 8, 2024 Dow:
37,683,01 |
Back to work went ordinary jerks; their betters in business, culture
and politics recovering from hangovers, sleepovers and... like Djonald (still) UnChained
Himself, combovers... to walk or to stumble, winking (at the girls), Blinken (at the Jews) and nodding off on occasion from
the sheer exhaustion and ennui of it all. The better businesspeople
behind “Oppenheimer” had plenty to cheer about after winning five Golden
Globes, including best drama, while “Barbie” was upset by something called
“Poor Things”, something a mean girl trying to be polite might say. Critics called novice host Joe Koy an Asian flop. One week away from the Iowa
caucuses, Saint Ron and Nikki were crisscrossing the state, trying to garner
support before tomorrow’s big storms.
While MidEast negotiations failed and Ukraine’s
were nonexistent, Haley and Donald Trump allowed as how the Civil War didn’t
have to happen, slavery could have been dealt away – a premise even DeSantis
could ridicule. Crack-ups and cover-ups
spread from Boeing... where the loose bolts on Alaska airplanes extended to
other carriers... to the Pentagon, where DefSec
Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization for cancer was concealed from President Joe
for over a week – amidst combat with Iranian-backed insurrectionists in Iraq.
Lebanon and Syria and with Houthi pirates attacking shipping in the Red
Sea. Biden was reported outraged...
but Austin wasn’t fired and is said to be recovering. |
|
|
Tuesday, January 9, 2024 Dow:
37,525.16 |
The coast-to-coast and Canada to Mexico storms take
charge with record rain on the Pacific Coast, snowfall from the Rockies to
the Midwest, cancelling Iowa campaigns, and tornados across the South. 49 of 50 states were hit with severe
warnings, only North Dakota exempted. Black man wrongly convicted
by corrupt cops in North Carolina is exonerated after forty years and gets a
$25M settlement for his time served.
The rest of the usual old, cold and moldy legal battles resume after
holidays. The Michigan Sign-Stealers
stomp Washington to become the year’s college football champions, albeit
tainted champs. The Trump Chumps of
the day were some of his attorneys, like John Sauer, ensnated
in “Gotcha” testimony by Judge Pan over whether Executive Privilege conferred
the right of an Executive to order Seal Team Six to assassinate a political
rival. (Or, if not, can he sell pardons?) Armed gangs believed to be
affiliated with Mexican cartels take over TV station in rapidly destabilizing
Ecuador while at the Science Show in never-stable-to-begin-with Vegas, an
Inventor creates an invisible television set.
Just what everybody needs! |
|
|
Wednesday, January 10, 2024 Dow: 37,695.13 |
As stormy weather intensifies, add avalanches to the rain, snow, cold,
tornado mix. Travel is paralyzed with
numerous air cancellations, black ice roads and even a second New York subway
crash. Dozens of skiers pulled out of
the white stuff in Lake Tahoe, CA and told to go home and behave. Also in California, Gov.
Gavin Newsome, a Democrat, announces that the special election to replace the
angry, quitting ex-Speaker K-Mac will take place on May 21st. Across the aisle, Senate Minority Leader Mitchy Mac expresses doubt about budget and calls for
another can kick (which Speaker Johnson said he would never do again). Hunter Biden makes surprise appearance at
his supposedly secret contempt trial – walks right in, then walks right out
after MTG targets him. (Visible) TV doctors warn
that expensive water sold in plastic bottles contains one hundred times the
safe amount of plastic nanoparticles and plastic
microwave dishes KILL... they recommend using stainless steel instead for
water bottles and micro... uh... College football season over,
NCAA basketballers Purdue, #1, and Houston, #2, both upset. |
|
|
Thursday, January 4, 2024 Dow:
37,711.52 |
With Iowa caucuses nearing, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis savage one
another, apparently vying for second place behind Djonald
UnChained.
Trump says he’s not the extremist on abortion as Saint Ron call him
“soft” for not backing a five or six week cutoff –
calling the one “petrified” and predicting Haley will be “smoked”. Chris Christie, unwanted and disgusted,
drops out. Pundit Jon Karl cites polls
saying Haley is now ahead (for 2nd place) but DeSantis says he
will fight on and bring the truth about Hunter Biden to America. Trump spends most of his time fighting his
court battles and is again told by Judge Engoron to
behave himself or go to jail for contempt (something he would dearly love to hae happen). Impeacher-ers
are swinging right and left with state and local officials and cabinet bosses
(Mayorkas at DHS) targeted. |
|
|
Friday, January 12, 2024 Dow:
37,592,98 |
A US led coalition strikes back against Houthi rebels in Yeman who hav been seizing
cargo shipping, taking hostages and disrupting the Red Sea supply chain. Preident Joe
promises more attacks on “bad actors”. DeSantis predicts victory –
saying his supporters are more enthusiastic than the others. But weather will increasingly play a key
role in turnout. Floods are returning
to the NorthEast, a deep freeze I settling over th Midwest whil snow in Western
mountains traps snow boarders, most of whom are rescued. President Joe calls Trump a
coward for skipping debates. Congress
passes over weather, war and debt to concentrate on what they know excites
Don Jones... UFOs. |
|
|
Saturday, January 13, 2024 Dow:
Closed |
Weatherpeople predict a -70° blast in Montana, not much better over the rest of the
country. DeSantis continues
crisscrossing Iowa – desperation setting in as he falls behind Nikki and
wonderers wonder whether the freeze will impact Monday’s caucus... and to
whose advantage. Then on to New
Hampshire, where less religious, more libertarian voters might resent his six week abortion ban, anti-gay and anti-Disney stances
and Haley is expected to pick up most of quitter Christie’s support. The other Governor in the
news, Greg Abbott (R-Tx) sends his troops out to hold Federal INS workers at
gunpoint to prevent them from saving a migrant mom and two kids from drowning
in the Rio Grande. But even he comes
under fire from the harder right for saying he can’t order migrant shootings
“because the Biden administration would call it murder.” Just let ‘em
drown. There were critical elections
in Taiwan, where Beijing enemy Lai Ching-te,
the favorite and the current vice president, overcames
two pro-unification challengers. Shiekh Hasina won the Bangladesh election while, in
America, climate czar and failed candidate John Kerry quits to help run the
Biden campaign. |
|
|
Sunday, January 7, 2024 Dow: Closed |
It’s been 100 days since Hamas massacred Israelis and took hostages,
over 100 of whom remain captive. There
are dueling pro-Hamas in Washington and pro-hostage rallies in Tel Aviv as
Israel escalates the fighting in Lebanon while an American-led coalition
attacks Houthi pirates in Yemen. South
Africa calls for Israel to be put on trial for genocide by the International
Criminal Court. With one day to the Iowa
caucuses, Ron DeSantis orders supporters to “brave the elements,” and still
fails to attack Ol’ 45 except to decry the “stuff
swirling around him,” instead warning against “old and feeble” President
Joe. (Biden aides reply that he’s
experienced, not sick.) Trump accuses
Haley of weakness and calls on “his people” not to become complacent while
his former appointee reiterates charges that The Donald will bring The Chaos
if re-elected. Former GOP chair,
speaking on “This Week” says that enthusiasm will be the dominant factor in
2024. Congress negotiating a can-kick of the
government shutdown... this time to march.
The Freedom Caucus and such are fuming, but pundits and pollsters
believe the party would be crippled if Speaker Johnson joins K-Mac in
extermination, citing termination fatigue. |
|
|
After last week’s historic
gains, the Don went back to sleep... losing less than a point based on
inflationary inflation rates. Politics,
sports and awards made some Joneses happy, other enraged... leading to a
washout. Mostly, America was too cold
and too wet and too busy shoveling out their driveways and trying not to skid
on the ice to pay attention to our Indices. |
|
|
|
CHART of CATEGORIES
w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000 (REFLECTING…
approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013) Negative/harmful indices
in RED.
See a further explanation of categories here… ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)
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SOCIAL INDICES (40%) |
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|
ACTS of MAN |
12% |
|
|
30 |
||||||||||||||
|
World Affairs |
3% |
450 |
1/1/24 |
+0.3% |
1/22/24 |
457.44 |
458.81 |
Critical elections in Taiwan rebuke Beijing.
Bangladesh elects Shiekh Hasina. Gang wars imperil government of
Ecuador. French President Macron names
young, gay Gabriel
Attal as Prime Minister. And
Denmark (not Sweden) sings “Hi Dee Ho” with a new King – Freddy the Tenth –
to kick that gong around. |
||||||||||
|
War and
terrorism |
2% |
300 |
1/1/24 |
+0.1% |
1/22/24 |
297.83 |
298.13 |
Israeli-Hamas war enters 100th
day, spreading to Lebanon while an American-led coalition fights Houthi
pirates for control of Red Sea shipping lanes. Sick DefSec
Austin imperils War on Terror, embarrasses President Joe. |
||||||||||
|
Politics |
3% |
450 |
1/1/24 |
-0.3% |
1/22/24 |
482.84 |
481.39 |
Biden primary foe RFK Junior issues fake rally news with fake star
Dionne Warwick. GOP final debate
before next week’s Iowa caucuses... Trump re-justifies hanging Mike Pence and
he and Nikki both justify slavery.
(Saint Ron promises to emancipate the Seven Dwarves, the Oompa Loompas
and Pinocchio) |
||||||||||
|
Economics |
3% |
450 |
1/1/24 |
-0.3% |
1/22/24 |
442.37 |
441.04 |
Tech merchers like Google
and Amazon go on a post-holiday firing spree which may find tent cities of
coders and cruncher obstructing the sidewalks of Silly Valley – had they
sidewalks to begin with. FTC
greenlights looser Bitcoin regulations, telling the suckers tha they are on their own. In prison, Sam Bankman-Fried seethes. |
||||||||||
|
Crime |
1% |
150 |
1/1/24 |
+0.1% |
1/22/24 |
243.08 |
243.32 |
Apparantly, the cold
rains and snows have kept most of America’s criminals inside – watching
television and smoking the last of their crack. Florida’s GOP chair accused of rape. |
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|
ACTS of GOD |
(6%) |
|
|
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Environment/Weather |
3% |
450 |
1/1/24 |
-0.4% |
1/22/24 |
393.43 |
391.86 |
You want it, you got it... rain, snow, flooding, blizzards,
tornadoes, even avalanches and coming next week, record cold temperatures (8°
in Memphis, -32° in Montana)... |
||||||||||
|
Disasters |
3% |
450 |
1/1/24 |
+0.2% |
1/22/24 |
420.85 |
421.69 |
... and volcanoes; Iceland erupts again. Bad bolts cause Alaska Airlines door to
fall off – landing in Oregon backyard and causing massive (non-weather)
groundings but everybody safe. Hotel explodes in Ft. Worth but nobody killed
either. |
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|
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE
INDEX |
(15%) |
|
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|
Science, Tech, Educ. |
4% |
600 |
1/1/24 |
-0.2% |
1/22/24 |
632.77 |
631.50 |
Amidst all the Congressional back-to-work furor of
war and debt, climate and culture wars, the returning Reps take up...
UFO’s? Yup! A shoddy Spacely
Sprocket on the Vulcan spock-rocket carrying ashes
of Bones, Scotty and Uhuru (but not Nimoy( goes off
course and sends their DNA into the Final Frontier, to be retrieved and reonstituted by amused aliens. And a bad bolt on the cabin door is now
blamed for the blowout that nearly sucked children on their mothers’ laps
into space and grounded Boeing 737s (less fatal to traffic given all those
flights already cancelled due to weather).
Going to Grandma’s? Try a
sleigh and horses or, where applicable, reindeer with nothing else to do for
eleven more months. |
||||||||||
|
Equality
(econ/social) |
4% |
600 |
1/1/24 |
+0.2% |
1/22/24 |
634.91 |
636.18 |
Joe Koi (sp?) becomes
first Asian GGlobes host, then vilified as
incompetent for his dead fishy jokes. After relaxing ban on gay marriage,
Pope Frank pivots right by calling for worldwide ban on surrogacy for
infertile women disallowing the free market freedom
to welcome otherwise aborted infants.
But the girls rebound with the first female Secretary of he Navy and a lovely fighter jet
pilot becomes Miss America. |
||||||||||
|
Health |
4% |
600 |
1/1/24 |
-0.2% |
1/22/24 |
470.57 |
469.63 |
New Years’ over, scolding TV doctors warn Americans
not to dis-resolve their resolutions to exercise, drink water (but not from
plastic bottles) and eat nothing but tofu and nettles. The tripledemic
(plague, flu and RSV) now out of control in 38 states... and then there are
the simply ordinary colds. |
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|
Freedom and Justice |
3% |
450 |
1/1/24 |
-0.1% |
1/22/24 |
470.56 |
470.09 |
With primary and caucus season beginning, Trump’s
legal trials keep rolling and bumping along and adding to his lead, even
after Judge Engoron threatens him with jail for
refusing to stop campaigning at the bar.
His latest attorney, Steven Sauerkraut (sp?)
accuses Georgia election prosecutor Fani Willis of
doing the nasty with an underling... Willis says it’s all the fault of the
white people. And there’s also a
rocket docket for Hunter Biden... his tax trial set for June 20th
might entangle, impeach and imprison President Joe. If both are locked up come November... |
||||||||||
|
MISCELLANEOUS and
TRANSIENT INDEX |
(6%) |
|
|
|
|
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|
Cultural incidents |
3% |
450 |
1/1/24 |
+0.2% |
1/22/24 |
516.91 |
517.94 |
Awards season in full fo’shizzle...“Oppenheiemr” blows up the
Golden Globes on Sunday night, “Barbie” fizzles. Six days later, the Op takes away eight
Critics’ Choice trophies, the Barb only six. Hollywood announces that hot
Latinas will star in a Soprano-ish series (Sofie
Vergara) and a biopic of Linda Ronstadt (Selena Gomez). (But who will play Jerry Brown?) With college football done and the
Michigan Cheaters #1, NFL playoffs get under way, with KC’s Mahomes, Kelcey and Taylor
beating Miami in the fourth coldest game ever (-26). The Buffalo/Pittsburgh match would have
been even colder and snowier, but it was postponed to this afternoon. Usher will do the Super Halftime Show in Vegas on
2/11, where it will hopefully be warmer than Friday’s casino blizzard
blackout. RIP: Honeymooners star Joyce
Randolph (at 99), 1969 Mets World Series hero Bud Harrelson. R(etire)IP:
candidate Chris Christie, iconic Alabama coach Nick Saban;
eight NFL head coaches (including in Seattle, Atlanta and iconic Bill Belichuck in Boston) fired – so far). Marvel’s “Ant Man” actor Jonathan Majors
becomes “Can’t Man”; also fired after conviction for assaulting girlfriend. |
||||||||||
|
Misc. incidents |
3% |
450 |
1/1/24 |
+0.2% |
1/22/24 |
501.45 |
502.45 |
Nice neighbor chops wood for the frozen and timely
rescues from snow and ice abound.
Bottle of Irish whiskey sells for $2.8M. Stuff that, Scotland! Helicopter parents forbid children’s
sleepovers in favor of “sleepunders”... waking up everybody to drive them home at 2 AM. |
||||||||||
The Don Jones Index for the week of January 8th through 14th,
2024 was DOWN 0.68 points
The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition
for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate
Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan,
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NEARLY 3,000
PAGES OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN DOCUMENTS RELEASED, BUT SOME QUESTIONS REMAIN
UNANSWERED
Dozens of previously sealed court
documents related to Jeffrey Epstein were made public late Wednesday, as a
court releases more records from a years-old lawsuit connected to the late
financier. (Jan. 4)
Updated 3:24 PM EST, January 6,
2024
NEW YORK (AP) — For nearly two
decades, journalists, police detectives, FBI agents, lawyers and amateur sleuths
have pried into the depraved world of Jeffrey Epstein.
Yet even after the release of
thousands of pages of court records in recent days, some questions about the
millionaire pedophile remain unanswered. The documents have gotten a lot of
attention, but they shed little new light on the financier’s habitual sexual
abuse of underage girls.
More than anything, the public is
still fascinated with the possibility that some of the rich and powerful men in
Epstein’s social circle were also involved in the abuse.
Here’s a look at what we know —
and what we don’t — about Epstein and his crimes:
JETSETTER TO CONVICT
Epstein first began getting media
attention in 2002 after news organizations, including The Associated Press,
covered a trip to Africa by former President Bill Clinton, actor Kevin Spacey
and comedian Chris Tucker. The five-day tour of Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda,
Mozambique and South Africa was intended to draw attention to the fight against
AIDS.
After the visit, New York magazine
ran a profile of the man who provided the private jet for the trip: Jeffrey
Epstein. The story portrayed him as an “international moneyman of mystery,” who
cultivated relationships with Nobel Prize-winning scientists and diplomats but
puzzled Wall Street insiders who couldn’t figure out how a college dropout got
so rich.
“Terrific guy,” Epstein’s neighbor in both
Florida and New York, Donald Trump, said in the story. “He’s a lot of fun to be
with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many
of them are on the younger side.”
Those celebrity contacts made it
big news when Epstein was arrested in 2006 over allegations that he had hired
multiple teenage girls to give him sexualized massages at his home in Palm
Beach, Florida.
Two years later, prosecutors
allowed Epstein to plead guilty to a charge involving a single victim. He
served 13 months in a jail work-release program, then quietly started
rebuilding his network of influential friends, with the help of his socialite
former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
After a series of Miami Herald
stories about the plea bargain that deprived Epstein’s victims of justice,
federal prosecutors in New York revived the investigation and charged Epstein
in 2019 with sex trafficking.
When Epstein killed himself in
jail, prosecutors charged Maxwell with facilitating his illicit sexual
encounters and participating in some of the abuse. She was convicted and is
serving a 20-year prison term.
WAS ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED?
In 2009, one of Epstein’s victims,
Virginia Giuffre, filed a lawsuit saying he had flown her around the world for
sexual encounters with billionaires, politicians, royals and heads of state.
She initially kept the names of
those men secret, but in later legal filings started providing names: Britain’s
Prince Andrew, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former U.S. Senator George
Mitchell, the French modeling scout Jean Luc Brunel, the billionaire Glenn Dubin and the law professor Alan Dershowitz, who had
represented Epstein.
Some details of Giuffre’s
allegations have changed over time. She initially said she was 15 when Epstein
began to abuse her, but she later acknowledged that she met him the summer she
turned 17.
In 2022, she withdrew her
allegations against Dershowitz, saying she “may have made a mistake” in identifying
him as one of her abusers. She said she “was very young at the time” and “it
was a very stressful and traumatic environment.”
In one newspaper interview, for
which Giuffre was paid $160,000, she described dancing with Prince Andrew at a
club but said there was no sexual contact. Later, she said they had three
sexual encounters. She said the newspaper had refused to print those
allegations.
In another interview, she
described riding in a helicopter with Bill Clinton and flirting with Donald
Trump, but she later said in a deposition that those things hadn’t happened and
were mistakes by the reporter.
Giuffre’s allegations have been
investigated by the FBI. No charges have been brought based on her claims, but
because of the attention generated by them Brunel was investigated in France
and charged with raping other underage girls. He killed himself while awaiting
trial.
Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor
in 2020, Geoffrey Berman, sought to speak with Prince Andrew about matters
related to Epstein, but the royal declined to be interviewed. Berman blasted
Andrew at the time for falsely portraying himself to the public as eager to
cooperate when he was actually dodging questions.
Andrew has repeatedly denied
having sex with Giuffre and said he couldn’t recall ever meeting her, though a
photograph appears to show them together, and a member of Epstein’s household
staff also testified about seeing the two at Epstein’s home in New York.
Many of the documents unsealed in
recent days involve efforts by Maxwell’s lawyers to discredit Giuffre, and
Giuffre’s lawyers’ efforts to gather evidence backing up her accounts.
The records released in the case have
contained scant evidence of wrongdoing by famous figures, but testimony from
multiple witnesses confirmed Giuffre’s accounts of Epstein’s sexual misconduct.
DEATH BEHIND BARS
Any chance that Epstein himself
might have been able to answer questions about his famous friends died with him
at a federal detention center in Manhattan in August 2019.
The death, a month after he was
arrested, has fueled conspiracy theories. But multiple investigations,
including an autopsy and FBI probe, have concluded Epstein died by suicide.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz
said in a June report that Epstein was able to take his own
life because of “negligence, misconduct and outright job performance failures”
within the jail.
The Metropolitan Correctional
Center was shut down in 2021 amid concerns about squalid
conditions, COVID-19, crumbling infrastructure and lingering questions about
Epstein’s death.
Overworked officers assigned to
guard Epstein had failed to recognize he had amassed a surplus of bed linens.
After a first suspected suicide attempt, jail officials left him alone and
never assigned him a new cellmate.
On the night Epstein died,
officers sat at desks just 15 feet (4.6 meters) from his cell, shopping online
and snoozing instead of making required rounds every 30 minutes, prosecutors
said.
The day before Epstein killed
himself, a federal court unsealed about 2,000 pages of records in Giuffre’s
lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell — the same case involved in the records
released in recent days.
That, combined with a lack of
significant interpersonal connections and “the idea of potentially spending his
life in prison were likely factors contributing to Mr. Epstein’s suicide,”
prison officials wrote in documents obtained by The Associated
Press.
Whether Epstein would have ever
been keen to answer questions to clear up some of the mysteries surrounding his
life is a different story. In a 2016 deposition in Giuffre’s lawsuit, he
repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
WHAT’S NEXT
The document dump isn’t over yet.
So far, 191 of the approximately 250 files that U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska authorized for release have been made public.
Lawyers involved in the case are posting them to the docket on a rolling basis,
as per the judge’s instructions.
Another batch is expected Monday,
though there is little indication they will yield more than what has already
been seen in the nearly 3,000 pages of deposition transcripts, legal memos,
emails and other records made public since Wednesday.
Versions of many of those records
had already been made public in past years, though with some sections blacked
out for privacy reasons or to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims.
THE GUARDIAN U.K.
UNSEALED JEFFREY
EPSTEIN COURT PAPERS – READ DOCUMENT IN FULL
Hundreds
of pages of documents linked to Epstein associates were made public on
Wednesday.
·
Full report: Jeffrey Epstein court
documents unsealed
·
Explainer: who was Epstein and what
are court documents about?
Wed 3 Jan 2024 20.25 EST
Court
documents linked to associates of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were made public on Wednesday.
The
unsealed papers run to almost 950 pages and list people including Prince Andrew
and Bill Clinton.
The
inclusion of a name in this list does not mean that said associate has been
accused of wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. Among the names are people
mentioned in passing at legal proceedings.
TIMELINE U.K.
Met rejects
calls to investigate Prince Andrew after release of Epstein files
3h
ago
·
A-list
names in Epstein documents cache but what prospect of charges?
7h
ago
·
Prince
Andrew, Clinton, Hawking: what do the Epstein documents say about key people?
5h
ago
·
Second
wave of court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein unsealed
21h
ago
·
Jeffrey
Epstein boasted of spurious celebrity connections, documents show
1d
ago
·
Epstein
court files damage Prince Andrew’s hopes of restoring reputation
1d
ago
·
Release
of Epstein documents crashes court website but details are less scandalous
1d
ago
·
Jeffrey
Epstein’s elite circle was huge. What do the documents show about his lifestyle
and $580m fortune?
2d
ago
·
Who was
Jeffrey Epstein and what are the court documents about?
2d
ago
·
Unsealed
Jeffrey Epstein court papers –
BBC
Jeffrey Epstein: Fifth and final batch of documents
released
9th January 2024, 07:14 EST
Share
By Max MatzaBBC News
A fifth and final batch of
court documents relating to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been released.
Among the 1,400 pages of records
are depositions with Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
This last trove shows Epstein
refused hundreds of times to answer lawyers' questions, including about alleged
blackmail of famous men.
The documents have been released
as part of a lawsuit brought by sex-trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre.
The legal action, filed in 2015,
was settled in 2017. Maxwell has since been jailed for 20 years for helping
Epstein abuse young girls. She is appealing against her conviction.
The court records contain a
transcript of Epstein's 2016 sworn deposition in which he repeatedly invoked
his fifth amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination.
Under questioning, a lawyer for Ms Giuffre asked Epstein whether she had been told to
provide a "detailed report" about her alleged sexual encounters with
powerful men such as Prince Andrew.
The attorney asked whether this
was intended to be used as "blackmail material".
Epstein refused to answer any of
the questions, repeatedly responding by saying just the word "fifth"
over 500 times.
·
Who is named in Jeffrey Epstein files
and why?
He refused even to say whether he
knew Maxwell.
The Duke of York has previously
told the BBC he had no memory of ever meeting Ms
Giuffre, who alleged she was told to have sex with him on several occasions.
In 2022, he paid her an
undisclosed sum to settle her sex-assault lawsuit against him, but did so with
no admission of wrongdoing or liability.
In her 2016 deposition released on
Tuesday, Ms Giuffre said she was paid between $10,000
to $15,000 (£7,900 to £11,800) for one sexual encounter with the prince.
She testified she had been paid
$160,000 by a media organisation for two articles and
a photo showing her with Prince Andrew.
Ms Giuffre also denied ever having
been sex-trafficked to any "presidents", but maintained she was made
to have sex with "a well-known prime minister".
She refused to name this person,
adding: "If I can just say, I personally know that this is not a good
person to talk about and I'm not going to, point blank, I'm not going to say
his name."
Ms Giuffre also said there was
another individual who was introduced to her as a prince - besides Prince
Andrew - to whom she was trafficked in the south of France.
At times in the interview, Ms Giuffre said she was unable to recall details, including
the time and location of specific alleged sexual encounters.
She said she had been using Xanax,
an anti-anxiety drug, as well as ecstasy, cannabis and alcohol.
Other men she has said she was
forced to have sex with include Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz,
Victoria's Secret boss Les Wexner, billionaire hedge fund investor Glenn Dubin, and former US peace envoy George Mitchell, all of
whom have previously denied her claims.
In 2022, Ms
Giuffre dropped a lawsuit against Mr Dershowitz and
acknowledged in a statement that she "may have made a mistake in
identifying" him.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for Mr Wexner referred the BBC to a previous statement from his
lawyers in which he denied having ever met Ms
Giuffre.
A spokesperson for Mr Dubin told US media last week
he "strongly" denies the allegations by Ms
Giuffre.
On Tuesday, Mr
Mitchell repeated his previous denial of the claim.
He told the BBC in a statement:
"The allegation contained in the released documents is false. I have never
met, spoken with or had any contact with Ms Giuffre."
Ms Giuffre also said she was
trafficked to American computer scientist Marvin Minsky and French modelling
agent Jean-Luc Brunel.
Minsky died in 2016. Brunel killed
himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting rape and sex-trafficking
charges.
The five batches of long-sealed
Epstein court files released over the past week have contained few details that
weren't previously known.
Epstein pleaded guilty to
soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. He took his own life in 2019
while awaiting trial over sex-trafficking charges.
FROM
NBC
Last batch
of unsealed Jeffrey Epstein documents released
Hundreds of pages of documents were
made public over the past week related to the wealthy financier and a sex
trafficking scheme he allegedly perpetrated before his death.
Jan. 9, 2024, 3:41 PM
EST / Updated Jan. 10, 2024, 10:36 AM EST
By Adam Reiss, Tom Winter and Sarah Fitzpatrick
Another round of documents involving accused sex
trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was released Tuesday,
expected to be the last of the materials that were ordered unsealed by a
federal judge as part of a settled lawsuit.
In total, 4,553 pages of documents
were made public, and they included the names of more than 150 people connected
to or mentioned in legal proceedings related to Epstein and his network, which
allegedly centered on paying teenage girls and young women to engage in sexual
acts with the wealthy financier and other powerful men under the guise of massage therapy.
The first batch of documents was released publicly
Wednesday.
The identities scattered across
hundreds of pages were largely known from previous public documents and
interviews — one reason why U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska approved their disclosure — and many had only a
passing connection to the scandal and were not part of any criminal
investigation. The alleged minor victims of Epstein were allowed to remain
confidential.
The newly released documents are
part of a settled defamation lawsuit against Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who said she was a victim of sex
trafficking and abuse under Epstein when she was a teenager in the early 2000s.
Giuffre’s suit was settled out of court
in 2017, and while some records have been released over the years, other
materials were kept sealed or had names redacted in part because of privacy
concerns.
In the final batch of documents
released and unsealed Tuesday, Giuffre said Epstein paid her $15,000 to have
sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew in 2011. Prince Andrew has
repeatedly denied they had sex after also denying that he ever met her. A U.S.
attorney for Andrew declined to comment Monday.
Included in the heavily redacted
documents are allegations Giuffre was directed to have sex with another prince,
the unnamed owner of a large hotel chain and Glenn Dubin,
a billionaire hedge fund manager, according to a transcript.
A spokesperson for Dubin in 2019 and again last week said he “strongly den[ies] these allegations” and described them as
unsubstantiated statements.
The final batch contains seven
documents and is 1,500 pages.
In them, Giuffre says she had sex
with retail magnate Leslie Wexner multiple times, an allegation he has
vigorously denied. Giuffre also claims she had dinner with former President
Bill Clinton on Epstein’s Little James island in the
U.S. Virgin Islands but never witnessed him sexually involved with anyone.
Clinton has denied he was ever on the island. She testified that she also met
former President Donald Trump but never witnessed him doing anything untoward.
Giuffre claimed Al and Tipper Gore
were guests on the island but said they did not engage in any sexual acts and
that she did not believe they witnessed any wrongdoing. A spokesperson
for Al Gore said he did not know Epstein. "He has no recollection of ever
meeting him. He was never on his airplane or in any of his homes or properties.“
Tipper Gore did not immediately
respond to phone and email requests for comment.
Clinton and Trump were also
mentioned in unsealed depositions from Maxwell and an Epstein accuser, Johanna
Sjoberg, who said Maxwell recruited her as a massage therapist while she
attended Palm Beach Atlantic College in 2001. Neither of the former presidents
is accused of wrongdoing in the depositions.
In the documents unsealed and
released Monday, another alleged victim of Epstein’s, Sarah Ransome, claimed in
emails to a New York Post columnist in 2016 that Trump,
Clinton and others were involved in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking scheme.
Ransome recanted the allegations in a follow-up email to the columnist. Ransome
later came forward publicly with her accusations against
Epstein when she and other victims were invited to speak at a court hearing
following his death by suicide in August 2019.
Attorneys for Ransome did not
respond to a request for comment Monday.
In response to the release of
Ransome’s 2016 emails, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said that “these baseless
accusations have been fully retracted because they are simply false and have no
merit.”
Trump has previously said he had
not been in touch with Epstein for 15 years before his death, and in 2019, he
said he was “not a fan” of Epstein’s.
A Clinton spokesperson did not
immediately respond to a request for comment, but the former president has
previously denied any knowledge of criminal activity by Epstein and stressed in
2019 that they had not spoken to each other in over a decade.
Epstein, who killed himself in a New York
City jail cell in 2019 as he faced multiple
sex-trafficking charges, has been the subject of internet conspiracy
theories, which the documents released have done
little, if anything, to justify.
The documents do include celebrity
names and known figures, and although they provide few new details, Giuffre’s
lawyer said they help to widen the public’s understanding of Epstein’s alleged
sex trafficking scheme and give greater context to the elite circles and
control he exerted over vulnerable young females.
In 2022, Giuffre also settled a high-profile lawsuit out
of court against Andrew, who said he has no recollection of ever having met
her.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison
sentence after being convicted by a jury in 2021
on five federal sex-trafficking charges. She is currently appealing her
conviction, and in the documents, accused Giuffre of being an “awful
fantasist.”
JAN 5The new Jeffrey Epstein-related documents add to a
trove of names of people connected to the investigation — most of whom have not
been accused of any wrongdoing.
How did Jeffrey Epstein make all of
his money?
Edited By Alain Sherter, Anne Marie Lee
Updated on: January 5, 2024 / 3:21 PM EST / CBS
MONEYWATCH
How
did Jeffrey Epstein make all of his money?
What was Jeffrey Epstein's net
worth?
What did Jeffrey Epstein do for
a living?
Where else did Epstein get his
money?
For how much did he buy his
islands?
GUK
Jeffrey Epstein’s elite circle was huge. What do the
documents show about his lifestyle and $580m fortune?
The
document released by a US judge, over 900 pages long, is littered with names
but some secrets stay hidden
By
Edward Helmore Wed 3 Jan 2024
22.36 EST
It
has long been known that the disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein operated at the center of a
globe-spanning network of the rich, famous and powerful, but the documents
released on Wednesday were nonetheless shocking in revealing the sheer
magnitude of his elite circle.
Through
the prism of a defamation lawsuit involving allegations against the Wall Street
“estate planner” Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, the scale of their social network came into
harsh focus.
The
document released by the US judge Loretta Preska has
been sought since 2016. It may be only the first to flesh out the extraordinary
web Epstein and Maxwell spun as they hosted party after party at homes across
the globe and as they created a horrifying sex-trafficking network that preyed
on teen girls.
The
names littered throughout the depositions and legal correspondence that came up
in the lawsuit – filed by Prince Andrew accuser Victoria Giuffre in 2015 –
range from Bill Clinton, the former US president who one Epstein victim claimed
she was told by Epstein “likes them young”, to Britain’s Prince Andrew,
singer Michael
Jackson, French hairdresser Frédéric Fekkai, “model scout” Jean-Luc Brunel, magician David
Copperfield and acclaimed physicist Stephen Hawking.
While
many men so far named in the documents are not accused of any sexual
misconduct, any social approximation to Epstein, who killed himself in 2019
while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking conspiracy charges, or to Maxwell,
currently serving 20 years in federal prison after being convicted on similar
charges in 2021, is potentially a reputational black hole.
One
May 2016 document includes detail of testimony already taken by Johanna
Sjoberg, who had been recruited on a college campus at the age of 21 to work as
a massage therapist and has said she was forced to perform sex acts on Epstein.
It was Sjoberg who made the comment that Epstein “said one time that Clinton
likes them young, referring to girls”.
Clinton
has staunchly denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
The
documents with the unredacted names of about 150 people have begun to be made
public after a long legal fight. After Maxwell’s criminal conviction, she
lifted her objection to the release of files from Giuffre’s defamation suit
against her, setting in motion Wednesday’s document dump, which had been
eagerly awaited by media and the general public across the world.
A lawsuit by the Miami Herald, which broke the first stories on
Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls in Florida, then forced the release of
the sealed court documents.
In
an article soon before the release began, the outlet said that the names in
Epstein’s orbit “could finally bring to rest years of speculation about who
among the rich and powerful were participants in the Palm Beach resident’s sordid
world of sexual abuse”.
The
Herald also warned that the records “could fall flat”. So far, the documents do
not appear to add much that is explicitly revelatory about the criminality at
the heart of the sordid drama of Epstein’s rise and fall or add much to the
already richly fashioned story of those in his orbit.
The
documents released do shed some light on the circumstances of Epstein’s
lifestyle, but they do not answer any of the pending questions about his
financial arrangements with wealthy men, if any, and how he came to amass the
$580m fortune at the time of his death.
Eighteen
years since Epstein’s name surfaced on a Florida charge of soliciting a minor,
the many questions still surrounding him have only been partially satisfied.
Many mysteries remain and their answers perhaps may only be found behind bars
with Maxwell or with Epstein in his grave.
This
article was amended on 4 January 2024. An earlier version incorrectly described
the released court documents as amounting to 2,024 pages, rather than 900
pages.
Jimmy Kimmel slams Aaron Rodgers for suggesting Jeffrey Epstein
connection
KOAT (ALBUQUERQUE)
Secrets in the mansion: Documents reveal 'disgusting'
activities at Jeffrey Epstein's New Mexico ranch
SANTA FE, N.M. —
New Mexico was mentioned more than
two dozen times in recently unsealed documents that highlight what’s been
called “disgusting” activities that occurred in Jeffrey Epstein’s Southern Santa Fe County mansion.
Epstein was the billionaire who was accused of trafficking underage girls for sex. He killed himself in jail before his trial.
The documents released last week are part of a civil suit filed
by Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, a long-time acquaintance of Epstein who is
currently serving prison time for child sex trafficking.
The documents contain more than
900 pages of documents describing what occurred at the New Mexico mansion he
called the Zorro Ranch.
For the past several days, Target
7 has been combing through those documents and found that New Mexico
and this mansion were mentioned more than two dozen times as being a place
where some horrific acts were occurring.
In the documents, Giuffre says she was recruited at the age of 16 to give what
was called massages inside Epstein’s estate to the rich and powerful. These
massages are alleged in the documents to include nudity, sex acts and sex toys.
The documents include depositions
taken from Giuffre and other women who gave massages.
"They're allegations by these women that a lot of activity took place not
only had Epstein's private island in the Caribbean but also at the New Mexico
ranch,” said KOAT legal expert John Day.
According to the documents, Epstein’s accusers said he would have some of the
women give massages to some of his guests. In the documents, one woman said she
stayed in New Mexico and was a sex slave starting at age 15.
At another point, Giuffre said
nude photos were taken of her and she met a president of a foreign country here
in New Mexico. His name was still sealed.
And one woman alleged she was forced to have sex with prominent people.
"New Mexico plays a prominent role in the Epstein story because of the one
the relationship with former Gov. Richardson, too, with the fact that Epstein
had this opulent, ranch in Southern Santa Fe County that apparently, he visited
a lot of times with a lot of the people named in these documents," Day
said.
One of the people who were reported to have stayed here was world-renowned
attorney and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
Dershowitz has denied, in court
filings, ever having any sexual relations with underage girls.
Many others are named in the
documents, also denying the accusations including Former Gov. Bill Richardson
and Former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. While some are accused of
getting massages, there are no direct accusations of criminal activity with
underage girls.
“It's definitely a list that these people wish they weren't on,” Day said.
The documents detail how some people were flown into the ranch on a small plane
using a landing strip in Santa Fe County
Day says more details are likely
to come out in the years to come. There are eight other civil suits that have
been filed by alleged victims
“The New Mexico connection to Jeffrey Epstein is continuing. The more names
that come out, the more documents that are released,” Day said. “I think we'll
see a lot more references to New Mexico.”
In Maxwell's subpoenaed emails alone, she mentions the state 64 times. More
documents are expected to be released and we continue to search through them to
find more connections to the Land of Enchantment.
WashPost
TRUMP
ALLIES FIXATE ON JEFFREY EPSTEIN DOCUMENTS — DESPITE FEW REVELATIONS
Trump partied with Epstein, but his
supporters are convinced documents being released from a New York court may
sully Democrats
By Beth Reinhard
and Shayna Jacobs
Updated January 4, 2024 at 11:20 a.m. EST|Published January
3, 2024 at 9:09 p.m. EST
Days before a federal court late
Wednesday began identifying dozens of associates of convicted sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein, one far-right website predicted that former president Bill
Clinton would top a new “Epstein client list.”
The New York Post had flagged a
“bombshell court records dump,” helping fuel a frenzy of interest that briefly
crashed the court website after the court posted nearly 950 pages of documents.
Despite the hype, the first batch
of what is expected to be thousands of pages that will be posted by the court
in coming days did not immediately point to any major revelations about the
politically connected multimillionaire who was accused of abusing dozens of teenage girls before he died in
custody in 2019.
Rather than a directory of Epstein
“clients,” the documents were in actuality pages and pages of previously
released deposition transcripts and legal briefs, including formerly blocked-out
names, many of which were already publicly known — an outcome widely predicted
by attorneys most closely familiar with the Epstein case.
The document release followed an
order two weeks ago by U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska
to reveal the identities of about 150 people connected to Epstein in a
defamation suit against his former partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Many of the Epstein associates
have already either been identified in the media or in court, the judge said of
the order, which came in response to a Miami Herald lawsuit. The identities of
several minors alleged to be sexual abuse victims would be kept secret, the
judge said.
Speculation about the documents was
particularly agitated among right-wing media and Trump allies.
Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and political allies such
as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) all posted about the release on social
media, warning of a coverup of alleged Epstein conspirators.
By contrast, some attorneys for
Epstein’s alleged victims predicted that the court documents would contain only
a scintilla of serious news, and possibly none at all, because most of the
previously redacted names have been tabloid fodder for years. Clinton’s travels
two decades ago on Epstein’s private jet, for example, have been widely
reported. In a 2019 statement, Clinton said he knew nothing
about Epstein’s “terrible crimes.”
But more than four years after the 66-year-old
Epstein hanged himself in federal custody while awaiting trial on sex
trafficking charges, Trump’s MAGA movement remains fixated on
the notorious financier — even though Epstein and Trump shared overlapping,
highflying social circles for years in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla.
Clinton, impeached in part for
lying about his affair with a White House intern, and his wife, Hillary
Clinton, defeated by Trump in the bitter 2016 presidential race, still arouse
conservative passions after more than two decades dominating Democratic
politics. A widespread belief among Epstein’s alleged victims that his wealth
and connections led to a miscarriage of justice reinforces Trump supporters’
hostility toward the legal system as Trump faces four criminal cases while
campaigning for a second presidential term.
“This is made-up outrage in an
election year,” said Jose Lambiet, a longtime South
Florida gossip columnist turned private investigator. “The real outrage is that
this case is treated as a political pawn when it should be about underage girls
who were harassed and sexually abused.”
Epstein, accused of sexually
abusing dozens of underage girls and young women, pleaded guilty in Florida
state court in 2008 to two felony counts and served only 13 months in jail.
Intense public scrutiny of the case, led by the Miami Herald, led to Epstein’s arrest in July
2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors. He pleaded not guilty and
died by suicide one month later.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year
sentence for trafficking young sexual abuse victims to Epstein. She and Epstein
are the only people to have been prosecuted in connection with a sex trafficking
ring alleged to include minors who were lured to Epstein’s mansions in New
York, Palm Beach and New Mexico.
The latest court development comes
from a 2015 defamation lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre, who said Maxwell
recruited her as a teenager to serve as Epstein’s “sex slave.” The case, which
was settled in 2017, exposed disturbing details about the
operation run by Maxwell to supply teenage girls to Epstein at his private
mansions stocked with sex toys.
In the Dec. 18 order, Preska gave the John and Jane Does two weeks to object to
their names being disclosed.
“There’s going to be a lot of
nervous ppl over Christmas and New Years … who’s on
the naughty list?” Giuffre tweeted at the time.
The judge is still weighing
requests from two people named in the suit to remain private. More records from
the case are expected to be released soon.
The documents posted Wednesday
include references to major figures like Clinton, Trump and Prince Andrew, but
did not appear to feature any smoking-gun details about their ties to Epstein.
In a 2016 filing, Maxwell’s
attorneys said that FBI and Secret Service records disproved claims that Bill
Clinton visited Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean and said that Clinton
has not been accused of any sexual misconduct tied to Epstein. Maxwell said in
a deposition that the “allegations that Clinton had a meal on Jeffrey’s island is 100 percent false.” She added she was
“sure he had a meal on Jeffrey’s plane.”
Trump is mentioned in a 2016
deposition of Johanna Sjoberg, a woman who has also accused Epstein of abuse.
Sjoberg said she was on Epstein’s private plane once when it diverted to
Atlantic City because of bad weather. She said they went to one of Trump’s
casinos, where she and Giuffre, who was then too young to gamble, walked around
before returning to the plane, where Epstein mentioned an idea to “call up
Trump.” It was not clear from the deposition whether Epstein and Trump had a
conversation about the visit.
Asked if she ever massaged Trump,
Sjoberg said she did not.
Prince Andrew’s connection to Epstein,
and the allegations that contributed to the public downfall of the brother of
Britain’s King Charles III, were already widely reported, including Sjoberg’s
accusations that Andrew groped her, and the claims of Giuffre, who said she was
trafficked to Andrew by Epstein.
Some attorneys for Epstein’s
alleged victims were skeptical the unsealed records would contain any major
bombshells.
“Nobody who has even casually
followed the story will learn a single fact from what is about to be unsealed.
Not one,” attorney Brad Edwards said. “The level of disappointment the world is
about to get cannot be overstated.”
Attorney Spencer Kuvin said the records might reveal one or two people who
knew Epstein and have not been previously identified, but it’s unclear if they
will be accused of wrongdoing. He said he expects the list of names to include
a wide range of people, from high-profile politicians, executives and
socialites who knew Epstein to little-known employees who worked at his
multiple estates.
“I don’t think there will be any
really big surprises, but the name Epstein has turned into such a nuclear
disaster that people in his periphery get smeared,” Kuvin
said.
Even Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is making a long-shot bid
for president as an independent, was asked recently about whether he traveled
on Epstein’s plane. He said on Fox News that he and his family flew on
Epstein’s plane twice in 1993, long before “his nefarious issues.”
The relationship between Epstein
and Trump has been well chronicled in the media. For nearly two decades
starting in the late 1980s, Epstein and Trump traveled in similar social orbits. They were neighbors in Palm
Beach and partied together at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. Trump traveled on
Epstein’s jet and dined at his mansion in Manhattan.
“Terrific guy,” Trump said of
Epstein in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with.”
More recently, Trump has said that
he was “not a fan” of Epstein’s and that they had a falling out nearly 20 years
ago. (Epstein’s brother, however, told British TV host Piers
Morgan that it was Jeff who shunned the former President once he realized The Donald was a crook. (See
Attachment Seven, below)
Amid speculation on social media
about fresh court records related to Epstein, Trump Jr. tweeted Tuesday evening that Bill
Clinton was “all over the release” — even though the unredacted documents had
yet to appear publicly on the docket. He also claimed, without providing
evidence, that “the government has been hiding & running cover for” alleged
Epstein conspirators.
“Today’s release is a step in the
right direction for the countless women and children who were trafficked and
abused by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn
(R-Tenn.), while demanding court records that may — or may not — offer new
insights into Epstein’s alleged crimes.
These social media posts serve to
gin up public interest, Kuvin said, but fail to bring
the accountability that Epstein’s alleged victims have been seeking.
“The Jeffrey Epstein case involves
all the factors that make for an intriguing story — royalty, money, politics,
power and sex,” he said. “And you’ve got two highly polarizing former
presidents connected. It’s a story that will never die.”
Aaron Schaffer contributed to this
report. See Also:
What to know about the Jeffrey Epstein saga as new records are released
Trump allies fixate on Jeffrey Epstein documents — despite few
revelations
Jimmy Kimmel slams Aaron Rodgers for
suggesting Jeffrey Epstein connection
|
By
Phillip Elliott THE
EPSTEIN DOCUMENT DUMP IS PARTISAN CATNIP—FACTS BE DAMNED The political commentariat
went into overdrive on Wednesday evening, floating stories of faceless teenaged girls who had their blood
harvested, a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy to infiltrate the highest levels of the American government,
a hit
job ordered against a jailed millionaire with an enviable
Rolodex, and a Hollywood cabal of sexcapades. The catalyst: almost 1,000 pages of still-semi-redacted documents a federal judge ordered to be released in a civil case
related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender whose decades of
proximity to the rich and powerful has provided easy way for bad-faith actors
to paint their preferred targets as accessories or co-conspirators in his
horrifying misdeeds, even when the evidence behind such claims is
embarrassingly thin. The highly anticipated
document dump did not include any so-called “client list” from Epstein, whose
death in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while waiting
trial on other sex-trafficking charges was ruled a suicide. But that didn’t
stop the blatantly partisan, choose-your-own-adventure response. While the documents detail
some horrifying anecdotes of abuse and exploitation, those details were by
and large already public knowledge. The nuggets of new information involve
few actual provable accusations about anyone beyond Epstein and Ghislaine
Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who was sentenced to federal prison for her
role in helping Epstein sexually exploit and abuse multiple underage girls.
Maxwell was also the target of a civil lawsuit in 2015 that the latest documents
stem from. The plaintiff in that suit said she had to work as Epstein’s “sex
slave.” They settled in 2017. The initial batch of documents
have a bevy of bold-faced
names: Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, Michael Jackson,
Stephen Hawking, and David Copperfield. But the docs don’t level any criminal
accusations at any of them and, in the case of Trump, seem to exonerate him. These are the types of
work-product files that are generally passed back and forth among lawyers
without sending social media platforms into a tailspin. Another tranche of
documents is expected to dribble out over coming days, likely with more names
of people who spoke to lawyers about the civil suit or who were mentioned in
passing in depositions. In short, there’s a lot of sizzle here, but so far little new substance. In an ideal
world, that would silence some of the more bizarre theories that have gained
ground in recent years. Instead, it shows the limits of partial transparency. To be clear: as a journalist,
I am all for transparency and disclosure. They’re the backbone of a credible
system where the governed believe they can trust those atop the system, where
those with power are invested in the system, too, and all can agree to a
common set of facts and norms, such as children shouldn’t be sex workers and
victims have a right to privacy. Journalists have stood at the ready to
reveal what our leaders don’t. But in an age in which online communication
has made everyone with a smartphone into a sleuth, things can quickly
snowball into absurdity at best and danger at the more likely. As evidenced by the Epstein
disclosures, partial transparency comes with inherent dangers and is a threat
to the strongest arguments inherent to the case for disclosure. It reveals
all too well our bias toward buzz, regardless of the facts. And, the main
reason these documents should be read with a careful eye is that they are
vastly incomplete, despite their bulk. Yes, the depositions are full
of salacious details. For instance, one victim recalled Epstein told her
former President Bill Clinton “likes them young,”
referring to women. He is not accused of any wrongdoing in the documents. No jury heard these witnesses
in this civil case, and a fight over opening up these interviews has gone on for
years. Some of the worst claims are based on memories of conversations with
Epstein, who is no longer around to corroborate his side of the story. A
judge might have treated other aspects of the tales as hearsay and blocked
jurors from hearing any of this at all. The docs, though, offer up a
perfect proof point for critics to say that the system is rigged. It allows
those so inclined to point a klieg light at the us-versus-them dynamic that
colors so much of our politics, magnifying every ugly cranny and
mean-spirited flaw. Here we have private jets, private islands, alleged
sexual abuse, and bottomless pockets for plugged-in individuals to rub elbows
with other fancy names. This is the problem when
guilt-by-association becomes the M.O. of the masses. Politically and in
factual investigations, it’s a useful tool. As a shortcut to declarative
judgments, it’s generally garbage, and without real
evidence, patently unfair. That’s why the ongoing release of these documents
is a move in the right direction toward understanding the cases in the
Epstein orbit but hardly sufficient to start rendering verdicts. But there’s a more
consequential reality on display in these documents: it feeds notions of
conspiracy theories centered on absurd, discredited, and not-so-vaguely
racist tropes. Down one classic rabbit hole,
Hillary Clinton and her loyal adviser Huma Abedin were running a child
sex-trafficking ring from the basement of a D.C. pizza
shop—one that lacks a basement and already has been the scene of
vigilante efforts at justice. In another, the whole system ended in a jail-cell hit job to silence
Epstein from naming names, and that then-Attorney General Bill Barr signed
off on it to protect his boss, Trump. Now, before you think this exists only in far-flung corners of
America, consider this finding in the latest Washington Post poll released Thursday: a full quarter of this country thinks
the FBI was behind the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, including more than
3-in-10 Republicans and 44% of Trump voters. As the country glides toward the
three-year anniversary, the widely televised attempt to keep Trump in power
through political violence has become yet the latest example of how facts are
irrelevant to reality. All of this still comes back to a bigger central problem:
there have been relatively few consequences for powerful men and women who
took advantage of young women and girls, creating a social vacuum from which
many see as proof of a justice system so fully rigged and corrupt that it
casts people like Epstein as nearly super-human in their reach and influence.
To focus on the wild, discredited, and partisan notions that are dominating
most of this conversation is to disrespect all those victims. But in an
environment that treats everything like a partisan contest, even tales of
sexual exploitation can fall to gamification. |
INDEPENDENT U.K.
DONALD
TRUMP’S ALLEGED ‘SEXUAL PROCLIVITIES’ GRAPHICALLY DETAILED IN NEW EPSTEIN
DOCUMENTS
The
new papers contain ‘incendiary claims’ about the former president
By Mike
Bedigan
Graphic
details about Donald Trump’s alleged “sexual proclivities” have emerged in the
latest round of court documents containing details of late paedophile
Jeffrey Epstein’s associates.
The
new documents contain “incendiary claims” about the former president, including
accusations that he had sexual relations with “many girls”, made by one of
Epstein’s alleged victims, Sarah Ransome.
Mr Trump’s name has appeared a
handful of times previously in the documents and, while not accusing him of
wrongdoing, appears to illustrate the good relationship he had with the
disgraced financier.
In
the newly unsealed documents, Ms Ransome testified
that her unnamed friend “was one of the many girls that had sexual relations
with Donald Trump” – including at Epstein’s New York townhouse.
“She
confided in me about her casual ‘friendship’ with Donald. Mr
Trump definitely seemed to have a thing for her and she told me how he kept
going on about how he liked her ‘pert nipples’,” she testified.
She
then described in graphic detail how Mr Trump
allegedly caused pain to the victim’s nipples – and claimed she saw the
resulting injury firsthand.
“I
also know she had sexual relations with Trump at Jeffery’s NY mansion on
regular occasions as I once met Jen for coffee, just before she was going to
meet Trump and Epstein together at his mansion,” she said.
Monday’s
unsealed extracts were included in a letter sent by attorneys representing Alan
Dershowitz, seeking to undermine Ms Ransome’s
credibility. Ms Ransome said that she had seen
sex-tapes involving prominent figures including Prince Andrew and UK billionaire
Richard Branson.
Mr Trump was not alleged to have
been involved in the sex tapes.
In
a New Yorker article released in 2019, Ms Ransome
said that “she had invented the tapes to draw attention to Epstein’s behavior,
and to make him believe that she had ‘evidence that would come out if he harmed
me’”.
She
did not appear to address the validity of other claims from the emails in her
comment to the outlet.
The
Independent has reached out to Mr Trump’s
representatives for comment about the new allegations.
Other
mention of Mr Trump in the documents so far has not
accused him of any illegality, but claims he and Epstein were on good terms.
In
part of testimony from another victim Johanna Sjoberg, it was claimed Epstein
once “called up” the former president and visited one of his casinos after his
private plane was diverted to Atlantic City in New Jersey.
Ms Sjoberg said that while
travelling on the plane with the disgraced financier the pilots had said that
they were unable to land in New York as planned.
NBC
coverage from 1992 shows Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein discussing women at
Mar-a-Lago party
“Jeffrey
said, ‘Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to -- I don’t recall the name of
the casino, but -- we’ll go to the casino’,” the testimony read. Elsewhere, Ms Sjoberg was asked if she ever gave Mr
Trump a massage, to which she replied “no”.
Several
more mentions of Mr Trump were made in the documents
released last Friday, when Mr Alessi testified he had
driven Maxwell to the former president’s Mar-A-Lago home.
Mr Alessi also said that Mr Trump would sometimes come round for dinner at Epstein’s
home but ate with Mr Alessi in the kitchen. Mr Trump did not get massages at the Palm Beach house
because he had “his own spa”, Mr Alessi said.
NEWSWEEK
IS DONALD TRUMP 'DOE 174' IN JEFFREY EPSTEIN
DOCUMENTS? WHAT WE KNOW
Jan 10, 2024 at 1:05 PM EST
Court
documents related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have been released
over the last week, naming dozens of high-profile figures, including former
President Donald Trump.
The
papers were originally filed in a defamation lawsuit brought by Epstein victim
Virginia Giuffre against the financier's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell,
who is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of conspiring
with him in his sex-trafficking operation.
The
documents were initially sealed on potential privacy grounds and on what could
be made public about some people mentioned.
However,
in December 2023, New York Southern District Judge Loretta Preska
ordered that documents listing individuals mentioned
within the lawsuit, referred to as "Doe" in court documents, should
be unsealed.
Donald
Trump in court
Former
U.S. President Donald Trump sits at the defense table while waiting for
proceedings to begin in his civil business fraud trial in New York State
Supreme Court on December 7, 2023 in New York City. Court documents mentioning
Trump in the 2015 Virginia Giuffre lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell were
unsealed this month.
Business
Insider has suggested one of those, Doe 174, "checks all the boxes"
to be Trump.
There
have been no accusations of wrongdoing by Trump and he has not been implicated
in any of the crimes committed by Maxwell or Epstein.
Newsweek
has contacted a media representative for Trump for comment. In a statement last
week, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said that any claims involving Trump and
Epstein were "thoroughly debunked."
Is
Donald Trump Doe 174?
Preska's order
included a table with 187 individuals and docket entries where their names
appeared.
Details
of victims of sexual abuse, individuals whose identity could help identify
victims, and one individual who was mistakenly included and not introduced to
the case by the plaintiff, remain sealed.
Doe
174 was described in Preska's list as a person whose
"association with Epstein and Maxwell has been widely reported in the
media already, and his or her name came up during Maxwell's public criminal
trial."
Trump's
name appeared in all nine docket entries that Doe 174 is mentioned in.
Doe
174's docket entries were unique, so it could not be confused with any of the
other Does listed in the lawsuit.
What
Do the Unsealed Documents Say?
None
of the papers that Doe 174 was mentioned in includes any allegations of
wrongdoing toward Trump.
Two
of Doe 174's documents are part of Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg's
deposition, in which she testified Epstein planned to call Trump and go to one
of his casinos. Sjoberg later testified that she never massaged Trump.
THE WRAP
JEFFREY
EPSTEIN SHUNNED DONALD TRUMP ‘WHEN HE REALIZED HE WAS A CROOK,’ DISGRACED
FINANCIER’S BROTHER TELLS PIERS MORGAN
Mark Epstein says he believes his
brother was murdered by one of his wealthy and powerful friends
By Natalie Korach January
10, 2024 @ 9:20 AM
Jeffrey Epstein’s brother Mark
Epstein joined “Piers Morgan Uncensored” to discuss his suspicions surrounding
his brother’s death, telling the British TV host that Epstein halted his
relationship with Donald Trump once he “realized he was a crook.”
Mark Epstein joined Piers Morgan
via phone call because “he would prefer not to be seen on camera,” according to
Morgan, who asked, “When this all came out about him, were you as shocked as
everybody else or did you have concerns about him?”
“In 2006 when he first got into
trouble, he told me that he was getting into trouble,” Epstein replied. “So I knew from early on what was happening.”
“Did you know the scale of it?”
Morgan questioned.
That question seemed to rub
Epstein the wrong way saying, “ I made it real clear.
I’m not discussing anything about my brother’s charges against him. I have
nothing to do with that … The only thing I’m interested in discussing is the
circumstances surrounding his murder.”
Morgan pressed Epstein as to why
he believes what was ruled as a suicide to be a covered-up assassination.
“Well, first is the the actual pathologist who did the autopsy did not
determine that was a suicide. They couldn’t. They said it looked more like a
homicide,” responded Epstein. “So this point, the
question becomes, what investigating was done in a matter of days to make them
come out with that determination. And it turns out that because it was called a
suicide, there doesn’t seem to have been an investigation.”
Morgan then pivoted the
conversation to Jeffrey Epstein’s powerful and wealthy friends, asking whether
“one of those people who may have had a vested interest in shutting him up and
not talking about what he knew about them potentially may have played a part in
his death?”
“Yes, that’s what I think
happened,” Epstein replied with confidence.
Morgan also asked about whether
Epstein possibly had information on Donald Trump and Bill Clinton “that was so
incendiary that the 2016 election would have been canceled if that information
had come out.”
Epstein corrected Morgan, saying
that his brother was referencing Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, not Bill
Clinton.
“I never heard Jeffrey say
anything bad about Bill Clinton,” Epstein said. “Jeffrey always liked Bill
Clinton.”
“What information do you think he
had on Donald Trump, for example, that could have disqualified him?” Morgan
asked.
“I don’t know any specific
information,” Epstein responded. “But I’ve also heard Jeffrey say that he
stopped hanging out with Donald Trump when he realized Trump was a crook.”
Epstein noted that his brother’s
statement of that nature is on videotape, which he has seen.
THE NEW YORK POST
EX-GIRLFRIEND OF DISGRACED NJ SEN. BOB MENENDEZ TOOK
PART IN ORGIES WITH JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND VICTIM VIRGINIA GIUFFRE: DOCS
By Melissa Koenig Published Jan. 10, 2024 Updated Jan. 10, 2024,
8:26 a.m. ET
MORE ON:JEFFREY EPSTEIN
·
The Epstein documents reveal how I
was framed — but I’m still being canceled
Disgraced
New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s ex-girlfriend allegedly participated in orgies
with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and underage girls, newly released court
documents claim.
Gwendolyn
Beck, 65, a longtime associate of Epstein who dated Menendez in 2010, was
singled out by his victim Virginia Giuffre in a January 2016 deposition, a
transcript of which was finally released to the public on Tuesday.
As
part of the deposition, Giuffre was provided with a list of names and was asked
which ones she was not trafficked to as a teenager.
“Number
7, Gwendolyn Beck,” she replies, according to the transcript. “I wasn’t
trafficked to her, she was just part of some of the
trafficking.”
An
attorney asks Giuffre what Beck’s involvement was, to which the victim replies:
“She was involved in some of the orgies.”
The
attorney then asks Giuffre, “What gentlemen were involved in the orgies with
you and Ms. Beck?”
“As
far as I can recall, Jeffrey Epstein,” she replies.
It’s
unclear when the orgies occurred but by the time Beck was linked to Menendez in
2010, Giuffre was married and living in Australia.
Beck
did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Her
relationship with Epstein has been well documented, though this is the first
time she has been accused of any wrongdoing.
Beck
was previously photographed with Epstein and his madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, at
former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 1995.
She
was also pictured five years later back at the Florida estate with Epstein,
Prince Andrew and Trump’s then-girlfriend Melania Knauss.
Her
2014 campaign for Congress was even bolstered by a $12,600 donation from
Epstein — his only political contribution that year, according to Arlington
Now.
Beck
said at the time she asked a number of billionaires in her Rolodex for
donations, and accepted one from Epstein out of “forgiveness,” following the
financier’s conviction for having sex with minors and subsequent jail time in
Florida.
“I
haven’t spoken with him personally in years,” she told the outlet.
“During
my years at Morgan Stanley (started in 1995), I managed a portion of his
investment funds (about $65 million) and knew him personally.
“While
the press has tagged him ‘a man of mystery’ because they can’t explain how he
made his money, it’s mostly a combination of real estate and complex
derivatives,” Beck noted.
She
continued: “At the time, he had a girlfriend he was very close to, and was a
hard-working, thoughtful man (he comes from a poor background and made a lot of
money really fast).
“I
think he went off the deep end when she left (I left Morgan Stanley by this
time and had no relationship with them), and got involved in very bad behaviors
which he’s sought therapy for and paid his time in jail.”
Beck
said she was “deeply opposed [to] and shocked by his behavior” but that he “paid
his debt to society.
“Although
humanly flawed, he can be a great asset to our nation because he understands
finance on a level most people can’t comprehend,” she added.
What
we know about the Jeffrey Epstein list of 170 associates...
·
On Wednesday, documents were released naming 170
associates of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The list included Michael
Jackson, magician David Copperfield,
Stephen Hawking, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former President
Bill Clinton — who an Epstein victim said “likes them young, referring to girls.”
·
Disgraced royal Prince Andrew, a known friend of Epstein,
was named in the documents and was previously sued by Epstein accuser Virginia
Giuffre, who accused Andrew of sexual misconduct toward her. According to one
royal family expert, the Firm “will stand beside” the Duke of York “no matter what.”
·
Epstein’s former attorney and friend Alan
Dershowitz defended the late multimillionaire sex offender’s associates,
saying: “None of us knew about his private life that he kept so secret.”
Dershowitz, who is on the list, added that no one should be automatically
convicted in the court of public opinion simply for showing up in court
documents.
·
Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, told The Post that the
ex-business mogul said he could have upended the 2016 election over what he
knew about both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: “Here’s a direct quote: ‘If I
said what I know about both candidates, they’d have to cancel the election.’
That’s what Jeffrey told me in 2016.”
·
Only some of the 170 names and their relationships to
Epstein have been released. The remainder of the documents will likely become
public record throughout the next week.
Beck,
who ran on a platform of being “fiscally responsible, socially inclusive” and
in favor of a “strong national defense,” wound up losing the Virginia race to
Democrat Don Beyer after securing only 2.7% of the vote.
She
had earlier worked as the vice president of investments for Morgan
Stanley, according to her LinkedIn profile.
In
May 2010, she began dating Menendez. The banker was photographed with him in the
Dominican Republic in 2010 — a picture that would later be used in the senator’s 2015 corruption trial.
She
also attended a 2010 White House State Dinner as his date.
It
is unclear whether Menendez knew of Beck’s relationship with Epstein when they
were dating.
Menendez
was accused at the time of accepting lavish hospitality from a Medicare
fraudster doctor who asked Menendez to secure visas for his bevy of young
mistresses; to intervene in an audit that would have stopped him ripping off
taxpayers; and to stop US Customs and Border Protection disrupting his side
hustle screening cargo at the Dominican Republic’s ports.
Menendez
denied the charges and called them a conspiracy by overreaching prosecutors.
But
he is now facing charges of taking gold bars and bribes and stashing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash around
his house in return for using his “power and influence” — including his
position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to benefit the
Egyptian government and two local businessmen.
He
has once again denied the charges.
GUARDIAN U.K.
EPSTEIN HAD ‘SEX TAPES’ OF PRINCE ANDREW AND BILL
CLINTON, WITNESS CLAIMED
Unsealed
documents show defence team used Sarah Ransome’s
claims, later retracted, to show she ‘manifestly lacks credibility’
By
Jamie Grierson and
agencies Mon 8 Jan 2024 14.56 EST
Jeffrey
Epstein’s defence team sought to undermine the
reliability of one of the witnesses against him by revealing she had claimed
the billionaire had kept “sex tapes” involving prominent people, a new batch of
unsealed documents has disclosed.
Those
who were filmed were alleged to have included Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and
Sir Richard Branson, according to the allegations made by Sarah Ransome.
Her
claims were flagged by a firm representing Epstein’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz,
to demonstrate Ransome “manifestly lacks credibility”. The court was not given
any proof of the existence of any tapes, and the allegations were retracted by
Ransome soon after they were initially made.
Ransome
gave a victim impact statement before the sentencing of the British
socialite Ghislaine Maxwell for sex trafficking. The court was
provided with emails in which she claimed the three were filmed by the child
sex offender.
She
also makes serious accusations against the former US president Donald Trump.
Prince
Andrew stepped down from public life after the furore
over his friendship with Epstein, and paid millions to settle a civil sexual
assault case with Virginia Giuffre, a woman he claimed never to have met.
He
was cast out of the working monarchy and no longer uses his HRH style after
Giuffre, who was trafficked by Epstein, accused him of sexually assaulting her
when she was 17. The duke has denied any wrongdoing.
A
US judge ordered hundreds of documents to be unsealed as part of Giuffre’s
previously settled civil claim against Maxwell, which was filed in 2015. Images
were also released as part of the latest tranche of documents, including a
resurfaced photo of the former Labour minister Peter
Mandelson with Epstein on his private island, Little St James.
Other
pictures, all taken on the island in 2006, included one of Maxwell with the
disgraced French model scout Jean Luc-Brunel and various girls posing for
photos.
Addressing
the claims about Andrew, the former US president Clinton and Branson, the
British billionaire businessman, in the document released on Monday, Ransome
wrote in the emails: “When my friend had sexual intercourse with Clinton,
Prince Andrew and Richard Branson, sex tapes were in fact filmed on each
separate occasion by Jeffrey.
“Thank
God she managed to get a hold of some footage of the filmed sex tapes, which clearly
identify the faces of Clinton, Prince Andrew and Branson having sexual
intercourse with her.
“Frustratingly
enough Epstein was not seen in any of the footage but he was clever like that.
“When
my friend eventually had the courage to speak out and went to the police in
2008 to report what had happened, nothing was done and she was utterly
humiliated by the police department where she went to report what had happened
with Epstein, Clinton, Branson and Prince Andrew.”
Trump,
who hopes to stand for US president later this year, is also accused in the
email extracts from Ransome, who alleges he “had sexual relations with [her
friend] at Jeffrey’s NY mansion on regular occasions”.
In
the letter from Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady
LLP to the court, the firm said allegations against Dershowitz were
categorically false, adding: “[Ransome’s] testimony was fabricated from whole
cloth. Ms Ransome’s testimony also contains a slew of
other incendiary claims concerning the sexual proclivities of Donald Trump,
Bill Clinton and other prominent individuals.
“The
emails are a necessary antidote to Ms Ransome’s
deposition misstatements because they demonstrate she manifestly lacks
credibility.”
Ransome
soon withdrew her claims, saying: “I want to walk away from this … I shouldn’t
have contacted you and I’m sorry I wasted your time. It’s not worth coming
forward and I will never be heard anyhow and only bad things will happen as a
consequence of me going public.”
A
Virgin Group spokesperson said: “In a New Yorker report published in 2019,
Ransome admitted that she had ‘invented’ the tapes. We can confirm that Sarah
Ransome’s claims are baseless and unfounded.”
In
the email extracts from Ransome she also took aim at
Hillary Clinton, with one saying: “I will make sure that neither that evil
bitch Hillary or that paedophile Trump gets elected.
“I
will also make sure that everyone on the God damn planet sees that footage and
photos and will release them to WikiLeaks by Sunday.”
Ransome
also appeared to say she had “reached out to the Russians for help” after
claiming her emails had been hacked.
Epstein
was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan, New York, in August
2019 while he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges. The death was ruled a
suicide. Maxwell has been imprisoned since July 2020 despite attempts by her defence counsel to have her released on bail.
She
was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the federal court in the Southern
District of New York in June 2022. Her appeal is scheduled to be heard in November
next year.
ROLLING
STONE
8 BIGGEST REVELATIONS IN
THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN DOCS
From Bill Clinton's
alleged proclivities, to Epstein pushing a teenager to get emancipated, to
Prince Andrew's puppet, here's what we learned from the newly released
unredacted documents
BY JULIA REINSTEIN
JANUARY 9, 2024
HUNDREDS OF PAGES of
sealed records related to Jeffrey Epstein have been made public over the past
week, revealing previously unknown details about the late accused sex
trafficker who called some of the world’s most wealthy and influential people
his friends, from Bill Clinton to Prince Andrew.
The release comes after
a judge’s December ruling that the documents, which until Wednesday had been
redacted, should no longer be concealed from the public. Previously, the
documents had been part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 civil case
against Ghislaine Maxwell. (Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2022
and is currently serving a 20-year sentence, though she is appealing; Epstein
was facing 45 years in prison for his alleged crimes, but he was found hanged
in his Manhattan prison cell in August 2019. His death was ruled a suicide.)
After the announcement
in December, many speculated as to what would be found in the unsealed
documents — what we got was mostly known names, though some new, unsettling
allegations. Here are some of the biggest bombshells we learned:
Epstein asked a teenage
girl to get emancipated and live with him
One of the documents released Thursday was a deposition given by an
anonymous accuser, who said Epstein sexually abused her when she was between 15
and 17 years old. At one point, while she was still underage, Epstein asked her
to live with him. “He wanted me to be emancipated,” she said.
The abuse — which so
many other accusers have testified was typical — began under the pretense of a
massage. She said Epstein “took [her] clothes off without [her] consent” the
first time they met. “I just was there, and all of a sudden something horrible
happened to me,” she said.
Maxwell’s attorneys
accused a journalist of urging Giuffre to lie about being sexually abused to
sell a memoir
In denying the allegations
against her and Epstein, Maxwell has repeatedly smeared Giuffre, calling her an
“absolute total liar” and “an exaggerator, a fantasist and absolutely true
terrible person” in court depositions.
In documents released
Thursday, Maxwell’s attorneys pushed to subpoena journalist Sharon Churcher,
who’d written about Giuffre’s story in the Daily Mail. The defense team accused
Churcher of helping Giuffre sensationalize or even fabricate details of her
abuse allegations in order to boost sales of a memoir she was working on. “Not
only is Churcher aware that the allegations were false, she helped Plaintiff
concoct the stories,” the defense wrote.
Giuffre alleged in an
email that Clinton “threatened” Vanity Fair over Epstein coverage (but it’s not
clear if that actually happened)
It’s no secret that Bill
Clinton was friends with Epstein for years, and he was widely speculated to be
one of the high-profile figures who would appear in the documents.
In an email to Churcher
that appears in court filings, Giuffre wrote that Clinton once walked into the
Vanity Fair office “and threatened them not to write sex-trafficking articles
about his good friend J.E.”
The email doesn’t
provide any further details on the alleged incident, and there is no evidence
it ever actually occurred. It’s unclear whether the claim was meant to be taken
seriously, or if it might have been an exaggeration made in a joking matter.
(We ran the story by Vicky Ward, a journalist who has alleged that Vanity Fair
editor Graydon Carter killed her 2003 story about Epstein’s alleged crimes
after being pressured by Epstein, a claim he’s strongly denied. When asked
about the Clinton allegation, she told us she “never heard that.”)
Jeffrey Epstein Accuser Claims She Had Sex With Ex-Victoria’s Secret CEO Multiple Times
Aaron Rodgers Insists He's 'Not Stupid Enough' to
Accuse Jimmy Kimmel of Being a Pedophile
A Witness Made Up Epstein ‘Sex Tapes.’ The Right Ran With It Anyway
Carter also denied the
incident had taken place, telling The Telegraph it “categorically did not
happen.” (A spokesperson for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request
for comment.)
Jeffrey Epstein
allegedly said Bill Clinton “likes them young”
There were other damning
rumors about the former president. In a transcript of a deposition given by
Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, she said Epstein once told her that Clinton
“likes them young, referring to girls.”
Clinton is not accused
of any misconduct in the unsealed documents. In a statement after Epstein’s
arrest in 2019, Clinton said he had not spoken to Epstein in “well over a
decade” and had known “nothing about the terrible crimes” of which his former
friend stood accused. He acknowledged having flown on Epstein’s private plane
on four occasions, but denied ever visiting his private island. (A spokesperson
for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.)
Prince Andrew and his
puppet
In February 2022, Prince
Andrew reached a settlement with Giuffre over accusations that he’d sexually
abused her numerous times when she was still a minor. He denied the
allegations, but was officially stripped of his royal and military titles in
the midst of the legal proceedings against him.
The newly unsealed
documents contain details about the former British royal’s alleged abuse. In
her deposition, Sjoberg said she and Giuffre once met Prince Andrew at
Epstein’s home, and that Maxwell brought out a puppet that looked like the
royal. “There was a little tag on the puppet that said ‘Prince Andrew’ on it,
and that’s when I knew who he was,” Sjoberg testified.
And then out came the
camera. “They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap, and I sat on Andrew’s lap, and
they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my
breast, and they took a photo,” Sjoberg said. (Prince Andrew’s spokesperson did
not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Dershowitz was allegedly
a regular
Alan Dershowitz,
Epstein’s former attorney who helped him clinch the 2008 “sweetheart deal” in which
he avoided prosecution for sex crimes against minors, also plays a big role in
the unsealed documents.
According to testimony
from Epstein’s former household staff, Dershowitz visited Epstein’s Florida
home “very often,” allegedly going there by himself and spending time “in the
presence of young girls.” They also said he would get massages there — a tactic
Epstein frequently employed in initiating his alleged sexual abuse.
In an email to Rolling
Stone, Dershowitz said that he and his wife had “a single massage in the 1990s
with a professional massage therapist” and that he “never saw a young girl in
Epstein’s presence.” In a rambling livestream Thursday, he bemoaned “that
people can make false accusations [in legal filings] with impunity without fear
of being sued.”
Stolen passports and
“kissing games”
The abuse described in
the court filings shows just how far Epstein and Maxwell allegedly went to
control the young women in their orbit. Rinaldo Rizzo — a former household
manager for Epstein’s billionaire friends Glenn and Eva Dubin
— testified that Maxwell once threatened a “terrified” 15-year-old and
“confiscated her passport to try to make her have sex with Epstein” while on
his private island.
Rizzo also said Maxwell
had instructed a group of eleven girls as young as 14 to “play a ‘kissing game’
with and for” Epstein.
Giuffre alleged she had
sex with Les Wexner “more than three times”
The L Brands founder —
who was CEO of companies including Victoria’s Secret and the Limited — has long
been linked to Epstein, both as a good friend and his only confirmed client.
But in an unredacted deposition transcript released on Jan. 9, Giuffre alleged
it went further than that, claiming she had sex with the executive more than
three times, and possibly more than five. She confirmed that Maxwell had asked
her to wear lingerie for him, but could not recall which brand.
Update Jan 4, 10 a.m.:
This story now includes comment from Alan Dershowitz. A previous version of
this story stated Epstein’s “sweetheart” deal was made in 2006. It was 2008.
A11X77
FROM NDTV (India)
Glenn Dubin Had Sex With Teen While Wife Slept In Next Room: Epstein Files
Newly
unsealed court documents alleges that Glenn Dubin had
sex with one of Epstein's sex trafficking victims while his pregnant wife slept
in the next room
World NewsEdited by NDTV
News DeskUpdated: January 12, 2024 2:30 pm IST
Billionaire investor Glenn Dubin has been accused of having sex with a minor girl
during his wife's pregnancy in a new batch of court documents in sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein case.
Newly unsealed court documents
alleges that Dubin had sex with one of Epstein's sex
trafficking victims while his pregnant wife slept in the next room, reported
the Business Insider.
The deposition, made public on Tuesday,
reveals victim Virginia Giuffre's account of events when she was sex trafficked
by Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
In a 2016 deposition, when Giuffre
was asked if Glenn Dubin was "the powerful
business executive whose pregnant wife was asleep in the next room," she
responded with a "Yes." Giuffre has consistently alleged that Epstein
and Maxwell trafficked her to Dubin and other
influential figures when she was just a teenager.
However, when Giuffre was
questioned about whether she had ever been trafficked to Dubin's
wife, Eva Andersson-Dubin, she responded with a firm
"no."
A spokesperson for Dubin responded to the allegations, stating, "The Dubins strongly deny these allegations, as we first said in
2019, when these unsubstantiated statements first surfaced as part of this same
civil court proceeding," according to Business Insider.
ALSO
READ
·
Jeffrey Epstein Survivor Claims She Was Paid $15,000 To Have Sex With Prince Andrew
·
"Hidden Room" In Epstein House Filled With
Nude Pics, Claims Survivor
·
Jeffrey Epstein Survivor Claims She Had Sex With
Another "Prince" In France
Eva Andersson-Dubin,
a former Miss Sweden, dated Jeffrey Epstein for years before marrying Glen Dubin in 1994. Despite Epstein's 2008 conviction, the Dubins maintained contact, even inviting him for
Thanksgiving in 2009, according to a 2019 report.
Andersson-Dubin
sent an email to Epstein's probation officer, expressing her complete comfort
with Epstein's presence around her children, all of whom were minors at the
time.
Several women have accused Jeffrey
Epstein of forcing them into providing sexual services at his private
properties. Virginia Giuffre, in her statement, mentioned being lured from a
job at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club to work as a "masseuse" for
Epstein.
Post a commentThe recently unsealed court documents
are from a 2015 lawsuit by Giuffre which was settled in 2017, but the Miami
Herald took legal action to access sealed papers, including witness interviews,
shedding further light on the case.
GUK
THE EPSTEIN ASSOCIATES AREN’T ACCUSED OF COMMITTING
ANY CRIMES. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THEY DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG
The
morals we hold as a society are laid hideously bare in this latest trove of
unsealed documents
By Lucia Osborne-Crowley Sat 6 Jan
2024 03.00 EST
As
newly unsealed documents linked to a case against the convicted
sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell reveal names of high-profile associates of
Jeffrey Epstein, many are quick to reiterate that their place on the
long-awaited list does not mean they have done anything illegal. This is
absolutely true – and as a court correspondent, it is incredibly important to
stress the legal implications, or more accurately lack thereof, of this new
information.
With
the exception of allegations made under oath by Johanna Sjoberg against Prince Andrew that, if proven,
would amount to criminal conduct, most of those named on the list are not
accused of any legal wrongdoing. But that doesn’t mean we should not ask
questions about the moral, rather than strictly legal, implications of their
conduct. I mean this in two senses – both the personal moral implications for
those named and the morals we hold as a society, which are laid hideously bare
in these documents.
I
have been working on a book about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the culmination of my investigative
reporting on the case, for almost four years. The thing that shocks me even
more than the graphic details I’ve learned from survivors that have never been
made public is that this sex trafficking ring was known about and enabled by
such an enormous group of people for perhaps as long as four decades. The
number of people who saw or interacted with the victims I’ve spoken to – people
who were famous, wealthy, headline-grabbing or otherwise – and did not ask
questions about why they were there, is staggering.
The
headline, for me, of the most recent tranche of documents is an email in which
the Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre alleges that former president Bill
Clinton “walked into [Vanity Fair] and threatened them not to write sex
trafficking articles about his good friend,” referring, Guiffre
says, to Jeffrey Epstein. This is an allegation that has not been
proved. But that doesn’t mean it is not worthy of further inquiry – and the
same is true for so many other allegations in the Epstein files.
The
question here is not just criminal conduct in terms of actually sex trafficking
and/or sexually abusing children. If that were really our base societal moral
standard, we should be taking a long hard look at ourselves. The more pertinent
question, particularly when the number of Epstein associates is so staggeringly
high, is about knowledge of criminal conduct, which should breach our moral, if
not necessarily legal, standards. If Giuffre’s allegation is true, it goes some
way to proving that the former president knew, at the very least, that there
were allegations of sex trafficking circulating about his “good friend”.
If
a person – particularly a person who has been elected as a role model – has
knowledge of such serious allegations, they should be expected to investigate
them further, rather than shutting them down. Similarly, the supermarket
billionaire Ron Burkle appeared overnight on a list
of potential witnesses for the defamation case, with a court document –
therefore, one that a legal practitioner must swear is a true and accurate
representation of their knowledge – stating that he “has knowledge of Ghislaine
Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual trafficking conduct”.
Again,
this does not prove he had knowledge of crimes being committed – it states that
Guiffre’s lawyers had reason to believe he had
knowledge of conduct relevant to the sex trafficking allegations. We don’t know
what that conduct was, but the lawyers apparently thought evidence about it
could help prove sex trafficking.
Also
on this witness list were Clinton’s former adviser Doug Band, who, the document
states, “may have knowledge of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual
trafficking and interaction with minors”. The list also includes Eva and Glenn Dubin, Prince Andrew, the US politician Gwendolyn Beck, the
lawyer Alan Dershowitz, the former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and the
fashion magnate Leslie Wexner.
For
each witness, a version of the phrasing “has knowledge of” or “may have
knowledge of” sex trafficking conduct is used. We should be determined to find
out what each of these people did in fact witness – and whether they could have
intervened to protect Epstein’s victims, but chose not to. I know of many other
names of people who allegedly either participated in the abuse or witnessed the
presence of underage girls in Epstein’s various homes or planes – names I’ve
been told I cannot report because of the easily abused defamation laws in
England and Wales, set to be reformed through upcoming anti-Slapp legislation – who should also be asked
to explain, on the record, how much they knew.
This
speaks to the important difference between the role of journalism and the legal
system. Having worked as a practitioner in both, I feel strongly that the role
of the press right now is both to clarify the law and to ask hard questions
about actions – or omissions – that may not be illegal but about which we
should still, as the fourth estate, be asking hard questions. A failure to
intervene when you suspect or close your mind to the possibility of the
continuing commission of crimes as serious as the abuse of children may not be
illegal, but if we wish to continue pushing for a world that delivers some
degree of justice for abuse survivors, then it should certainly be considered
gravely immoral.
In
some cases, the law itself backs up this theory. The US concept of “conscious avoidance” –
which the jury were instructed about at length as I sat in the press gallery
during Maxwell’s federal sex trafficking trial, and which means ignoring signs
that may raise questions about illegal activity – can, under some pieces of
legislation (including some sex trafficking legislation) be legally equivalent
to actual knowledge of a crime.
We
are witnessing, this week, the unveiling of the true extent of perhaps the
biggest and most powerful sex trafficking conspiracy in modern history. The
number of people who knew, or decided not to know, about its existence, was
critical to its success and impunity – which lasted for decades and is
continuing. If we are to truly start to change the way the justice system and
our culture views sexual offences, we must not put the bar so low as to only
include the perpetrators. We must hold the enablers to account – whether they
broke the law or not.
·
Lucia
Osborne-Crowley is a journalist and author of The Lasting Harm, a work of
investigative reporting about the Epstein case
CBS
WHERE IS JEFFREY EPSTEIN'S ISLAND — AND WHAT
REPORTEDLY HAPPENED ON LITTLE ST. JAMES?
By Caitlin O'Kane Updated on: January 5, 2024 / 3:20 PM
EST / CBS News
Court documents unsealed this
week revealed dozens of people with a wide variety of
connections to Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
The names in the documents include accusers of Epstein, staff members and
business associates, many of whom gave depositions about Epstein, who over many
years allegedly exploited underage girls for sex at his homes in Manhattan;
Palm Beach, Florida; and his private island near St. Thomas. Being named in the court
documents is not an indication of wrongdoing.
Where is Epstein's island?
Called Little St. James,
Epstein's 72-acre island included several villas and is about 2 miles off the
coast of St. Thomas, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. Epstein
had stakes in businesses in the U.S. Virgin Islands,
including Hyperion Air.
A boat with the letters LSJ was
used to ferry staff members and supplies to Little St. James, a harbor employee told CBS News in 2020.
While Epstein made donations to
U.S. Virgin Islands government officials and schools, some said he still did
not have the best reputation in the area.
U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney
General Denise George told CBS News in 2020 that she did not "think
he was regarded as an upstanding member of the community."
"It was public knowledge that
he was a registered sex offender," she said.
What allegedly happened on the
island?
In 2019, Epstein died in a New York prison after being charged by
federal prosecutors of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex
trafficking with underage girls. He had pleaded not guilty and his death in
prison before facing trial was ruled a suicide.
George became attorney general
after Epstein's death and her office sued his estate, ultimately garnering a $105 million settlement on behalf of the U.S. Virgin
Islands.
George said the island was a place
for Epstein to hide his criminal activity and when asked in 2020 why she was
pursuing a lawsuit after his death, she answered: "Why not now?"
"I cannot speak to what
happened in the past," she said. "What I do know is that because of
Epstein's wealth and power he was able to conceal a lot of this."
Epstein would fly into St. Thomas
on a private jet, which "helps with the concealment," George said.
From there, he would use two helicopters from Hyperion Air "to transport
young women and underage girls between St. Thomas and Little St. James,"
according to George's lawsuit.
What did witnesses say about
Little St. James?
Some air traffic controllers and
other airport personnel reported seeing Epstein with girls who appeared they
might be preteen, according to the complaint.
When he was alive, authorities
were stopped at the dock and told they could not enter the private property,
George said.
"Remember, he owns a whole
island," she said. "So it wasn't a situation
where a child or a young woman would be able to just break away and run down
the street to the nearest police station." Island, owned by fund manager
Jeffrey Epstein, in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, on Wednesday, July 10,
2019. This is where Epstein - convicted of sex crimes a decade ago in Florida
and now charged in New York with trafficking girls as young as 14 - repaired,
his escape from the toil of cultivating the rich and powerful.
One 15-year-old alleged victim,
however, tried to escape Little St. James by swimming, according to the
lawsuit.
An alleged victim who spoke to CBS News on the condition of
anonymity said Epstein brought her St. Thomas and raped her in his office
there. "He also trapped me in his bedroom on the island where he had a gun
strapped to his bedpost. I couldn't leave. The only means of getting off the
island was either helicopter or boat."
What was revealed about Epstein's
alleged crimes?
Before he faced sex trafficking
charges in 2019, Epstein cut a deal with prosecutors in 2008 after pleading
guilty to two state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor in
Florida.
Under the non-prosecution
agreement, Epstein pleaded guilty to lesser state charges and served 13 months
in jail – spending most of that time on work release – and paid settlements to
victims. He also had to register as a sex offender.
News of the deal reached the U.S. Virgin islands, and charter boat Captain Jim Query told CBS
News in 2020 there was talk that Epstein had "gotten some crazy sweetheart
deal."
"We were always just told it
was a super short sentence and maybe some time of house arrest," Query
said. "I never knew if that was true on the island – but that there was
basically little to no penalty."
Some people have even referred to Little St. James as "Pedophile
Island."
The documents released this week do not contain an actual
list of Epstein associates, just names of people connected to the case in some
way. However, the flight logs of Epstein's private jet, called "Lolita
Express," and other documents have been made public in the past. The plane was often
used to fly to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Many of those who had ties to
Epstein have denied any misconduct or involvement in his activities.
What happened to Epstein's island?
In May, Forbes first reported billionaire Stephen Deckoff bought Little St. James and neighboring 160-acre
Great St. James, both formerly owned by Epstein, for $60 million. Multiple
villas, pools and a helipad sit on the islands.
Deckoff, founder of private equity firm Black Diamond Capital Management, plans to develop a "state-of-the-art, five-star, world-class luxury 25-room resort" on the islands to open in 2025, according to a news release about the acquisition.
See
Also...
Watchdog says corrections
staff's "serious failures" enabled Epstein suicide
Financier Jeffrey Epstein was found in his cell in 2019
after dying by suicide.
THE HILL
MARK EPSTEIN CRITICIZES INVESTIGATION OF HIS BROTHER’S
DEATH
By
Miranda Nazzaro Wed, January 10,
2024 at 2:39 PM EST·4 min read
Mark Epstein, the brother of disgraced
financier Jeffrey Epstein, in a Tuesday interview criticized the investigation
into the 2019 death in prison of his brother, which was ruled a suicide.
Asked about his calls for a
further investigation on NewsNation’s “On Balance
with Leland Vittert,” Epstein suggested the initial
investigation was lacking.
“Well, first of all, you’re saying
‘that investigation.’ It doesn’t seem to have been much of an investigation at
all. That’s the real question,” he said.
“Because things like the EMT and
the medical personnel at the hospital, none of them have ever been questioned,”
Epstein continued. “And they have found that to be odd, because they’re always
questioned, especially in high-profile cases.”
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group,
which also owns The Hill.
Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in
his jail cell in 2019 while being held ahead of his trial on sex-trafficking
charges. The New York City Medical Examiner ruled Epstein died from a suicide
by hanging.
In the interview, Mark Epstein took
aim at Bill Barr, arguing the then-attorney general said his brother’s death
was a suicide after a pathologist said Jeffrey Epstein’s death showed signs of
a homicide rather than a suicide.
“Now supposedly, when [the initial
death certificate] says ‘pending further investigation,’ it takes weeks to come
up with a determination but yet a few days later, Attorney General Barr says
it’s suicide and it wasn’t really his position to do that,” Mark Epstein said.
Barr’s law firm did not
immediately respond to request for comment on Mark Epstein’s remarks.
In the months that followed
Jeffrey Epstein’s death, Barr acknowledged he held initial suspicions about the
death, but eventually placed the blame on a “perfect storm of screw-ups,”
including several irregularities at the facility where Epstein was being held.
The irregularities included
alleged negligence from the two officers charged with watching Epstein, chronic
staffing shortages and outbreaks of violence at the federal bureau of Prisons,
The Associated Press reported.
Epstein was put on suicide watch weeks before his death after he was discovered
on his cell floor with bruises on his neck. He was taken off the heightened
watch about a week prior to his death, but was still checked every 30 minutes,
the news service added.
“I can
understand people who immediately, whose minds went to sort of the worst-case
scenario because it was a perfect storm of screw-ups,” Barr told the AP in
November, 2019.
Barr’s
remarks were an attempt to quash swirling conspiracy theories that Epstein did
not take his own life — theories that continue to abound on social media.
At the time,
Barr emphasized he watched the security footage himself and confirmed no one
entered the area where Epstein was being held on the night of his death.
Pressed by Vittert on whether he believes Jeffrey Epstein’s death was
the result of “screw-ups” at the facility, Mark Epstein said: “No I don’t. Yes,
there were screw-ups but that doesn’t mean that my brother…committed suicide
because of screw-ups.”
Mark Epstein
claimed his brother “had dirt on people,” and suggested foul play could’ve
played a role. He later argued Barr appeared to be covering up details
surrounding his brother’s death.
No evidence
suggesting such a cover-up has publicly surfaced.
A series of
documents related to a legal defamation settlement reached by Ghislaine
Maxwell, Epstein’s former associate and girlfriend, and Virginia Roberts
Giuffre, one of his alleged victims, has been released over the last week,
shining a public spotlight on the scandal.
Epstein died
amid an investigation into a sex ring he allegedly ran in which young women and
girls were paid for sex acts with Esptein and other
men. Giuffre said she was a victim of abuse.
Despite
speculation the documents would include a once-secret list of Epstein’s rich
“clients” or “co-conspirators,” the first batch of documents mostly consisted
of already public material, the AP reported.
A second
batch of about 19 documents was unsealed last Thursday. The documents included
mostly legal discussion and deposition over a previously settled civil suit
against Maxwell.
Maxwell was sentenced
to 20 years for sex trafficking in 2022 and remains in prison.
BUSINESS INSIDER VIA YAHOO NEWS
JEFFREY EPSTEIN'S BROTHER SAID THE PEDOPHILE WAS 'JUST
HAVING A GOOD TIME' WHEN CONFRONTED BY THE FINANCIER'S SEX TRAFFICKING
ALLEGATIONS
By Matthew Loh Updated Fri,
January 12, 2024 at 12:14 AM EST
Mark
Epstein said on Tuesday that his late brother was "just having a good
time."
·
He was on
News Nation's "On Balance," calling for an investigation into
his brother's death.
·
But
when asked about the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein, he said he didn't
want to speculate.
Mark Epstein, the brother of late financier
Jeffrey Epstein, said the pedophile was "just having a good time"
when asked about the wave of sex trafficking
allegations against the latter.
"It doesn't make sense to
me," Epstein said on News Nation's "On
Balance" on Tuesday. Host Leland Vittert
had asked him if he was surprised by the allegations against his brother.
Epstein's interview with Vittert focused on his call to have the financier's death
investigated further. Authorities ruled that Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in
2019 while in prison, a conclusion that Mark Epstein has
repeatedly questioned and criticized.
But when Vittert
asked Mark Epstein to discuss the abuse and trafficking allegations against
Jeffrey Epstein, the financier's brother demurred.
"He was just having a good
time. Jeffrey liked to have a
good time," Epstein told Leland Vittert of News Nation's "On
Balance". "Unfortunately,
he chose a-"
"There's, hold on," Vittert interrupted. "There's a, there's a big
difference though between having..."
"I wasn't there,"
Epstein re-interrupted. "So if you're asking me
to speculate, I really don't want to speculate because I wasn't there."
Mark Epstein has said that he
believes that his brother was murdered, a conspiracy theory that up to 45% of Americans
believed on the year of Jeffrey Epstein's death, according to a SurveyMonkey
Audience poll by Business Insider.
With Jeffrey Epstein dead, public
scrutiny fell on Ghislaine
Maxwell, his sex trafficking partner who recruited underage
girls for the financier and sexually abused them herself. She was sentenced to
20 years in prison in June 2022 but is appealing her conviction.
The full breadth of allegations
against Jeffrey Epstein once again entered the spotlight in early January when
several tranches of unredacted court documents revealed the
names of more than 200 people associated with the
financier.
Some were victims who filed
lawsuits against Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell or were members of his house
staff. Others were powerful or famous figures, like Michael Jackson and David
Copperfield, who knew the pedophile personally.
Notably, having their names
revealed didn't necessarily indicate
wrongdoing from any of them.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Who
Are the Newly Revealed Jeffrey Epstein Associates?
By
Chas Danner, Benjamin Hart, and Matt Stieb
Thanks
to court filings and news reports, the list of prominent people who were
associates of Jeffrey Epstein continues to grow. For many, their ties to the
notorious sex trafficker and longtime high-society hobnobber
were not previously known. We’ve also learned about deeper ties between Epstein
and some boldface names with whom he has already been associated, including how
frequently Epstein met with his high-flying pals.
In
2019, New York published an exhaustive list of all of Epstein’s alleged
high-society contacts, according to public documents available at the time.
Below, a look at the new names and details revealed in the more recent reports
and court documents, how those associates have been linked to Epstein, and
additional developments in this ongoing saga.
A
new trove of highly anticipated court documents continue
to be released
On
December 18, 2023, federal judge Loretta Preska ruled
that sealed documents from Virginia Giuffre’s settled 2015 defamation lawsuit
against Ghislaine Maxwell would be released as early as January 1, 2024.
Forty-five documents were ultimately released on the evening of January 3,
which you can read here. (None of the documents directly implicates any of the
Epstein associates named except for Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence
for her role in Epstein’s trafficking scheme.) Between the flight logs,
Epstein’s black book, and all the reporting on his society connections, most of
the names in the unsealed documents are already known — a reason Judge Preska cited when she ruled to release the documents. More
will be released in the coming days as attorneys of those named review the
information.
Below
are some details from the documents that appear to be new to the public.
Fifth
and final round of documents released on January 9
Seven
more court documents from Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Maxwell were
released on January 9 — the final document release of the much-anticipated
cycle. These last few documents are much longer than the previously unsealed
files, some 1,500 pages including the 2016 deposition of Ghislaine Maxwell, the
2016 deposition of Jeffrey Epstein, and the 2016 deposition of Virginia
Giuffre.
Under
oath, Giuffre claimed that she was forced to have sex with “Prince Andrew for
one” as well as another prince who “did speak [a] foreign tongue” and “spoke
English well.” Giuffre also claimed she was paid $15,000 to have sex with
Prince Andrew. (In 2022, Prince Andrew settled a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by
Giuffre; under the terms, he was not required to admit guilt.) Later, Giuffre
is asked: “What prominent American politicians other than the ones we’ve
already named were you trafficked to?” She answered Bill Richardson and a name
that is redacted. (A spokesperson for Richardson, who died last year, denied any
wrongdoing.)
Fourth
round of documents released on January 8
Seventeen
more court documents from Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Maxwell were
released on January 8. They include a salacious claim from a woman named Sarah
Ransome, who said that her friend had sex with Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and
Richard Branson while working for Epstein and that she had video of some of the
encounters. Emails from Ransome to a New York Post reporter in 2016 even claim
to know Donald Trump’s sexual proclivities. Ransome later emailed the reporter,
saying she wanted to “retract everything I have said to you and walk away from
this.” In 2019, Ransome also told The New Yorker she never actually had any
video.
The
documents also include what appear to be new pictures of alleged victims on Little St. James island.
Third
round of documents released on January 5
Seventy-three
more court documents from Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Maxwell were
released on January 5. They include a partial transcript of Maxwell’s July 2016
deposition, in which she was frequently advised by her attorney not to answer
questions regarding Epstein — including one about her being aware of Epstein’s
allegedly having sex with a 13-year-old.
The
documents include a telling email exchange in which Maxwell informed Epstein of
Gawker’s publication of his little black book of contacts in 2015. “Should not
be legal,” Epstein emailed back. They also contain a deposition from his former
house manager Juan Alessi, who claimed Prince Andrew spent “weeks” at Epstein’s
Palm Beach mansion, during which he had “daily massages.”
“A
massage was like a treat for everybody,” Alessi said.
The
docs also include a memo from 2004 informing Epstein that Harvey Weinstein had
called him. (“At the time, Epstein was seen as a wealthy power broker with
access to many people of various industries and for many reasons,” Weinstein’s
spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, told the Associated
Press.)
Second
round of documents released January 4
Nineteen
more court documents from Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Maxwell were
released on January 4. Most of the information in the release has already been
made public in some capacity — including one eye-popping but unsubstantiated
allegation about Bill Clinton. In an email exchange with reporter Sharon
Churcher from 2011, Giuffre claimed the former president had once “walked into”
the office of Vanity Fair and “threatened them not to write sex-trafficing articiles about his
good friend J.E.” The claim — which first appeared as an unverified tip on
Gawker in 2007 — has never been verified. Soon after the documents were made
public, a representative for former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter told the
Telegraph that “this categorically did not happen.”
There
are some misleading celebrity name-drops in the
unsealed documents
Vulture’s
Zoe Guy explains:
In
one deposition, alleged victim Johanna Sjoberg is examined by attorney Laura
Menninger, who asked Sjoberg about press reports saying she met Cate Blanchett
and Leonardo DiCaprio. Sjoberg affirms that she never met either Blanchett or
DiCaprio, only that Epstein name-dropped and claimed to be taking calls from
the two A-list actors in front of her. “He would be on the phone a lot at that
time, and one time he said, ‘Oh, that was Leonardo,’ or, ‘That was Cate
Blanchett,’ or Bruce Willis,” she told the attorney, according to documents
reviewed by Vulture. Sjoberg added that she did not meet Cameron Diaz or Naomi
Campbell, either.
New
details regarding Bill Clinton and Donald Trump
Several
new details came from a 2016 deposition by Johanna Sjoberg, an alleged Epstein
victim who claimed to have been trafficked by him between 2001 and 2006.
Sjoberg was asked in her deposition if Epstein had ever mentioned Bill Clinton.
“He
said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls,” Sjoberg said
under oath. (She noted that she never met the former president.) In another
document, Maxwell claimed Clinton had never been to Epstein’s
island.
Sjoberg
also claimed she was once on a private plane with Epstein when it made an
unexpected stop in Atlantic City. “Great, we’ll call Trump,” she said,
paraphrasing Epstein. (Both Trump and Clinton have denied any wrongdoing in the
years in which they associated with Epstein.)
Epstein
told his brother he knew things about Trump and Hillary Clinton that could have
upended the 2016 election
On
the day the court documents were unsealed, Mark Epstein, the younger brother of
the late financier, told the New York Post that his brother once told him he
knew damning details about both Hillary Clinton and Trump. “Here’s a direct
quote: ‘If I said what I know about both candidates, they’d have to cancel the
election,’” Mark Epstein said, paraphrasing his brother. Mark also told the
Post that he believed there was a conspiracy involved in his brother’s death.
“It seems like a cover-up,” he said. “Why can’t I find his pre-hospital care
report and why can’t I get the 911 call?”
Mark
Epstein later told NewsNation that his brother “was
just having a good time.”
David
Copperfield and Michael Jackson allegedly hung out with Epstein
Sjoberg
also provided two new Epstein associates in her deposition: David Copperfield
and Michael Jackson. She claimed she met Jackson at Epstein’s Palm Beach
mansion. On another occasion at one of Epstein’s homes, she met Copperfield,
who she said “did some magic tricks.” Sjoberg claimed Copperfield “questioned
me if I was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls.” Sjoberg,
who was in college, recalled seeing a younger girl at dinner with Copperfield
and thought she appeared to be of high-school age but she wasn’t certain: “I
had to assume for my own sanity that she was a daughter of one of his friends.”
Epstein
allegedly tried to cover his tracks — and cover for Stephen Hawking
In
an email from January 2015, Epstein told Maxwell he would “issue a reward to
any of Virginia [Giuffre’s] friends” willing to “come forward and help prove
her allegations are false.” In the same email, Epstein wrote, “The strongest is
the clinton dinner, and the new version in the Virgin
Islands that stven hawking partica-ted
in an underage orgy.” (Hawking, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, was
photographed on Epstein’s Little St. James island in
2006, the year Epstein was first charged.)
Epstein
and Maxwell were in contact until at least 2015
While
Epstein’s madam once claimed she had little contact with him after his
sweetheart prison deal ended in 2009, emails between the two show an exchange
as late as 2015. “You have done nothing wrong,” Epstein wrote Maxwell in
January of that year. “I would urge you to start acting like it. Go outside,
head high, not as an escaping convict. Go to parties. Deal with it.” Earlier
that month, Epstein sent Maxwell the email asking her to find sources to
counter Virginia Giuffre’s claims.
Epstein’s
former butler claims Maxwell threatened him to stay quiet
In
a deposition from 2009, former Epstein housekeeper Alfredo Rodriguez said that
Ghislaine Maxwell threatened him to keep quiet about Epstein’s alleged sex
trafficking. “She said something like don’t open your mouth or something like
that,” he said. “I’m 55 and I’m afraid. First of all, I don’t have a job, but
I’m glad this is on tape because I don’t want nothing to happen to me.”
Rodriguez
also stated in the deposition that he was supposed to carry cash “at all times”
to hand over to girls at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion. He died in 2015 after
being sentenced to 18 months in prison for attempting to sell Epstein’s little
black book — the same sentence length Epstein was given for his crimes.
New
details on known Epstein associates like Prince Andrew and Jean-Luc Brunel
The
documents include new allegations regarding several contacts already known to
have had associations with Epstein:
An
unnamed victim, Jane Doe No. 3, alleges she was forced to have sex with Prince
Andrew on three separate occasions when she was a minor, including in an orgy
with numerous other underage girls on Epstein’s island.
The
same victim alleges Epstein forced her to have sex with Alan Dershowitz on
several occasions when she was a minor, including once on Epstein’s plane.
Johanna
Sjoberg testified that she once heard Epstein talking about celebrity
hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai over the phone. “Can we
find some girls for him?” she claims Epstein said.
Other
known Epstein associates named in the documents include billionaire Thomas
Pritzker, billionaire Les Wexner, billionaire Glenn Dubin,
and accused rapist and model scout Jean Luc-Brunel.
Buckingham
Palace declined to comment to the Daily Beast on Prince Andrew’s behalf. When
the documents were released, Dershowitz — who helped negotiate Epstein’s cushy
prison deal — went on Fox News to deny the allegations.
The
court documents do not include Epstein’s ‘client list’
Some
social media posts have have claimed that the newly
released documents contain the names from Jeffrey Epstein’s client list, but
those claims are false.
All
the Newly Revealed Epstein Associates
Reporting
from multiple outlets continues to uncover boldfaced names who hadn’t initially
been connected to Epstein, but who came into contact with him over the years.
In
the spring of 2023, the Wall Street Journal discovered multiple new names after
it obtained a previously unreported trove of documents, including thousands of
emails and Epstein’s private schedules dating from 2013 to 2017. (The New York
Times obtained Epstein’s scheduling documents through a public-records request
to the U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general.) The documents all pertain to the
time period after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting and procuring a
minor for prostitution in Florida, and at least some of the period was after
Epstein was publicly accused of sex trafficking by victim Virginia Giuffre in
2015.
The
schedules include details of numerous meetings Epstein planned and with whom —
but the Journal noted at the time that it could not verify whether all of the
meetings actually occurred. Many of the meetings took place at Epstein’s Upper
East Side townhouse, one of the locations where he is alleged to have sexually
abused women and girls.
Below,
a running list of those names:
Vera
Wang
According
to the Wall Street Journal, the designer was one of the people listed on
Epstein’s schedules after 2008, and some victims who the Journal spoke with
said that Epstein had used Wang’s name while leading the victims to believe he
would help them with their fashion careers. Per the Journal, “Wang said she
regrets ever associating with Epstein. ‘I never knew he was using my name in
any capacity, and it horrifies and repulses me to now hear that he did so,’ she
said.”
Naomi
Campbell
The
Wall Street Journal also reports that the model’s name was in Epstein’s
schedules after 2008, and that one of Epstein’s accusers went with him to a
Campbell event in Paris:
The
Ukrainian model said she attended a 2010 fashion event for Naomi Campbell in
Paris when Epstein spotted her and sent a Russian woman to talk to her. The
woman described Epstein to her as a wealthy philanthropist who was a friend of
Campbell and could help her modeling career. “She seemed very upper-class,” the
Ukrainian said of the Russian woman. “I saw her standing next to the
celebrities in the VIP crowd.” Campbell “had no idea Epstein was using her name
to attract young girls interested in modeling, and as he did with many others,
he overstated their acquaintanceship,” said a spokeswoman for the model. “She
deeply regrets having had any contact with Epstein after his conviction.”
Thorbjørn Jagland,
former Norwegian prime minister
The
Wall Street Journal reports that one of Epstein’s accusers said he had shown
her emails he had exchanged with Jagland, explaining that he wanted her to meet
him.
Robert
Kennedy Jr.
Presidential
candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. said in a Fox News interview that he twice flew on
Jeffrey Epstein’s plane, as Intelligencer’s Matt Stieb
explains:
“I
was on it in 1993,” Kennedy said. “And I went to Florida with my wife and two
children to visit my mom over Easter. My wife had some sort of relationship
with Ghislaine Maxwell.” He said the second trip was also with his wife at the
time, Mary Richardson, and his four children to go fossil-hunting in South
Dakota. You know, standard family-trip fare …
Kennedy
claimed that he was on a flight to Palm Beach, Florida, for Easter in 1993. But
Epstein’s flight logs from the early ’90s show that RFK Jr. and family members
flew with Epstein and Maxwell from Teterboro airport to Florida on February 17
and that they flew back on February 27 — almost two months before the Easter
holiday that year. There is also no record in any publicly available Epstein
flight logs of the Kennedy family’s fossil-collecting trip to South Dakota.
Sergey
Brin, Google Co-Founder
According
to a court filing, Epstein advised Brin from 2004 to 2007, including guidance
on how to set up a tax shelter — a tax-saving trust for Brin’s kids called a
grantor-retained annuity trust, or GRAT — with bankers at JPMorgan Chase. Brin
had become a client of the bank in 2004 following a referral from Epstein and
subsequently held more than $4 billion in accounts there. The Wall Street
Journal notes that Epstein helped billionaire and Apollo Global Management
co-founder Leon Black set up a similar tax shelter. Epstein’s relationship with
Brin came to light in an August 2023 court filing by the U.S. Virgin Islands in
its civil suit against JPMorgan over the bank’s relationship with Epstein.
Cecile
de Jongh, former First Lady of the U.S. Virgin Islands
The
Wall Street Journal reports that according to court filings made by JPMorgan
Chase in response to the civil suit brought against the bank by the U.S. Virgin
Islands, Cecile de Jongh allegedly began working for Epstein starting in 2000
and continued working for him when her husband, John de Jongh, was serving as
governor of the U.S. territory (from 2007 to 2015). The court filings also
allege Cecile de Jongh helped arrange visas for some of Epstein’s victims. Per
the Journal’s report:
De
Jongh helped get visas for several alleged victims of Epstein, JPMorgan said in
court filings. She connected one woman to a local immigration lawyer and worked
to get others student visas by arranging special classes for them at the
University of the Virgin Islands, the bank said. De Jongh helped arrange and
enroll Epstein victims in an English as a second language, or ESL, course at
the university, according to emails she sent to university staff and Epstein.
“They
are structuring the class around the ladies. Please let me know so that they
know what to do or not to do,” de Jongh wrote to Epstein in June 2013,
according to the court filings.
Ehud
Barak, former Israeli prime minister
According
to the documents, the longtime Israeli politician was a regular guest of
Epstein’s at his Upper East Side townhouse in the years from 2013 to 2017,
meeting with the financier monthly for large stretches of that time. He also
flew on Epstein’s jet. Reached by the Journal, Barak acknowledged that he met
with Epstein when visiting New York City and that Epstein “often brought other
interesting persons, from art or culture, law or science, finance, diplomacy or
philanthropy.” He said he never met Epstein “with girls or minors, or even
adult women in improper context or behavior,”
Bill
Gates
The
connection between Epstein and Gates has been well known for years, but in late
May, the Journal published a revelatory new story on their relationship. The
paper reported that Gates had an affair with a bridge player named Mila
Antonova in the early 2010s and that Epstein attempted to leverage his
knowledge of the situation against the Microsoft co-founder.
By
Antonova’s account, Gates, an avid bridge player, had met her at a tournament
in 2010 while Gates was still married to his now ex-wife, Melinda. Antonova later
sought money to fund a start-up that would help people learn the game online.
Boris Nikolic, a friend and then–scientific adviser to Gates, introduced
Antonova to Epstein in 2013. Epstein didn’t agree to fund the venture but did
pay for Antonova to go to software-coding school.
Then,
in 2017, well after the Gates-Antonova relationship had ended, Epstein
reportedly emailed Gates requesting that he reimburse him for the cost of the
schooling. That message came shortly after Gates rebuffed Epstein’s efforts to
get a major charitable fund with JPMorgan Chase off the ground. From the
Journal:
The
implication behind the message, according to people who have viewed it, was
that Epstein could reveal the affair if Gates didn’t keep up an association
between the two men.
But
Gates reportedly never paid Epstein.
“I
had no idea that he was a criminal or had any ulterior motive,” Antonova told the
Journal of Epstein. “I just thought he was a successful businessman and wanted
to help.” She said, “I am disgusted with Epstein and what he did.” And Nikolic
said, “I deeply regret that I ever met Epstein. His crimes were despicable. I
never saw anything like his illegal behavior. My heart goes out to his victims
and their families.”
Leon
Botstein, president of Bard College
Epstein
had roughly two dozen meetings scheduled with Botstein over the four years
covered in the documents, mostly at his townhouse. Regarding his relationship
with Epstein, Botstein told the Journal he was only interested in Epstein’s
money: “I was an unsuccessful fundraiser and actually the object of a little
bit of sadism on his part in dangling philanthropic support.”
Botstein
said he first met with Epstein in 2012 to thank him for making unsolicited
donations to the college’s high schools, then he continued meeting with him to
try to secure more. Epstein donated 66 laptops to Bard in 2015, according to
the documents, and Botstein twice invited Epstein to musical performances at
the college, but the longtime Bard president said he ultimately concluded that
Epstein wasn’t interested in making more donations and “he was simply stringing
us along.”
A
follow-up report from the Journal found that Botstein accepted $150,000 in
checks from an account linked to Epstein in 2016. Botstein claims that money
was then donated to Bard, which was confirmed by the school. A spokesperson for
Botstein added that the money was for his yearlong role on an advisory board
for Gratitude America, Epstein’s charity.
That
Epstein was a convicted sex offender who had admitted to procuring a child for prostitution
didn’t dissuade Botstein and Bard from seeking his
financial support. “We looked him up, and he was a convicted felon for a sex
crime,” Botstein told the Journal, but “we believe in rehabilitation.” He said
they kept his criminal history in mind when Epstein visited the school:
“Because of his previous record, we had security ready. He did not have any
free access to anybody.” According to the plans in the documents, Epstein
brought some of his young female assistants on his trips to Bard.
William
Burns, CIA director
The
documents indicate that Epstein had three scheduled meetings in 2014 with
Burns, who was at that point the deputy secretary of State in the Obama
administration. They met both in Washington, D.C., and New York, per the
Journal:
A
lunch was planned that August at the office of law firm Steptoe & Johnson
in Washington. Epstein scheduled two evening appointments that September with
Mr. Burns at his townhouse, the documents show. After one of the scheduled
meetings, Epstein planned for his driver to take Mr. Burns to the airport.
The
longtime diplomat left the State Department in October of that year and became
president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he remained
until President Biden nominated Burns to run the CIA in 2021.
CIA
spokesperson Tammy Kupperman Thorp released a
statement to the Journal denying Burns had any kind of relationship with
Epstein: “The director did not know anything about him, other than that he was
introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general
advice on transition to the private sector,” she said. “They had no
relationship.”
Noam
Chomsky
According
to the documents, Epstein arranged several meetings with Chomsky in 2015 and
2016, when he was teaching at MIT, where Epstein had donated hundreds of
thousands of dollars. The scheduled meetings included a gatherings
of academics as well as a flight with Epstein aboard his private jet to
New York to have a dinner at his townhouse with film director Woody Allen and
his wife, Soon-Yi Previn.
When
the Journal asked Chomsky about the meetings, the 94-year-old replied in an
email that his “first response is that it is none of your business. Or
anyone’s. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally.” Chomsky said he
and Epstein discussed politics and academics, and “if there was a flight, which
I doubt, it would have been from Boston to New York, 30 minutes. I’m unaware of
the principle that requires that I inform you about an evening spent with a
great artist.”
“What
was known about Jeffrey Epstein was that he had been convicted of a crime and
had served his sentence,” Chomsky told the Journal. “According to U.S. laws and
norms, that yields a clean slate.” He also said Epstein arranged for him to
meet Barak so they could talk about “Israel’s policies with regard to
Palestinian issues and the international arena.”
A
follow-up report from the Journal showed that Chomsky received a transfer of
around $270,000 from an account linked to Epstein in March 2018. “My late wife
died 15 years ago after a long illness. We paid no attention to financial
issues,” Chomsky explained by email. “We asked Epstein for advice. The simplest
way seemed to be to transfer funds from one account in my name to another, by
way of his office.”
Terje Rød-Larsen, noted ex-diplomat
Rød-Larsen may not be a household
name, but he’s a big deal in diplomatic circles, having helped put together the
landmark Oslo Accords in the early 1990s. Per the Journal, he was such a
fixture at Epstein’s New York townhouse between 2013 and 2017 that the staff
knew to have cucumbers ready for his gin. He also received a personal loan from
Epstein as well as a donation to his nonprofit.
Rød-Larsen stepped down from that
nonprofit when his ties to Epstein were initially revealed in 2020. He gave no
additional comment to the Journal.
Joshua
Cooper Ramo, a FedEx board member
The
Journal reports that Epstein scheduled more than a dozen meetings over the four
years with Ramo, who was at that point a co-CEO of
Henry Kissinger’s consulting company. Ramo also
served on the board of Starbucks and still serves on the board of FedEx. Most
of the meetings were scheduled in the evening at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.
Epstein also invited him to a 2013 breakfast at the townhouse that Barak
attended.
Ramo didn’t respond to the Journal’s
requests to comment on the meetings.
Ariane
de Rothschild, chairwoman of Edmond de Rothschild Group
In
2019, the private Swiss bank Edmond de Rothschild Group falsely claimed it and
its chairwoman, Ariane de Rothschild, had no ties to Epstein. According to the
documents reviewed by the Journal:
Mrs.
de Rothschild, who married into the famous banking family, had more than a
dozen meetings with Epstein. He sought her help with staffing and furnishings
as well as discussed business deals with her, according to the documents. In
September 2013, Epstein asked Mrs. de Rothschild in an email for help finding a
new assistant, “female … multilingual, organized.”
“I’ll
ask around,” Mrs. de Rothschild emailed back.
She
bought nearly $1 million worth of auction items on Epstein’s behalf in 2014 and
2015, the documents show. Mrs. de Rothschild was named chairwoman of the bank
in January 2015. That October, she and Epstein negotiated a $25 million
contract for Epstein’s Southern Trust Co. to provide “risk analysis and the
application and use of certain algorithms” for the bank[.]
In
a response to the Journal, the bank admitted that its 2019 statement was
inaccurate and said that de Rothschild had business-related meetings with
Epstein from 2013 to 2019, that he had introduced the bank to U.S. finance
leaders, provided tax and risk consulting, and had recommended law firms. The
bank also said that Epstein “solicited her personally on a couple occasions for
advice and services on estate management” and that she “was similarly unaware
of any questions regarding his personal conduct” at the time.
Kathryn
Ruemmler, Goldman Sachs general counsel
The
documents reveal that Epstein scheduled more than three dozen meetings with Ruemmler, starting in 2014, after she left the White House
counsel’s office and joined the private sector as a partner at the law firm
Latham & Watkins. Epstein also scheduled her to fly with him to Paris in
2015 and to his now-notorious island estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, he
looked at apartments she was interested in, and he discussed with his staff
whether the young women working at his Manhattan townhouse would make Ruemmler uncomfortable. According to emails obtained by NBC
News, Epstein also referred her as a client to JPMorgan Chase in 2019, just
months before his final arrest. “Jeffrey just thought that Kathy is one of the
most powerful women in Washington and thought you two would bond,” Epstein’s
assistant wrote to a JPMC staffer.
In
2020, Ruemmler took a job as a top lawyer at the
Goldman Sachs Group, where she co-chairs the firm’s reputational-risk advisory
committee. A Goldman spokesperson told the Journal that Ruemmler’s
relationship with Epstein was professional and related to her work at Latham
& Watkins:
In
the normal course, Epstein also invited her to meetings and social gatherings,
introduced her to other business contacts and made referrals. It was the same
kinds of contacts and engagements she had with other contacts and clients.
The
spokesperson also said that Ruemmler never noticed
anything untoward at his townhouse, that she never flew anywhere with him, that
she never visited his island, and that her comment was “I regret ever knowing
Jeffrey Epstein.”
Lawrence
Summers
Ties
between Epstein and the ex–Treasury secretary and Harvard president were
already well known. But the Journal provides more detail about their
connection. Though Harvard stopped accepting donations from Epstein after his
2008 conviction, Summers continued to meet with him frequently.
The
paper uncovered an email Summers sent to Epstein in 2014, in which he asked the
financier’s advice on how to raise money for a nonprofit poetry initiative
spearheaded by his wife, Harvard professor Elisa New. “I need small scale
philanthropy advice. My life will be better if i
raise $1m for Lisa,” Summers wrote. “Mostly it will go to make it a pbs series
and for teacher training. Ideas?” Epstein and Summers made plans for dinner
near Summers’s Massachusett home two days later, and
in 2016, an Epstein-linked nonprofit gave $110,000 to New’s
project.
In
a statement to the Journal, Summers and New said that Summers “deeply regrets
being in contact with Epstein after his conviction,” New “regrets accepting
funding from Epstein,” and that New’s nonprofit had
made a donation “exceeding the amount received” from Epstein to an anti-sex
trafficking group.
Peter
Thiel
The
New York Times reports that according to Epstein’s scheduling records, Epstein
had several meetings with the PayPal co-founder in 2014:
The
records — in the form of emails that Mr. Epstein’s assistant sent to remind him
of upcoming events — show that in September 2014 Mr. Thiel was scheduled to
meet with Mr. Epstein on at least three occasions, either in one-on-one
meetings or with others over lunch or dinner. Two other times, Mr. Thiel was
listed among more than a dozen other well-known people Mr. Epstein should try
to see while at his New York mansion. It’s unclear from the records whether all
the meetings with Mr. Thiel took place. Some were listed as tentative or “TBD”
— for “to be determined.”
The
Wall Street Journal reports that Epstein also scheduled meetings between Thiel,
himself, and Russian ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin. “I was
rather naïve,” Thiel said of the 2016 meeting. “I didn’t think enough about
what Epstein’s agenda might have been.”
Tom
Barrack
Close
Trump ally and private-equity manager Tom Barrack was friends with Epstein and
the former president back when they were close in South Florida in the 1980s.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Epstein tried to revive the connection in
2016 after Trump cinched the Republican nomination. In August of that year,
Epstein schedule a lunch with Barrack, who was an informal adviser to the Trump
campaign at the time. Barrack was also invited to Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse
in September 2016 with Russian ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin
and Woody Allen.
Leon
Black
The
private-equity giant’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was made public years
ago, eventually leading to his departure from his position as chairman of the
Museum of Modern Art. But Leon Black is still facing scrutiny for his
connections to Epstein. On July 25, the Senate Finance Committee announced it
would investigate the Apollo Global Management co-founder’s dealings with
Epstein. The probe will look into the $158 million that Black paid Epstein over
the years for tax and estate-planning advice — a nine-figure sum to a man who
did not graduate college. Four days earlier, on July 21, Black also agreed to
pay $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands in a settlement that would clear
him from any allegations made during the territory’s investigation into
Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking ring on Little St. James.
Black
could also be back in civil court for his Epstein connections. On July 26, an
anonymous woman with Down syndrome and autism sued Black in New York for
allegedly raping her when she was 16. The alleged assault took place in 2002 at
Epstein’s Manhattan mansion — after which Epstein refused to take her to see a
doctor, leaving her in the care of Ghislaine Maxwell. Black’s lawyer has called
the allegations “frivolous and sanctionable.”
One
of the dealings Black had with Epstein, the New York Times reports, was when,
in 2016, Epstein helped Black avoid taxes when Black sold a $25 million Alberto
Giacometti sculpture and used the proceeds to buy $30 million Cezanne painting.
Jes Staley
Staley,
too, has been a well-known associate of Epstein for years. But the banker’s
connections to Epstein have faced a new level of inspection over the past year.
Staley, who resigned from Barclays in 2021 for his association with the sex
criminal, had a close connection with Epstein. “I deeply appreciate our
friendship,” Staley wrote to him in 2009 when he was working at JPMorgan Chase.
“I have few so profound.” Emails obtained by the Daily Beast show that Epstein
helped connect him to his high-society associates, including Prince Andrew,
Bill Gates, former New York Fed board member Lee Bollinger, and Dubai
businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.
JPMorgan
Chase
The
largest bank in the world by market capitalization has been in trouble for
years for its connections to Epstein. But over the past year, JPMorgan Chase
has had to answer about how many people knew of their dealings with the alleged
sex trafficker due to the U.S. Virgin Islands lawsuit alleging the bank helped
enable Epstein’s operation. The most recent detail came out in late August when
USVI prosecutors claimed that JPMorgan processed over $1 billion for Epstein
during his 16 years as a client.
The
territory has sued the bank for $190 million in damages. In oral arguments on
September 12, a lawyer for the U.S. Virgin Islands claimed that, in 2019, the
bank had had informed the government of their business together dating back to
2003, reporting it “suspicious activity.”
“Epstein’s
entire business with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s entire business with Jeffrey
Epstein was human trafficking,” attorney Mimi Liu stated. “The only reason that
JPMorgan finally after 16 years reported the billion dollars in suspicious
transactions for Jeffrey Epstein is because he was arrested, and then he was
dead.” JPMorgan Chase has denied any liability and stated that its business was
a “mistake.”
A
little less than a month ahead of the trial scheduled for October 23, JPMorgan
Chase settled with the U.S. Virgin Islands’s Attorney
General’s Office. The bank agreed to pay $75 million with $20 million of that
going to charities, $20 million to lawyers’ fees, and $10 million to a victims’
mental-health fund. JPMorgan also reached a confidential settlement with Jes Staley for an undisclosed amount.
As
New York’s Kevin T. Dugan wrote, the settlement marked “the real beginning of
the end into the official inquiries into the cabal of wealthy and powerful
people who helped make — and who benefited mightily from — Epstein’s monstrous
crimes.”
Prince
Andrew
The
royal’s connections to Epstein have been public for years now, but a new
documentary on the king’s younger brother have placed him back in the tabloid
headlines. In the A&E documentary Secrets of Prince Andrew, model Lisa
Phillips claims that she saw Prince Andrew at Little St. James in 2000, where
Epstein allegedly told her friend to have sex with the royal. “It was traumatic
for her and after that, she was not the same,” Phillips said in the doc. “Her
life went completely out of control.”
Royal
biographer Andrew Lownie said in the documentary that
Epstein and Prince Andrew were “real best buddies” and that “there were seven
different numbers for Andrew in Epstein’s little black book.” According to Lownie, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were invited to royal
getaways like Balmoral and Sandringham and to “personal birthday parties at
Windsor.” (Indeed, there is a photo of Epstein and Maxwell at a cabin on the
Balmoral estate.)
“Epstein
and Ghislaine were invited to the heart of the British monarchy,” Lownie said. He added that Epstein allegedly once said:
“There’s only one person who likes sex more than me, and that’s Andrew.”
According
to Buckingham Palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter, Andrew would have had to
seek “permission from the queen” to invite Epstein to private events. “The
queen would believe her children,” Arbiter said.
Epstein’s
Other Contacts
Below,
listed in alphabetical order, are more of Epstein’s associates and contacts —
adapted from the comprehensive list New York compiled and published as a cover
story in 2019.
Allen,
Woody: Director.
Epstein
kept a photo of his friend Allen, the sexual pariah, on his wall and was
photographed walking with him on the Upper East Side. They had more than a
neighborhood in common. For years before his relationship with Mia Farrow,
Allen had carried on with a 16-year-old girl he’d met at Elaine’s named Babi
Christina Engelhardt. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she wondered
if she was the inspiration for Manhattan, Allen’s 1979 movie about a man in his
40s who dates a high-school student, which was nominated for two Academy
Awards. Engelhardt had sex with Allen more than 100 times, she says, sometimes
with Farrow. “The whole thing was a game that was being operated solely by
Woody so we never quite knew where we stood,” she said. Engelhardt went on to
become Epstein’s assistant.
Althorp,
Charles: Princess Diana’s brother.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Andersson-Dubin, Dr. Eva: Doctor and former Miss Sweden.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
Epstein’s
ex-girlfriend and her husband, billionaire hedge-funder Glenn Dubin, had Epstein over for Thanksgiving dinner in 2009,
telling his probation officer they were “100 percent comfortable” with his
being around their teenage daughter, Insider reported. She also created a
foundation so Epstein could donate to her breast-cancer charity without
attaching his name. “The Dubins are horrified by the
new allegations against Jeffrey Epstein,” they said in a statement. “Had they
been aware of the vile and unspeakable conduct described in these new
allegations, they would have cut off all ties and certainly never have allowed
their children to be in his presence.”
Assaf,
Vittorio: Restaurateur.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Started
the Upper East Side institution Serafina.
Band,
Doug: Influence peddler.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
A
onetime White House intern who climbed his way to being Bill Clinton’s bag
carrier, body man, fixer, and all-purpose gatekeeper, Band arranged for the
former president to travel to Africa on Epstein’s 727 in 2002. Band would go on
to help his boss found the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005, a choice platform
from which he launched his own lucrative favor-trading corporate-advisory firm,
Teneo. Throughout that time, he took a number of
trips on Epstein’s plane and attended parties at his townhouse. Band resigned
from his position at CGI in 2012; leaked emails later showed Band and Chelsea
Clinton trading accusations of conflicts of interest in a war of influence over
her parents. More recently, Band’s been teaching a “Public Service” class at
NYU.
Balazs, André: Celebrity hotelier.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Baldwin,
Alec: Actor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Denies
knowing Epstein, though he appears in the black book. Recently, Baldwin invited
Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who resurfaced the Epstein story, to
do a podcast.
Bannon,
Steve: Former White House chief strategist.
In
August 2018, the New York Post reported that Bannon had been seen entering
Epstein’s townhouse. Neither Bannon nor Epstein has commented on the substance
of their meeting, but when Ivanka Trump condemned Roy Moore’s campaign in
Alabama, saying, “There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on
children,” Bannon, who backed Moore, responded, “What about the allegations
about her dad and that 13-year-old?” It was a clear reference to the woman who
had accused Donald Trump and Epstein of raping her when she was 13.
Barr,
Donald: The headmaster who offered entrée.
Barr
was ousted shortly before Epstein, 21 and without a college degree, showed up
for his first day of work teaching math and physics at the Manhattan’s elite
Dalton School in the early 1970s. Barr announced his resignation soon after, in
February 1974: “He was disliked by the faculty, he was highly controversial, he
hadn’t raised much money, he was very conservative,” said the board’s chairman.
Barr’s leadership style was described as “authoritarian” and “undemocratic” at
the time. Memorably, several former students told the New York Times that
Epstein was overly familiar with teenage girls at the school. Donald’s son
William would intersect with Epstein’s orbit while serving as a counsel at
Kirkland and Ellis in 2009. The law firm secured Epstein his obscenely lenient
2007 non-prosecution deal, which the Justice Department is now reviewing. In
July, Barr the son refused to recuse himself from the ongoing Epstein
investigation.
Berger,
Sandy: National-security adviser for Bill Clinton.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
Berggruen,
Nicolas: Billionaire investor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Berkman,
Bill: New York businessman.
Names
found in Epstein’s black book.
A
wealthy executive whose family established the Berkman Klein Center for
Internet & Society at Harvard, Berkman was sued in 2014 by his
administrative assistant, who said she was forced to read emails Berkman had
sent to a colleague containing “pictures of random and unsuspecting women on
the street” — that is, creepshots. (The suit was settled.)
Birley,
Robin: Nightclub impresario.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Owned
the club where Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had their first date.
Bismarck,
Debonnaire von: Countess.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Listed
as Debbie in the black book.
Bismarck,
Leopold von: Count.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Yes,
those von Bismarcks. His nickname, Bola, was listed
in the black book.
Bismarck,
Vanessa von: Heiress and publishing entrepreneur.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Black,
Conrad: Media mogul.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
He’s
perhaps best known for being sentenced to 42 months in prison for fraud, then
writing a book about Trump and receiving a pardon. Vicky Ward, who profiled
Epstein for Vanity Fair in 2003, said Epstein heavily leaned on Black, who is
her ex-husband’s uncle (and was her ex-husband’s then-boss), to try to exert
his influence on Ward.
Black,
Roy: An Epstein lawyer.
The
trial attorney and legal analyst’s client roster has included Justin Bieber,
Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, and Rush Limbaugh. Black is perhaps best
known for representing William Kennedy Smith against rape charges in Palm Beach
in 1991. (The Kennedy nephew was acquitted.) In 2005, Black played the
“managing partner” on NBC’s The Law Firm, a knockoff of The Apprentice for
up-and-coming lawyers.
Blaine,
David: Magician.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Blaine
put on a private show for Epstein’s dinner guests in 2003, doing card tricks
for the likes of Sergey Brin, Mort Zuckerman, and Bill Clinton aide Doug Band.
The dinner was organized by Ghislaine Maxwell and included a group of young
women who were introduced as Victoria’s Secret models.
Blair,
Tony: Former British prime minister.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Bloomberg,
Michael: Billionaire, private-jet enthusiast, former mayor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Bolkiah,
Hassanal: Sultan of Brunei.
Epstein
had at least one meeting with the sultan when he traveled to Brunei in 2002
with Bill Clinton. Bolkiah and his brother are famous for their lavish
spending, including a collection of 2,500 cars and a $1.5 billion palace.
Bolkiah was once sued by Miss USA 1997, who claimed she had been held as a sex
slave. The suit was dismissed on the grounds that Bolkiah had sovereign
immunity.
Bond,
Annabelle: British socialite.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Bonomi,
Andrea: Italian businessman.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
chairman and founder of Investindustrial was a key
character in the Paradise Papers international tax-shelter scandal.
Borrico, Michael: Long Island contractor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Described
by Social Life magazine as the “ambassador of the all-important Hamptons polo
culture,” Borrico is known for hosting polo matches
at his estate in Water Mill.
Bourke,
Frederic: A founder of Dooney & Bourke.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Bourke
went to prison for a scheme to bribe government officials in Azerbaijan.
Bowles,
Hamish: European editor-at-large for Vogue.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Brandolini, Muriel:
Interior designer.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Her
clients have included Matt Lauer and the Crown Prince and Princess of Greece.
Branson,
Richard: Founder of Virgin Group.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Like
Epstein, Branson enjoys entertaining on a private island.
Briatore, Flavio:
Italian millionaire businessman.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
A
friend of Trump, a convicted card cheat, and an accused Formula 1 race fixer, Briatore was a longtime fugitive in the Virgin Islands.
Brockman,
John: Agent for scientific “freethinkers.”
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
What
seems new, in flipping through the reams of society photos of perhaps the
world’s most prolific sexual predator that have been circulating over the past
few weeks, is not the powerful and the beautiful who surrounded Epstein, but
the intellectuals — the Richard Dawkinses, the Daniel
Dennetts, the Steven Pinkers.
All men, of course. But the group selfies probably shouldn’t have been a
surprise — documents of an age in which every millionaire doesn’t just fancy
himself a philosopher-king but expects to be treated as such, and every public
intellectual wants to be seen as a kind of celebrity.
Cultural
shifts like these require visionaries, networkers, salespeople. Brockman is
one. A Warhol Factory kid turned freelance philosopher of science turned
literary agent to Dawkins and Dennett and Pinker (and many others), in the
1980s he formed a casual salon of like-minded scientists and futurists that
came to be known as the Reality Club, a knock against the poststructuralism
then dominant in the academy. In the 1990s, he rebranded it as the Edge
Foundation, an organization whose central event was an annual online symposium
devoted to a single, broad question. In 2000, it was “What is today’s most
important underreported story?” In 2006, “What is your dangerous idea?”
Epstein
was a regular contributor, and his plane — to judge from the photographs, at
least — was an especially appealing way for other contributors to get to ted.
They could also catch Epstein at Harvard, where so many of them taught and
where he became so prolific a donor that one whole academic program seemed to
be run like his private Renaissance ateliers. Epstein had long described
himself as a “scientific philanthropist,” and in a press release put out by the
Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation announcing its “substantial backing” of Edge, he
called it “the world’s smartest think tank.”
Many
in Brockman’s Edge community are, or were, inarguably significant figures in
the American intellectual Establishment: Freeman Dyson, Jared Diamond, Craig
Venter, John Horgan, Paul Bloom (to name a random but representative sample).
They are also among the gods and heroes of the Trump-era internet community of
“freethinkers,” whom Eric Weinstein, the venture capitalist and regular Edge contributor,
memorably called “the intellectual dark web.” The name suggests a
self-glamorizing style of dangerous discourse, and as soon as the community was
identified, it was criticized as revanchist, an effort to reopen areas of
intellectual inquiry — about innate differences between the races, say, or the
genders — now considered problematic, at a minimum. But to listen to the IDW
warriors themselves — talking about the “war on free speech” as though their
universities had sent assassins their way rather than tenured chairs — their
crusade seems motivated just as much by a thin-skinned sense of their own
world-historical significance. They were special people, deserving of special
acclaim and, of course, special privileges.
Many
contributions to Edge were plausibly the products of genuinely special minds.
Epstein’s were not. In 2008, the year he went to jail for prostitution, the
prompt was “What have you changed your mind about?” Epstein replied, “The
question presupposes a well defined ‘you’ and an implied
ability that is under ‘your’ control to change your ‘mind.’ The ‘you’ I now
believe is distributed amongst others (family friends, in hierarchal
structures), i.e. suicide bombers, believe their
sacrifice is for the other parts of their ‘you.’ The question carries with it
an intention that I believe is out of one’s control. My mind changed as a
result of its interaction with its environment. Why? Because it is a part of
it.”
“Jeffrey
has the mind of a physicist,” the Harvard professor Martin Nowak has said,
incredibly. But what he really did have was the life of a very rich person —
unable to see any world he felt unqualified to enter and surrounded by too many
people enamored with his money to ever hear the word no. —David Wallace-Wells
Bronfman
Jr., Edgar: Executive.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
former Warner Music Group CEO, son of the late Seagram’s CEO Edgar Bronfman
Sr., is related to the NXIVM-sex-cult Bronfmans. His
son has a child with pop star M.I.A.
Brunel,
Jean-Luc: Model scout.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Brunel
was accused in court testimony of having used his agency to supply Epstein with
girls. (He was not charged.) He also has a long history of allegations that he
had abused his fashion-world position. In 1988, he was the subject of a 60
Minutes investigation alleging that he and a fellow agent sexually assaulted
nearly two dozen models. He denied the claims but later told Model author
Michael Gross, “You get laid tonight with a model, is that a crime?” In 2005,
Brunel co-founded the Mc2 modeling agency; Epstein invested $1 million,
according to a 2010 deposition.
Buck,
Joan Juliet: Fashion editor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
In
2003, Buck met Maxwell at a fashion party at a New York City boutique. Buck had
recently moved on from her seven-year tenure as the editor of Paris Vogue and
was writing for its American counterpart and living in New Mexico. She was a
lifelong resident of a rarefied social world. Maxwell, a regular on that
particular circuit, quickly made a connection. “Oh, Jeffrey’s got a ranch in
Santa Fe, blah blah blah,” Buck recently remembered their conversation going.
She gave Maxwell her Santa Fe number and later asked a friend about Epstein and
New Mexico. “His ranch?” the friend replied. “As we say in Texas, all hat, no
cattle.”
Burkle, Ron: Supermarket magnate.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Burkle took what were described as
humanitarian trips to Africa with Bill Clinton on Epstein’s private Boeing 727.
According to a 2008 Vanity Fair feature about the former president, “Burkle’s usual means of transport is the custom-converted
Boeing 757 that Clinton calls ‘Ron Air’ and that Burkle’s
own circle of young aides privately refer to as ‘Air Fuck One.’ ”
Bushnell,
Candace: Columnist who inspired Sex and the City.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Busson, Arpad: French financier.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
During
a custody battle with ex Uma Thurman, her lawyer asked Busson,
a prominent hedge-funder, if he had ever said he was “addicted to prostitutes.”
(He said no.)
Calacanis,
Jason: Businessman.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
An
investor in Uber, Calacanis was a fixture in the early-aughts New York tech
scene as the founder and editor of Silicon Alley Reporter. (“I can’t tell you
how many propositions I get, it’s absolutely insane,” he told the Observer in
2000.) In 2014, Vice awarded him Most Offensive Tweet of the Year for
describing as racist the idea of white privilege.
Caledon,
Nicky: Earl.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Campbell,
Naomi: Supermodel.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Candy,
Nicholas and Christian: British property-developer brothers.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Carter,
Graydon: Former editor of Vanity Fair.
According
to journalist Vicky Ward, he killed portions of a 2003 story that accused
Epstein of pedophilia after an office visit from Epstein. (Carter says there
wasn’t enough on-the-record sourcing.) “I didn’t invent the system. I just
lived by the system,” he said when The New York Times Magazine questioned him
about the story last week.
Cecil,
Aurelia: PR chairman.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Allegedly
the former girlfriend of Prince Andrew.
Cecil,
Mark: Hedge-funder.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Has
hosted Prince William and Kate Middleton at his villa in Mustique.
Chatwal,
Vikram: Hotelier.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
When
the 1990s playboy settled down, Bill Clinton attended his wedding. In 2017,
Chatwal pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation after being accused of trying
to set a pair of dogs on fire on a Soho street.
Cipriani,
Giuseppe: Restaurant magnate.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
scene-y Cipriani Italian spots are known for inventing the Bellini cocktail —
and more infamously for being Harvey Weinstein’s “hunting ground.”
Cisneros,
Gustavo: Venezuelan billionaire.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
patriarch of a family so wealthy it operates practically as its own
nation-state in Latin America.
Clinton,
Bill: President and problem.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
As
soon as the Epstein news broke two weeks ago, the taunting and tallying began,
suffocating in its familiarity. First were the jeering reminders, as if we
didn’t know it in our every molecule: It wasn’t just Donald Trump who’d be
ensnared in this stygian nightmare of underage sexual assault and trafficking
of girls, it was Bill Clinton, who’d been a friend and repeat flier on
Epstein’s plane. Then came the numbers, the attempts to quantify the nature of
the Clinton-Epstein relationship. Clinton issued a statement toting up four
plane trips, one Epstein meeting in Clinton’s Harlem office, one visit to
Epstein’s home, and zero trips to his island. Meanwhile, reporters recalled
that Gawker’s published flight logs had tallied 12 separate plane legs and that
Epstein had more than 20 numbers and email addresses for Clinton and one signed
photo of him in his home, along with one of Woody Allen and one of Mohammed bin
Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
All
of this was presented as if these numbers could clarify some exact science of
guilt or complicity. The reality is: Yes, Clinton was grimy and had grimy
friends, and, more broadly, this is how powerful men have behaved toward women
and one another. Yes, we know it’s dirty and mean and exhausting and true.
We
know, of course, because the shadow of Clinton’s sexual history and his
associations with other men who have terrible legacies of sexually
inappropriate-to-criminal behavior have for decades hung like a greasy and unscrubbable film over the Democratic Party he once led.
Clinton palled around not just with Epstein but with Charlie Rose and Harvey
Weinstein and Trump himself.
They
hung out together and flew together and went to each other’s offices and
visited each other’s homes and appeared on each other’s TV shows and had each
other’s phone numbers and attended each other’s weddings and created a circle
of money and protection. The prosecutorial and defensive math — the haggling
over flights and phone numbers — is just used to complicate this basic reality.
Those
on the left have been going over how we’re supposed to feel about him for
decades, but in the arguing about it, we have been asked to focus again and
again on Clinton and his dick and what he did or didn’t do with it. The
questions we’ve asked ourselves and one another have become defining.
Are
we morally compromised in our defense of him or sexually uptight in our
condemnation? Are we shills for having not believed he should have resigned, or
doing the bidding of a vindictive right wing if we say that, in retrospect, he
probably should have?
Meanwhile,
how much energy and time have been spent circling round this man and how we’ve
felt about him, when in fact his behaviors were symptomatic of far broader and
more damaging assumptions about men, power, and access to — as Trump has so
memorably voiced it — pussies?
After
all, Clinton was elected president during a period that may turn out to be an
aberration, just as the kinds of dominating, sexually aggressive behaviors that
had been norms for his West Wing predecessors had become officially unacceptable,
and 24 years before those behaviors would again become a presidential norm. So
yes, Clinton got in trouble, yet still managed to sail out of office beloved by
many, his reputation as the Big Dog mostly only enhanced by revelations of his
exploits.
But
the election of Trump over Clinton’s wife, and the broad conversation around
sexual assault and harassment that has erupted in its wake, has recast his
behavior more profoundly. The buffoonery, the smallness and tantrums of Trump,
has helped make clear what always should have been: that the out-of-control
behavior toward women by powerful men, the lack of self-control or amount of
self-regard that undergirded their reckless treatment of women, spoke not of
virility or authority but of their immaturity. And the people who have paid the
biggest price for these men’s fixation on sex as a measure of manhood have, of
course, not been the men themselves.
In
Clinton’s case, it has been Monica Lewinsky, whose life and name became defined
by her relationship to him. It has been his wife, Hillary, who, in addition to
having been celebrated and pilloried for her defense of her husband, also had
to conduct one of her three historic presidential debates with women who’d
accused him of sexual misconduct sitting in the audience, invited there by her
opponent as props to unsettle and disempower her. It has been decades of left
feminist women who have had Clinton’s misdeeds thrown in our faces as proof of
our own hypocrisy.
I
try sometimes to imagine a contemporary Democratic Party without Bill Clinton
in its recent past — yes, of course, from a policy perspective, but also simply
from a personal one. What if so much energy had not
been eaten up by his colleagues, by his wife, by feminists, by his supporters
and friends and critics, all of whom had to dance around him, explain their
associations with him, or carefully lay out their objections to him without
coming off as frigid reactionaries?
What
else might we have done with our politics had we not been worrying about Clinton
and his grubby buddies? What further power have they taken from us? —Rebecca Traister
Clinton,
Chelsea: First Daughter.
Ghislaine
Maxwell attended her wedding after Epstein had first been charged. This was
shortly after she skipped a deposition for the Epstein case, claiming she
needed to return to the U.K. to be with her deathly ill mother.
Coleridge,
Nicholas: Chairman of Condé Nast Britain.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Collins,
Phil: Musician.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Copperfield,
David: Magician.
According
to a message-pad entry dated January 27, 2005, at 3:55 p.m., Copperfield rang
Epstein’s line while he was out. The handwritten entry reads, “Magic David
called.”
Couric,
Katie: Journalist.
Among
those who attended a dinner at Epstein’s townhouse for Prince Andrew in 2010.
Cosby,
Bill: Comedian, convicted rapist.
Lived
across the street from Epstein in Manhattan.
d’Arenberg, Prince
Pierre: Royal.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Americans
often imagine aristocrats floating on a cloud of above-it-all wealth, but even
real-life princes, this one descended from a German royal family that long ago
united with the most influential and wealthiest family of the Hapsburg
Netherlands, could get something out of a relationship with a font of new
American money like Epstein.
de
Broglie, Louis Albert: Political scion, founder of luxury garden brand.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
de
Carvalho-heineken, Charlene: Heiress.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
de
Crussol, Jacques: 17th Duke of Uzès.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Cuomo,
Andrew: Governor of New York.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Dahl,
Sophie: Former model, granddaughter of Roald Dahl.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Dershowitz,
Alan: Lawyer who stands accused.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
For
around a decade, Dershowitz kept casual company with Epstein, who introduced
him to his friends, like Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew.
(Dershowitz
says he and the prince ended up not getting along because they disagreed about
Israel.) Dershowitz visited Epstein’s mansions in New York and Palm Beach and
occasionally accompanied him on his private plane. He says these trips were
family oriented. Once, Epstein lent him the Palm Beach home so he could attend
a granddaughter’s soccer tournament. Another time, he and his nephew flew down
to watch a space launch with another Epstein connection, a top NASA official.
He and his wife, Carolyn Cohen, once stayed with Epstein on his island in the
Caribbean, where they were joined by another Harvard professor and his family.
When
Epstein first started to attract media attention in the early aughts, mainly
because of his friendship with former president Bill Clinton, Dershowitz served
as a character witness for the reclusive financier.
He
told Vanity Fair that he shared manuscripts of his books with Epstein before they
were published and swore that his money was irrelevant. “I would be as
interested in him as a friend if we had hamburgers on the boardwalk in Coney
Island and talked about his ideas,” he told the magazine.
But
Dershowitz says their interactions changed in 2005, when Epstein faced a local
police investigation into his relations with underage girls in Palm Beach and
he hired Dershowitz as a lawyer. With his assistance, Epstein was able to
whittle down the state’s indictment against him to a single count of soliciting
prostitution. But in the years to come, as Epstein’s legal problems compounded,
they would eventually ensnare Dershowitz himself. He is also accused of having
sex with two of Epstein’s alleged victims. “The stories are so phantasmological,” Dershowitz says. He recognizes that the
#MeToo movement has surfaced countless accounts of preposterous-sounding sexual
misbehavior by powerful men and almost all of them have turned out to be true.
But Dershowitz swears he is different. “Mine is the only case, singular, the
only one, where I never met the people,” he says. “There’s no evidence we’ve
ever met, no evidence we were ever in the same place at the same time, ever.”
Today,
Dershowitz claims he and Epstein were never really even friends, despite their
proximity. “He was an acquaintance,” he says. “In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t
taken the case, but I didn’t see a problem with taking the case. We didn’t have
a close personal relationship.” —Andrew Rice
Dickinson,
Janice: Model, actress, TV personality.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Diniz, Pedro: Agroforester,
businessman, former Formula 1 racing driver.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Driver,
Minnie: Actress.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Dunbar-Johnson,
Stephen: President, international, of the New York Times Company.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Dunne,
Griffin: Director.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Joan
Didion’s nephew and a Martin Scorsese leading man.
Edelman,
Gerald: Nobel Prize winner.
Edelman
received funding from the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation. “Jeff is extraordinary
in his ability to pick up on quantitative relations,” he told New York in 2002.
“He came to see us recently. He is concerned with this basic question: Is it
true that the brain is not a computer? He is very quick.”
Ellenbogen, Eric:
Former CEO of Marvel Enterprises.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Estrada,
Christina: Model.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Ex-wife
of the late Walid Juffali, billionaire chairman of
the largest privately owned enterprise in Saudi Arabia.
Fekkai, Frédéric: Celebrity hairstylist.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Fekkai’s expensive
salons are up and down the Upper East Side and in Palm Beach, and he’s known
for butter blondes, layered bobs, and participating in the polishing up of
Hillary Clinton. Epstein’s assistants were given house accounts for blowouts,
waxing, nails, highlights, the works.
Ferguson,
Sarah: Duchess of York.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Epstein
loaned Prince Andrew’s then-wife $18,000 to pay off some debts. “I personally,
on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any
way with me,” Ferguson told the Telegraph in 2011. “I abhor paedophilia.”
Fiennes,
Ralph: Actor, producer, director.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Fisher,
Paula Heil: Opera producer.
Epstein’s
former girlfriend met him through Bear Stearns, where she was once an
associate.
Forbes,
Steve: Chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Ford,
Tom: Designer.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Gell-Mann,
Murray: Physicist.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
In
1969, Gell-Mann won the Nobel Prize. In 2003, he told Vanity Fair, “ ‘There
are always pretty ladies around’ when he goes to dinner chez Epstein.”
Getty,
Mark: Co-founder and chairman of Getty Images.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Ginsberg,
Gary: Communications pooh-bah.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Once
a lawyer in the Clinton White House, Ginsberg joined George, then News Corp.,
then Time Warner. He has also done pro bono speechwriting for Benjamin
Netanyahu and now works for SoftBank, a Japanese investment company with close
ties to the Saudi government.
Gladwell,
Malcolm: Writer.
“I
was invited to the TED conference in maybe 2000 (I can’t remember), and they
promised to buy me a plane ticket to California,” Gladwell says now. “Then at
the last minute they said, ‘We found you a ride on a private plane instead.’ As
I recall, there were maybe two dozen TED conferencegoers onboard. I don’t
remember much else, except being slightly baffled as to who this Epstein guy
was and why we were all on his plane.”
Goldsmith,
Gerald: Rothschild North America.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Greenberg,
Ace: Bear Stearns chairman, Epstein’s first patron.
Jeffrey
Epstein didn’t have any formal training when he started working at Bear Stearns
in 1976, but that wouldn’t have mattered to then-CEO Alan “Ace” Greenberg, who
famously hired “PSD degrees,” short for “poor, smart, with a deep desire to be
rich.” As it happened, Epstein was all three. He came from a modest Coney
Island background, had no college degree, and worked a job — as a math teacher
at Dalton and a tutor to Greenberg’s son — that was unlikely to support his
tastes, which were apparently of the private islands–and–gilded
desk–purportedly–belonging–to–J. P.
Morgan variety. At Bear Stearns, Epstein made a name for himself in the
“special-products division,” essentially figuring out how to help the rich pay
less taxes. “He would recommend certain tax-advantageous transactions,”
Greenberg’s protégé, James “Jimmy” Cayne,
told New York in 2002. Cayne, who succeeded Greenberg
in 1993, seems to have become the closer party to Epstein, whose mysterious
departure from the firm he publicly defended decades after Epstein’s departure.
“Jeffrey said specifically, ‘I don’t want to work for anybody else. I want to
work for myself,’ ” Cayne
insisted, despite transcripts from an SEC deposition that suggest other
concerns around them both. It’s easier to imagine Cayne,
a cigar-chomping, archetypal fat cat who was infamously off playing bridge when
Bear Stearns collapsed in 2008, as a member of Epstein’s inner circle than his
mentor, a folksy, bow-tie-wearing soul who referred to his successor as
“crude,” “full of himself,” and “warped” in a memoir published shortly before
his death. At the very least, it seems Cayne and
Epstein were both capable of, ah, massaging the truth. —Jessica Pressler
Guest,
Cornelia: Socialite.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
She
was dubbed “debutante of the decade” in 1986.
Gutfreund,
John: CEO of Salomon Brothers.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Hamilton,
George: Actor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
overtanned C-lister that Hollywood turns to when
casting any vaguely and/or mysteriously aristocratic cameo role.
Handler,
Chelsea: Comedian.
Attended
a dinner at Epstein’s townhouse for Prince Andrew in 2010. “It was just one of
those strange nights,” she later said.
Haskell,
Nikki: Socialite.
Epstein
dated Haskell, one of Donald Trump’s closest friends. “Jeffrey didn’t talk
about his past, although he claimed to have been a concert pianist,” Haskell
told the Daily Mail in 1992. “He told me he was a spy hired by corporations to
find major amounts of money which had been embezzled.”
Hawking,
Stephen: Physicist.
In
2006, the world’s most famous brain visited Little St. James,
Epstein’s private island, which came to be known as “Pedophile Island.”
Hawking, who was in the Caribbean for a conference, was photographed at a
barbecue on the island and aboard a submarine for a tour. According to the
Telegraph, “Epstein is said to have paid for the submarine to be modified for
Professor Hawking, who had never been underwater before.”
Hoffenberg,
Steven: A mentor and a con man.
Before
Bernie Madoff, there was Hoffenberg, who in 1985 pleaded guilty to cheating
investors out of $460 million — at the time, the largest Ponzi scheme ever. He
was sentenced to 20 years in prison and, after his release in 2013, began
sounding the alarm on Epstein, who had worked at Hoffenberg’s Towers Financial
Corporation after leaving Bear Stearns. He claimed that Epstein had been his
co-conspirator in the scheme and that Epstein’s fortune was built on Towers Financial’s fraud. “He was great at moving money
illegally,” Hoffenberg says. “He was the deeper architect to getting things
accomplished.”
Hoffenberg
claims he was introduced to Epstein by Douglas Leese, a mysterious British arms
dealer, and that he paid Epstein $25,000 a month as Towers Financial began
making risky plays to take over companies like Pan American World Airways and
Emery Air Freight. Advisers on the Pan Am deal included Richard Nixon’s
attorney general John Mitchell, Nixon’s brother Edward, and John Lehman, a
former secretary of the Navy. The move fell apart after the Lockerbie bombing,
and when Towers Financial later went belly-up, Hoffenberg says, the two of them
engineered a Ponzi scheme to fill the hole.
“He
has a magnificent personality,” Hoffenberg says. “He’s very easy to interact
with, very social, very easy to bond with, an unusually nice person. And he’s
pretty dynamic on financial savvy. He could move money in different areas to
get the stock prices to go up and down.”
Hoffenberg
still owes his victims some $1 billion in restitution, and in 2016 he sued
Epstein to recover some of the money. (He eventually dropped the suit.) Last
year, two victims brought a suit against Epstein making the same claims as
Hoffenberg but voluntarily dismissed the suit two months later.
“You’re
about to see an entire story about this supposed billionaire and the story
about his financial empire, which is as big as the tragedy with the girls,”
Hoffenberg says. “It’s billions of dollars, and it’s a fiasco.” —James D. Walsh
Hoffman,
Dustin: Actor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Hurley,
Elizabeth: Actress.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Hutton,
Lauren: Model and actress.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Isaacson,
Walter: Former editor of Time.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
onetime journalist is now an emeritus figure in the TED universe thanks to his
role at the Aspen Institute and his widely worshipped biography of Steve Jobs.
Jagger,
Mick: Musician.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Jarecki, Andrew: Filmmaker.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
director of the documentaries Capturing the Friedmans,
about an accused pedophile, and The Jinx, which profiled Robert Durst, the
madman at the center of another New York fortune.
Jarecki, Henry: Billionaire.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Once
a psychiatrist, Henry, Andrew’s father, made his fortune in gold and silver
speculation.
Johnson,
Elizabeth: Heiress.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
Epstein
was a co-trustee on 14 parcels of land the Johnson & Johnson heiress owned
in Dutchess County, New York. He resigned as a
trustee for Johnson’s revocable trust at the end of 1998.
Johnson,
Richard: Gossip journalist for “Page Six.”
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Kellen,
Sarah: An alleged enabler on a staff of them.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
In
a world where most women still work for men, and where their jobs are
overwhelmingly in the “service” or “caring” professions, it should surprise no
one that Epstein’s procurers, schedulers, fixers, and enablers were female.
Four
women — Sarah Kellen, Nadia Marcinkova, Adriana Ross,
and Lesley Groff — were identified in the 2007 Florida case against Epstein as
possible co-conspirators, though none was charged.
History
is full of the self-serving enabling of men by women, ending with the Trump
court but not starting there. Was it money? Probably. The word is that Epstein
paid his “executive assistants” $200,000 a year and let them order takeout from
Le Cirque. When Groff had a baby, Epstein gave her a Mercedes and paid for a
full-time nanny. “There is no way I could lose Lesley to motherhood,” he told
the New York Times in 2005 (for a front-page story on the indispensability of
good help for Wall Street tycoons).
Marcinkova, referred to
in court documents as Epstein’s “sex slave,” hails from the former Yugoslavia;
Ross, a model, is from Poland. Kellen (who has since married a NASCAR driver)
was a scheduler, making sure that Epstein always had a slate full of girls, and
it was she who sometimes walked the girls up the stairs in the Florida mansion
and laid the oils out on the massage table. Marcinkova
would have sex with the girls for Epstein’s viewing pleasure and sometimes all
together. Groff booked travel, and Ross also helped with the calendar. After
the Miami Herald published its investigation in 2018, Epstein wired the
“possible co-conspirators” $250,000 and $100,000, respectively, prosecutors
say, to buy their silence. Since then, none of them have been reached for
comment. —Lisa Miller
Kennedy,
Ethel: Human-rights advocate.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Widow
of Robert Kennedy.
Kennedy,
Ted: Senator.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Epstein
had his home number.
Kent,
Geoffrey: High-end safari entrepreneur.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Kerry,
John: Secretary of State.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
seven numbers listed for Kerry in Epstein’s address book include the direct
line to his presidential campaign.
Khashoggi,
Adnan: Saudi Arabian man of mystery.
To
bolster their argument that private-jet owner Epstein is a massive flight risk,
SDNY prosecutors produced an expired Austrian passport under an alias that
listed Saudi Arabia as Epstein’s primary country of residence. His lawyers
claim the fake ID was for the “personal protection” of “an affluent member of
the Jewish faith” traveling in the Middle East, but it could also point to one
of his more secretive income sources.
According
to his former friend the journalist Jesse Kornbluth, in the mid-1980s Epstein
said he “worked for governments to recover money looted by African dictators”
and occasionally subcontracted to those same autocrats to “help them hide their
stolen money.” A source who spoke with journalist Vicky Ward said one of
Epstein’s clients was the late Saudi arms dealer Khashoggi, a middleman in the
Iran-Contra scandal who helped smuggle cash for the Marcos family out of the
Philippines. In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland for concealing
assets and later faced fraud and racketeering charges in the U.S. (He was later
acquitted.) That year, he sold his 282-foot yacht to the Sultan of Brunei, who
soon flipped it to Donald Trump. —Matt Stieb
Kissinger,
Henry: Secretary of State and national-security adviser.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
One
of the century’s most notorious practitioners of cutthroat realpolitik,
Kissinger served on the Council on Foreign Relations with Epstein.
Kissinger,
Nancy: Philanthropist.
Epstein
and Kissinger served on the Rockefeller University board alongside Nobel
laureate Joseph Goldstein, socialite Brooke Astor, and Texas billionaire Robert
Bass.
Kleman, Leah: Art dealer.
She
told Vanity Fair in 2003 that Epstein lived like a “modern maharaja” and
described his haggling over art prices as “something like a scene out of the
movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.”
Koch,
David: Plutocrat.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Kosslyn, Stephen: Harvard psychologist.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
“He
is amazing,” Kosslyn said of Epstein in a 2002 New
York profile. “Like a honeybee — he talks to all these different people and
cross-pollinates. Just two months ago, I was talking to him about a new
alternative to evolutionary psychology. He got excited and sent me a check.”
Krauss,
Lawrence: Cosmologist.
Epstein
was a major donor to his program at Arizona State University, and Krauss teamed
with the financier to host a conference of Nobel laureates in the U.S. Virgin
Islands in 2012. “Jeffrey has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young
women, but they’re not as young as the ones that were claimed,” he told the
Daily Beast in 2011. “I always judge things on empirical evidence, and he
always has women ages 19 to 23 around him but I’ve never seen anything else. So
as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were
I would believe him over other people. I don’t feel tarnished in any way by my
relationship with Jeffrey. I feel raised by it.” This spring, Krauss retired
amid allegations of his own sexual harassment.
Laybourne,
Geraldine: TV executive.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
Co-founder
of Nickelodeon and, with her husband, Kit, and pal Oprah, the Oxygen network.
Le
Bon, Simon: Singer.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
caricature playboy heartthrob at the front of Duran Duran.
Lefcourt, Gerald:
Epstein’s lawyer.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
A
white-collar defense attorney to the stars, Lefcourt
has also represented Black Panther Huey P. Newton, Sid Vicious, Tracy Morgan,
Russell Crowe, insider trader Michael Milken, and Murder Inc. Records founder
Irv Gotti. —Matt Stieb
Lefkowitz,
Jay: Attorney for Epstein
Lefkowitz
negotiated the terms of Epstein’s negligently lenient plea deal with his former
Kirkland & Ellis colleague Alexander Acosta. Now at Columbia Law, he served
in both Bush administrations, as director of Cabinet affairs for H.W. and
deputy executive secretary to the Domestic Policy Council and special envoy for
human rights in North Korea for W. —Matt Stieb
Love,
Courtney: Singer.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
McMullan,
Patrick: Photographer.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Meister,
Robert: Insurance executive.
Introduced
Epstein to Leslie Wexner after Epstein met and charmed Meister on a plane to
Palm Beach, according to James Patterson’s book Filthy Rich.
Minsky,
Marvin: MIT professor and pioneer of artificial intelligence.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Mitchell,
George: Senate majority leader.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
former senator was appointed the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland by
President Clinton and was an architect of the Good Friday Agreement. He called
Epstein a “friend,” and the address book lists a dozen numbers for him under
the heading “Piper, Rudnick,” the name of the Washington law firm where
Mitchell was a partner.
Monckton,
Rosa: Former CEO of Tiffany & Co. in the U.K.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Epstein’s
“close friend since the early 1980s,” according to the 2003 profile of Epstein
written by Vicky Ward in Vanity Fair: “Monckton recalls Epstein telling her
that her daughter, Domenica, who suffers from Down syndrome, needed the sun,
and that Rosa should feel free to bring her to his house in Palm Beach
anytime.”
Murdoch,
Rupert: Media mogul.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Murdoch
has two numbers — one New York, one California — listed in the address book.
Myhrvold, Nathan:
Businessman.
The
legendary patent troll turned impresario of molecular gastronomy dined at
Epstein’s home.
Pagano,
Joe: Venture capitalist.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
The
chief executive, secretary and treasurer, principal accounting officer, and
principal financial officer of an insecticide-research company, Pagano even
visited Epstein in jail.
Pastrana Arango, Andrés: Former Colombian president.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Filed
in the address book under “ex president of Colu.”
Perelman,
Ronald: Revlon chairman.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
billionaire invited 14 guests, including Epstein, Jimmy Buffett, and DNC
co-chair Don Fowler, to his Palm Beach home for a Bill Clinton fund-raiser in
1995.
Perlman,
Itzhak: Violinist.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Pinker,
Steven: The linguist who became a celebrity optimist.
Pinker
is one of the famous intellectuals most often linked to Epstein, but he says he
flew on Epstein’s private plane only once in 2002 and that he was involuntarily
placed next to him for a picture at Lawrence Krauss’s Origins Project’s annual
conference in 2014: “If I had more wherewithal, I would not have indulged my
friend in sitting with him. Despite what various friends and colleagues all
said about what a genius he was, I found him tedious and distasteful. Even
before I knew about the criminality, I found it irritating to talk to him, all
the more so because the reason he was in the conversation was because he had
given money to these various projects. He likes schmoozing with smart and
intellectual people, but he couldn’t really or had very little interest in
exploring an issue. He’d wisecrack, change subjects, or get bored after a few
seconds. He’s a kibitzer more than a serious intellectual.” Nevertheless,
Pinker supplied some linguistic expertise that his friend Alan Dershowitz used
to defend Epstein during the 2008 trial. —Matt Stieb
Pinto,
Alberto: Interior designer for the gold-leaf life.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Forget
for a moment the mural featuring Epstein in the middle of a prison yard
complete with guards and barbed wire. Let’s also forget the life-size doll
hanging from a chandelier, and the chess set with figures of his staff as
pieces to play with. Let’s instead focus on the very lush Euro-Orientalist
décor of Epstein’s 21,000-square-foot seven-story Beaux-Arts mansion, decorated
by none other than the late great Alberto Pinto, one of the world’s top
prestige interior designers. His clientele included princes, moguls, and
wannabe princes, as captains of industry so frequently are, and Epstein clearly
aspired to that provenance and history. He flew Pinto on his private plane, as
he did other architects and designers (Jean-Michel Gathy,
Ricardo Legorreta, and Peter Marino are also listed
in Epstein’s flight logs), and lived like a modern pasha in rooms lavished with
money that bought custom-tooled gold leather walls (at least they were made to
look like tooled-leather walls) and leopard-print upholstered armchairs in the
dining room that appear to be covered in silk velvet. It was exactly the sort
of project Pinto relished, flexing all the artisanal muscle that a designer of
his stature can exercise when cushioning his client’s home. —Wendy Goodman
Pittman,
Bob: Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, Inc.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Posen,
Felix: Philanthropist
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Former
business partner of Marc Rich (who was famously indicted for tax evasion and
trading with Iran, before being even more famously pardoned by President
Clinton), with whom he paired on deals in the Soviet Union before the fall of
communism.
Pritzker,
Tom: Executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Known
to dine with Epstein in the early aughts.
Radziwill, Carole:
Author and television personality.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
daughter-in-law of Lee Radziwill and a Real Housewife
of New York.
Ranieri,
Lewis: The “father” of mortgage-backed securities.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Another
Epstein dinner partner.
Richardson,
Bill: Former New Mexico governor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Epstein
donated $50,000 to each of his gubernatorial campaigns. A spokeswoman for
Richardson told the Albuquerque Journal that Richardson recalls visiting
Epstein’s New Mexico ranch only once, during his first run for governor in
2002.
Riggio,
Steve: Barnes & Noble CEO.
Photographed
with Epstein at the 1999 Edge Foundation Billionaires’ Dinner, and twice met
him at the TED conference.
Rivers,
Joan: TV host, actress, and comedian.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Rose,
Charlie: Television journalist.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
You
learn things answering phones, and in the spring of 2005, answering Charlie
Rose’s phone at his PBS show, you would learn that his friend Jeffrey Epstein
had some recommendations to make for whom Rose ought to hire as his next
assistant. Written call logs from 2005 and 2006 show Epstein and his own
assistant calling dozens of times, making plans for lunch and tea in Manhattan
or to try to meet up in Paris. Epstein also called with a total of five women’s
names and phone numbers. One woman was described as “world’s most perfect
assistant she used to work for Harvey Weinstein he’s lucky if he can get her.”
Another entry reads, “Jeffrey Epstein wants to talk to you before you call
these two girls.” A fourth woman shows up on the manifests of Epstein’s jet,
including on Bill Clinton’s trip across Africa, and wound up working at the
Clinton Foundation. Two former staffers remember another Epstein referral, a
young woman not mentioned in the logs, who interned at the show. In all, Rose
hired three (“Jeffrey Epstein from time to time
recommended various candidates for open positions at the Charlie Rose Show,”
Rose’s representative said in a statement, but said the ex-host only learned
about Epstein’s alleged abuse years later, when he pleaded guilty in Florida).
When I called one of these women recently, she was stunned to learn she was one
of many women Epstein recommended for the job. “I was being offered up for
abuse,” said the woman, who was 22 at the time she worked for Rose. It helped
her understand not only how her boss Rose — whom in 2017 she would accuse,
along with 34 other adult women, of sexual harassment — had treated her, but
also how the rest of the staff had seen her. And it helped her understand a
grim version of networking among powerful men. —Irin
Carmon
Sacco,
Amy: Nightlife impresario.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
The
undisputed club queen of aughts New York, Sacco ran Lot 61 in Chelsea, which
was famous for using fresh fruit in its drinks, and later Bungalow 8, which
prided itself on discretion, the kind of place where celebrities could behave
badly and not have to worry about appearing in “Page Six.” Sacco was a pioneer
of marrying nightlife with concierge-style indulgences for the very rich: Her
staff would get you whatever you needed: pizza delivery, peanut M&M’s, a
private flight to Miami leaving from Teterboro as soon as you could get there.
Schank, Roger: Chief learning officer at
Trump University.
Visited
Epstein in prison in 2008.
Schumer,
Chuck: New York’s senior senator.
One
of many politicians to receive donations from Epstein over the years. Epstein
gave bipartisanly but not equally: Between 1990 and
2004, he gave more than $139,000 to Democrats and just over $18,000 to
Republicans. Epstein also gave to a handful of politicians in New Mexico, where
he’d purchase the Zorro Ranch from former governor Bruce King and where he was
not required to register as a sex offender. In recent weeks, politicians
including Schumer decided to donate an equal amount to charity.
Shriver,
Maria: Journalist and former First Lady of California.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Two
California numbers are listed in the address book.
Siegal,
Peggy: Elite New York’s glue.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
A
brazen and relentless publicist of the old school, Siegal understands one thing
well: “Bringing people together. Everyone needs to feel that they belong.” At
least a certain kind of accomplished person, no matter, frankly, how they went
about getting there (who was she to judge?). Known for her movie premieres and
other guest-list-driven social events, she bragged that she “ruined the
Hamptons” to Vanity Fair in a profile back in 1996.
Publicity-party
invites are an amoral game, driven by status and FOMO. Like everyone, she
worked with Harvey Weinstein when he was an Oscar machine, the toast of the
town. So you can’t blame Siegal for including someone
who already knew all the boldface power people. In 2008, in the teeth of the
accusations against Epstein, he was spotted by a New York party reporter,
“unshaven, smiling that feline-monkey grin,” at the Siegal-engineered screening
of the HBO film Bernard and Doris at the Time Warner Center. But after prison,
apparently Epstein needed her more than ever: In a Times story on how
Manhattan’s A-list refused to shun him, Siegal in particular was willing to
help him (for free, apparently), “using her gate-keeping powers to usher Mr.
Epstein, a friend, into screenings and events.” In 2010, she threw a dinner
party at his Upper East Side townhouse for Prince Andrew, Katie Couric, George
Stephanopoulos, Charlie Rose, and Woody Allen. She and Epstein might have had
other reasons to get along: Siegal, who has just turned 72, is a self-invention
as well, without a particularly pedigreed background. Also notable is the fact
that, as she told Vanity Fair in 2012, “my favorite way to travel” to Cannes is
“on a friend’s G5 from Teterboro to Nice.” —Carl Swanson
Slater,
Rodney: Secretary of Transportation under Bill Clinton.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
Flight
logs record Slater taking a flight from Ghana to Nigeria in September 2002.
Soros,
Peter: Nephew of George Soros.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Conspiracy
theorists looking through Epstein’s black book will be disappointed that George
Soros never appears — but they can find Peter.
Spacey,
Kevin: Actor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Flew
with Bill Clinton to Africa (and, according to flight logs, the Azores) on
Epstein’s plane.
Spector,
Warren: Bear Stearns executive.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
Stanbury,
Caroline: Socialite.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Went
on to star on Bravo’s Ladies of London.
Starr,
Kenneth: Former United States solicitor general.
Obviously,
lawyers do not guilt for their clients’ crimes. But it’s striking that Kenneth
Starr chose to join Jeffrey Epstein’s defense team in 2007, after his moral
fulminations against Bill Clinton’s sexual perfidy. His obsessive pursuit of
President Clinton made him a folk hero on the right, representing the defense
of traditional sexual virtue and the notion that it was under assault by Bill
Clinton and the liberal elite. His special-prosecutor exploits propelled him to
the presidency of the conservative Baptist Baylor University. During his
tenure, the football program engaged in a horrific pattern of sexual abuse that
led to the dismissal of the football coach and the removal of Starr after an
investigation found “actions by University administrators that directly
discouraged some complainants from reporting or participating in student
conduct processes.”
It
is perhaps coincidental, but Starr has tracked the broader conversion of the religious
right from sexual shaming to sexual shamelessness. In an era when Donald Trump
has exposed the hollowness of so many values conservatives allegedly hold dear,
it is fitting that this Zelig of right-wing sexual hypocrisy has made yet
another cameo. —Jonathan Chait
Stephanopoulos,
George: Former White House communications director.
Attended
a dinner at Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse for Prince Andrew in 2010.
“That dinner was the first and last time I’ve seen him,” Stephanopoulos said
recently. “It was a mistake to go.”
Taymor, Julie: Director.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Responsible
for one of the biggest hits in Broadway history, The Lion King, and one of the
biggest flops, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
Trivers, Robert: Evolutionary biologist.
In
2015, he defended Epstein, saying, “By the time they’re 14 or 15, they’re like
grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous.” This
month, he called his past statement “stupid and offensive.”
Trump,
Ivana: Donald Trump’s first ex-wife.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Trump,
Ivanka: Daughter of Donald and Ivana Trump.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Trump,
Melania: Wife of Donald Trump.
Epstein
has reportedly bragged that he’s the one who introduced Melania to her future
husband. At the very least, the three have traveled together: She flew with
Epstein on then-boyfriend Donald Trump’s plane in 2000.
Tucker,
Chris: Actor.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book and on Epstein’s private jet log.
Flew
with Bill Clinton to Africa on Epstein’s plane.
Tuttle,
Edward: Architect of a conspiratorial fever dream.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
Who
built the temple? Tuttle, a designer of luxury resorts by trade, renovated the
main compound on Epstein’s 70-acre private island in 2003. Sometime between
2009 and 2013, a “temple” appeared on the island: a large, boxy,
blue-and-white-striped structure with a golden dome, surrounded by palm trees.
In the days after Epstein’s arrest, the temple became the object of fervent
speculation online. It was the kind of irresistible conspiracy-bait that
exemplifies the Epstein story: On the one hand, shouldn’t it be enough that a
mysteriously wealthy banker with connections to the globe’s most powerful
people was apparently operating a child sex-trafficking ring without dabbling
in theories about occult island temples? On the other hand, though, once you’ve
accepted that, why would occult island temples be so out of the question? On
the edges, the Epstein saga could seem less like a news story than like a
brutal, unreadable fairy tales. Or maybe it was a desire to take a story about
financial power and social privilege colluding to protect a criminal predator
and transform it into something more terrible and monumental. After weeks of
speculation, the first eyewitness account revealed that what the “temple”
contained wasn’t a necromantic shrine but a gym, decorated with a framed
photograph of a topless woman. —Max Read
Vance,
Cyrus Jr.: Prosecutor in the crosshairs.
There
are currently 475 level-three sex offenders registered in New York County, but
in 2011, when an attorney from the office of Cy Vance, Manhattan DA, argued
that Epstein’s risk level should be reduced, Justice Ruth Pickholz
responded, “I have to tell you I am a little overwhelmed because I have never
seen a prosecutor’s office do anything like this.” Pickholz
denied the request — Epstein’s risk assessment put him 20 points above the
required threshold for the highest level of offender — and the DA’s office
later reversed its request. Though there’s no indication Vance and Epstein were
friendly, his office has been criticized previously for declining to pursue
sex-crimes charges against Harvey Weinstein that coincided with a donation from
his attorneys (though Weinstein has since been charged by Vance’s office) and
fraud charges against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. —Irin
Carmon
Wachner, Linda: Head of the textile
corporation behind Calvin Klein and Speedo.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Wallace,
Mike: 60 Minutes journalist.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Walters,
Barbara: Broadcast journalist and TV personality.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Weinstein,
Bob: Former co-chairman of Miramax Films and the Weinstein Company.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Wexner,
Leslie: The money behind the money.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Retailing
billionaire Leslie Wexner was Epstein’s only known client, the man who
transferred the rights to that famous townhouse to him for free in 2011, years
after they were supposed to no longer be in contact.
The relationship stretches back to the late 1980s, a time when Wexner’s star
was on the rise. A 1985 cover story for New York visited him in Columbus, Ohio,
where his retail empire was built. Journalist Julie Baumgold
described how he, not unlike Epstein, was a self-made man, addicted to
self-improvement, how he didn’t know how to pronounce La Grenouille correctly
and wanted to have his picture taken at the Whitney, and noted that “Wexner is
what used to be known as a ‘confirmed bachelor.’ ”
(He later married and has four children.) Not long after that piece, he was
introduced to Epstein, who had left Bear Stearns under a cloud and was broke.
He and Wexner hit it off, and Epstein soon began managing Wexner’s finances.
Wexner’s credibility lent plausibility to the notion that Epstein managed
billions from his Caribbean-island redoubt. Associates of Wexner, who is now
worth $6.6 billion, didn’t understand the attraction. Soon after the men began
working together, Epstein moved into Wexner’s Upper East Side mansion. Wexner
bought the seven-story townhouse in 1989 for $13.2 million but apparently lived
there only for a few months. The title was transferred in 2011 to a Virgin
Islands entity controlled by Epstein. It is now worth $56 million. —Michelle Celarier and Carl Swanson
Wiesel,
Elie: Nobel Prize winner.
Name
found in Epstein’s black book.
Zagat,
Nina and Jim: Publishers.
Name
found on Epstein’s private jet log.
Zuckerman,
Mort: Media mogul and newspaper publisher.
Zuckerman
went into business with Epstein — briefly — in 2004, spending $25 million to
invest in Radar, but he pulled the plug after just three issues. He first
attempted a deal with Epstein in 2003, when he was part of a consortium with
Michael Wolff, Donny Deutsch, Nelson Peltz, and Harvey Weinstein to buy New
York Magazine.
ATTACHMENT “A” 1 X24 FROM guk
Jeffrey Epstein: documents linking associates to sex offender unsealed
Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, David
Copperfield and Prince Andrew among names contained in court documents
·
Explainer: who was Epstein and
what are court documents about?
·
Read unsealed documents in full
Thu
4 Jan 2024 05.18 EST
Numerous court documents identifying
associates of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were
made public on Wednesday.
Some of the high-profile names in the court
documents include Prince Andrew, the former US president Bill Clinton, Michael
Jackson, and David Copperfield.
These associates’ just-unsealed names were
contained in court documents filed as part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s
lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell;
the documents include excerpts of depositions and motions in this case. The
British socialite was convicted in December 2021 of sex trafficking and similar
charges for procuring teen girls for disgraced financier Epstein.
Prior to the unsealing, the names were listed
in court papers as variants of J Doe. Many of the names are people who had been
publicly identified as Epstein associates prior to this unsealing.
The inclusion of a name in this list does not
mean that said associate has been accused of wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. Among the names are people
mentioned in passing at legal proceedings
In a deposition, Maxwell appears to say
that Andrew visited Epstein’s Island in the US Virgin Islands. Epstein has been
accused of abusing numerous girls on this island.
“Were you present on the island when
Prince Andrew visited?” Maxwell was asked.
She responded in the affirmative and,
when asked how many times, she said: “I can only remember once.” When asked if
there were any girls on the island at that time, Maxwell insisted: “There were
no girls on the island at all. No girls, no women, other than the staff who
work at the house.”
One document included a deposition
given by Johanna Sjoberg, whom Maxwell allegedly procured for the purpose of
performing sex acts on Epstein.
Sjoberg
said in her deposition that Epstein “said one time that Clinton likes them
young, referring to girls”.
In 2019, Clinton’s spokesperson Angel Ureña denied claims made about Clinton’s involvement with Epstein and wrote in a
statement on Twitter that “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes
Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with
which he has been recently charged in New York.”
Clinton
notably had an 18-month long affair with Monica Lewinsky, his then 22-year-old
intern, during his first term as president. He was 49 years old.
Sjoberg
also said that the late musician Michael Jackson was at Epstein’s Palm Beach
mansion, and that she met the famed magician David
Copperfield.
“Did you ever meet anybody famous when
you were with Jeffrey? she was asked. “I met Michael Jackson … at [Epstein’s]
house in Palm Beach.”
Asked whether she massaged Jackson,
Sjoberg said: “I did not.”
As
for Copperfield, Sjoberg said that he attended dinner at one of Epstein’s homes
and “he did some magic
tricks”.
“Did
you observe David Copperfield to be a friend of Jeffrey Epstein’s?” she was
asked. Sjoberg replied in the affirmative.
“Did
Copperfield ever discuss Jeffrey’s involvement with young girls with you?” she
was also asked. “He questioned me if I was aware that girls were getting paid
to find other girls.”
Copperfield,
she said in the deposition, didn’t tell her any specifics of that question.
“Did he say whether they were teenagers or anything along those lines?” she was
also asked. “He did not.”
Donald Trump, whose association with Epstein
has been widely reported, was also mentioned in the documents; the former US
president is not accused of wrongdoing. In Sjoberg’s deposition, she said that
they went to one of Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City when a storm prevented
Epstein’s plane from landing in New York City.
“Jeffrey
said, Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to – I don’t recall the name of
the casino, but – we’ll go to the casino.” Asked at one point whether she ever
gave Trump a massage, Sjoberg said “no”.
The
deposition also includes Sjoberg’s account of allegedly meeting Prince Andrew at
Epstein’s New York home. “Ghislaine asked me to come to a closet. She just
said, Come with me. We
went to a closet and grabbed the puppet, the puppet of Prince Andrew,” she said
in the deposition.
“And I knew it was Prince Andrew because I had
recognized him as a person. I didn’t know who he was. And so
when I saw the tag that said Prince Andrew, then it clicked. I’m like, that’s
who it is.”
Sjoberg and Maxwell then returned to
the living room with the puppet. “I just remember someone suggesting a photo,
and they told us to go get on the couch. And so Andrew
and Virginia sat on the couch, and they put the puppet, the puppet on her lap,”
Sjoberg recalled. “And so then I sat on Andrew’s lap,
and I believe on my own volition, and they took the puppet’s hands and put it
on Virginia’s breast, and so Andrew put his on mine.”
Sjoberg
said she went to bed shortly thereafter. “Did you hear Ghislaine
Maxwell tell Virginia to do anything while you
were in that room?” she was asked. Sjoberg replied: “No.”
Giuffre,
who claimed that Epstein and Maxwell
forced her into a sexual encounter with Britain’s Prince Andrew at age 17, had
sued the publishing heiress for defamation after claiming the accuser lied.
Giuffre settled her lawsuit against Maxwell in 2017.
In
2021, Giuffre sued Prince Andrew over the alleged sexual abuse. The suit
settled in early 2022. Andrew has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing. As
part of the settlement, he agreed to donate to Giuffre’s victims’ rights
charity.
The
documents’ release is among several tranches of filings in Giuffre’s civil case
that were unsealed following the Miami Herald’s years-long effort to make them
public. Giuffre did not make allegations of wrongdoing against Clinton.
In
one set of documents released in July 2020, Giuffre
claimed that Maxwell participated in Epstein’s sexual abuse of teen girls.
These documents were released several weeks after Maxwell’s arrest for her
involvement in Epstein’s sex trafficking.
Giuffre
claimed that Maxwell lured her into Epstein’s perverse orbit under the false
pretense of work as a professional masseuse. Instead, Giuffre said, Maxwell
“trained me as a sex slave”, according to a filing in that set of unsealed
court papers.
The
documents released in July 2020 also provided insight into Maxwell and
Epstein’s relationship.
In
a January 2015 email exchange, Epstein told Maxwell: “You have done nothing
wrong and i woudl [sic]
urge you to start acting like it … go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it.”
In
another 2015 email, Epstein tells Maxwell she “can issue a reward” to any of
Giuffre’s friends to “prove her allegations are false”, including what Epstein
said was a “new version” of a claim that the renowned English theoretical
physicist Steven Hawking had participated in an “underage orgy” in the Virgin
Islands. Hawking, who died in
2018, has not been accused of a crime related to
Epstein.
A
large collection of documents in Giuffre’s civil case were also unsealed in
August 2019. Those papers included accusations, since denied, that global
leaders were participants in Epstein’s trafficking ring.
Epstein was arrested on 6 July 2019 for sex trafficking. He was found dead in his jail
cell on 10
August of that year; authorities determined that he hanged himself.
Maxwell
was sentenced in June 2022 to 20 years
imprisonment. She has maintained her innocence and is appealing her conviction.
Asked
for comment on the documents’ unsealing, Maxwell’s attorneys, Arthur L Aidala and Diana Fabi Samson,
said: “Ghislaine Maxwell took no position on the court’s recent decision to
unseal documents in Giuffre v Maxwell as these disclosures have no bearing on
her or her pending appeal.”
“Ghislaine’s
focus is on the upcoming appellate argument asking for her entire case to
dismissed,” they also said. “She is confident that she will obtain justice in
the second circuit court of appeals. She has consistently and vehemently
maintained her innocence.”
aA2X22FROM
TIME
The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein’s Unsealed
Court Documents
BY KOH
EWE AND SOLCYRE
BURGAUPDATED: JANUARY
4, 2024 12:59 PM EST | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: JANUARY 4, 2024 12:05 PM
EST
The
names of acquaintances and associates of wealthy financier Jeffrey
Epstein—including that of former U.S. presidents and British royalty—were
released on Wednesday evening in a set of court documents that were part of a
suit against Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015.
The documents, the first in more than
200 that are expected to be unsealed over the next few days, are part of the
defamation lawsuit filed by victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Maxwell has
previously called Giuffre a liar after she alleged that Epstein and Maxwell had
abused her. (That case was eventually settled in 2017, but Maxwell was
later sentenced to
20 years in prison for recruiting young girls for Epstein
to sexually exploit in a criminal investigation of Epstein’s acts after his
death.)
Names of figures that were
previously associated with Epstein, such as Prince Andrew and former presidents
Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, were mentioned in the court documents, but there
was little new information outside of what was already known to the public.
Some documents had previously been released in other court cases, while
Epstein’s high-profile contacts have been covered extensively in the media.
In December, U.S. District Judge
Loretta Preska ordered the documents to be released,
though she gave people until Jan. 1 to appeal the order in case they did not
want their name to be revealed. The names of victims who were minors when they
suffered abuse were not released, though some have previously spoken out about
Epstein’s actions in media interviews.
What the documents reveal
For the most part, the documents say
little about the actions taken by individuals outside of Epstein, though there
is a 2016 deposition from Johanna Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s victims, that
mentions politicians and figureheads in the U.S. and abroad.
While celebrities like Bruce
Willis, Cameron Diaz, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Spacey, Naomi Campbell, and
Leonardo DiCaprio are also mentioned in the records, they have not been accused
of helping Epstein in any capacity. Sjoberg was only asked if she had met the
aforementioned people, which she denied.
Connections to Epstein previously
led high-level
executives to resign from their positions,
including Barclays chief executive Jes Staley.
Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent suspected of scouting girls for
Epstein, killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape
accusations.
The documents on Wednesday
confirmed the scale of both Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking ring and his
powerful social network. Prince Andrew—the younger brother of King Charles
III—was one of the names referenced in the documents, mentioned by a witness
for touching her breast.
Andrew was also previously accused
of raping Giuffre when she was a teenager. After a lawsuit filed by Giuffre in
2021 and amid growing public pressure, Andrew was forced to relinquish his
military titles and public duties—even as he repeatedly denied the allegations.
The two settled the lawsuit in 2022 after Andrew paid Giuffre
an undisclosed sum of money.
The
case against Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted
sex offender who would lure young girls under the impression that they would be
giving him massages that would then “become increasingly sexual in
nature,” according to
the 2019 indictment against him. Jennifer Araoz,
one of the victims, said that Epstein would invite her to his house and pay her
hundreds of dollars after her visit. While they initially spoke about her life
and goals, he later became abusive, Araoz said.
Epstein had long avoided facing
any consequences for his actions. He was first investigated for sexual
misconduct in 2005 after a woman claimed that he had molested her teenage
stepdaughter. Palm Beach police eventually charged Epstein with counts of
unlawful sex with a minor in May 2006, but then State Attorney Barry Krischer sent the case to a grand jury, which indicted him
with one count of soliciting prostitution. The charge was minor, leading to
much criticism and causing the FBI to open a federal investigation against
Epstein. But Epstein ended up serving a short 18-month sentence in 2008 for
recruiting an underage girl for prostitution after he struck a plea deal with
U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to avoid being charged with any federal
crimes.
Epstein later came back under
scrutiny in 2018, after the Miami Herald looked
at Acosta’s role in negotiating a short sentence for Epstein. In July 2019, Epstein
was arrested after federal prosecutors looked at his behavior between 2002 and
2005.
The case against him revealed that
the victims, some as young as 14, were paid to provide sexual services to him
and his friends, and to recruit other young girls to his circle of victims.
Epstein’s employees would also sexually abuse the young girls.
He was facing charges for sex
trafficking and conspiracy in July 2019 when one month later, he died by
suicide in a New York federal jail. The
investigation continued after his passing, leading prosecutors to convict
Maxwell for sex crimes in connection to her dealing with Epstein.
Here are other names high-profile
mentioned in the documents:
Bill
Clinton
The former president was mentioned
in the documents released on Wednesday, in Sjoberg’s testimony that Epstein had
told her “Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.” She also said that she
knew Epstein had “dealings” with Clinton but did not know they were friends
until later media reports.
The former president’s ties with
Epstein has long been the subject of media
scrutiny—intensified in the wake of the financier’s
indictment. The two had connected while Clinton was working on his nonprofit
group the Clinton Foundation, and in 2002, they took a trip to Africa on
Epstein’s private jet.
In 2019, Clinton’s office said that the former president
did not know about Epstein’s “terrible crimes,” and that he had not spoken to
Epstein in “well over a decade.” A spokesperson for Clinton told CNN on Wednesday that it has
“been nearly 20 years since President Clinton last had contact with Epstein.”
Records show that Giuffre’s
attorneys wanted to get a deposition from Clinton. Giuffre, the plaintiff in
the defamation lawsuit against Maxwell, did not accuse the former president of
doing anything with her, but attorneys saw Clinton as a “key person who can
provide information about his close relationship with Defendant and Mr. Epstein
and disapprove Ms. Maxwell’s claims.”
Donald
Trump
The former president—whose
relationship with Epstein was also widely reported—was also mentioned in
Sjoberg’s 2016 deposition. Sjoberg testified that she and Epstein once made an
impromptu stop in Atlantic City due to poor flying weather. Asked if she had
given Trump a massage, Sjoberg said no. Trump once called
Epstein a “terrific guy,” but later said he had
a falling out with him. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years. I was
not a fan of his,” Trump said in 2019.
Michael
Jackson
Sjoberg recalled meeting late
musician Michael Jackson at Epstein’s house in Palm Beach, but said no when
asked if she had massaged him.
Sarah
Kellen
Kellen, Epstein’s former
assistant, was named in testimonies of victims detailing their encounters with
Epstein. She was said to have helped schedule his “massages,” which his victims
said was a euphemism for sexual services.
A judge had described Kellen as “a criminally
responsible participant” in Epstein’s scheme.
But Kellen was never charged and
has remained out of the public eye. Kellen said through a spokesperson in
2020 that she herself had been sexually and psychologically abused by Epstein
for years.
Jean-Luc
Brunel
Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling
agent suspected of scouting girls for Epstein, killed himself in a Paris jail
in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape accusations.
Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling
agent suspected of scouting girls for Epstein, killed himself in a Paris jail
in 2022 while awaiting trial for rape accusations.
Giuffre said in her deposition
that she was sent by Maxwell to have sex with Brunel “at many places.” The
documents also say that Brunel would bring girls as young as twelve "to
the United States for sexual purposes and farm them out to his friends,
especially Epstein."
Bill
Richardson
Bill Richardson, the former governor
of New Mexico who died in September, was also mentioned. Giuffre said in her
deposition that Maxwell had instructed her to give Richardson a massage. In
2019, a spokesperson for Richardson denied he ever met Giuffre, according to
Las Cruces Sun News.
Leslie
Wexner
Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder
of L Brands (which owns Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works), was also
mentioned in Maxwell’s deposition. When asked if she had ever provided Giuffre
with “an outfit of a sexual nature to wear for Les Wexner,” Maxwell said
“categorically no.”
Epstein was Wexner's money manager
and a trustee of the Wexner Foundation During an L Brands investor conference
in Sept. 2019, Wexner called Epstein's action "abhorrent." Wexner
says he cut ties with Epstein in 2007.
Glenn
Dubin
Hedge fund manager and billionaire
Glenn Dubin was mentioned in the documents, with
Giuffre testifying that “Ghislaine told me to go to Glenn Dubin
and give him a massage, which means sex,” Giuffre said in her deposition..
Dubin has previously denied Giuffre’s
allegations.
Dubin’s wife, Eva Andersson-Dubin, was also referenced in the unsealed documents.
Maxwell said in her deposition that she was friends with Andersson-Dubin.
Alan
Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s lawyer,
was also mentioned in the newly-released records. The documents say that
Epstein forced a minor to have sex with the former Harvard law professor
multiple times. The documents also say that Dershowitz “was an eye-witness to
the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein and several of Epstein’s
co-conspirators.
Dershowitz would later play a
significant role in negotiating the NPA on Epstein’s behalf.” NPA stands for
non-prosecution agreement, which allowed Epstein to avoid serving a severe
sentence when he was first charged with soliciting a minor for prostitution.
“Of course
I’m on that list, I was his lawyer. I flew on his plane,” said Dershowitz in a Youtube livestream after the list came out.
Marvin
Minsky
Computer scientist and former MIT
professor Marvin Minsky was also mentioned in the documents. Giuffre said she
was asked to have sex with Minsky when he went to Epstein’s
island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
aA3 X20
FROM NY POST
All the A-listers named in the newly unsealed Jeffrey
Epstein documents
By Olivia Land and Nikki Mascali Roarty
Published Jan. 4, 2024 Updated Jan. 6, 2024, 2:57 p.m. ET
MORE ON:JEFFREY EPSTEIN
·
Prince
Andrew’s daughter Princess Beatrice visits disgraced dad after Epstein doc dump
Dozens
of high-profile names — including royalty, politicians and famous
scientists — appeared in an avalanche of
previously sealed court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were released
late Wednesday and Thursday and Friday.
The
trove of papers filed in Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 defamation
suit against the dead sex
offender’s “madam” Ghislaine Maxwell included references to
Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Stephen Hawking, among other
major figures.
The
lengthy list of boldface names paints a -----------
Before
the document dump, online sleuths speculated about who might be named.
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, for instance, did not appear in the documents,
but was forced to defend himself from trolls in the hours before the formal
release began.
Here
are all the A-listers who appeared in the newly revealed documents:
Prince
Andrew
In
addition to Giuffre’s allegations she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew
while underage, the documents reveal additional claims about the
disgraced British royal – including that he allegedly
participated in an “underage orgy.”
One
woman, identified as “Jane Doe 3,” testified she was “forced to have sexual
relations with this Prince when she was a minor in three separate geographical
locations,” according to a 2014 court filing.
Those
included Ghislaine Maxwell’s London apartment, an unspecified location in New
York and “on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands (in an orgy with
numerous other underaged girls).”
The
filing also claims Epstein told the “sex-slave” to “give the Prince
whatever he demanded.”
Another
Epstein accuser, Johanna Sjoberg, said in her own deposition that Prince Andrew
touched her breast while they were posing for a photo on a couch at Epstein’s
Manhattan townhouse in 2001.
In
that same photo, Sjoberg testified the royal also groped Giuffre’s breast with
a puppet that looked like him.
Epstein’s
former butler, Juan Alessi, claimed Andrew received “daily” massages when he
“spent weeks” at his boss’ Palm Beach, Florida, mansion, according to
the documents.
In
the wake of the documents’ revelations, the anti-monarchy group Republic reported Prince Andrew to London’s Metropolitan
Police and demanded a renewed investigation.
“It’s
simple — the royals should not be above the law. Accusations of criminality
should always be investigated thoroughly. THAT’S WHY THE MET MUST ACT,” the
group posted on X. The Met has not commented on the request.
Both
Prince Andrew and Buckingham Palace have repeatedly denied all allegations
against him.
Bill
& Hillary Clinton
Former
President Bill Clinton’s name appears 73 times in the newly released
papers, the Independent noted — but he is not implicated
in anything illegal.
As
part of her 2016 testimony, Sjoberg recalled Epstein
telling her that Clinton “‘likes them young,’ referring to girls.”
Clinton
— who flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times — has denied having any
knowledge of the creep’s crimes.
In
documents that were unsealed Thursday night, it was revealed that the former
president allegedly
stormed into the Vanity Fair newsroom and “threatened” staffers to
not publish stories about sex-trafficking allegations against “his good friend”
Jeffrey Epstein.
The
claim was mentioned by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre in a 2011 email
exchange with a journalist from the Daily Mail, Sharon Churcher.
Several
references to Clinton in the document trove relate to Giuffre’s allegation
Maxwell told her that she had flown the former president to Epstein’s private
island on a helicopter.
Giuffre
relayed the story to Churcher, who then erroneously reported that Giuffre was
also on board the alleged flight, she explained in a May 2016 deposition that
was unsealed on Friday.
“I
believe that it was taken out of context. Ghislaine told me that she flew Bill
Clinton in. And Ghislaine likes to talk a lot of stuff that sounds
fantastical,” Giuffre said of Churcher’s version of events.
In
her own deposition, Maxwell dismissed the story as “another one of Virginia’s
lies” — though she admitted that she had flown with Clinton on Epstein’s plane.
Later
in the deposition, Maxwell is shown a flight log for Epstein’s plane that
includes Clinton.
In
June 2016, Judge Robert Sweet of the Southern District of New York denied
Giuffre’s attorneys’ attempt to depose Clinton in her suit against Maxwell,
writing that they had not established the “relevance” of the former president’s
testimony, a court ruling released on Friday revealed.
Clinton’s
name and initials of both himself and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were
included on the proposed list of search terms Maxwell’s team was asked to scan
her emails and other files for, attorney correspondence indicated.
The
last name “Clinton” appeared on the list, as did “BC,” “HC,” and “HRC.”
Giuffre’s
legal team also requested any potential communications between or related to
Maxwell and Bill and HIllary as part of discovery,
the Friday document trove showed.
Donald
Trump
Former
President Donald Trump appeared at least four times in the unsealed documents.
In
Sjoberg’s deposition, she described how Epstein once “called up” the real
estate mogul and suggested visiting one of his casinos when Epstein’s private
jet was diverted from New York City to Atlantic City, New Jersey.
“Jeffrey
said, ‘Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to’ — I don’t recall the name of
the casino, but — ‘we’ll go to the casino,’” Sjoberg testified.
Sjoberg
later added that she never massaged Trump.
In
her own deposition, Giuffre said she was lured into working as a masseuse for Epstein
when she was 17 and working as a spa attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in
Palm Beach, Florida.
Alan
Dershowitz
Epstein
allegedly forced Jane Doe 3 to “have sexual relations” with his lawyer, former
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, when she was a “minor,” according to
claims in the documents.
The
alleged incidents took place “not only in Florida but … on private planes, in
New York, New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” one filing stated, adding
that Dershowitz also was an “eye-witness to the sexual abuse of many other
minors.”
Epstein
allegedly forced Jane Doe 3 to “have sexual relations” with his lawyer, former
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, when she was a “minor,” according to
claims in the documents.
In
a newly unsealed 2011 email, Sharon Churcher appears to remind Giuffre about
Dershowitz’s presence in Epstein’s inner circle.
“Don’t
forget Alan Dershowitz… JE’ s buddy and lawyer -good name for your pitch,”
Churcher wrote, noting Dershowitz’s ties with Claud von Bülow, who was
convinced and then acquitted of the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny.
“We
all suspect Alan is a pedo and tho
no proof of that, you probably met him when he was hanging put [sic] w JE,”
Churcher added.
Three
years later — in December 2014 — Giuffre accused Dershowitz of
sexually abusing her during her time with Epstein.
In
her May 2016 deposition, Sjoberg denied Giuffre’s allegations that she had sex
with Dershowitz in the back of a limousine while Giuffre and Epstein were
present.
“I
would remember that [if it happened],” Sjoberg insisted in the transcript
released Friday.
Dershowitz,
85, has denied all allegations of wrongdoing. He defended
himself and Epstein’s other associates earlier this week.
“You
could judge them for having shown bad judgment, but you can’t conclude that any
accusations against them are true without hearing the evidence,” he insisted.
Stephen
Hawking
Epstein
offered a reward to Giuffre’s friends, acquaintances and even family members in
order to “help prove” that her allegations that theoretical physicist and
cosmologist Stephen Hawking participated in an orgy were false, an unsealed
email between him and Maxwell stated.
The
missive from January 2015 said Giuffre’s strongest allegation “is the Clinton
dinner, and the new version in the Virgin Islands that Stephen Hawking
participated in an underage orgy.”
Hawking
— whose brilliant career coupled with his battle with early-onset ALS was
documented in the Oscar-winning film “The Theory of Everything” — died in
2018 at age 76.
Al
Gore
Maxwell’s
attorneys requested Giuffre provide photos or videos of herself with several
high-profile people — including former Vice President Al Gore.
Sjoberg
denied ever meeting Gore in her testimony.
Giuffre’s
team objected to the motion on the grounds that such documents were in “custody
and control” of Maxwell and Epstein, the unsealed paper showed.
Sjoberg
also denied ever meeting Gore in her testimony.
Sarah
Ferguson
Sarah
Ferguson was named in a 2009 deposition by Juan Alessi, who was the housekeeper
at Epstein’s Florida mansion from 1991 to 2002.
While
her ex-husband Prince Andrew allegedly “spent weeks” getting “daily massages”
at the luxe lair, Alessi said he believes the Duchess of York only visited the
property once and “for a short period of time,” according to
the documents.
Leslie
Wexner
During
her deposition, Maxwell denied giving a woman an outfit of a sexual nature to wear
for Victoria’s Secret’s former CEO Leslie Wexner, an Epstein financial adviser
and one-time business partner.
Maxwell
also said she had not communicated with the billionaire L Brands founder —
whose ties with Epstein date back to the 1980s — about Giuffre’s lawsuit.
In
the third trove of documents released Friday, Wexner’s wife, Abigail, was
name-checked on what appeared to be a notepad or list from Epstein’s Palm Beach
home.
Abigail
Wexner wanted to talk about something “private,” the handwritten note read.
New
transcripts from Maxwell’s testimony that were released on Friday also revealed
that the British socialite confirmed that she knew Epstein.
She
denied, however, knowing whether Epstein accuser Maria Farmer was ever at
Wexner’s Ohio property.
In
her own testimony, Sjoberg denied meeting the Victoria’s Secret mogul.
Wexner
has said he “was never aware of the illegal activity” Epstein was accused of
committing.
Chelsea
Clinton
Instead
of giving a deposition in a civil suit filed against her sick beau, Maxwell
attended the wedding of former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, according to a
trove of court documents unsealed Friday.
The
socialite initially agreed to be deposed after she was subpoenaed in 2009 for Guiffre’s case, the alleged
victim’s lawyers wrote in the 2016 motion.
“At
the eleventh hour Maxwell’s attorney informed
plaintiff’s counsel that Maxwell’s mother was very ill and that consequently
Maxwell was leaving the country with no plans to return,” the filing states.
Given
the purported circumstances, her deposition was canceled.
Despite
Maxwell saying she was in the UK due to her mother’s ill health, the sex
trafficker appeared as one of 400 guests at Chelsea Clinton’s lavish 2010
wedding in upstate New York.
However,
the now-convicted sex trafficker was photographed watching from the crowd of
400 as former President Bill Clinton walked his daughter down the aisle during
the lavish ceremony.
“Maxwell
was photographed at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in Rhinebeck, New York,
confirming the suspicion that she was indeed still in the country and willing
to say anything to avoid her deposition,” the filing states.
The
claims were made in a 2016 motion asking that Maxwell’s request to conceal her
financial assets be denied, arguing that the money proves she was deeply tied
to Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
Bill
Richardson
Giuffre
testified that Maxwell sent her to have sex with late New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson, according to the documents.Getty
Images
Giuffre
testified that Maxwell sent her to have sex with late New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson, according to the documents.
Sjoberg
also recalled hearing about the Democrat being part of Epstein’s circle.
“I
want to say that he was supposed to come to dinner when we were in New Mexico.
I don’t know if I met him. I believe that he and Ghislaine had dinner separate
from myself,” she said in her deposition.
Richardson
died in September at age 75.
Jean-Luc
Brunel
One
of the men Maxwell ordered Giuffre to have sex with was Epstein’s close friend,
French modeling scout Jean-Luc Brunel, Giuffre testified in 2016.
One
of the men Maxwell ordered Giuffre to have sex with was Epstein’s close friend,
French modeling scout Jean-Luc Brunel, Giuffre testified in 2016.
Sjoberg
also recalled meeting Brunel at Epstein’s Palm Beach house, but testified that
she did not have sex with him.
Brunel
died by suicide in December 2020 while in a Parisian prison on charges of
raping underage girls.
Marvin
Minsky
In
her 2016 deposition, Giuffre claimed that Maxwell ordered her to have sex with
computer scientist and AI pioneer Marvin Minsky.
Minsky
— who received a $100,000 grant from Epstein in 2002, according to
Nature magazine — died in 2016 at age 88.
Michael
Jackson
Sjoberg
claimed to have met pop icon Michael Jackson at Epstein’s Palm Beach home.
One
Epstein accuser said she met Michael Jackson while part of his entourage.AP
She
denied ever massaging Jackson — who died in 2009 at age 50.
David
Copperfield
Sjoberg
described magician
David Copperfield performing tricks at a dinner at one of Epstein’s homes.
“He
questioned me if I was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls,”
she added, noting that the illusionist did not specify what he meant.
Tom
Pritzker
In
her 2016 deposition, Giuffre claimed to have had sex “once” with Hyatt hotel
chain heir Tom Pritzker.
A
spokesperson for Pritzker — who is worth an estimated $6.2 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — said he “continues to
vehemently deny” the allegation.
Glenn
Dubin
“Ghislaine
told me to go to Glenn Dubin and give him a massage,
which means sex,” Giuffre said of her encounter with the investor.
Maxwell
“sent out” Giuffre to give the hedge fund billionaire an erotic massage after
she completed her “training” as part of Epstein’s entourage, Giuffre testified.
“Ghislaine
told me to go to Glenn Dubin and give him a massage,
which means sex,” Giuffre said of her encounter with the investor.
Dubin’s wife, former Miss Sweden Dr. Eva
Andersson-Dubin, dated
Epstein for several years.
In
April 2016, Maxwell testified that she and Andersson-Dubin
were friends, according to records that were released Friday.
Maxwell
was also confronted with testimony from the Dubins’
butler, Ricardo Rizzo, who recalled a time when Maxwell allegedly brought a
distraught 15-year-old girl to the Dubins’ house.
In
her own deposition, Sjoberg recalled giving massages to both Dubin and Andersson-Dubin, but
said “there was nothing sexual” about the encounters.
The
couple denied Giuffre’s claims against them in a 2019 Vanity Fair article.
“The
Dubins strongly deny these allegations, as we first
said [in Vanity Fair] in 2019, when these unsubstantiated statements first
surfaced as part of this same civil court proceeding,” a spokesperson for the
couple told The Post Thursday.
Frédéric
Fékkai
Epstein
may have procured women for French celebrity hairstylist Frédéric Fékkai, Sjoberg claimed in her deposition.
“I
heard [Epstein] call someone, and say, ‘Fekkai is in
Hawaii. Can we find some girls for him?’” Sjoberg explained.
Sjoberg
denied ever meeting former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak during her time
with Epstein.
Ehud
Barak
In
her deposition, Sjoberg denied ever meeting former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak during her time with Epstein.
Last
spring, the high-flying politician admitted to the Wall Street Journal that he hobnobbed with
Epstein in New York, but claimed he never met the businessman “with girls or
minors, or even adult women in improper context or behavior.”
Chris
Tucker
“Rush
Hour” star Chris Tucker was name-dropped in one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s
depositions that was unsealed Friday.
When
attorneys presented Maxwell a flight log from Epstein’s private plane, Tucker,
now 52, appeared on the list of names.
Kevin
Spacey
Sjoberg
denied crossing paths with actor Kevin Spacey, who was acquitted in July of
several charges related to alleged sexual attacks on younger men between 2001
and 2013.
The
“American Beauty” star was named on a flight log that
attorneys read to Maxwell during her deposition, the Friday document
dump revealed.
George
Lucas
“Star
Wars” creator George Lucas was mentioned once in the new documents — when
Sjoberg denied meeting the film titan in Epstein’s circle.
Naomi
Campbell
Giuffre
testified in 2016 that Maxwell sent her to have sex with “the owner of a large
hotel chain in France around the time of
Naomi Campbell’s birthday party,” though she did not specify the
year.
Photos
previously emerged of Giuffre standing near Campbell on a yacht in the French
Riviera in 2001.
Sjoberg
said she did not meet the British supermodel in her own deposition.
Campbell
said in 2019 that she had occasionally socialized with Epstein, but that she
was not close with him and that his actions were “indefensible.”
Leonardo
di Caprio, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz and Bruce Willis
As
part of her deposition, Sjoberg was asked about press reports that she’d met
certain Hollywood stars – including Cate Blanchett and Leonardo DiCaprio —
during her time with Epstein.
Sjoberg
denied a press report that she met several Hollywood stars during her time with
Epstein.
She
denied meeting them, but said Epstein had bragged to her about having the celeb
connections while she was giving him massages.
“I
did not meet them, no. When I spoke about them, it was when I was
massaging him, and he would get off — he would be on the phone a lot at that
time, and one time he said, ‘Oh, that was Leonardo,’ or, ‘That was Cate
Blanchett,’ or Bruce Willis. That kind of thing,” Sjoberg clarified in her
deposition.
Sjoberg
denied a press report that she met several Hollywood stars during her time with
Epstein.
“I
did not meet them, no. When I spoke about them, it was when I was massaging
him, and he would get off — he would be on the phone a lot at that time, and
one time he said, ‘Oh, that was Leonardo,’ or, ‘That was Cate Blanchett,’ or
Bruce Willis. That kind of thing,” she clarified in her deposition.
When
asked if she had met Cameron Diaz as part of Epstein’s circle, Sjoberg said
“no.”
Ruslana Korshunova
Giuffre
was asked if she knew top model Ruslana Korshunova — who it now emerges had been a passenger on
Epstein’s infamous private jet in June 2006, two years before she jumped to her
death in NYC.
The
so-called “Russian Rapunzel” was just 18 when she flew with Epstein to his
private island, flight logs show. After she jumped from her Manhattan apartment
balcony in 2008, her then-boyfriend said she had problems that she kept
“bottled up.”
An
email in Thursday’s drop shows attorney Brad Edwards asking Giuffre if she
recognized the model, who appeared in ads for Marc Jacobs, DKNY, and Vera Wang.
“I can say that I have never had any meetings with her, sorry not to be of any
help there,” Giuffre replied.
Kenneth
Starr
Former
US Solicitor General Kenneth Starr is namechecked for his role in securing
Epstein’s Oct. 2007 non-prosecution agreement, which allowed him to avoid a
possible life sentence while pleading guilty to state charges of
soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.
“[Epstein]
got off the first time round after retaining Kenneth Starr (who witchhunted Bill Clinton) and Alan Dershowitz,” reporter
Sharon Churcher wrote literary agent Jarred Helperin
in a June 2011 exchange about Virginia Giuffre’s book pitch.
Starr
– who made headlines throughout the 1990s for spearheading the federal probes
into the Whitewater scandal and Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky – died in
2022 at age 76.
The
Justice Department later found that former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta
exercised “poor judgment” in allowing the deal with Epstein.
‘The
Pope’
While
under questioning about possible nude photos at Epstein’s Palm Beach manse,
Johanna Sjoberg recalled there being snapshots “everywhere” — including
one of Maxwell with “the Pope.”
While
Sjoberg did not specify when the photo may have been taken, or which Pope
Maxwell was photographed with, witnesses previously recalled seeing a photo at
Epstein’s Florida mansion of him with
Pope John Paul II.
x61
X61 FROM FROM
FORBES
New Names Appear On Epstein
List: What To Know About Latest Unsealed Documents
Forbes Staff
I cover breaking news.
Follow
Jan 9,
2024,07:35pm EST Updated Jan 10, 2024, 08:26am EST
Tuesday’s release of unredacted
files from Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell included full
transcripts of depositions with Maxwell and Epstein himself, and sworn
testimony from Sarah Ransome, another alleged victim of the financier’s sex
trafficking ring, revealing new allegations against high-profile figures from
across society (all listed have denied any suggestion of wrongdoing).
The following mentions are from
documents unsealed Tuesday, which previously had much information, including
the names of Epstein’s alleged victims and associates, redacted. Those accused
of associating with Epstein have denied wrongdoing.
Former President Bill Clinton
“Q: Have you ever flown President
Clinton on your helicopter? A: That is another one of Virginia’s lies. Q: The
question is have you ever done that? A: I have never
flown President Clinton at any time ever, in any helicopter, in any place, any
time, in any state, in any country, at any time anywhere.” (Attachment 1335-1,
Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: Have you ever had dinner with President
Clinton at Jeffrey's home, at any of Jeffrey's homes? A: No, I don’t believe
so.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: Have you traveled on Jeffrey's
planes with President Clinton? A: Yes, I have.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s
deposition)
“Q: Do you remember being in
Thailand with President Clinton? A: I do. Q: Do you remember what the purpose
of that trip was? A: I don’t. Q: Do you know whether — do you recall, did you
stay the night in Thailand? A: I don’t recall.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s
deposition)
“Q: Can Jeffrey confirm or deny
whether Bill Clinton was on Jeffrey’s island? A: I
can’t say what Jeffrey would say. I can only say what I know to be true.”
(Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
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stories, exclusive reporting and essential analysis of the day’s news in your
inbox every weekday.
.
“Q: In the e-mail you said that
‘The strongest is the Clinton dinner.’ Do you see that reference in this
e-mail? It's on the second line. A: Yes… Q: What did you mean by the term
‘strongest’ in this e-mail? A: Fifth. Q: Isn't it true, sir, that by the term
‘strongest,’ you meant that you had taken steps to conceal the presence of Bill
Clinton on your island? A: Fifth.” (Attachment 1335-6, Epstein’s deposition)
“Q: How did Bill Clinton get to
your island when he came to visit you? A: Fifth. Q: Sir, isn't it true, Bill
Clinton got to the island by having Maxwell fly him there on a helicopter? A:
Fifth. Q: Do you own a helicopter, sir? A: Fifth.” (Attachment 1335-6,
Epstein’s deposition)
“Q: Isn't it true that in the time
period 2000 to 2001, you were close friends with Bill Clinton? A: Fifth. Q: And
even into 2002 you remained close friends with Bill Clinton, right? A: Fifth.
Q: Bill Clinton flew on your jet a number of times in 2002, right? A: Fifth. Q:
For example, in May of 2002, Bill Clinton was on your jet several times, right?
A: Fifth. Q: Bill Clinton visited your island in the U.S. Virgin Islands in
about 2002, true? A: Fifth.” (Attachment 1335-6, Epstein’s deposition)
“Q: When Bill Clinton visited your
private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, please describe all the steps that
you took to conceal his presence there. A: Fifth. Q: When Bill Clinton came to
your private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, please describe anyone who he
was accompanied by. A: Fifth. Q: When Bill Clinton came to your island, he was
accompanied by two young women who were approximately 18 years old, true? A:
Fifth.” (Attachment 1335-6, Epstein’s deposition)
“Q: On May 22nd, 2002, you and
Maxwell flew with Bill Clinton on your private jet, true? A: Fifth. Q: On May
22nd, 2002 you and Maxwell and Bill Clinton flew from the Atsugi Naval Air
facility in Japan to Khabarovsk, Russia, true? A: Fifth. Q: On that same trip
you, Maxwell, and Bill Clinton flew to China, right? A: Fifth. Q: And you also
flew to Singapore, right? A: Fifth. Q: And you also flew together to Bangkok?
A: Fifth. Q: Just so we're clear on that, in May of 2002, you, Bill Clinton,
and Defendant Maxwell all flew to Bangkok together, right? A: Fifth. Q: And
later, on that same trip, you, Maxwell, and Bill Clinton all flew to Brunei
together, true? A: Fifth.” (Attachment 1335-6, Epstein’s deposition)
“Q: Did the FBI ask you about Bill
Clinton or Al Gore? A: I do believe they did ask me about Bill Clinton, but I
cannot remember the exact conversation we had about him. Q: I understand you
were not sexually trafficked to Bill Clinton, is that correct? A: Correct.”
(Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
“Q: Where were you the first time
you met Bill Clinton? A: On Little Saint Jeff’s, which is the island. Q: Little
Saint James? A: He used to call it Little Saint Jeff’s, sorry.” (Attachment
1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
“Q: What were the circumstances of
your second meeting with Bill Clinton? A: Very similar, I mean, there was a
dinner, lots of laughing, lots of joking it was just a dinner and then I didn’t
have to do anything with Bill Clinton, he was never sexually involved with me.”
(Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
“Q: Is Bill Clinton a witness to
the sexual abuse of minors? A: Yes, he would be a witness because he knew what
my purpose there was for Jeffrey and he visited Jeffrey's island. There's
pictures of nude girls all around the house at all of his houses and it's
something that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't shy about admitting to people.”
(Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
Chelsea Clinton
“Q: Are you friends with the
Clintons? A: I am… Q: Did you come back to the United States to attend Chelsea
Clinton's wedding? A: I attended Chelsea Clinton's wedding but I don't know if
I came back specifically for that or not.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s
deposition)
Former Vice President Al Gore and
former First Lady Tipper Gore
“Q: What other obvious lies were
you referring to? A: She was referring to Al Gore, she is referring to a bunch
of people. I don't believe Al Gore ever came to the island at any time ever. I
don't even know Al Gore actually.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Just one moment, I want to hear
all of them, but when you say you don't believe Al Gore ever came to the
island, do you know whether Al Gore ever came to the island? A: Al Gore never
came to the island. Q: How do you know that? A: Jeffrey doesn't know him, I
don't know him and I think had Al Gore — I don't think — had Al Gore gone to
the island during the period when I would have been involved in organizing a
trip, I would have been aware of it.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: How many times did you meet Al
Gore? A: Once.” (Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
“Tell me
the circumstances of meeting Al Gore? A: It's a little hazy at where that took
place. I mean, we are going back a long time ago, but I do remember one thing
about him, I thought he was a wonderful guy who loved his wife and they spent
the entire time like there was nothing else around them, it was just those
two.” (Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
“Q: Is Tipper Gore a witness to
sexual abuse of minors? A: Not that I’m aware of. I mean, if you’re going to
say why was I there with an older man, then I guess yes, she would be, but I do
not believe that she took presence in anything like that.” (Attachment 1335-3,
Giuffre’s deposition)
“Q: Is Al Gore a witness to the
sexual abuse of minors? A: Again, he wasn't around all the time. I only met him
once so I can't say that he is.” (Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
Billionaire Highbridge Capital
co-founder Glenn Dubin
“Q: Did you ever instruct Johanna
[Sjoberg] to massage Glenn Dubin? A: I don’t
believe—I have no recollection of it.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: You said the Dubins, were you sexually trafficked to more than one Dubin? A: No. Q: Just to Glen? A: Just to Glen. Q: Is he
the powerful business executive who’s pregnant wife
was asleep in the next room? A: Yes.” (Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
Former President Donald Trump
“Q: So
Donald Trump was in your mind you believe a witness to the sexual abuse of
minors? A: I don't think Donald Trump participated in anything. That would have
to be another assumption. I never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in
those acts, but was he in the house of Jeffrey Epstein. I've heard he has been,
but I haven't seen him myself so I don't know.” (Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s
deposition)
Former New Mexico Governor Bill
Richardson
“Q: “How many times were you trafficked to Bill Richardson? A: I don't know,
over two times. Q: How old were you? A: Approximately 17, 18.” (Attachment
1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
“Q: You and Maxwell sent Virginia
to have sex with Bill Richardson, true? A: Fifth.” (Attachment 1335-6,
Epstein’s deposition)
MIT AI researcher Marvin Minsky
“Q: Were you sexually trafficked
to Marvin Minsky? A: Yes.” (Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
“Q: You and Maxwell sent Virginia
to have sex with Marvin Minsky, true? A: Fifth” (Attachment 1335-6, Epstein’s
deposition)
Heidi Klum
“Q: You've seen Heidi Klum with
Jeffrey Epstein, correct? A: At parties. Q: So is it
your assumption that she's a witness to sexual abuse of minors? A: I don’t know
if Heidi Klum was at the house of Jeffrey Epstein. I know she was at parties
with Jeffrey Epstein. So, no, I can't say she's a witness.” (Attachment 1335-3,
Giuffre’s deposition)
Prince Andrew
“[Maxwell disputing the validity of
the photos of her, Giuffre and Prince Andrew] We can't really establish the
photograph and all that. I don't know if that's true, if that's a real picture
or not. Q: So you dispute that you were actually
photographed in your town home in London – A: I don't recognize that picture.
I'm not sure if that's a real picture or not.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s
deposition)
“Q: And have you talked to Prince
Andrew about that picture? A: We discussed Virginia's entire tail and he asked
me if he even knew her. Q: So did Prince Andrew tell
you that he did not have sex with Virginia Roberts? A: He doesn't even know who
Virginia Roberts is. Q: Did he tell you that he didn't have sex with her? It
would be difficult to have sex with someone you don't know.” (Attachment
1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: Did you introduce Johanna to
Prince Andrew? A: I've, again, read that Johanna claimed that she met or that
she said she met Prince Andrew. I don't know if I was the one who made the
introduction or not.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: Did you ever introduce Prince
Andrew to Virginia in London? A: I understand her story about London but again,
her tissue of lies is extremely hard to pick apart what is true and what isn't.
Actually I wouldn't recollect her at all but for her
tissue stories about this situation. Q: So did you
ever introduce Prince Andrew to Virginia in London? A: I have no recollection.”
(Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
“I never introduced Prince Andrew
to Jeffrey Epstein at any time ever, so just add that the to
long list of lies.” (Attachment 1335-1, Maxwell’s deposition)
Billionaire former Victoria’s
Secret CEO Les Wexner
“Q: You know Mr. Les Wexner,
correct? A: I do. Q: Do you know whether or not Maria Farmer was ever at Mr.
Wexner's property in [redacted]?” (Attachment 1335-2, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: Did you and Mr. Epstein visit
Maria Farmer in Ohio? A: I don't know I would characterize the word visit with
Mr. Epstein. We went for business in Ohio because he worked with Mr. Wexner,
and I accompanied him on a few visits.” (Attachment 1335-2, Maxwell’s
deposition)
“Q: Did you and Mr. Epstein go to
Ohio, and while you were in Ohio, see Maria Farmer? A: I believe actually that
she was – stayed at his house there, so I would have seen her at the house. I
believe I do recall seeing her at the house, actually. Q: When you say she
stayed at the house, you are referring to Maria Farmer? A: Yeah, I think Maria
Farmer was painting or something in Ohio, and he let her stay at a place that
he had. Q: When you say ‘he’ let her stay, you are talking about Les Wexner? A:
No, I'm talking about Jeffrey Epstein.” (Attachment 1335-2, Maxwell’s
deposition)
“Q: Was Les Wexner one of the
powerful business executives that you were trafficked to? A: Yes.” (Attachment
1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
Former Treasury Secretary and
current OpenAI board member Larry Summers
“Q: Did you ever have sex with Larry Summers? A: Not that I
know of. The name does ring a bell. You have to understand there were a
lot of gentlemen I was lent out to by Jeffrey Epstein. So
it is very hard for me to remember all their names and who they were and what
they did.” (Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
“Q: Is Larry Summers a witness to
the abuse of those minors? A: You'd have to tell me who Larry Summers is.”
(Attachment 1335-3, Giuffre’s deposition)
Lawyer Alan Dershowitz
“Were you ever at any residence of
Mr. Epstein's when Alan Dershowitz was present? A: I’m sure I was. Q: Were you
at Mr. Epstein's Palm Beach residence when Mr. Dershowitz was present? A: I may
have been. It's possible.” (Attachment 1335-2, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: Did you ever have any
conversations with Mr. Dershowitz at Mr. Epstein's properties? A: I did, about
metal detecting. Q: Anything else? A: I only recall metal detecting. Q: Where
did that conversation take place? A: As I was metal detecting.” (Attachment
1335-2, Maxwell’s deposition)
“Q: Do you recall ever seeing Mr.
Dershowitz at any of Mr. Epstein's residences other than the Virgin Island
property? A: That's the only specific memory I have of the conversation that I
recall because it was something special.” (Attachment 1335-2, Maxwell’s
deposition)
1. First Epstein Names Unsealed: Here Are The Biggest
Takeaways (Jan. 3)
3. More Epstein Names Unsealed: Here’s Who’s On The List (Jan. 5)
BIG
NUMBER
1,199. That’s the number of times Jeffrey
Epstein pleaded the fifth during his deposition by Giuffre’s lawyers in
September 2016, exercising his constitutional right preventing
self-incrimination.
SARAH
RANSOME’S ALLEGATIONS—AND HER RECANTING OF THEM
Monday’s tranche of documents
focused on a long legal brief referencing the emails of Sarah Ransome, one of
the other Epstein accusers who filed a similar suit against Maxwell in 2017. In
the letter to the court, attorneys representing Dershowitz argued these emails
show Ransome’s “testimony was fabricated from whole cloth” and that she
“manifestly lacks credibility as a witness.” And Ransome has proven
inconsistent, making shocking allegations, but later recanting them. The emails
in the newly released documents accuse several politicians and billionaires of
having sex with women provided by Epstein at his mansion in Manhattan—including
Clinton, Prince Andrew and billionaire Richard Branson (who had never been
linked to Epstein before)—which Epstein allegedly filmed. Ransome at first said
she was “more than willing to swear under oath and testify in court over these
sex tapes,” but later failed to produce them. Then in 2019, she admitted to
the New Yorker she made up the sex tapes as
a way to draw attention to the Epstein case. She also said Trump frequently had
sex with a woman through Epstein, and went into detail about the former
president’s sexual preferences. But Ransome also later recanted this story,
telling a reporter “it's not worth coming forward and
I will never be heard anyhow and only bad things will happen as a consequence
of me going public.” Trump has not returned a request for comment from Forbes,
but a spokesperson for him, Steven Cheung, told The Messenger “the baseless accusations
have been fully retracted because they are simply false and have no merit.”
TANGENT
On Tuesday, the court released
Ransome’s full testimony, revealing what she was willing to say on the record
under threat of perjury. “Jeffrey's quite possessive of his girls. He's — you
know, he lends them out. He samples the girls, he has friends come over to New
York or the island and they — they get to see who all the girls are around
Jeffrey, and they get to pick one which they want to be with,” Ransome
testified. She denied that she was ever “lent out” for sex with to other
figures associated with Epstein—including Prince Andrew, billionaire Hyatt
Hotels executive chairman Tom Pritzker and Richardson. However, she did claim
she had sex with Dershowitz in Epstein’s Manhattan apartment. “It was coerced
in the sense that when I arrived there, Alan Dershowitz was there and Nadia was
there. It was quite clear to me what their intention was after me arriving
there,” Ransome said.
CHIEF
CRITICS
All of the figures named have
previously denied their connections to Epstein. Clinton strongly denied having
knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities, and also denies ever visiting
Little Saint James. Minsky died in 2016, but his widow Gloria Rudisch has denied the allegations. Summers, who had
previously solicited donations from Epstein while serving as president of
Harvard, told the Harvard Crimson he “deeply regrets” his
connection with the late convicted sex offender. A representative for Klum did
not return a request for comment from Forbes, but the supermodel has previously denied any connection to the
disgraced financier. Dubin, who retired from
Highbridge Capital in 2020, could not immediately be reached for comment on the
new allegations. Dubin and his wife, Eva, previously
told Vanity Fair they “categorically reject”
the allegations against them.
FURTHER
READING
MORE FROM FORBESAll Of Epstein's Associates: A
Timeline Of The Major Lawsuits And Trials They Have FacedBy Zachary FolkMORE FROM FORBESNew Epstein Documents Unsealed:
Bill Clinton 'Threatened' Vanity Fair Over Sex Trafficking Coverage, Email AllegesBy Antonio Pequeño
IV
X76
FROM THE NEW YORK POST
Ex-girlfriend of disgraced NJ Sen. Bob Menendez took
part in orgies with Jeffrey Epstein and victim Virginia Giuffre: docs
By Melissa Koenig Published Jan. 10, 2024 Updated Jan. 10, 2024,
8:26 a.m. ET
MORE ON:JEFFREY EPSTEIN
·
The Epstein documents reveal how I was framed — but I’m still being
canceled
Disgraced
New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s ex-girlfriend allegedly participated in orgies
with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and underage girls, newly released court
documents claim.
Gwendolyn
Beck, 65, a longtime associate of Epstein who dated Menendez in 2010, was
singled out by his victim Virginia Giuffre in a January 2016 deposition, a
transcript of which was finally released to the public on Tuesday.
As
part of the deposition, Giuffre was provided with a list of names and was asked
which ones she was not trafficked to as a teenager.
“Number
7, Gwendolyn Beck,” she replies, according to the transcript. “I wasn’t
trafficked to her, she was just part of some of the
trafficking.”
An
attorney asks Giuffre what Beck’s involvement was, to which the victim replies:
“She was involved in some of the orgies.”
The
attorney then asks Giuffre, “What gentlemen were involved in the orgies with
you and Ms. Beck?”
“As
far as I can recall, Jeffrey Epstein,” she replies.
It’s
unclear when the orgies occurred but by the time Beck was linked to Menendez in
2010, Giuffre was married and living in Australia.
Beck
did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Her
relationship with Epstein has been well documented, though this is the first
time she has been accused of any wrongdoing.
Beck was previously photographed with
Epstein and his madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, at former President Donald Trump’s
Mar-a-Lago estate in 1995.
She
was also pictured five years later back at the Florida estate with Epstein,
Prince Andrew and Trump’s then-girlfriend Melania Knauss.
Her
2014 campaign for Congress was even bolstered by a $12,600 donation from
Epstein — his only political contribution that year, according to Arlington Now.
Beck
said at the time she asked a number of billionaires in her Rolodex for
donations, and accepted one from Epstein out of “forgiveness,” following the
financier’s conviction for having sex with minors and subsequent jail time in
Florida.
“I
haven’t spoken with him personally in years,” she told the outlet.
“During
my years at Morgan Stanley (started in 1995), I managed a portion of his
investment funds (about $65 million) and knew him personally.
“While
the press has tagged him ‘a man of mystery’ because they can’t explain how he
made his money, it’s mostly a combination of real estate and complex
derivatives,” Beck noted.
She
continued: “At the time, he had a girlfriend he was very close to, and was a hard-working,
thoughtful man (he comes from a poor background and made a lot of money really
fast).
“I
think he went off the deep end when she left (I left Morgan Stanley by this
time and had no relationship with them), and got involved in very bad behaviors
which he’s sought therapy for and paid his time in jail.”
Beck
said she was “deeply opposed [to] and shocked by his behavior” but that he
“paid his debt to society.
“Although
humanly flawed, he can be a great asset to our nation because he understands
finance on a level most people can’t comprehend,” she added.
What
we know about the Jeffrey Epstein list of 170 associates
·
On Wednesday,
documents were released naming 170 associates of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey
Epstein. The list included Michael Jackson, magician
David Copperfield, Stephen Hawking, former Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak and former President Bill Clinton — who an Epstein
victim said “likes
them young, referring to girls.”
·
Disgraced royal Prince Andrew, a known friend of Epstein,
was named in the documents and was previously sued by Epstein accuser Virginia
Giuffre, who accused Andrew of sexual misconduct toward her. According to one
royal family expert, the Firm “will stand beside” the Duke of
York “no matter what.”
·
Epstein’s
former attorney and friend Alan Dershowitz defended the late
multimillionaire sex offender’s associates, saying:
“None of us knew about his private life that he kept so secret.” Dershowitz,
who is on the list, added that no one should be automatically convicted in the
court of public opinion simply for showing up in court documents.
·
Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, told The Post that
the ex-business mogul said he could have upended the 2016 election over what he
knew about both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: “Here’s a direct quote: ‘If I
said what I know about both candidates, they’d have to cancel the election.’
That’s what Jeffrey told me in 2016.”
·
Only some of the 170 names and their relationships to
Epstein have been released. The remainder of the documents will likely become
public record throughout the next week.
Beck,
who ran on a platform of being “fiscally responsible, socially inclusive” and
in favor of a “strong national defense,” wound up losing the Virginia race to
Democrat Don Beyer after securing only 2.7% of the vote.
She
had earlier worked as the vice president of investments for Morgan
Stanley, according to
her LinkedIn profile.
In
May 2010, she began dating Menendez. The banker was photographed with him in
the Dominican Republic in 2010 — a picture that would later be used in
the senator’s
2015 corruption trial.
She
also attended a 2010 White House State Dinner as his date.
It
is unclear whether Menendez knew of Beck’s relationship with Epstein when they
were dating.
Menendez
was accused at the time of accepting lavish hospitality from a Medicare
fraudster doctor who asked Menendez to secure visas for his bevy of young
mistresses; to intervene in an audit that would have stopped him ripping off
taxpayers; and to stop US Customs and Border Protection disrupting his side
hustle screening cargo at the Dominican Republic’s ports.
Menendez
denied the charges and called them a conspiracy by overreaching prosecutors.
But
he is now facing
charges of taking gold bars and bribes and stashing
hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash around his house in return
for using his “power and influence” — including his position as chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to benefit the Egyptian government and two
local businessmen.
He
has once again denied the charges.