Jeffrey Epstein will no longer be held accountable. After pleading guilty to forced prostitution of a minor in 2008, he took his own life in a New York prison in 2019 before he would have had to stand trial again. In 2021, his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty. The British woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison. More and more details are becoming known that shed light on how the “Epstein System” worked.
Court documents that were previously encrypted and have now been made public are currently causing a stir. They come from a 2015 civil dispute between Maxwell and Epstein’s alleged victim Virginia Giuffre. They include, among other things, testimony from both Giuffre and other women employed by Epstein and Maxwell.
The names of many well-known people appear in the documents. Bill Clinton is mentioned several times. Witness Johanna Sjoberg testified that Epstein told her that “Clinton liked her young.” Donald Trump also appears. Witness Sarah Ransome wrote in an email to a journalist that the former president had sex “with a lot of girls.” And the names of other celebrities are sometimes mentioned in passing. Heidi Klum because, according to a witness, she was said to have attended Epstein’s parties. Klum himself denies having known the late entrepreneur. Michael Jackson is said to have been a guest at Epstein’s, as was the magician David Copperfield.
None of those named are accused of criminal crimes. And yet the files provide a clear picture of Epstein’s world. The entrepreneur boasted of his high-profile contacts. According to Sjoberg, he bragged that he knew Donald Trump and could easily call him to arrange a visit to Trump’s casino in Atlantic City. His friendship with Prince Andrew also brought him respect. Having a royal on your side is good. Jeffrey Epstein had an enormous fortune. He had real estate, a private jet and even his own island. His contacts and money apparently helped maintain his system.
As several witnesses explain in the published documents, they were recruited as young women or girls – mostly by Ghislaine Maxwell. Sjoberg said that Maxwell approached her on her university campus and asked if she wanted to earn some extra money. Maxwell then took her to Epstein’s luxurious estate in Palm Beach, where she met the entrepreneur. Household activities quickly became massage activities. And it wasn’t long before Sjoberg realized that in Epstein’s world, massage meant sexual services. In some cases, students were approached in their high schools.
The witness statements also show that the young women were instructed to recruit their own friends for the job. Dozens of girls and women were always employed as masseuses. However, their work was not focused on Palm Beach. Instead, the young women flew from place to place with Epstein and Maxwell.
In her now released testimony, Virginia Giuffre said in 2015 that she was sold by Epstein to several powerful men. “Were you paid $10 to $15,000 by or on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew?” she is asked in an interrogation. “Yes, I received $15,000. I don’t know what the equivalent is in pounds. I received it in American dollars,” said Giuffre. She was 17 years old at the time. Prince Andrew still vehemently denies ever meeting Giuffre, but paid millions of pounds to settle a civil dispute with her.
During questioning, Giuffre also claimed to have been sold by Epstein to a powerful man. She met the man in the south of France. “He spoke a foreign language, he also spoke English, but I’m not entirely sure where he came from… He was introduced to me as a prince,” she said.
Although the recently published documents only partially provide new insights, they give an impression of what was crucial to the functioning of the Epstein system: without money, without power, without influence in high society, it would probably never have been able to be maintained for decades.
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