Jeffrey Epstein

Epstein in 2019

RationalWiki's Chilling Tales of True Crime

Articles on illegal behaviour

Pump and dump Iran-Contra Virgin cleansing myth Ĵakvo la Buĉisto Phantom social workers Gerald Bull

Busted

Neil Erikson Pauline Hanson Ignaz Trebitsch Lincoln James Arthur Ray J. Edgar Hoover Benjamin Netanyahu v - t - e

“”I wanted to do a story on sex trafficking, but every time I googled Florida and sex trafficking, a story about Jeffrey Epstein came up.

—Julie K. Brown[1]

Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019) was an American financier who was well known; now infamous for two things — a sex trafficking operation he ran with Ghislaine Maxwell (arguably the largest-scale crime revealed under the aegis of MeToo challenged only by Keith Raniere/NXIVM, the Peter Nygård case, the Samuel Klein case, and P. Diddy), along with the… controversial circumstances of his death in prison, which has been ruled a suicide. Many have doubted this ruling, especially as these revelations came around the time conspiracy theories claiming to link the international elite to pedophile cults were rapidly growing. Epstein had over 1,000 victims.^[2] One judge (quite plausibly) described him as "the most infamous pedophile in American history".^[3]

Epstein had long been considered in right-wing circles as somebody who was let off the hook for his crimes because of his connections with the Democratic Party. A 2007 column from Ann Coulter, for example, specifically notes how light of a sentence he was given and compares it to the then-ongoing controversy surrounding Scooter Libby and the investigation of Rush Limbaugh from a few years before.^[4] However, a renewed interest in Epstein occurred following the rise of the Pizzagate/QAnon conspiracy theories in ~2016–2019.

There was a relative lull in interest in the few years after Epstein's death, during which Epstein's collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell, was imprisoned. There was still lasting interest in some political corners, such as with holdouts for QAnon, TrueAnon, and parts of the MAGA and liberal activist worlds, the latter two of whom hyped up the topic as a potential 2024 election issue (though it never much broke through to the general public that year). There was again widespread renewed public interest in the Epstein case in 2025, as Donald Trump's lieutenants Pam Bondi and Kash Patel were widely considered not to have achieved enough transparency regarding the case.^[5] In June 2025, Trump donor Elon Musk made a very public (and later-retracted) accusation that the results of Epstein investigations hadn't been made public because of the presence of Donald Trump's name in the investigative documents.^[6] Trump had previously been known as a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, and was seemingly aware of and congratulatory towards Epstein's liking of "women … on the younger side", thus fueling conspiracy theories about his potential involvement with, or at least potential awareness of, Epstein's more criminal proclivities.^[7]

Some background[edit]

Epstein in 1980

Epstein's bookshelves at his Palm Beach estate

Though initially a teacher in New York City at a private college preparatory school, he would leave that for a seemingly much more lucrative career in the finance sector. The word "seemingly" is invoked because, well, it's a bit of a mystery where his billions actually came from or if he was a billionaire at all.^[8] As much of his wealth came from a money management firm in the tax haven of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which has never released any public records. How rich he was and how he got the money remain currently unknown, although he was definitely rich enough to afford a private island, which he used to traffic girls. Theories as to the origin of his fortune range from money laundering to work in espionage. Dodgy conduct was associated with him from fairly early on — he was fired from both Bear Stearns and his teaching position, and indeed he only got the job at Bear Stearns because he had befriended their CEO, Alan Greenberg. He nonetheless managed to achieve acceptance among the American aristocracy and even made contacts abroad! Some prominent acquaintances of his (who have since had to make some really embarrassing denials) included Bill Clinton,^[9] Prince Andrew,^[9] Ehud Barak,^[10] Donald Trump,^[11] Steven Pinker,^[12] and Bill Gates.^[13]

Eugenics, cryonics and transhumanism[edit]

There have been claims that Epstein was planning to create a master-race based on his own DNA, a scheme which matches the definition of eugenics. The New York Times cited associates of Epstein, saying: "Epstein told scientists and businessmen about his ambitions to use his New Mexico ranch as a base where women would be inseminated with his sperm and would give birth to his babies … Mr Epstein’s goal was to have 20 women at a time impregnated at his 33,000-sq-ft Zorro Ranch in a tiny town outside Santa Fe." Creepy. This reflected Epstein's more general interest in transhumanism, including giving $20,000 to the Worldwide Transhumanist Association (now Humanity Plus) in 2011. His former lawyer Alan Dershowitz claimed to have been concerned by Epstein's fascination with eugenics, given Dershowitz's and Epstein's Jewish heritage and the Nazis' interest in eugenics.^[14][15] Epstein also had an interest in cryonics, and more specifically "wanted his head and penis to be frozen."^[16]

The infamous part[edit]

In the 1980s, Epstein began performing financial services for Leslie Wexner, the CEO of the Victoria's Secret lingerie company. Wexner was the primary client of Epstein for quite some time, without which Epstein's business likely wouldn't have taken off. Abusing this connection, in the 1990s Epstein began posing as a "model scout" to lure prospective Victoria Secret models to hotel rooms and his home in a Manhattan mansion, because there's absolutely nothing skeevy about a middle-aged man pretending to be a "model scout" to get women into his bedroom. Wexner was made aware, but did not suspend his connections with Epstein until around the time of Epstein's first conviction. In what is now alarming in hindsight, in the early 2000s Wexner would market his line of lingerie towards 15-year-old girls.^[17]

Epstein had officially been accused of sex-related crimes since 2005, and was even convicted in Florida in 2008 (though his sentence was a mere 13 months), but this really only caught up with him in 2018 and 2019.^[18] After numerous accusers came forward influenced by similar events, such as the fall of Harvey Weinstein, numerous vile details were brought to the public eye and he was arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking. Whilst awaiting trial, he was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. How did he die? How could the guards have let this happen? Who did the deed? What secrets did he take to the grave about his rich and powerful clientele? Such questions gripped the popular consciousness, and in many ways Epstein is more remembered for his mysterious death than for the horrible things he did.

Alexander Acosta and the plea deal[edit]

Acosta's 2007 non-prosecution agreement (PDF)

Epstein was indicted on sex trafficking charges in 2007 after a long FBI investigation. Agents found 34 children with credible accusations against him. Alexander Acosta, then federal prosecutor and later Donald Trump's Secretary of Labor (2017-2019), made a sweetheart plea deal with Epstein which included the right to leave prison for 12 hours a day on work release. He used this period to abuse at least one victim.^[19]

In addition to being morally sketchy, this deal was also illegal under a federal law that says Acosta was required to tell the alleged victims about such plea deals.^[20]

The plea deal came up during Acosta's confirmation hearing, but it wasn't until 2019 (after Epstein's final arrest put the case back in the spotlight) that Acosta resigned.^[21]

"Epstein didn't kill himself"[edit]

Bridge graffitied with the famous phrase.

His death was officially ruled as a suicide, specifically saying that he had hanged himself with his bed sheet. Naturally scores of people in the perpetually paranoid American body politic believe that Epstein was killed, usually by some powerful person who did not want their connection with his crimes revealed. The Clintons are common "suspects" because of course they are. This is encapsulated in the phrase "Epstein didn't kill himself," which went viral very quickly, and unlike Epstein this meme has refused to die. Such widespread acceptance can be traced to three things — procedural fuck-ups that the prison staff made in regards to him, mass resentment of the well-off elite that he was intricately linked with, and some supposed discrepancies in the autopsy.

It's not impossible that Epstein was murdered, but it's likely he did commit suicide and the guards utterly screwed up. One simple reason is that there's far, far easier ways to kill someone like Epstein. For example, nothing outright says that Epstein is required to be separated from the general population of inmates, many of whom would have very strong reasons to resent Epstein, and just letting things happen.

Malfunctioning cameras[edit]

Not one but two cameras malfunctioned in front of Epstein's cell when he died.^[22] It's possible for a camera to have a fault due to poor maintenance, but two cameras having a fault at the same time is pretty much announcing that the cameras were tampered with. However, this is not proof of an assassination (though video evidence would be helpful disproving it), as there is actually a more plausible reason why someone would tamper with the security footage…

Sleeping guards[edit]

During the night of Epstein's death, two guards assigned to him were allegedly both asleep.^[23] This is a colossal screw-up, of course, but never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Anyone who's worked in the prison system could tell you, there's a good chance that the guard in the tower is busy playing a handheld game or reading some internet site dedicated to debunking spiritualist woo, unlike our readers who never stop work to goof off. That both did so simultaneously for such a long time is much more suspicious, of course, but not impossible. At the same time, combined with the "malfunctioning" video cameras, they were charged with falsifying records.^[24]

Had there been an actual assassination, well, this is where a real conspiracy would begin to unravel.^{[note 1]} Prison guards are less "Jason Bourne" and more "Paul Blart, Mall Cop." Charging someone with serious crimes is not a good way to ensure they stay quiet, and bribery is a tool best used to keep people out of the spotlight. Given the high profile nature of the case, if one of the guards suddenly buys a Lamborghini or a beachfront mansion in Boca, that's going to attract questions, and it's hard to believe someone could be bribed with money that they couldn't ever spend.

However, the charges made against the guards were dropped in 2021.^[25]

Hyoid bone[edit]

Epstein's noose

Epstein's death involved a broken hyoid bone. It's actually unclear how often a broken hyoid bone occurs in a suicide by hanging,^[26] but it is more likely to happen in strangulations than in suicides, due to the angle of the choking pressure. The older the suicide victim is, however, the more likely the hyoid bone is to break. Epstein was hardly a young man, so a broken hyoid bone is not all that unusual, and by itself doesn't really provide much evidence for his death being a murder. Nevertheless, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's family was convinced this indicated homicide rather than suicide, disagreeing with New York City's chief medical examiner.^[27]

Prior suicide attempt[edit]

There was a prior suicide attempt by Epstein, allegedly. Epstein himself claimed that another inmate tried to murder him, though the guards believed that he either attempted suicide or was trying to frame another inmate for assault in order to be transferred to another, better facility, which actually raises the possibility of another explanation for everything that happened.^[28] The person Epstein accused of attempted murder was Nicholas Tartaglione (who in turn claims he saved Epstein's life), an ex-cop who allegedly murdered 4 people, including one by strangulation.^[29] The video for this attempt was initially missing, but was eventually located.^[30]

There is also the possibility he simply did not want to be put on suicide watch, which in jail is a humiliating experience. According to the Justice Department in 2019, Epstein was originally placed on suicide watch, but "was later removed from suicide watch after being evaluated by a doctoral-level psychologist who determined that a suicide watch was no longer warranted."^[31] Just two days before his death, Epstein signed his will.^[32]

Screaming (or not)[edit]

It was reported in 2019 that prison guards heard screaming from Epstein's cell the morning he died, though it's unclear who was supposedly screaming.^[33][34] In contradiction to this, inmates in neighboring cells said they heard absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.^[35]

Motive[edit]

Now moving into the conspiracy theorist's realm, the entire reason to kill Epstein is because some of his friends were also in on the molestation, and dead men tell no tales. However, this falls apart for a simple reason; at least 80 victims came forward against Epstein before he died,^[36] and if another powerful person was in on the raping, many of the victims who came forward against Epstein would still come forward against Epstein's partners whether or not Epstein was alive. So far, there hasn't been a rash of Epstein accusers slipping down the stairs onto some bullets. Given that Epstein's friend Bill Gates also ended up involved in numerous sex scandals that he couldn't keep those under wraps forever (or even remain CEO of his own company!),^[37] if Gates was in cahoots with Epstein there's no reason to believe that any of the victims who came out against one wouldn't come out against the other. So far, the only one of Epstein's famous associates to have related rape allegations is Prince Andrew, and if the British Royal Family wasn't able to make an accusation quietly disappear, it's unlikely anyone else would've been able to keep all of their victims quiet. Furthermore, if one or more of Epstein's clients arranged an assassination to silence him, it is inexplicable that they would not do the same to Epstein's partner Ghislaine Maxwell, who also had full knowledge of their crimes. As of 2025, Maxwell is still alive and serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison.

Suicide of Jean-Luc Brunel[edit]

Jean-Luc Brunel was a fashion mogul and associate of Epstein who was accused of aiding in his sex trafficking business. When he was arrested for the sexual abuse of minors, Brunel was also found dead in his cell after seemingly hanging himself.^[38] Conspiracy theorists like Ted Cruz suggested that Brunel, like Epstein, had been murdered, possibly by the Clintons.^[39] No evidence of murder has ever been presented, though, and Brunel was reportedly suicidal.^[40]

Suicide of Virginia Giuffre[edit]

Virginia Giuffre and her organizations used a blue butterfly as a symbol for sex abuse survivors

In April 2025, the family of Virginia Giuffre, who was "one of the first and most prominent accusers of Epstein,"^[41] announced that she had died by suicide.^[42][43] Giuffre previously stated in December 2019:

I am making it publicy ^[sic] known that in no way, shape or form am I sucidal. I have made this known to my therapist and GP- If something happens to me- in the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me quiteted."^[44][41]

In the immediate weeks prior to the announcement of her suicide, Giuffre had also survived a car crash and alleged her husband was violently abusive to her.^[45][46]

Bill and Donald Barr[edit]

U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr said Epstein's death was a "perfect storm of screw-ups".^[47] Barr recused himself from an investigation into the prior Florida case because he believed his former law firm had been involved, but did not recuse himself from the SDNY case. Another connection that became topical was the fact Barr's father, Donald Barr, had been the headmaster of the school where Epstein was employed as a math and science teacher in the 1970s; Donald Barr reportedly hired Epstein.^[48][49] (Snopes, unlike some other media, said it was "not clear whether Donald Barr played any part in hiring Epstein to work at Dalton School."^[50]) Some conspiracy theorists noted that around this time, Donald Barr also wrote a science fiction novel, Space Relations, which contains some themes about child sex slavery committed by oligarchs.^[51] According to Snopes, this isn't particularly central to the book's plot, and isn't glorified, but rather presents an interplanetary satire of real-life international relations.^[50]

People associated with Epstein[edit]

Epstein's private island

Contrary to what Trump Jr. and 2025 FBI have claimed, the FBI did have such a list in 2009 according to a sworn affidavit by FBI Special Agent Christina J. Pryor.^[52] Gawker, Peter Thiel's most hated news site, published a redacted copy of this memo in 2015,^[53] which was described by the agent as the "Holy Grail or Golden Nugget" to unraveling Epstein's sprawling child-sex network.^[53][52]:2

By no means an exhaustive list, but he did have a lot of friends who would become hated by the far-right for different reasons, many of whom actually do deserve a bit of scorn. Ninety names of his contacts were released during the trial of his associate, including many famous ones (e.g., Stephen Hawking and Al Gore), and at least two who had their own separate sexual assault accusations (David Copperfield and Michael Jackson).^[54]

• Les Wexner, CEO of Victoria's Secret, recently pissed off the far-right by promoting LGBT issues.^[55] He probably should be hated regardless for the very existence of the brand "Pink," a line of lingerie whose target is girls as young as 13.^[56] Plus as mentioned earlier, the whole "talent scout" thing.
• Bill Gates, billionaire software magnate, now hated for his pro-vaccine stance.^[57] Also had sex scandals that only became public during his divorce, probably deserves a bit of scorn for that. In conversations about the divorce, his ex-wife, Melinda, said she "did not like" his "meetings with Jeffrey Epstein".^[58]
• Prince Andrew, a member of the Royal family even the British were unaware existed before Epstein's death, but if you need some random world leader to be included in your conspiracy, there you go^[59]
• Alan Dershowitz, already hated for either being pro-Israel or for defending O. J. Simpson, was one of Epstein's lawyers.^[60] Would later work as a lawyer for Trump.^[61]
• Fellow billionaire and GOP megadonor Peter Thiel may have met with Epstein at least 3 times, although the exact number of meetings which came to fruition is unclear.^[62][63] According to a 2025 New York Times report, Epstein invested with Thiel, and the Epstein estate yielded great returns from this investment.^[64]
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (listed as "Bobby Kennedy Jr.") appears in Epstein's flight logs at least twice.^[65]
• Steve Bannon, while not directly known to be implicated in the Epstein scandal, he filmed 15 hours of interviews with Epstein as recently as 2019, just before Epstein's second and final arrest. The footage was at least initially intended to be a PR rehabilitation of Epstein. Bannon has so far refused to release his own footage of Epstein or to even say whether he still has access to them.^[66]

U.S. Presidents[edit]

Bill Clinton[edit]

Clinton with Epstein in 1993

Bill Clinton, U.S. President and utterly loathed by the far-right,^[67] disliked by many others for more legitimate reasons such as allegedly abusing his power to make rape accusations disappear.^[68] He was in Epstein's flight logs at least nine times.^[65] Epstein made donations to politicians of both major parties in the United States, and this included thousands of dollars both to the political campaigns of Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton.^[69] Epstein also donated to the Clinton family's nonprofit organization, the Clinton Foundation.^[70] The legal team of Epstein's collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell, claimed that Maxwell had been "helping develop the Clinton Global Initiative" (a program of the Clinton Foundation), which they said should be a reason to reduce her prison sentence.^[71]

Bill Clinton received a massage from Epstein accuser Chauntae Davies, who stated she personally "saw absolutely no foul play involving him."^[72] A separate Epstein accuser, Virginia Giuffre, once stated that she believed Clinton would have been aware of Epstein's sexual abuse, on the grounds he was at least basically acquainted with Epstein and with the belief that Epstein spoke relatively freely about his actions, but Giuffre made no specific allegations of abuse against Clinton. Giuffre said Clinton had visited Epstein's Little St. James private island, but Clinton's legal team denied he ever had.^[73][71] Bill Clinton says his travels on Epstein's jet were humanitarian missions, that he had no awareness of Epstein's criminal activity, and that he was accompanied by Secret Service and Clinton Foundation staff during the flights.^[74]

Donald Trump[edit]

Mar-a-Lago, Trump's estate in Palm Beach, Florida

Trump admitted in 2002 that he had known Epstein for 15 years.^[77][78] Epstein was a regular at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate,^[79][80] and Virginia Giuffre alleged she was lured into Epstein's trafficking ring from there,^[79] which Trump appeared to confirm in 2025.^[81] (Giuffre once stated she did not recall personally witnessing any abuses committed by Trump against the girls who Epstein abused.^[82]) Trump was on Epstein's flight logs at least seven times,^[65] not counting when he flew Epstein's former jet to campaign events.^[83] Fourteen phone numbers connected to Trump (including and other than his own, e.g. Ivanka Trump) were in Epstein's "little black book."^[84] Arguably the two had a falling out over time,^[65] but still...

In a 2010 video testimony, Epstein was asked whether he had ever "socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18." Epstein plead the fifth, sixth and fourteenth amendments in response.^[85] In a 2016 lawsuit, Trump was alleged to have raped a 13-year old girl with Epstein in the 1990s.^[86] The plaintiff dropped the suit, with her lawyer saying she "had received threats and was too frightened to show up."^[87]

Then elected, Trump appointed Alexander Acosta to be Labor Secretary, but he resigned because of controversy over a legal deal he cut with Epstein years earlier.^[88] When Epstein was arrested in 2019, Trump said he was not a "fan."^[89] Trump said in 2020 of Ghislaine Maxwell, then charged for conspiring with Epstein: "I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach. I just wish her well, frankly. I wish her well, whatever it is."^[90] Bradley Edwards, an attorney for Epstein victims, originally praised Donald Trump for his forwardness in speaking to him about the matter in 2009, but in his 2020 book, Edwards wrote that he discovered Trump was actually closer friends with Epstein than he was made to think:

Over the next few years, I spoke to several witnesses who told us that they had been introduced by Epstein to Trump. Some had seen him at Epstein's office, others at one of Epstein's homes, at parties or social events, and even on his plane. In fact, Epstein bragged to certain young women in his life about how he had bailed Trump out of bankruptcy and how he was indebted to him.

Last year, I saw a 1992 video of Epstein and Trump together, suggesting that they were closer social friends than I had been made to understand.^[91]

2025 transparency controversy[edit]

Epstein's hard drives

Asked in 2024 whether he would declassify files relating to the Epstein case, Trump gave a somewhat strange answer: "I guess I would. I think that less so because, you don't know, you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there, because it's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would."^[96]

After re-election in 2024, Trump appointed several individuals to his cabinet with some kind of proximity to Epstein or the handling of his case, though none who were accused of any particular criminality pertaining to it. Trump's Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, was Epstein's neighbor.^[97] Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., flew on Epstein's jet twice and was photographed with him in 1994.^[98][99] Trump's U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi, was previously the attorney general of Florida, and technically could have charged Epstein with additional crimes during her tenure in that position; Epstein had previously been sentenced at the time for county-level offenses, in Palm Beach, Florida.^[100]

The FBI has about "100,000 Epstein-related records," which Attorney General Pam Bondi pressured the FBI to put 1000 agents on 24-hour shifts to search for appearances of Trump's name, so as to send a summary to Trump in May 2025.^[77][101] These records are obviously massive, but there are also massive as yet non-public records from Epstein's 2007 Florida conviction, in which he received a sweetheart plea deal for a single charge of the 60 that he had been charged with from then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta.^[102][103] There are also unreleased records from the Maxwell conviction in New York,^[104] and unreleased records from a lawsuit in the US Virgin Islands.^[9]

Interest in 2025 about the so-called "Epstein Files," or a supposed "Epstein list" resulted in a second-order surge of interest towards Donald Trump's past connections to Epstein. After spending years suggesting there was something nefarious about the Epstein situation and Trump would bring transparency about the files,^[89][105] Trump and his team began branding it as the "Radical Left inspired" "Jeffrey Epstein Hoax" and denounced those of his "weakling" "PAST supporters" who continued talking about it after Trump said to quiet down.^[106][107] After this signal hit the antenna in his head, one Newsmax host suddenly decided Epstein's collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell "just might be a victim" after all.^[108][109] Charlie Kirk, Fox News, and others reportedly got the call from Trump to stop talking about it — and they did.^[110][111] Fox News's cable wing decided it was time to report extensively on a social media debate about a blue jeans advertisement instead.^[112] The House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson shut down floor business to block a vote on releasing the files.^[113] When the Wall Street Journal ran a report on what they said was a birthday letter Trump sent to Epstein in 2003, Trump sued them for $10,000,000,000 in response.^[114] Then South Park woke up and broke a ratings record by satirizing the situation, despite the White House's insistence they were irrelevant.^[115][116]

In response to the criticism, the Trump administration made a push to interview Ghislaine Maxwell (who Trump said he was "allowed" to pardon, thought he hadn't thought about doing so) for her testimony, despite the fact she was accused of perjury (and in general just of being a brazen liar trying to save her own ass) in 2020.^[117][118] One of Epstein's first-ever accusers, Maria Farmer (who also spoke on an encounter she with Trump and Epstein in 1995), commented on the choice to interview Maxwell instead of Epstein's victims:

Republicans want to entertain Ghislaine Maxwell, like Tim Burchett wants to entertain her and flash her around and act like, we victims should not be heard from.

He didn’t want to speak to me. He wanted to speak Ghislaine and give her a voice and an audience.

And my little sister is one of her victims, and so am I. So. This is so damaging and yes, I’m fighting two cancers. So I would like to be able to retire and have my FBI reports so that I can help bring accountability to everyone. It’s not just me, I have the weight of all the young women on my shoulders right now.^[119]

Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security prison. The Farmer sisters and the family of Virginia Giuffre released a statement in response:

It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received. Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency. Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas. This is the justice system failing victims right before our eyes. The American public should be enraged by the preferential treatment being given to a pedophile and a criminally charged child sex offender. The Trump administration should not credit a word Maxwell says, as the government itself sought charges against Maxwell for being a serial liar. This move smacks of a cover up. The victims deserve better.^[120]

For what it's worth, Bradley Edwards, a lawyer for many Epstein victims, appeared to agree with the FBI that there was probably no "client list":

Jeffrey Epstein was the pimp and the john. He was his own No. 1 client. Nearly all of the exploitation and abuse of all of the women was intended to benefit only Jeffrey Epstein and Jeffrey Epstein's sexual desires. … For the most part, those two worlds did not overlap. And where they overlapped, in the instances they overlapped, it seems to be a very small percentage. There were occasions where a select few of these men engaged in sexual acts with a select few of the girls that Jeffrey Epstein was exploiting or abusing -- primarily girls who were over the age of 18. That conduct was coercive, it was exploitative, and it was bad. But it's a small fraction of the men he was associated with. And he was abusing hundreds of women, if not a thousand. And it's a very small fraction of those women that he was sending to men. That conduct was secondary to his abusive conduct. [Epstein] abused all of these women.

It's difficult to even discern, when he would send a woman to one of his friends, whether that was even a motivation. What he was not is a person on the top of a sex trafficking operation that was sending women to powerful people around the world so that he could make money. It was not a business. And I think the few examples that we have, the known examples, have led to this belief that he must have been doing that with all of the women that he was abusing. That must have just been his gig. But that wasn't what he was doing on a daily basis. He's a sexual abuser and predator himself.

Did Jeffrey write the names of these people down? I've never seen that. I only know of certain of these individuals because of representing clients. I've never seen a list of people that Jeffrey Epstein kept that would say, 'Here's a list of men that I've sent women to,' or a mix-and-match where it's like, 'I sent this woman to this man.' That's just not something that he was keeping. And it would be highly, highly unlikely that Jeffrey Epstein would keep a list of the people that he sent these women to. I'd imagine he would just remember it. It isn't that many women, and it isn't that many men.

… But the story is not going to die off as long as there's this lack of transparency that is allowing for conspiracy theories to continue to fester and get out of hand. So the best thing would be: Protect the victims' names, release everything else, so that the world can see what is real, versus what is total fiction, and then everybody can move on.^[121]

External links[edit]

• "How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime" — The Miami Herald (November 2018)
• "When Jeffrey Epstein Joked About Sex Abuse" — The Atlantic (July 2019)
• "Two Women Who Knew Jeffrey Epstein Reveal Secrets of His Private World" — Vanity Fair (July 2019)
• "Will We Ever Know How Many Girls Jeffrey Epstein Abused?" — The Cut (July 2019)
• "Jeffrey Epstein's High Society Contacts" — Intelligencer (July 2019)
• "Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA" — The New York Times (July 2019)
• "Darendale Intelligence" — YouTube channel with dozens of videos at Epstein's Little St. James private island (recorded by drone, July–September 2019)
• "Jeffrey Epstein Allegedly Used Coded Messages to Arrange Sex With Underage Girls" — The Cut (August 2019)
• "What We Know About Jeffrey Epstein's 'Pedophile Island'" — The Cut (August 2019)
• "The Epstein Tapes: Unearthed Recordings From His Private Island" — Bloomberg (August 2019)
• "Girls who appeared to be 11 to 12 seen with Jeffrey Epstein getting off his plane in 2018 as authorities eyed his travel abroad" — CNBC (September 2019)
• "Jeffrey Epstein: ABC stopped report 'amid Palace threats'" — BBC News (November 2019)
• "Jeffrey Epstein's autopsy: A closer look" — 60 Minutes via CBS (January 2020)
• "I Called Everyone in Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Black Book" — Mother Jones (October 2020)
• "Jeffrey Epstein's notorious 'Zorro Ranch' lists in New Mexico for $27M. Take a look" — The Miami Herald (July 2021)
• "Ghislaine Maxwell: The harrowing testimony that brought her down" — BBC News (December 2021)
• "What was Jeffrey Epstein's 'Lolita Express'?" — The Independent (December 2021)
• "Who Are the Newly Revealed Jeffrey Epstein Associates?" — Intelligencer (June 2024)
• "We Tracked Every Visitor to Epstein Island" — WIRED via YouTube (November 2024)
• "The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein's Unsealed Court Documents" — TIME (February 2025)
• "The DOJ says it won't release any more 'Epstein Files.' Here's what the government is still keeping secret." — Business Insider (July 2025)
• "Metadata Shows the FBI's 'Raw' Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified" — WIRED (July 2025)
• "CBS News investigation of Jeffrey Epstein jail video reveals new discrepancies" — CBS (July 2025)
• "A Look Inside Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan Lair" — The New York Times (August 2025)

Notes[edit]

References[edit]