Panic of the A-list. Sex scandal that could bring down rich and famous
Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein once hobnobbed with the likes of Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Now he’s locked up in a New York jail facing charges of sex trafficking, while lawyers prepare to ‘name names’
For years, he enticed impressionable, vulnerable and – most significantly – underage girls into his web and, according to accusers who’ve come forward so far, passed them on for sexual favours to his rich and powerful friends.
But now sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is locked up in a New York prison cell awaiting trial after a judge ruled granting him bail ‘would be a danger to society’.
Epstein, 66, who counts US presidents, A-list movie stars and royalty among his pals, is facing up to 45 years in prison after
being charged on 8 July with sex trafficking crimes involving ‘dozens’ of underage girls.
In court papers, the prosecution claims that, ‘over many years, Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations.’
In the USA, you’re a minor until 18, although Epstein is alleged to have sexually assaulted girls as young as 14.
The case has rocked the higher echelons of society and showbiz, where stories of Epstein’s gilded lifestyle, his mysterious self-made fortune and his partiality for beautiful, young girls have long been a source of gossip.
Back in 2002, Donald Trump said, ‘I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. 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.’
It’s not surprising in the light of Epstein pleading guilty to sex charges in 2008 (of soliciting a prostitute and of procuring a 17-year-old girl for prostitution) – and now these new charges – that Trump has long since distanced himself from Epstein (they had a falling out around 2005). In the meantime, his old reference to Epstein’s taste for ‘ beautiful women on the younger side’ takes on a chilling new meaning.
Investigative reporter Vicky Ward, who first came across allegations of Epstein’s sex abuse in 2002, says, ‘He had an extraordinary Rolodex… Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, lots of Nobel prize-winning academics – they would all go to his house. And at the same time, so too were these very young women.
‘And there was a nod and a wink. People said to me, “Who knows what goes on in Jeffrey’s personal life?”
‘It was just sort of accepted that there were these very young, very attractive women at his parties.’
Ward tried to blow the whistle on Epstein’s ‘younger’ girlfriends 16 years ago when she was writing a Vanity Fair magazine profile on him. She’d found two of his ‘victims’, Maria Farmer and her sister Annie, who were 27 and 16 when they claim they were abused by Epstein – and were willing to go on the record.
But the allegations were pulled from the piece by the then-editor.
Estimates of the number of girls involved in the abuse range from a few dozen to more than 100 and span several countries. Epstein had mansions in Manhattan and Palm Beach, plus a private jet, even a private island, Little St James in the Caribbean, which locals dubbed ‘Paedophile Island… it’s our dark corner’. Now it’s at the centre of the sex trafficking investigations.
Credit also has to go to Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown who, in 2017, tracked down accusers and found they all told very similar stories.
For many, the ritual of abuse started with a ‘massage’. One victim said, ‘He would come in with a towel around him, say, “Take off your shirt and your pants, stay in your underwear”.
‘He would masturbate while he stared and touched us… it ended with sexual abuse and intercourse… and then a pat on the back. “You’ve done a really good job, thanks very much and here’s $200.”’
In 2015, Virginia Giuffre, previously Roberts, made one of the most sensational claims: that Epstein forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 and that she was used as a ‘sex slave’ by Epstein. The Duke of York, 59, has vehemently and consistently denied the claims, though there is a photo of them together.
Giuffre also claimed she was ‘procured for sexual activities’ by Epstein’s British ‘girlfriend’, Ghislaine Maxwell, 57, daughter of late, disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who is also in the photo.
Ghislaine, dubbed Epstein’s ‘Lady of the House’, lived with him and has been accused of being involved in the sexual exploitation, although she also denies any wrongdoing. When police searched Epstein’s £60 million Manhattan mansion this month, they found hundreds of photos of young girls, ‘piles of cash’, diamonds, and an old passport with his face on it but a different name, registered to Saudi Arabia. The mystery deepened last week when he was found badly injured in his cell. Was it self-harm – or was he attacked? Cops immediately put him on suicide watch.
And the world is about to hear a lot more about Epstein – including just what is the source of his fortune?
‘How he claims he got so rich is just not true,’ says Ward. ‘No one in the hedge fund world [which he claims to inhabit] ever heard of him… the whole thing is a great mystery.’
Many rich and powerful pals of Mr Epstein will be quaking in their boots. Brad Edwards, a lawyer for one of Epstein’s accusers, promises, ‘In due time the names are going to start coming out.’*
‘How he claims he got so rich is just not true… the whole thing is a mystery’