First lawsuit is filed against his estate (and pal Ghislaine)
A WOMAN who says she was sexually assaulted by Jeffrey Epstein at the age of 14 filed what is expected to be the first of a wave of claims against his estate yesterday.
Jennifer Araoz, 32, is also suing Epstein’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell, along with three other woman who allegedly worked for the financier.
Miss Araoz said she was just beginning high school when an Epstein associate brought her to his mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, beginning a grooming process that led to months of sexual abuse, including what she called a ‘brutal rape’.
The lawsuit in New York County Supreme Court was made possible by a new law making it easier for victims of sex crimes as children to file civil lawsuits. The Child Victims Act creates a one-year period, starting yesterday, when adult survivors can sue an abuser or a negligent institution, no matter how long ago the offences took place.
The lawsuit says Miss Maxwell facilitated Epstein’s abuse of several girls by overseeing their recruitment and ‘ensuring that approximately three girls a day were made available to him for his sexual pleasure’. Three unnamed associates are also subject to the complaint. Miss Araoz said: ‘Epstein and his enablers … robbed me of my youth, my identity, my innocence and my selfworth.’ She said Epstein’s massage room had a ceiling painted as a blue sky with clouds and angels, ‘to give the appearance that you were in heaven’.
The three unnamed defendants include a maid, a secretary, and a ‘recruiter’ who helped find underage girls for him.
Dan Kaiser, a lawyer for Miss Araoz, said holding Epstein’s ‘adult enablers’ to account was ‘a very large part of this story’. He said Miss Maxwell, 57, was a key figure in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking ring, although Miss Araoz never met her.