Making big shots ‘sweat’
EPSTEIN PALS COULD BE TARGETS IN TRAFFICKING
A slew of rich and powerful men are likely “sweating it out” ahead of Monday’s indictment against hedgefunder and registered pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, according to a reporter who originally chronicled details of Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking crimes.
In an interview Sunday morning on MSNBC, Miami Herald scribe Julie K. Brown said the new sex-trafficking charges against Epstein may involve “one victim if not more” in New York.
The new sex-trafficking charges include accusations that he paid underage girls for massages and molested them at his homes in Florida and New York, The Associated Press reported. Epstein, 66, busted Saturday night, was set to show up Monday in Manhattan Federal Court.
Epstein is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
Brown told MSNBC’s David Gura that the new case could have explosive consequences.
“Needless to say, these are very powerful people, and I think that they’re sweating a little bit, especially today,” she said. “We don’t know how much, how deep this went, how far-reaching it went in government, but there have been a lot of names that I could see on these message pads (listing clients) on a regular basis as part of the evidence. These message pads where they would call and leave Epstein messages, such as, ‘I’m at this hotel.’ Why do you do that, unless you’re expecting him to send you a girl to visit you at your hotel?
“We’ll have to wait and see whether Epstein is going to name names … to lower his culpability.”
Epstein’s rich and famous posse included President Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Great Britain’s Prince Andrew. Brown said relations between fellow Palm Beach residents Epstein and Trump were always “friendly.”
“They went to dinner parties at each other’s houses, Trump was also on his plane,” she said. “Probably not as much as a lot of other people because, you know, Trump had his own plane. But they had a lot of social relationships.
“And the other interesting thing is Trump had a modeling agency, and Epstein also had a stake in a modeling agency, which they suspect he used to bring in underage girls from overseas,” she added. “There is a comment in one of the court files where Epstein is quoted as saying, ‘I want to set up my modeling agency the same way Trump set up his modeling agency.’ I don’t know what that means, but it is curious that he was trying to do something similar to Trump.”
Epstein allegedly molested dozens of underage girls in Florida before signing a plea deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution and jail time. The deal, signed by federal judges that included Trump’s current Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, allowed him to plead guilty to lesser state charges of soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution. For that, he was hit with 13 months of jail and had to register as a sex offender.
Last week an appeals court ordered the release of a 2,000-page document linked to the Epstein case be unsealed, ruling that the public’s right of access to court papers overrides the privacy concerns of certain individuals. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals decision references allegations of sexual abuse involving “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a wellknown prime minister, and other world leaders.”