The ‘recruiters, groomers and friends’ accused of supplying Epstein with girls
As Ghislaine Maxwell faces trial, four other female ‘aides’ to billionaire abuser could be investigated
‘She will name names. She’s a drowning rat. Enablers like Sarah Kellen should be given up by Maxwell’
‘I have faith that maybe I’ll get a day in court where I can face the people that helped Jeffrey rape me every day’
SCANNING through leaked flight logs from Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet between 2001 and 2006, an unfamiliar name crops up time and again – 350 times, to be precise.
Only Epstein himself and Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate, appear to have flown more often than Sarah Kellen on the plane dubbed the “Lolita Express”.
Described as Ms Maxwell’s “lieutenant”, she is accused by his victims of procuring women and under-age girls.
Little has been heard of, or from, the 40-year-old, and three other alleged female “co-conspirators”, since they were given immunity from prosecution under a highly unusual “sweetheart deal” struck between Epstein and the US attorney for South Florida in a 2008 criminal case.
The arrest of Ms Maxwell at the behest of the attorney’s office in New York, which has said it is not bound by the Florida agreement, now raises the prospect that the four will be investigated.
The Sunday Telegraph understands that authorities are looking into the alleged role played by Ms Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, and Nadia Marcinkova with a view to bringing charges.
The women are accused of being his “recruiters, groomers, sexual partners and friends”, an organised network of underlings who reportedly received huge salaries and perks in return.
Ms Kellen is accused of running a “Rolodex” of women and girls that she would arrange to visit Epstein.
“When Jeffrey wanted me, Sarah or Ghislaine would call me into his bedroom. I had no choice but to go,” said Sarah Ransome, who was a 22-year-old student when she claims she was abused and trafficked. Ms Ransome alleges the pair also gave her tips on how to give Epstein erotic massages, including how to rub his feet and satisfy him sexually.
“Sarah Kellen knew for every girl that she organised to go on that island [Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands] or to be picked up by a car to go to the New York mansion, she knew that these girls were there to be abused repeatedly,” she said. According to court papers, Ms Kellen and Ms Maxwell told the girls not to speak to authorities about their interactions with Epstein. Ms Maxwell denies all charges against her.
Ms Kellen, who was 22 and had just been cast out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses after a divorce when she met Epstein, claimed to have been manipulated “sexually and psychologically” by him for years. She did not respond to The Tele
graph’s request for comment.
In a statement to CBS News, lawyers for Ms Kellen claimed she scheduled appointments for Epstein and Ms Maxwell “at their direction”. Ms Kellen is “aware of the pain and damage Epstein caused and deeply regrets that she had any part in it,” they said. Ms Marcinkova and Ms Ross have exercised their right to remain silent when questioned on the allegations. Ms Groff denied having anything to do with Epstein’s sexual misconduct through a lawyer in 2019. Ms Marcinkova says she was herself a “sex slave” who was brought by Epstein to the US from Slovakia when she was 15 before she is alleged to have started helping procure other girls. The women have faced numerous civil lawsuits, but never criminal ones.
After 2008, Ms Kellen appeared to drop off the radar, deleting private social media accounts and using the name Sarah Kensington to set up SLK Designs.
In 2010, she was interviewed as part of civil proceedings, along with Epstein’s other assistants, but invoked her right under the Fifth Amendment not to answer questions put to her under oath.
The question now is whether Ms Maxwell, 58, who is facing 35 years in prison if she is found guilty of recruiting women and under-age girls for Epstein to sexually abuse, which she denies, will work with prosecutors to build a case against the alleged co-conspirators.
“She will name names. She’s a drowning rat,” Christina Oxenberg, a distant cousin of the Duke of York and a former associate of Ms Maxwell, told The Telegraph. “Enablers like Sarah Kellen should be given up by Maxwell.”
The FBI and prosecutors could also look at what dealings Epstein and Ms Maxwell had with Ms Kellen and the others following his 2009 jail release.
Transactions made by Epstein were laid bare this week as part of an investigation by New York financial regulators into oversight at Deutsche Bank.
They say Epstein, who died in an apparent suicide in a Manhattan jail cell last year awaiting trial, sent $2.65million (£2.1million) in 120 wire transfers through an account set up in 2014.
They found that some of the payments from that account, and others, were made to the four “co-conspirators” named in the 2008 case. Ms Kellen is also reported to have visited Epstein several times in jail as he was serving an 18-month sentence for sex crimes involving a minor, and was pictured with him in 2012 after his release.
While Ms Ransome welcomed the arrest of Ms Maxwell, she said further charges needed be brought for her to feel that justice had been served: “I have faith that maybe I’ll get another day in court where I can face the co-conspirators, the people that helped Jeffrey rape me every day.”