Cleaning up the filth
Housekeeper tells Ghis trial of girls & sex toys
Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime housekeeper on Thursday testified that Ghislaine Maxwell was the “lady of the house” at the powerful pedophile’s Florida mansion — and that countless young women hung out there, including two who appeared to be minors.
Juan Alessi dished about working for the late financier in Palm Beach for more than a decade, telling a Manhattan jury he saw “many, many, many females” in their 20s socializing with Epstein and Maxwell, at times topless.
Alessi recalled seeing two girls who appeared to be minors over the course of his employment, which ended in 2002. He identified one of the two as “Jane” — a Maxwell accuser who testified earlier this week — describing her as a “striking, beautiful” girl who looked to be around 14 or 15.
The other minor, Alessi said, was Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who has accused both Epstein and Maxwell of sex-trafficking her when she was a teenager.
He also described seeing an array of photographs in the mansion that showed Epstein with famous figures, including Donald Trump, Fidel Castro and “the pope.” On Maxwell’s desk in the house, she kept a number of photographs of topless women, which he said were taken by the pool at the Palm Beach estate.
As the housekeeper, he had to clean up after Epstein’s massages, which would happen up to three times a day and said several times found a sex toy while tidying after the rubdowns.
“I remember finding a large dildo,” Alessi said when asked by Assistant US Attorney Mauren Comey. “It looked like a huge man’s penis with two heads.”
Alessi said he made the discovery at least four or five times between 1995 and 1998, while tidying up Epstein’s bedroom and attached bathroom inside the mansion.
He recalled wrapping up the sex toy, taking it to the sink and running water over it before putting it in a wicker basket inside Maxwell’s bedroom closet.
Asked how he knew where to put the dildo, Alessi stated: “That’s the place it was kept all the time.”
The basket also contained “pornographic tapes” and a “leather black costume,” he said.
The disgraced heiress was questioned about a “laundry basket of sex toys” during a 2016 deposition that was part of a lawsuit from Epstein accuser Giuffre.
“I don’t recollect anything that would formally be a dildo, anything like that,” she said at the time, according to a transcript made public last year.
Alessi also described how the British socialite ruled the home with an iron fist, giving him a lengthy checklist of instructions — including how staff should present themselves and address her and Epstein — something he found “very degrading.” Maxwell, he testified, once told him that Epstein didn’t like being looked in the eyes.
“You should never look at his eyes,” he said Maxwell ordered him.
Prosecutors also asked Alessi to flip through a 58-page employee handbook and asked him to say which of the dozens of pages he recognized.
A juror appeared to nod off during the painstakingly long process, after which Alessi went back and was asked to reach some of the instructions aloud.
“Remember that you see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, except to answer a question directed at you,” one of the commands read.
“Try to anticipate the needs of Mr. Epstein, Ms. Maxwell and their guests,” another one stated.
Alessi said Epstein was at his Palm Beach home, one of several residences he owned, nearly every weekend and that Maxwell accompanied him “95 percent of the time.”