I could happily live the rest of my life without remembering Jeffrey Epstein, his years-long exploitation of young women, or the many famous male moths who were drawn to the billionaire's flame. I'm sure his emotionally scarred victims wish they could too.
Unfortunately, recent events in the news make the sordid Epstein saga impossible to avoid. And perhaps so it should be, since the lives of so many young women were marred by a vile, lecherous man and his partner who delighted not only in abusing underage girls, but also in using them to attract high-profile figures. to its orbit.
opinion columnist
Robin Abcarian
This week, two more sets of documents related to Virginia Giuffre's 2015 defamation lawsuit against Epstein's girlfriend and pimp, Ghislaine Maxwell, were released by order of U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska. The case was resolved in 2017, but many of the documents remained sealed until now. The judge said she would make them public because much of their content is already public knowledge.
Monday and Tuesday's posts were the fourth and fifth document dumps this month and were accompanied by feverish speculation about which names in bold would emerge as Epstein associates.
In fact, dozens of names appear in the files: Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Ron Burkle, David Copperfield, Richard Branson, Stephen Hawking, Noam Chomsky, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Also, Kevin Spacey, Michael Jackson, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett and Naomi Campbell, among many, many others.
Some of the many, many news stories about the newly released documents are nothing more than a bait and switch: “Cameron Diaz breaks silence after being named in Jeffrey Epstein documents.” Seriously, Fox 11? (Díaz said through his publicist that he never met the boy.)
An explosive allegation in the new documents concerns Epstein's mentor and main investor, retail magnate Leslie Wexner. In a 2016 deposition related to a separate defamation case, Giuffre alleged that she was trafficked to Wexner. Wexner has not been charged with a crime and has not responded to Tuesday's revelations. According to ABC News, in 2019, after Epstein was arrested, Wexner told his employees that he had no knowledge of Epstein's criminal sexual behavior.
Aside from that case, the judge is right: We've already heard snippets of most of what's in the documents about the predatory Epstein, who had crushes on intellectuals and scientists, knew rich and powerful people, and apparently liked to drop Names.
In her testimony, one of his victims described this predilection: During sexual massages, “he was talking on the phone a lot at the time and once said, 'Oh, that was Leonardo' or 'That was Cate Blanchett' or 'Bruce Willis.' That kind of things.”
Meanwhile, Maxwell, who was convicted in December 2021 of felonies, including sex trafficking of a minor, and sentenced to 20 years, resides in a low-security Florida prison. According to a recent report by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General, his accommodations are far less pleasant than Epstein's New York brownstone, his private island in the Caribbean, his sprawling ranch in New Mexico or the luxurious house in New Hampshire where he hid until his arrest in July. 2020.
The report said inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee were served moldy bread and inspectors found spoiled vegetables and insect-infested cereal in the warehouse.
That's probably no consolation to Epstein's victims, including Giuffre, who was recruited by Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16, as a wardrobe assistant at Mar-a-Lago. For three years, Giuffre has testified, she was kept as a “sex slave,” flown around the world and “lent” to high-profile men for sex.
“Epstein's purposes in 'loaning' Jane Doe (along with other young women) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself with them for commercial, personal, political and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information,” his lawyers stated. . in court documents.
You may recall that Giuffre's allegations and lawsuit against Prince Andrew, Duke of York, led to her symbolic defenestration and a confidential settlement reportedly worth around $16 million. And you've no doubt seen the infamous 2001 photo of Andrew at Maxwell's London home, with his hand around Giuffre's (then known as Virginia Roberts) waist.
Giuffre, who was Epstein's first victim to publicly identify herself, has become an advocate for survivors of sex trafficking.
After Epstein committed suicide in August 2019 in a New York federal prison cell while awaiting trial, his estate created a compensation fund for victims. Its administrator reported in 2021 that the fund had paid more than $121 million to at least 135 of the approximately 225 people who submitted claims.
Because of his suicide, Epstein's victims will never get the full justice they are entitled to. And while her and Maxwell's names will eventually (thankfully) disappear from public discourse, we must never forget the courage it took for Giuffre and others to bring them to justice, nor the lifelong impact their heinous crimes will have on these women.
“The pain you have caused me is almost indescribable,” Giuffre wrote in the impact statement she presented at Maxwell's sentencing in June 2022. “Nightmares wake me up at all hours. In those dreams, I relive the horrible things you and others did to me and the things you forced me to do.”
But she added: “Despite you, I have become a woman who tries to do good in the world; a woman who, on her best days, feels like she is making a difference.”
