Jeffrey Epstein, ‘girl trafficker’ who killed a thousand victims

He is undoubtedly one of the most notorious criminals in recent American history: Jeffrey Epstein, sex offender and suspect in large-scale sex trafficking. Donald Trump, tech billionaires, European politicians, princes and princesses, world-famous artists and intellectuals. They all wanted to be seen at his parties. Many eagerly accepted his invitations and visited his luxury homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, and on his private island in the Caribbean Sea.

Epstein’s impressive network is increasingly coming into focus now that millions of documents have been released. But let’s return to Epstein himself. What did he do? We list the most important facts.

Compared to the many indications that Epstein abused girls and women on a large scale and encouraged them to engage in prostitution, his one conviction seems to pale into insignificance. That was in 2008, after a controversial secret settlement between his lawyer and the state of Florida.

Epstein had been accused of pedophilia and sexual abuse of dozens of girls. The indictment was extensive and convincing, but thanks to the plea agreement he managed to avoid years in prison.

He only had to plead guilty to two charges of forced prostitution and in return received thirteen months in prison. The consequences of that prison sentence were also not too bad in practice: he was allowed to go to his home office to work six days a week, twelve hours a day.

It is not clear why Miami prosecutor Alex Acosta agreed to such a light sentence. Judging from recently released documents it does not appear that his office did everything in its power to give Epstein an appropriate punishment. It appears that Acosta felt “frustrated” by the aggressive approach of Epstein’s lawyers.

Eleven years after that conviction, Epstein faced a much more extensive criminal prosecution. That happened in 2019, after the Miami Herald expanded published about the secret settlement. The newspaper also gave a number of victims their say. It turned out that they had not been informed by the judiciary about the settlement. Due to all the fuss about the case, the US Department of Justice took action and launched an additional investigation.

That led to Epstein’s arrest. The indictment accused him of ‘sex trafficking’ in underage girls – sometimes as young as 14 years old. A search of one of his homes in Manhattan turned up thousands of nude photos of young girls.

The asset manager is said to have lured dozens of girls to his homes and paid them for nude massages, which often ended in sex. He is also said to have ‘shared’ the minors with wealthy friends and acquaintances.

On August 10, 2019, before the trial could start, Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell. Authorities determined that he had taken his own life.

Nobody knows exactly. But if you add up all the allegations and proven cases of abuse and forced prostitution from the federal indictment, the Florida police investigation, civil lawsuits and public interviews, you come to more than a thousand women and girls. This concerns people who were allegedly forced to have sex with Epstein, with other men or with Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

After reviewing all evidence, the US Department of Justice and the FBI confirmed in a joint statement last July that the number of “more than a thousand victims” was consistent with their own findings.

So far, several dozen women have spoken publicly about their experiences. They say they waited a long time because they feared revenge by Epstein or his lawyers.

The most famous victim is Virginia Giuffre. She stated that Epstein raped her between 2000 and 2002 and forced her to have sex with others. One of the other perpetrators is said to be the then British Prince Andrew. Giuffre filed a civil case against Epstein in 2009 and went public about it in 2011. She also sued Ghislaine Maxwell and Andrew in civil court. She took her own life in April last year.

In 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was also criminally charged for recruiting girls for sex on behalf of Epstein. She is now serving a twenty-year prison sentence.

Although Jeffrey Epstein is often described as a billionaire, it is estimated that he had no more than 500 million euros in net worth at the time of his death.

Still, that’s a remarkable amount for someone who was fired from his first job as a math teacher due to poor job performance. Coincidentally, he was tutoring the son of the CEO of investment bank Bear Stearns at the time. He hired him at the bank. By the time Bear Stearns collapsed in the 2008 real estate crash, Epstein had already started his own business as an asset manager.

Epstein had two companies, Southern Trust and Financial Trust, both registered in the U.S. Virgin Islands, that provided financial services such as estate planning to super-rich clients. That earned him more than $800 million in profits between 1999 and 2018.

His clients included figures such as Les Wexner, former owner of lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret, whose private fortune is estimated at 7.4 billion euros. But hedge fund billionaires, real estate barons and an heiress of the famous Rothschild banking family also used Epstein’s services.

Data dumps from the US Department of Justice are providing more and more clarity about Epstein’s business dealings. At the same time, the released documents raise more and more questions, Forbes writes. The leaf quotes experts from the world of asset management who say they cannot explain why Epstein’s clients paid disproportionately high amounts for fairly ordinary financial services. “The reason for the sky-high rates clients paid Epstein is unclear. But the magnitude raises the question of whether they also paid him for something else.”

Who appears in Epstein’s documents? You can read about it in this special: