Second batch of Jeffrey Epstein documents unsealed in NYC; detective recounts interviews with 30 girls
A second batch of Jeffrey Epstein documents was unsealed Thursday in years-old litigation involving the disgraced late financier.
Former President Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson and magician David Copperfield were among the larger-than-life names to appear among hundreds of previously sealed court docs already made public in Manhattan federal court earlier this week in a settled lawsuit between the deceased multimillionaire’s convicted right-hand, Ghislaine Maxwell, and one of his most vocal accusers, Virginia Giuffre. None of those elite figures were accused of participating in abuse.
The paperwork, comprising motions, depositions and other docs, had remained under seal during Giuffre and Maxwell’s litigation to protect identities of victims and of people who came up but who didn’t do anything wrong, the judge on the case previously wrote. After ordering the latest batch of names to be released without redactions on Dec. 18, Judge Loretta Preska noted most were already out there, through court cases or media reports.
New details of the high-profile figures’ dealings with the perverted financier add color to claims long made by women who say Epstein waved around his big-name contacts while grooming them for abuse. More documents are expected to be unsealed in the coming days.
Thursday’s document dump was smaller than the first load and contained few details unknown to those who have followed the saga around Epstein, who died by suicide in jail while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. They contained more excerpts from depositions taken during the suit, including some of Maxwell and Giuffre’s, along with medical providers who treated the accuser.
During a June 2016 deposition included in the suit, the Palm Beach detective who headed an investigation into Epstein in the mid-2000s said he had interviewed between 30 and 33 girls who were sought out to give Epstein massages at home. The majority of them were under 18 and received kickbacks to recruit other girls, according to the officer.
“[The] victims would come into the home and were brought upstairs to provide the massage, Epstein would lay on his massage table, where they would start to rub his back and the back of his legs,” Det. Joseph Recarey said, later acknowledging he learned “massage” was code for something else.
“Epstein would either attempt to fondle the girls or touch the girls inappropriately, and at which point he would masturbate.”
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a 14-year-old for sex in a much-criticized plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, which took over the case from Palm Beach police investigating the perv financier. He served just 13 months in a county jail, which he was able to leave sometimes for work.
Portions of another deposition unsealed Thursday focused on an unnamed victim who said she was a high school student when she was recruited to massage Epstein under the assumption it wouldn’t involve anything sexual. She described him removing her clothes the first time they met against her wishes.
“I was just there, and all of a sudden something horrible happened to me,” she said, later testifying she sometimes got paid just for going over to Epstein’s house to swim in the pool or go for a nap.
The first batch of documents unsealed Wednesday featured additional details surrounding Giuffre’s long-held claims Epstein forced her to sleep with British royal Prince Andrew when she was a teen. The British king’s younger brother settled a suit with Giuffre in early 2022 for a reported $16 million, which did not require him to admit wrongdoing. He has adamantly denied any misconduct.
Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 after her conviction on charges alleging she delivered Epstein sex assault victims through an elaborate pyramid trafficking scheme. She’s appealing her conviction.
“Ghislaine Maxwell has always challenged the credibility of all her accusers,” Maxwell’s lawyer Arthur Aidala said Thursday. “She continues to do so now.”
