First, there were 10 photographs and four unpublished videos. Hours later, another 200 more files. The two shipments were made up of interior and exterior shots of a property in Little St. James, one of the two private islands that the millionaire owned in the Caribbean. They were released this Wednesday by Democrats on the Congressional Oversight Committee while Washington anxiously awaits the publication, ordered by law, of Epstein’s papers by the Department of Justice.
There, in a sinister corner of the Virgin Islands that locals knew as “pedophile island,” he committed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of the crimes for which he was to be tried when he died in 2019 in a maximum security cell in what the coroner determined was a suicide, while waiting to be tried as the leader of a ring.
In the first of the batches released this Wednesday, there were images taken in 2020 of the mansion’s garden and a “Do not enter” sign, snapshots of two different bedrooms, a bathroom, another in a space used as a warehouse and a living room-library decorated with dubious taste, as well as two close-ups: of a telephone, on which the names of the speed dial keys have been crossed out, and of a blackboard with enigmatic words written down (“power”, “deception”, “plants”). Perhaps the most disturbing photo is that of a kind of dentist’s operating room. Maybe it could have been used, as indicated The New York Times, of Epstein’s last girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, who worked as a dentist.
Many of the images of the second lot could be used to advertise the property on a real estate sales or rental platform. There are other rooms in the house and statues scattered throughout it, as well as paintings and photos of photos in which, for example, Epstein is seen with Ghislaine Maxwell, his agent and accomplice, at a reception with Pope John Paul II.
As for the videos, there are some taken outside the mansion, such as a walk through the garden that ends in a pool; or the one that recreates in the sea with the palm trees waving in the wind, whose noise dominates the recording. Others show two bedrooms in the house, and in one of them you can see a guy, whose face has been covered, leading the way through the room. Next.
The material is, as defined in an X message from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, “a harrowing look behind Epstein’s closed doors.” “See for yourself. We will not give up the fight until we put an end to it. In reality, there is not much to discover for those who have followed the case for years: documentaries and journalistic investigations published in this time have already spread images of the island in recent years.
They have received the images and videos from Epstein’s heirs, the same source that has provided them in recent months, following a court order, with tens of thousands of private emails or the congratulatory book for the pedophile’s 50th birthday that he prepared for him, who is turning 20 for his complicity in the financier’s crimes, based on contributions from friends of the honoree. That book includes , which he denies is his. It comes from the times when both had a close relationship.
Democratic Representative Robert García explained this Wednesday in a statement that the committee of which he is a member has also received records from JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank, two banks with which Epstein worked, and that members of his party plan to publish those files “in the coming days”, after their review.
“These new images offer a disturbing look into the world of Jeffrey Epstein and his island. We release these photos and videos to ensure public transparency in our investigation and help piece together the full picture of Epstein’s horrific crimes,” Garcia stated. “It’s time for President Trump to release all the files, now!”
The Department of Justice has until December 19 to comply with the obligation to disseminate the files in its possession on Epstein, established by a law approved by an overwhelming majority of both Houses and later signed by the president of the United States.
Bondi’s role
The Epstein Files Transparency Act orders Attorney General Pam Bondi to publish unclassified documents related to the millionaire pedophile. Bondi changed his mind in July about releasing those materials after months of promising to release Epstein’s papers.
This disclosure must be, according to the rule, “systematic” and include all documents in the possession of the Department of Justice. It is a varied and endless collection of files. There are millions of pages, including flight logs, personal communications, internal reports, metadata, immunity agreements,
The law also requires that published material be easily searchable and downloadable. And it authorizes the Department of Justice to censor information that may be compromising for victims, materials that describe sexual abuse of minors, shocking images or data that may jeopardize an active investigation. those censorships and Congress demands an additional report that details the content crossed out within 15 days of publication.
All these exceptions have caused concern among victims, who fear that they could serve to make this new declassification another chapter in the story of disappointments accumulated in this case by those who want it to be clarified once and for all how far Epstein’s sex trafficking network went and which rich and powerful men participated in it or, at least, had knowledge of the crimes of the pedophile and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
