The New York tycoon and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was able to hide the plot of sexual abuse and human trafficking which he carried out together with his partner, Ghislaine Maxwelland for which in July 2019, a month before taking his life, he was arrested. His illegal activities recorded in the three million documents now known as ‘Epstein Files’, took place with impunity in the refuge of Little Saint James Island, in the United States Virgin Islands. Where, thanks to his contacts acquired on Wall Street and after decades of making the right friends, he managed to rub shoulders with the most prominent celebrities and figures in North American and international society.
However, Epstein’s fame and debauchery of their exclusive parties They ended up attracting the attention of the security forces. The plummet of what was once one of the most influential – and dangerous – men behind the curtains of high places, began like any other process with a family’s complaint.
He March 15, 2005 The Palm Beach Police (PBPD) opened an investigation against Epstein after the complaint of the family of a minor under 14 years old which accused the New Yorker of sexually abusing his daughter in his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. For this accusation he ended up being sentenced to 18 months in prison and later paved the way for the investigation for which he ended up being arrested in 2019 and for which could have faced a sentence of 45 years for sexual abuse and human trafficking.
On that occasion Epstein, who according to the police report was accompanied by two more people: Sarah Kellen y Haley Robsonpaid the 14-year-old minor to give her a massage, after which she was forced to perform different sexual acts. Detectives Joseph Recarey and Michael Reiter, both from the PBPD, elevated the case to other higher levels when they considered that the state tour was insufficient. For this reason, they chose to open a broader investigation in order to identify more possible victims and witnesses, until they documented a pattern linked to these paid “massages.” Which is why the case finally ended up in the hands of the FBI.
However, the perception that Epstein was involved in this type of activity dates back several years before this first complaint. In 2022, British journalist Vicky Ward who dedicated himself to pursuing the activities of Epstein and Maxwell for almost two decades, assured in his podcast that In 2002 he already received accusations against the New York magnate and his partner.
In this same program, Ward claimed that, when she worked for ‘Vanity Fair’ magazine, she interviewed two sisters who claimed to have been sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell. Some alleged facts that were never published because, according to the British journalist, Epstein convinced the magazine’s editor, Graydon Carter, to keep them in a drawer and the case did not come to light.
From the ‘Miami Herald’ to the prosecutor’s office
Again, the turning point was in 2005 with the complaint that would lead Epstein to his first conviction in June 2008. Almost a year later, in May 2009 and just a couple of months before Epstein was released from prison, the activist and founder of ‘Victims Refuse Silence’, Virginia Giuffresued the pedophile and Maxwell, accusing them of having opened a sex trafficking ring as a minor.
Since then, investigations against Epstein have continued. New victims were emerging as a result of police and journalistic work, where the most notable was that of the American journalist Julie K. Brown for the ‘Miami Herald’. Brown had been following Epstein’s actions since 2008 since, during his first trial, the then federal prosecutor, Alex Acosta –in 2017 appointed senator for the Republican Party–, signed an agreement with the New York tycoon so that he only had to spend 13 of the 18 months in jail.
It was precisely that appointment that led him back to Epstein’s victims and to return to that story. Since then, he collected information on about 80 victims in Miami and New York between 2002 and 2005whose stories were reflected in a series of reports that, finally, fed the New York Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the accusations that ended up convicting Epstein.
Subscribe to continue reading
