The Epstein Files (2024) Movie Script
WOMAN: Could you raise your hand,
please?
Do you solemnly swear
the testimony you're about to give
in the matter now pending shall be
the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth?
Yes, ma'am.
MAN: Could you please state
your full name?
I'm Jeffrey Edward Epstein.
And my residence address is
6100 Red Hook Boulevard
in Virgin Islands.
Have you ever been convicted
of a crime?
Yes.
NARRATOR: The sex crimes of
millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein
are appalling...
FEMALE:
..more than 100 vulnerable teenagers
and young women
trapped in his depraved web.
FEMALE:
Tonight, The Epstein Files,
the latest on who knew what
in the biggest sex-trafficking ring
in history.
His elite circle of the wealthy
and powerful on notice
as thousands of damning
new court documents are unsealed.
WOMAN: They will contain
the names of people
associated with Jeffrey Epstein...
Prince Andrew and the former
President Bill Clinton
have been named...
More are expected to come out...
In the last few weeks, they've linked
Epstein to some very famous names
and exposed some very sordid details.
There are videos that exist.
We've been investigating the scandal
since Jeffrey Epstein's death
in 2019.
This is where Jeffrey Epstein
served his sentence.
That he can still shock
is extraordinary.
I won't stop fighting.
I will never be silenced.
As you'll see, this monster's
tentacles continue to reach...
from beyond the grave.
MAN: What was the crime
of which you were convicted?
Two counts.
One, soliciting prostitution and
procuring a minor for prostitution.
Did you, in fact, commit those acts?
I'm going to invoke
my Fifth Amendment right.
Refusing to answer lawyers
on the grounds
he might incriminate himself,
Epstein thought his own silence
would protect him forever.
How many times have you solicited
a minor for prostitution?
Same answer.
How many times have you solicited
a minor for prostitution
in the state of Florida?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited a minor for
prostitution in the Virgin Islands?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited
for prostitution in New York?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited
for prostitution in New Mexico?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited
for prostitution in Paris?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited a minor for
prostitution anywhere at any time?
Again, I'm gonna assert my right.
Have you ever...
MAN: We're gonna go off the record,
thanks.
So you are terminating
the deposition at this time?
We have a recess in the deposition.
TARA BROWN: With his death by suicide
in 2019
and the jailing of his former lover
and right-hand woman
Ghislaine Maxwell two years ago,
Epstein's associates may well have
thought the scandal was over...
but after a decade
of legal wrangling,
more than 150 people
have been publicly identified,
linked to Epstein
and his sex-trafficking network.
He was a brilliant manipulator,
not just of vulnerable girls
and women.
He was a brilliant manipulator
of powerful men.
A really heinous crime
on an absolutely massive scale
that was allowed to continue
and continue and continue.
EPSTEIN:
Jeffrey Epstein's vast wealth gave
him access to whatever he wanted.
As we now know, the globe-trotting
multi-millionaire created a network
where young women were supplied
to him wherever he went.
EPSTEIN:
And with his own plane and plush
properties all over the world,
he felt free to abuse
in the privacy of his various homes.
This is New York, this is
Palm Beach, this is California,
this is Paris, this is London...
This is wherever
Epstein was touching down.
He needed to have girls
on constant call.
In every single state
or every place that he goes to,
he's already got people lined up
and makers making that happen.
None of this would ever have seen
the light of day
if it wasn't for Virginia Giuffre.
Her allegations of sexual abuse
against Epstein, Maxwell
and famously, Prince Andrew
have fascinated
and repulsed the world.
In 2015, Virginia sued Maxwell
for defamation.
These latest documents are,
in the main,
sworn statements
collected for that case.
It's hard.
It's really hard being back here.
We met Virginia five years ago
when she bravely returned
for the first time
to the Epstein mansion in Manhattan.
I was abused by people
that I can't even mention here.
There's a lot of scars
hidden behind those walls.
(CRIES)
It should be ripped down.
It should be burned to the ground.
(CRIES)
Some of my worst memories
are from this place.
I continue to be shocked
by just how awful this story is.
The damage that was done
to these women
is incredibly hard to even express.
This has been completely
life-altering for them.
It's incredibly unfair that this was
allowed to happen with impunity
for so long.
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
is a journalist and author
who has long covered
the Epstein case.
She believes the significance
of the new Epstein files
can't be overstated.
It's really important
that we understand the difference
between having these allegations
swirl around
and seeing that people
were willing to swear to them
under penalty of perjury.
It's an incredibly hard thing to do
and they were all willing to do it
and to swear to the truth of it.
Lucia also had a front-row seat
when victims testified
against Epstein's co-conspirator
Ghislaine Maxwell
when she was convicted
for sex trafficking in 2022.
A lot of what Jeffrey Epstein
got away with,
he wouldn't have been able to do
without her helping to recruit,
groom and entice underage girls.
But she wasn't just the organiser,
was she?
She was also an abuser herself.
Yes.
So we also heard at trial
from multiple victims
that she was in the room
when the abuse was happening
and that she engaged in the abuse
herself.
But the documents
released by the court
put the spotlight on the role
played by others
in Jeffrey Epstein's inner sanctum.
The most controversial revelation
comes from emails
sent by Sarah Ransome,
who was abused and trafficked
by Epstein.
Those emails claim she has seen
video recordings made by Epstein
of an unnamed friend having sex
with Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew
and Richard Branson.
All three men
vehemently refute the allegation
and in the past, even Sarah has
denied the existence of the tapes.
But just two weeks ago,
she stood by her original claim
in a Zoom call
with 'Good Morning Britain'.
SARAH RANSOME: It's no secret
that everything was recorded.
I've also seen recordings
in his office.
There are videos that exist.
The people that know they exist,
I'm sure,
are very frightened
of them being released.
Fear may also explain
the resounding silence
from others named in this recent
mass release of documents.
According to thousands of pages
of sworn statements
by women abused by Epstein,
the men now in the headlines
are potential witnesses.
They place them at the locations
where the abuse commonly took place.
The vast majority,
including all the names
that we're hearing about the most,
there are no allegations
of criminality.
They are just listed
as potential witnesses.
If these people are not being
accused of any wrongdoing,
why have they been named?
The question is what they saw,
who they met,
what questions they asked themselves
about why girls of that age
would be in any of the Epstein homes
and if they didn't ask themselves
questions about that,
why didn't they
ask themselves questions about that?
The documents also shed light
on the alleged dark motivation
of Epstein's sex trafficking -
to get dirt on some of the world's
most influential people.
There is, for the first time,
the idea that he was quizzing
the girls
he sent to famous people
for details of what happened,
for blackmail purposes.
That has always been the suspicion,
that this man
had cameras everywhere,
that he kept blackmail tapes.
That was his leverage.
So, I heard about Jeffrey Epstein
sort of on the social Upper East
Side grapevine in New York
for a couple of years
around the end of the 1990s
and early 2000s.
You know, he was a figure of mystery
in that
all people really knew about him
was he had kind of out of nowhere
bought the biggest townhouse
in Manhattan
and this guy who no-one really knew
very much about,
he seemed to be a bit of a recluse.
He was known to be unconventional.
People thought
he was very good-looking
and the only thing
that people really knew about him,
his sort of connector
to the outside world
was somebody I knew -
it was Ghislaine Maxwell.
TARA BROWN: With her link to
English socialite Ghislaine Maxwell,
Vicky Ward was the ideal journalist
to profile Jeffrey Epstein.
Her task in 2002
was to investigate the man
behind the $500 million fortune.
My then boss at 'Vanity Fair'
magazine, Graydon Carter,
phoned me up and he said, you know,
"I've been hearing about this guy
for years.
"Nobody knows who he is,
where he got his money from,
"what his deal is"
and that was how it all began.
But what started as a business story
quickly turned sinister.
He liked to have parties
with young women
but given that he was
a very wealthy...
at the time, you know,
good-looking bachelor in his 50s,
that didn't seem in itself
on the surface so peculiar.
But then I met this woman,
Maria Farmer,
and she told me that she had worked
for Jeffrey Epstein.
No-one immediately recognised how
significant Maria Farmer would become
in the Epstein story,
certainly not the authorities,
when, in 1996,
she was the very first to report
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
to the FBI.
MARIA FARMER: Ghislaine came in
to get me one evening.
Ghislaine escorts me
to Jeffrey's room
and he's lying there and he goes,
"Well, here, sit down," you know.
And so, right next to him.
And then Ghislaine sit on the other
side and they began assaulting me.
But really, while I was lying there,
the whole time, I'm thinking,
"My sister's
been around these people."
My sister was 16.
"She's been around them alone."
Maria's fears were well-based.
Her younger sister Annie had also
been abused by the paedophile pair.
And it was the worst thing
that's ever happened to me.
But in a pattern that would be set
in the decades ahead,
Maria's complaint of sexual abuse
against her and Annie to police
was ignored.
They just kept it all quiet,
put it in the bottom drawer
and they were so dismissive that
I just felt daunted and I stopped.
For more than 25 years,
Maria Farmer has been filling
her canvas with the Epstein story,
a tale of horror that began in 1995
when, as a gifted student
at the New York Academy of Art,
she met Jeffrey Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein gave her a job -
to buy art for his New York mansion.
As well, she became
an unwitting witness
to a steady stream of teenagers
and young women
through Epstein's front door.
And shockingly,
she had direct evidence
of Maxwell scouting girls
for the insatiable millionaire.
What did you witness?
So, several times,
I was in the car with her
and she would ask the driver
to stop the car
and she'd dash across to the school
or the park
or wherever she was going
and she would, like,
write down her phone number
for a child, a young girl
and then I'd see that child
at the house
and she'd say,
"They're auditioning," you know.
"I found a model in the park."
And I thought it was really strange
because I did see a couple of girls
in braces
and I've never seen a model
with braces.
Do you reflect on how different
life would be for so many women today
if the FBI had investigated
your complaints in 1996?
Yeah.
They... Yeah.
I think about it all the time. I do.
And it hurts a lot.
And I never had children
because of it... (CRIES)
because I didn't feel like
they would be safe.
It would be another six years
before the Farmer sisters would again
contemplate speaking openly
about their experiences
with Jeffrey Epstein.
When they met with journalist
Vicky Ward in 2002,
Maria and Annie were nervous.
Did it take a lot for you to
convince them to open up to you,
to talk on public record?
VICKY WARD: It did.
There's no question
they were very afraid
of these very powerful people
and I felt that at least
'Vanity Fair' magazine
was also powerful
by us publishing their allegations
that would afford them protection.
And so, I think
that we all proceeded...
under that premise
and unfortunately, that premise got
exploded in the worst possible way.
What blew it up? What happened?
Well, what happened,
as this piece was going forward
and I had to finally
put all the allegations
both of the business staff
and the Farmers' allegations
to Jeffrey and Ghislaine,
they, in their different ways,
went completely berserk.
Epstein was instantly menacing,
a man prepared to bully
and intimidate to save himself.
He treated the entire thing
as a game,
a really dark, twisted game.
He even said to me at the beginning,
"OK, let's play chess.
"I'll be black, you be white.
You get the first move."
And from there,
it descended into a sort of
horrific game of cat-and-mouse.
He would phone me every day
and then he told me that if he
didn't like what I was gonna write,
he was gonna have his witchdoctor
place a curse
on my unborn children
and that that was off the record.
Then he told me he was going to
sue me and ruin me personally
and I was just really frightened
of what this man could do.
So, even though the threats
he was making against you
were quite preposterous,
you took him seriously?
Like, you were generally frightened?
Yeah, because at the end
of all of this,
at the end of months of digging,
meeting the Farmer sisters,
there was still this question mark -
who is this guy?
But it only got worse
when Epstein made a personal visit
to Vicky's boss at the time,
the editor in chief of 'Vanity Fair'.
Epstein got the result he demanded -
Maria and Annie Farmer's allegations
were cut from the story
that went to print in late 2002.
So, as the journalist who had
uncovered these allegations
and convinced these sisters
to go public,
what was your reaction
to see that your work
was not in your article?
Well, I remember bursting into tears
and saying to the person
who was directly my editor,
"We've exposed these poor women.
I mean, this is unconscionable."
But was it a reflection
also of an abuse of power?
I mean, if Jeffrey Epstein's...
Yes.
..walked into
the editor in chief's office...
Yeah, I mean, of course.
..he wasn't there to say hello,
was he?
Of course.
2002 was an era in which
Jeffrey Epstein and other predators,
you know, Harvey Weinstein,
were running the world
and women everywhere
weren't speaking up
and the idea that two men
would have a meeting
after which these allegations
would get pulled,
I mean, you know,
in the world we live in now,
you know, it's monstrous.
Vicky's boss, Graydon Carter,
denies being influenced
or intimidated by Epstein
but either way,
the 'Vanity Fair' story
didn't go anywhere near exposing
the depths of Epstein's depravity.
I only got the very, very, very tip
of that iceberg.
I didn't get to the den of iniquity
that we now know was really going on
behind Jeffrey Epstein's
closed walls
in the mansion in New York
and on his island and in Palm Beach.
OSBORNE-CROWLEY:
Around that mansion,
that's where this part
of the sex trafficking ring
really kind of came to life.
TARA BROWN: Palm Beach Florida is
home to some of the wealthiest people
in America,
an exclusive enclave
for the rich and powerful,
including former president
Donald Trump.
Jeffrey Epstein's luxurious home here
graced the foreshore,
its white walls and inscrutable
exterior hiding a dark truth,
a place where it's estimated
more than 100 girls were tricked
and abused,
their lives changed in an instant.
WOMAN: At 14,
I was still in middle school.
I was straight-A student.
Never even got a B.
I played the first chair trumpet,
I was the captain
of the cheerleading squad
and then after I met Jeffrey,
I just completely quit.
This is where you were living
for a while?
Yes, this is where I was living
when I met Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was 48
when a teenaged Courtney Wild
entered his orbit in 2001.
At the time, she was living
in this trailer park,
one of West Palm Beach's
poorest communities.
Do you believe that Jeffrey Epstein
targeted areas like this?
Yeah, definitely targeted, you know,
children like myself
that were vulnerable to him
and his money
and we felt like we were being
helped and saved by him
but ultimately
he was just preying on us.
As Courtney told me in 2019,
her experience started when she was
brought to the millionaire
by another 14-year-old
to make much-needed cash.
The trap had been set.
What were you expecting to happen?
Why did you think
you were coming here?
Well, I knew that I was coming here
to give a guy a massage
and to make $200.
I did know that.
It was never told to me
that I would be molested by this man
or anything like that.
Inside, Courtney very soon discovered
the massage was cover
for a terrible, well-rehearsed crime.
We were taken upstairs.
There was, like, a circular
stairwell that led to a hallway
that led to his bedroom,
which the massage table
was in his bedroom/bathroom.
You know, he asked us
to get comfortable,
to just, you know, take our clothes
off, to be in our bra and panties.
Were you abused during that session?
And so, we would massage him
for about 30 minutes
and then, whenever he was ready,
you know, rolled over
and asked the person that brought me
to go downstairs and wait
and once that happened, then that's
when the sexual abuse happened, yes.
You're 14
and in a completely alien situation,
an incomprehensible position.
How did you react?
I just remember afterwards
how I felt walking down the stairs
and I just felt so dirty
and so, like...just like a piece
of me had been taken.
Dirty. I felt...
It was like my dirty little secret.
Virginia Giuffre's experience
was eerily similar,
except her recruiter
was not a fellow teen
but the sophisticated and seemingly
trustworthy Ghislaine Maxwell.
Virginia was 16 and working
at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort
when Maxwell spied her
reading a textbook on massage.
VIRGINIA GIUFFRE: She just seemed
very nice and she said,
"I've got a person that I know
"who's actually looking for
a travelling masseuse
"and if you want,
I can get you an interview with him.
"If he likes you,
we can get you educated.
"You'll be a real masseuse
"and you'll get to travel
and see the world."
And, you know, like, she made it
sound like it was a dream come true.
And it wasn't.
Within hours, Virginia was
at Epstein's Florida mansion,
lured there by Maxwell's promise.
It ended
in a devastating sexual attack.
So, put it this way, we did the back
of him, we did the back of Epstein
and then, when he turned over,
that's when I was instructed to...
to...
That's when I was instructed
to get undressed and...
and have sex with Jeffrey Epstein
while Ghislaine Maxwell
was participating as well.
Do you want to take a moment?
No, I'm OK.
I'm OK.
So, you were abused by both of them
in your very first encounter?
Yeah. Both of them. I was abused
by Ghislaine and Epstein.
I don't mean to sound sexist
in any way, shape or form
but I expected it from a man
but I didn't expect it from a woman.
And...
Yeah, I think
that's what hurts the most.
(CRIES)
Maxwell's role
as Epstein's co-conspirator,
for which she is now serving
a 20-year jail term, is well known.
But in truth,
it went well beyond Maxwell.
The pair devised a scheme to feed
Epstein's voracious appetite.
They lured poverty-stricken girls in
with cash,
fanning their dreams
of a better life.
According to journalist
Lucia Osborne-Crowley,
by the time the sexual abuse began,
many were too invested
in their promises to get out.
LUCIA OSBORNE-CROWLEY:
This was a well-oiled machine
of finding vulnerable young girls
who really needed
someone to look after them
and then also using those girls
to try and entrap
younger and younger girls.
And a lot of that, it seems,
was developed in Florida.
How many girls do you think
you brought to Jeffrey Epstein?
At the minimum, 50.
But anywhere from 50 to 70 girls.
What were their ages?
The same ages as me. 14, 15, 16.
I just hold a lot of guilt and shame
for doing those things
and just to know that I had
any influence on that happening
to somebody else
just, you know, it really is just
devastating and breaks my heart.
Epstein's vile pyramid scheme
might have continued unchecked
if not for the stepmother
of one of his teenage victims,
who called the Palm Beach
Police Department in 2005.
WOMAN: (ON PHONE)
That initial call was so alarming
that police launched an investigation
and it didn't take them long
to uncover
the revolting scale
of Epstein's network.
Police interviewed
a staggering 40 victims,
whose ages range from 13 to 16.
Their accounts were shocking enough.
But what they found in Epstein's home
was a creepy insight
into his depraved life -
dozens of nude photos, a steam room,
and a massage room with sex toys.
Among the damning evidence
were phone message pads
clearly showing a trade
in young girls,
scheduling them
for massage appointments
and flight logs
listing girls being transported
aboard Jeffrey's private plane
dubbed 'The Lolita Express'.
I think it's really important
to know
that it is actually much, much worse
than we think.
In 2006,
much to the relief of police,
this predator was finally caught,
a wealth of evidence
amassed against him.
But his own vast wealth
and his immense influence
saw him escape charges that should've
landed him in jail for life.
Instead, he served a mere 13 months
when prosecutors
accepted his guilty plea
to the minor charge of soliciting
a child for prostitution.
But while he was technically
an inmate
at the Palm Beach County Stockade,
he really just slept there.
It was essentially
a slap on the wrist.
He got 12-hour work release
from prison every single day.
Other journalists have described it
as he just basically had to sleep
in a crappy motel
for, you know, a bit over a year.
For many, the most outrageous part
of Epstein's plea bargain
was a seedy deal he struck
with the attorney-general
for the Southern District of Florida.
It gave Epstein and any alleged
co-conspirators, known or unknown,
immunity from further prosecution,
supposedly forever.
Worse still, none of his victims
were told about the deal.
How do you feel about that?
To be sexually abused by a man
and to have the government know
and them actually, you know,
co-conspire with the perpetrator
to make sure nothing happens to him,
it's just so...
It just sounds unreal.
Why do you think
the government did that?
My personal opinion about that is,
you know, money, power
and I think that there was
a lot of people involved in this,
this underage minor sex ring
that they were running
and I think everybody wanted it
to go away.
So you believe that there was
a conspiracy at play here?
Oh, absolutely.
It really is a sordid story,
everything that happened in Florida
and the fact that authorities did
know, did arrest him, did charge him
and he still was able to continue.
And according to Virginia Giuffre,
the abuse didn't stop with Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
She was not just
their sexual plaything.
She was now part of their
international sex-trafficking ring,
lent out to whomever they liked.
I was trafficked
to other billionaires,
I was trafficked to politicians,
professors, even royalty.
It was the elite of the world.
It was the people who run the world.
It was the most powerful people
in the world.
VICKY WARD: Ghislaine was this sort
of very exotic, glamorous figure
who would drop in
and, to be honest, namedrop
a lot of famous names
that she'd been hanging out with.
We heard about Bill Clinton and
sort of all sorts of other people
and we also knew that she was
very good friends with Prince Andrew
and that Jeffrey Epstein
would sometimes have Prince Andrew
to stay.
TARA BROWN: As a British expat
in New York,
journalist Vicky Ward
moved in similar circles
to socialite Ghislaine Maxwell,
the daughter of disgraced megarich
media tycoon Robert Maxwell.
Following her father's suspicious
death aboard his boat in 1991,
Ghislaine moved to New York,
where she started her relationship
with the millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
In 2002, Vicky was assigned to write
a profile of the mysterious financier
for 'Vanity Fair' magazine.
When I began reporting this piece,
I actually ran into
Ghislaine Maxwell
and I sort of said, breezily,
"Oh, Ghislaine, yes,
I'm writing this story
"about Jeffrey and the money"
and I was really taken aback
when she started to cry.
I'm, like,
"Why is this woman crying?
"This doesn't seem to make
any sense."
Obviously, I didn't know that I was,
from her perspective,
probably in danger
of pulling back the curtain
on what was an absolutely horrific
criminal sexual enterprise
involving both of them.
Epstein and Maxwell
complemented each other perfectly.
He had the money she was used to,
she had the contacts he wanted,
the most high-profile, of course,
being Prince Andrew,
who was famously accused of abusing
the then 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre
at Epstein and Maxwell's invitation.
We went to Club Tramp
and he danced with me
and he sweats a lot
and he smells funny and then...
and then we get in the car
and Ghislaine tells me in the car
that I have to do what I do
for Jeffrey for Prince Andrew
and that's when I learned
what was going to happen.
There's a slight problem
with...with...with...with...
with the sweating, um, because, uh,
I...I have
a peculiar medical condition,
which is that I don't sweat, um...
Or I didn't sweat at the time.
And that was...
Oh, actually, yes, I didn't sweat
at the time
because I, um, had...had suffered
what I would describe
as an overdose of adrenaline
in the Falklands War
when I was shot at,
uh, and I simply...
It was... It was... It was almost
impossible for me to...to sweat.
It was a claim and counterclaim that
turned this royal's life upside down.
His ill-advised decision
to appear on the BBC in 2019
left him if not sweating,
then red-faced.
His attempt to convince us he knew
nothing of the teenage Virginia
fell flat
when this photo, taken in 2001
in Maxwell's London apartment,
resurfaced.
She provided a photo...
Yes.
..of the two of you together.
Yes.
How do you explain that?
I can't.
Because I don't... I have no...
Again, I have absolutely no memory
of that photograph ever being taken.
Your friend suggested
that the photo is fake.
I think it's...
From the investigations
that we've done,
you can't prove whether or not
that photograph is, uh, faked or not
because it is a photograph
of a photograph of a photograph,
so it's very difficult to be able
to...to, um, to...to prove it.
But I...I don't remember
that photograph ever being taken.
So, as you know, Prince Andrew denies
the allegations against him
and he says that this photo's a fake,
that he was never there
and that it's not his arm
and they're not his fingers.
Those are his fingers.
That is Andrew.
This photo has been verified
as an original
and it's been since given to the FBI
and they've never contested
that it's a fake
and I know it's real
and he needs to stop
with all of these lame excuses.
We're sick of hearing it.
This is a real photo.
And that was the first time
you met him?
And that's the very first time
I met him.
And that's right before
I was abused by him.
How many times were you trafficked
to him?
Three times.
Her allegations against Prince Andrew
are laid bare in the newly unsealed
court documents.
The disgraced royal is mentioned
69 times and not just by Virginia.
Johanna Sjoberg,
who was 21 of the time,
claims to have had her own traumatic
experience with Prince Andrew
and she says she saw
the Prince and Virginia together
at the Epstein mansion in New York.
According to British-based Australian
author Lucia Osborne-Crowley,
her account, given under oath,
is damning of the Prince.
We also have an allegation
from a separate victim, Johanna,
who has said that she was groped
by Prince Andrew,
so that's incredibly significant
because we have sworn testimony
from a second person
corroborating that he did engage
in illegal acts relating to minors.
Do you expect Prince Andrew to be
under further legal scrutiny?
I think that certainly Prince Andrew
will be facing
many, many, many more questions
given what we've learned
in these new documents
and it's really important, I think,
for the authorities
to look at the fact
that there is a second person
who's alleging that he broke the law
and whether they need to speak
to those victims
and other potential victims
to see if there is anything
that they can or should be
charging him with.
REPORTER: I wonder if you have
any sense now
of guilt, regret or shame
about any of your behaviour
in your friendship with Epstein.
As far as, uh, my, um, association
with him was concerned,
it had, um, uh, some seriously
beneficial, um, outcomes
in areas that have nothing...
that have nothing to do
with...with...
with what I would describe
as what we're talking about today.
Prince Andrew has since found regret
but continues to deny
all the allegations levelled at him.
He settled with Virginia Giuffre on
the eve of their civil trial in 2022,
reportedly for more than $15 million.
In settling with her, the Prince
likely thought the saga was over
but the release
of these latest documents
once again raises questions for him
and many other Epstein associates.
Those are very, very wealthy,
powerful people
and so far they've escaped without
many questions being asked of them.
Billionaire financier
Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested,
charged with sex trafficking
involving underage girls...
He could face up to 45 years
behind bars...
TARA BROWN: It was a prized catch.
In 2019, the roar around Jeffrey
Epstein's sex-trafficking ring
was so loud,
police were forced to act.
Neatly befitting the lifestyle
of a jet-setting millionaire,
Epstein was nabbed
on his private plane
as he landed back in the US
from Paris.
For his most outspoken victim,
Virginia Giuffre,
his arrest was a gift
more than 20 years in the making.
I never thought it was gonna happen.
I honestly thought he was just gonna
continue to get away with it
over and over and over again,
just like he proved so many times.
So, yeah, it was like Christmas
in July. Big-time.
But the expectation that Epstein
would finally face his crimes
was dashed when he was found dead
by suicide in his jail cell
a month later.
Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein
has taken his own life...
The bombshell development
raising many new questions...
With Epstein dead, the charges
against him were dismissed,
denying justice to his many victims
and his co-conspirator,
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell,
became the most wanted woman
in the world as she went on the run.
VICKY WARD:
So, the idea that this woman
could be involved in something
as depraved and horrific as this,
that was mind-boggling.
As journalist Vicky Ward
and the rest of the world
watched on in fascination,
Ghislaine was tracked down
to a luxurious New Hampshire hideaway
after eluding police for a year.
Today, we announce the arrest
of one of the villains
in this investigation.
This day, to me, has been, like,
one of the best days of my life.
I have not stopped smiling
and crying happy tears
and I'm just...yeah, I'm elated to
know that she's where she belongs.
Immediately upon Maxwell's arrest,
Virginia spoke for all the victims
of the sex-trafficking ring.
She ruined so many lives.
She belongs in jail.
You want to hurt kids,
that's where you go.
In 2022, Maxwell was convicted
on five sex-trafficking counts,
the then 60-year-old
sentenced to 20 years in jail.
She has lodged an appeal
which will be reviewed in March
and continues to claim her innocence
from jail,
as she told her brother,
Kevin Maxwell.
Everyone is always asking,
"Who is the real G?
"Who's the real Ghislaine?"
It's definitely
not the person portrayed.
I feel completely divorced
from the person that people
reference and talk about.
And so, the biggest misconception
of you?
That I'm the cruellest, meanest,
'horriblest' person who's done...
committed crimes.
Yeah.
And, I mean, it...
I... I literally haven't seen...
any details that are accurate.
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
was one of the few journalists
granted access to the court
to report on Maxwell's trial.
It was surprising that even at her
own federal sex-trafficking trial,
she didn't appear to have
a lot of humility
she didn't appear to have
and still was incredibly confident
and I certainly got the sense that
she did not expect to be convicted.
And certainly no remorse.
Certainly no remorse.
She basically said that she was
sorry for the damage
that Jeffrey Epstein had caused them
and that's all she said.
With Maxwell behind bars
and Epstein dead,
this case appeared to be resolved.
But the recent release
of these court documents
shows how little we still know.
There are so many names that we are
left with question marks about.
What was his appeal?
Why did some of the most powerful
men in the world flock to him?
What was Bill Gates doing
around Jeffrey Epstein?
I'd love to hear from Bill Clinton
what he saw in Jeffrey Epstein.
That would be great to know.
In all, more than 150 names have been
linked to the disgraced millionaire
but apart from some denials
of any wrongdoing,
the silence from those identified
has been deafening.
We've got evidence
of sworn testimony
where people are naming
very, very powerful people
who would've been
in a position potentially
to do something
about what was going on here
and instead, we have
a sex-trafficking ring that went on
for at least two decades,
possibly three,
with almost complete impunity.
And so, that's the point
that I think we really all need to
hold onto about scale here,
is that...
not the splashiness of these names
but just how many there are,
just how many people there are
that victims pointed to, to say,
"This person can corroborate
my story.
"This person can be a witness.
This person met me on the island.
"This person saw me."
And those are very, very wealthy,
powerful people
and so far they've escaped without
many questions being asked of them.
We'd have to assume
that they're just running from this
as far and as fast as they can.
Yes.
Well, I mean, I've been
quite surprised at the silence
over the last couple of weeks,
if I'm completely honest.
I would've thought
that at least some of these people
would've felt an obligation
to do some explaining.
VICKY WARD: At the very least,
association with Jeffrey Epstein
raises questions of judgement,
right?
Nobody looks good for having
hung out with Jeffrey Epstein,
now knowing everything that we know.
Whether or not they should be
held accountable
is to whether or not
there was any criminal activity.
And obviously we just don't know.
One has to hope that
because we now know so much more,
that there is so much
public scrutiny on this,
that the wheels of justice
will turn in a way
that they definitely didn't
for a very long time.
The legacy of Jeffrey Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell
is to expose a darkness
too awful to imagine.
But as difficult as it is
to comprehend,
it would seem
there's even more to be revealed.
Certainly, from what I know,
there are more people
who aren't even on this list
that either knew
or potentially participated in
what was going on
around Jeffrey Epstein.
Do you expect that others
will be charged,
that others will face prosecution?
I very much hope so.
I think it's really important to
know it is actually much, much worse
than we think
and that we're comfortable
accepting.
Captioned by AI-Media
ai-media.tv
please?
Do you solemnly swear
the testimony you're about to give
in the matter now pending shall be
the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth?
Yes, ma'am.
MAN: Could you please state
your full name?
I'm Jeffrey Edward Epstein.
And my residence address is
6100 Red Hook Boulevard
in Virgin Islands.
Have you ever been convicted
of a crime?
Yes.
NARRATOR: The sex crimes of
millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein
are appalling...
FEMALE:
..more than 100 vulnerable teenagers
and young women
trapped in his depraved web.
FEMALE:
Tonight, The Epstein Files,
the latest on who knew what
in the biggest sex-trafficking ring
in history.
His elite circle of the wealthy
and powerful on notice
as thousands of damning
new court documents are unsealed.
WOMAN: They will contain
the names of people
associated with Jeffrey Epstein...
Prince Andrew and the former
President Bill Clinton
have been named...
More are expected to come out...
In the last few weeks, they've linked
Epstein to some very famous names
and exposed some very sordid details.
There are videos that exist.
We've been investigating the scandal
since Jeffrey Epstein's death
in 2019.
This is where Jeffrey Epstein
served his sentence.
That he can still shock
is extraordinary.
I won't stop fighting.
I will never be silenced.
As you'll see, this monster's
tentacles continue to reach...
from beyond the grave.
MAN: What was the crime
of which you were convicted?
Two counts.
One, soliciting prostitution and
procuring a minor for prostitution.
Did you, in fact, commit those acts?
I'm going to invoke
my Fifth Amendment right.
Refusing to answer lawyers
on the grounds
he might incriminate himself,
Epstein thought his own silence
would protect him forever.
How many times have you solicited
a minor for prostitution?
Same answer.
How many times have you solicited
a minor for prostitution
in the state of Florida?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited a minor for
prostitution in the Virgin Islands?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited
for prostitution in New York?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited
for prostitution in New Mexico?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited
for prostitution in Paris?
Same answer.
Have you ever solicited a minor for
prostitution anywhere at any time?
Again, I'm gonna assert my right.
Have you ever...
MAN: We're gonna go off the record,
thanks.
So you are terminating
the deposition at this time?
We have a recess in the deposition.
TARA BROWN: With his death by suicide
in 2019
and the jailing of his former lover
and right-hand woman
Ghislaine Maxwell two years ago,
Epstein's associates may well have
thought the scandal was over...
but after a decade
of legal wrangling,
more than 150 people
have been publicly identified,
linked to Epstein
and his sex-trafficking network.
He was a brilliant manipulator,
not just of vulnerable girls
and women.
He was a brilliant manipulator
of powerful men.
A really heinous crime
on an absolutely massive scale
that was allowed to continue
and continue and continue.
EPSTEIN:
Jeffrey Epstein's vast wealth gave
him access to whatever he wanted.
As we now know, the globe-trotting
multi-millionaire created a network
where young women were supplied
to him wherever he went.
EPSTEIN:
And with his own plane and plush
properties all over the world,
he felt free to abuse
in the privacy of his various homes.
This is New York, this is
Palm Beach, this is California,
this is Paris, this is London...
This is wherever
Epstein was touching down.
He needed to have girls
on constant call.
In every single state
or every place that he goes to,
he's already got people lined up
and makers making that happen.
None of this would ever have seen
the light of day
if it wasn't for Virginia Giuffre.
Her allegations of sexual abuse
against Epstein, Maxwell
and famously, Prince Andrew
have fascinated
and repulsed the world.
In 2015, Virginia sued Maxwell
for defamation.
These latest documents are,
in the main,
sworn statements
collected for that case.
It's hard.
It's really hard being back here.
We met Virginia five years ago
when she bravely returned
for the first time
to the Epstein mansion in Manhattan.
I was abused by people
that I can't even mention here.
There's a lot of scars
hidden behind those walls.
(CRIES)
It should be ripped down.
It should be burned to the ground.
(CRIES)
Some of my worst memories
are from this place.
I continue to be shocked
by just how awful this story is.
The damage that was done
to these women
is incredibly hard to even express.
This has been completely
life-altering for them.
It's incredibly unfair that this was
allowed to happen with impunity
for so long.
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
is a journalist and author
who has long covered
the Epstein case.
She believes the significance
of the new Epstein files
can't be overstated.
It's really important
that we understand the difference
between having these allegations
swirl around
and seeing that people
were willing to swear to them
under penalty of perjury.
It's an incredibly hard thing to do
and they were all willing to do it
and to swear to the truth of it.
Lucia also had a front-row seat
when victims testified
against Epstein's co-conspirator
Ghislaine Maxwell
when she was convicted
for sex trafficking in 2022.
A lot of what Jeffrey Epstein
got away with,
he wouldn't have been able to do
without her helping to recruit,
groom and entice underage girls.
But she wasn't just the organiser,
was she?
She was also an abuser herself.
Yes.
So we also heard at trial
from multiple victims
that she was in the room
when the abuse was happening
and that she engaged in the abuse
herself.
But the documents
released by the court
put the spotlight on the role
played by others
in Jeffrey Epstein's inner sanctum.
The most controversial revelation
comes from emails
sent by Sarah Ransome,
who was abused and trafficked
by Epstein.
Those emails claim she has seen
video recordings made by Epstein
of an unnamed friend having sex
with Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew
and Richard Branson.
All three men
vehemently refute the allegation
and in the past, even Sarah has
denied the existence of the tapes.
But just two weeks ago,
she stood by her original claim
in a Zoom call
with 'Good Morning Britain'.
SARAH RANSOME: It's no secret
that everything was recorded.
I've also seen recordings
in his office.
There are videos that exist.
The people that know they exist,
I'm sure,
are very frightened
of them being released.
Fear may also explain
the resounding silence
from others named in this recent
mass release of documents.
According to thousands of pages
of sworn statements
by women abused by Epstein,
the men now in the headlines
are potential witnesses.
They place them at the locations
where the abuse commonly took place.
The vast majority,
including all the names
that we're hearing about the most,
there are no allegations
of criminality.
They are just listed
as potential witnesses.
If these people are not being
accused of any wrongdoing,
why have they been named?
The question is what they saw,
who they met,
what questions they asked themselves
about why girls of that age
would be in any of the Epstein homes
and if they didn't ask themselves
questions about that,
why didn't they
ask themselves questions about that?
The documents also shed light
on the alleged dark motivation
of Epstein's sex trafficking -
to get dirt on some of the world's
most influential people.
There is, for the first time,
the idea that he was quizzing
the girls
he sent to famous people
for details of what happened,
for blackmail purposes.
That has always been the suspicion,
that this man
had cameras everywhere,
that he kept blackmail tapes.
That was his leverage.
So, I heard about Jeffrey Epstein
sort of on the social Upper East
Side grapevine in New York
for a couple of years
around the end of the 1990s
and early 2000s.
You know, he was a figure of mystery
in that
all people really knew about him
was he had kind of out of nowhere
bought the biggest townhouse
in Manhattan
and this guy who no-one really knew
very much about,
he seemed to be a bit of a recluse.
He was known to be unconventional.
People thought
he was very good-looking
and the only thing
that people really knew about him,
his sort of connector
to the outside world
was somebody I knew -
it was Ghislaine Maxwell.
TARA BROWN: With her link to
English socialite Ghislaine Maxwell,
Vicky Ward was the ideal journalist
to profile Jeffrey Epstein.
Her task in 2002
was to investigate the man
behind the $500 million fortune.
My then boss at 'Vanity Fair'
magazine, Graydon Carter,
phoned me up and he said, you know,
"I've been hearing about this guy
for years.
"Nobody knows who he is,
where he got his money from,
"what his deal is"
and that was how it all began.
But what started as a business story
quickly turned sinister.
He liked to have parties
with young women
but given that he was
a very wealthy...
at the time, you know,
good-looking bachelor in his 50s,
that didn't seem in itself
on the surface so peculiar.
But then I met this woman,
Maria Farmer,
and she told me that she had worked
for Jeffrey Epstein.
No-one immediately recognised how
significant Maria Farmer would become
in the Epstein story,
certainly not the authorities,
when, in 1996,
she was the very first to report
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
to the FBI.
MARIA FARMER: Ghislaine came in
to get me one evening.
Ghislaine escorts me
to Jeffrey's room
and he's lying there and he goes,
"Well, here, sit down," you know.
And so, right next to him.
And then Ghislaine sit on the other
side and they began assaulting me.
But really, while I was lying there,
the whole time, I'm thinking,
"My sister's
been around these people."
My sister was 16.
"She's been around them alone."
Maria's fears were well-based.
Her younger sister Annie had also
been abused by the paedophile pair.
And it was the worst thing
that's ever happened to me.
But in a pattern that would be set
in the decades ahead,
Maria's complaint of sexual abuse
against her and Annie to police
was ignored.
They just kept it all quiet,
put it in the bottom drawer
and they were so dismissive that
I just felt daunted and I stopped.
For more than 25 years,
Maria Farmer has been filling
her canvas with the Epstein story,
a tale of horror that began in 1995
when, as a gifted student
at the New York Academy of Art,
she met Jeffrey Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein gave her a job -
to buy art for his New York mansion.
As well, she became
an unwitting witness
to a steady stream of teenagers
and young women
through Epstein's front door.
And shockingly,
she had direct evidence
of Maxwell scouting girls
for the insatiable millionaire.
What did you witness?
So, several times,
I was in the car with her
and she would ask the driver
to stop the car
and she'd dash across to the school
or the park
or wherever she was going
and she would, like,
write down her phone number
for a child, a young girl
and then I'd see that child
at the house
and she'd say,
"They're auditioning," you know.
"I found a model in the park."
And I thought it was really strange
because I did see a couple of girls
in braces
and I've never seen a model
with braces.
Do you reflect on how different
life would be for so many women today
if the FBI had investigated
your complaints in 1996?
Yeah.
They... Yeah.
I think about it all the time. I do.
And it hurts a lot.
And I never had children
because of it... (CRIES)
because I didn't feel like
they would be safe.
It would be another six years
before the Farmer sisters would again
contemplate speaking openly
about their experiences
with Jeffrey Epstein.
When they met with journalist
Vicky Ward in 2002,
Maria and Annie were nervous.
Did it take a lot for you to
convince them to open up to you,
to talk on public record?
VICKY WARD: It did.
There's no question
they were very afraid
of these very powerful people
and I felt that at least
'Vanity Fair' magazine
was also powerful
by us publishing their allegations
that would afford them protection.
And so, I think
that we all proceeded...
under that premise
and unfortunately, that premise got
exploded in the worst possible way.
What blew it up? What happened?
Well, what happened,
as this piece was going forward
and I had to finally
put all the allegations
both of the business staff
and the Farmers' allegations
to Jeffrey and Ghislaine,
they, in their different ways,
went completely berserk.
Epstein was instantly menacing,
a man prepared to bully
and intimidate to save himself.
He treated the entire thing
as a game,
a really dark, twisted game.
He even said to me at the beginning,
"OK, let's play chess.
"I'll be black, you be white.
You get the first move."
And from there,
it descended into a sort of
horrific game of cat-and-mouse.
He would phone me every day
and then he told me that if he
didn't like what I was gonna write,
he was gonna have his witchdoctor
place a curse
on my unborn children
and that that was off the record.
Then he told me he was going to
sue me and ruin me personally
and I was just really frightened
of what this man could do.
So, even though the threats
he was making against you
were quite preposterous,
you took him seriously?
Like, you were generally frightened?
Yeah, because at the end
of all of this,
at the end of months of digging,
meeting the Farmer sisters,
there was still this question mark -
who is this guy?
But it only got worse
when Epstein made a personal visit
to Vicky's boss at the time,
the editor in chief of 'Vanity Fair'.
Epstein got the result he demanded -
Maria and Annie Farmer's allegations
were cut from the story
that went to print in late 2002.
So, as the journalist who had
uncovered these allegations
and convinced these sisters
to go public,
what was your reaction
to see that your work
was not in your article?
Well, I remember bursting into tears
and saying to the person
who was directly my editor,
"We've exposed these poor women.
I mean, this is unconscionable."
But was it a reflection
also of an abuse of power?
I mean, if Jeffrey Epstein's...
Yes.
..walked into
the editor in chief's office...
Yeah, I mean, of course.
..he wasn't there to say hello,
was he?
Of course.
2002 was an era in which
Jeffrey Epstein and other predators,
you know, Harvey Weinstein,
were running the world
and women everywhere
weren't speaking up
and the idea that two men
would have a meeting
after which these allegations
would get pulled,
I mean, you know,
in the world we live in now,
you know, it's monstrous.
Vicky's boss, Graydon Carter,
denies being influenced
or intimidated by Epstein
but either way,
the 'Vanity Fair' story
didn't go anywhere near exposing
the depths of Epstein's depravity.
I only got the very, very, very tip
of that iceberg.
I didn't get to the den of iniquity
that we now know was really going on
behind Jeffrey Epstein's
closed walls
in the mansion in New York
and on his island and in Palm Beach.
OSBORNE-CROWLEY:
Around that mansion,
that's where this part
of the sex trafficking ring
really kind of came to life.
TARA BROWN: Palm Beach Florida is
home to some of the wealthiest people
in America,
an exclusive enclave
for the rich and powerful,
including former president
Donald Trump.
Jeffrey Epstein's luxurious home here
graced the foreshore,
its white walls and inscrutable
exterior hiding a dark truth,
a place where it's estimated
more than 100 girls were tricked
and abused,
their lives changed in an instant.
WOMAN: At 14,
I was still in middle school.
I was straight-A student.
Never even got a B.
I played the first chair trumpet,
I was the captain
of the cheerleading squad
and then after I met Jeffrey,
I just completely quit.
This is where you were living
for a while?
Yes, this is where I was living
when I met Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was 48
when a teenaged Courtney Wild
entered his orbit in 2001.
At the time, she was living
in this trailer park,
one of West Palm Beach's
poorest communities.
Do you believe that Jeffrey Epstein
targeted areas like this?
Yeah, definitely targeted, you know,
children like myself
that were vulnerable to him
and his money
and we felt like we were being
helped and saved by him
but ultimately
he was just preying on us.
As Courtney told me in 2019,
her experience started when she was
brought to the millionaire
by another 14-year-old
to make much-needed cash.
The trap had been set.
What were you expecting to happen?
Why did you think
you were coming here?
Well, I knew that I was coming here
to give a guy a massage
and to make $200.
I did know that.
It was never told to me
that I would be molested by this man
or anything like that.
Inside, Courtney very soon discovered
the massage was cover
for a terrible, well-rehearsed crime.
We were taken upstairs.
There was, like, a circular
stairwell that led to a hallway
that led to his bedroom,
which the massage table
was in his bedroom/bathroom.
You know, he asked us
to get comfortable,
to just, you know, take our clothes
off, to be in our bra and panties.
Were you abused during that session?
And so, we would massage him
for about 30 minutes
and then, whenever he was ready,
you know, rolled over
and asked the person that brought me
to go downstairs and wait
and once that happened, then that's
when the sexual abuse happened, yes.
You're 14
and in a completely alien situation,
an incomprehensible position.
How did you react?
I just remember afterwards
how I felt walking down the stairs
and I just felt so dirty
and so, like...just like a piece
of me had been taken.
Dirty. I felt...
It was like my dirty little secret.
Virginia Giuffre's experience
was eerily similar,
except her recruiter
was not a fellow teen
but the sophisticated and seemingly
trustworthy Ghislaine Maxwell.
Virginia was 16 and working
at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort
when Maxwell spied her
reading a textbook on massage.
VIRGINIA GIUFFRE: She just seemed
very nice and she said,
"I've got a person that I know
"who's actually looking for
a travelling masseuse
"and if you want,
I can get you an interview with him.
"If he likes you,
we can get you educated.
"You'll be a real masseuse
"and you'll get to travel
and see the world."
And, you know, like, she made it
sound like it was a dream come true.
And it wasn't.
Within hours, Virginia was
at Epstein's Florida mansion,
lured there by Maxwell's promise.
It ended
in a devastating sexual attack.
So, put it this way, we did the back
of him, we did the back of Epstein
and then, when he turned over,
that's when I was instructed to...
to...
That's when I was instructed
to get undressed and...
and have sex with Jeffrey Epstein
while Ghislaine Maxwell
was participating as well.
Do you want to take a moment?
No, I'm OK.
I'm OK.
So, you were abused by both of them
in your very first encounter?
Yeah. Both of them. I was abused
by Ghislaine and Epstein.
I don't mean to sound sexist
in any way, shape or form
but I expected it from a man
but I didn't expect it from a woman.
And...
Yeah, I think
that's what hurts the most.
(CRIES)
Maxwell's role
as Epstein's co-conspirator,
for which she is now serving
a 20-year jail term, is well known.
But in truth,
it went well beyond Maxwell.
The pair devised a scheme to feed
Epstein's voracious appetite.
They lured poverty-stricken girls in
with cash,
fanning their dreams
of a better life.
According to journalist
Lucia Osborne-Crowley,
by the time the sexual abuse began,
many were too invested
in their promises to get out.
LUCIA OSBORNE-CROWLEY:
This was a well-oiled machine
of finding vulnerable young girls
who really needed
someone to look after them
and then also using those girls
to try and entrap
younger and younger girls.
And a lot of that, it seems,
was developed in Florida.
How many girls do you think
you brought to Jeffrey Epstein?
At the minimum, 50.
But anywhere from 50 to 70 girls.
What were their ages?
The same ages as me. 14, 15, 16.
I just hold a lot of guilt and shame
for doing those things
and just to know that I had
any influence on that happening
to somebody else
just, you know, it really is just
devastating and breaks my heart.
Epstein's vile pyramid scheme
might have continued unchecked
if not for the stepmother
of one of his teenage victims,
who called the Palm Beach
Police Department in 2005.
WOMAN: (ON PHONE)
That initial call was so alarming
that police launched an investigation
and it didn't take them long
to uncover
the revolting scale
of Epstein's network.
Police interviewed
a staggering 40 victims,
whose ages range from 13 to 16.
Their accounts were shocking enough.
But what they found in Epstein's home
was a creepy insight
into his depraved life -
dozens of nude photos, a steam room,
and a massage room with sex toys.
Among the damning evidence
were phone message pads
clearly showing a trade
in young girls,
scheduling them
for massage appointments
and flight logs
listing girls being transported
aboard Jeffrey's private plane
dubbed 'The Lolita Express'.
I think it's really important
to know
that it is actually much, much worse
than we think.
In 2006,
much to the relief of police,
this predator was finally caught,
a wealth of evidence
amassed against him.
But his own vast wealth
and his immense influence
saw him escape charges that should've
landed him in jail for life.
Instead, he served a mere 13 months
when prosecutors
accepted his guilty plea
to the minor charge of soliciting
a child for prostitution.
But while he was technically
an inmate
at the Palm Beach County Stockade,
he really just slept there.
It was essentially
a slap on the wrist.
He got 12-hour work release
from prison every single day.
Other journalists have described it
as he just basically had to sleep
in a crappy motel
for, you know, a bit over a year.
For many, the most outrageous part
of Epstein's plea bargain
was a seedy deal he struck
with the attorney-general
for the Southern District of Florida.
It gave Epstein and any alleged
co-conspirators, known or unknown,
immunity from further prosecution,
supposedly forever.
Worse still, none of his victims
were told about the deal.
How do you feel about that?
To be sexually abused by a man
and to have the government know
and them actually, you know,
co-conspire with the perpetrator
to make sure nothing happens to him,
it's just so...
It just sounds unreal.
Why do you think
the government did that?
My personal opinion about that is,
you know, money, power
and I think that there was
a lot of people involved in this,
this underage minor sex ring
that they were running
and I think everybody wanted it
to go away.
So you believe that there was
a conspiracy at play here?
Oh, absolutely.
It really is a sordid story,
everything that happened in Florida
and the fact that authorities did
know, did arrest him, did charge him
and he still was able to continue.
And according to Virginia Giuffre,
the abuse didn't stop with Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
She was not just
their sexual plaything.
She was now part of their
international sex-trafficking ring,
lent out to whomever they liked.
I was trafficked
to other billionaires,
I was trafficked to politicians,
professors, even royalty.
It was the elite of the world.
It was the people who run the world.
It was the most powerful people
in the world.
VICKY WARD: Ghislaine was this sort
of very exotic, glamorous figure
who would drop in
and, to be honest, namedrop
a lot of famous names
that she'd been hanging out with.
We heard about Bill Clinton and
sort of all sorts of other people
and we also knew that she was
very good friends with Prince Andrew
and that Jeffrey Epstein
would sometimes have Prince Andrew
to stay.
TARA BROWN: As a British expat
in New York,
journalist Vicky Ward
moved in similar circles
to socialite Ghislaine Maxwell,
the daughter of disgraced megarich
media tycoon Robert Maxwell.
Following her father's suspicious
death aboard his boat in 1991,
Ghislaine moved to New York,
where she started her relationship
with the millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
In 2002, Vicky was assigned to write
a profile of the mysterious financier
for 'Vanity Fair' magazine.
When I began reporting this piece,
I actually ran into
Ghislaine Maxwell
and I sort of said, breezily,
"Oh, Ghislaine, yes,
I'm writing this story
"about Jeffrey and the money"
and I was really taken aback
when she started to cry.
I'm, like,
"Why is this woman crying?
"This doesn't seem to make
any sense."
Obviously, I didn't know that I was,
from her perspective,
probably in danger
of pulling back the curtain
on what was an absolutely horrific
criminal sexual enterprise
involving both of them.
Epstein and Maxwell
complemented each other perfectly.
He had the money she was used to,
she had the contacts he wanted,
the most high-profile, of course,
being Prince Andrew,
who was famously accused of abusing
the then 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre
at Epstein and Maxwell's invitation.
We went to Club Tramp
and he danced with me
and he sweats a lot
and he smells funny and then...
and then we get in the car
and Ghislaine tells me in the car
that I have to do what I do
for Jeffrey for Prince Andrew
and that's when I learned
what was going to happen.
There's a slight problem
with...with...with...with...
with the sweating, um, because, uh,
I...I have
a peculiar medical condition,
which is that I don't sweat, um...
Or I didn't sweat at the time.
And that was...
Oh, actually, yes, I didn't sweat
at the time
because I, um, had...had suffered
what I would describe
as an overdose of adrenaline
in the Falklands War
when I was shot at,
uh, and I simply...
It was... It was... It was almost
impossible for me to...to sweat.
It was a claim and counterclaim that
turned this royal's life upside down.
His ill-advised decision
to appear on the BBC in 2019
left him if not sweating,
then red-faced.
His attempt to convince us he knew
nothing of the teenage Virginia
fell flat
when this photo, taken in 2001
in Maxwell's London apartment,
resurfaced.
She provided a photo...
Yes.
..of the two of you together.
Yes.
How do you explain that?
I can't.
Because I don't... I have no...
Again, I have absolutely no memory
of that photograph ever being taken.
Your friend suggested
that the photo is fake.
I think it's...
From the investigations
that we've done,
you can't prove whether or not
that photograph is, uh, faked or not
because it is a photograph
of a photograph of a photograph,
so it's very difficult to be able
to...to, um, to...to prove it.
But I...I don't remember
that photograph ever being taken.
So, as you know, Prince Andrew denies
the allegations against him
and he says that this photo's a fake,
that he was never there
and that it's not his arm
and they're not his fingers.
Those are his fingers.
That is Andrew.
This photo has been verified
as an original
and it's been since given to the FBI
and they've never contested
that it's a fake
and I know it's real
and he needs to stop
with all of these lame excuses.
We're sick of hearing it.
This is a real photo.
And that was the first time
you met him?
And that's the very first time
I met him.
And that's right before
I was abused by him.
How many times were you trafficked
to him?
Three times.
Her allegations against Prince Andrew
are laid bare in the newly unsealed
court documents.
The disgraced royal is mentioned
69 times and not just by Virginia.
Johanna Sjoberg,
who was 21 of the time,
claims to have had her own traumatic
experience with Prince Andrew
and she says she saw
the Prince and Virginia together
at the Epstein mansion in New York.
According to British-based Australian
author Lucia Osborne-Crowley,
her account, given under oath,
is damning of the Prince.
We also have an allegation
from a separate victim, Johanna,
who has said that she was groped
by Prince Andrew,
so that's incredibly significant
because we have sworn testimony
from a second person
corroborating that he did engage
in illegal acts relating to minors.
Do you expect Prince Andrew to be
under further legal scrutiny?
I think that certainly Prince Andrew
will be facing
many, many, many more questions
given what we've learned
in these new documents
and it's really important, I think,
for the authorities
to look at the fact
that there is a second person
who's alleging that he broke the law
and whether they need to speak
to those victims
and other potential victims
to see if there is anything
that they can or should be
charging him with.
REPORTER: I wonder if you have
any sense now
of guilt, regret or shame
about any of your behaviour
in your friendship with Epstein.
As far as, uh, my, um, association
with him was concerned,
it had, um, uh, some seriously
beneficial, um, outcomes
in areas that have nothing...
that have nothing to do
with...with...
with what I would describe
as what we're talking about today.
Prince Andrew has since found regret
but continues to deny
all the allegations levelled at him.
He settled with Virginia Giuffre on
the eve of their civil trial in 2022,
reportedly for more than $15 million.
In settling with her, the Prince
likely thought the saga was over
but the release
of these latest documents
once again raises questions for him
and many other Epstein associates.
Those are very, very wealthy,
powerful people
and so far they've escaped without
many questions being asked of them.
Billionaire financier
Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested,
charged with sex trafficking
involving underage girls...
He could face up to 45 years
behind bars...
TARA BROWN: It was a prized catch.
In 2019, the roar around Jeffrey
Epstein's sex-trafficking ring
was so loud,
police were forced to act.
Neatly befitting the lifestyle
of a jet-setting millionaire,
Epstein was nabbed
on his private plane
as he landed back in the US
from Paris.
For his most outspoken victim,
Virginia Giuffre,
his arrest was a gift
more than 20 years in the making.
I never thought it was gonna happen.
I honestly thought he was just gonna
continue to get away with it
over and over and over again,
just like he proved so many times.
So, yeah, it was like Christmas
in July. Big-time.
But the expectation that Epstein
would finally face his crimes
was dashed when he was found dead
by suicide in his jail cell
a month later.
Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein
has taken his own life...
The bombshell development
raising many new questions...
With Epstein dead, the charges
against him were dismissed,
denying justice to his many victims
and his co-conspirator,
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell,
became the most wanted woman
in the world as she went on the run.
VICKY WARD:
So, the idea that this woman
could be involved in something
as depraved and horrific as this,
that was mind-boggling.
As journalist Vicky Ward
and the rest of the world
watched on in fascination,
Ghislaine was tracked down
to a luxurious New Hampshire hideaway
after eluding police for a year.
Today, we announce the arrest
of one of the villains
in this investigation.
This day, to me, has been, like,
one of the best days of my life.
I have not stopped smiling
and crying happy tears
and I'm just...yeah, I'm elated to
know that she's where she belongs.
Immediately upon Maxwell's arrest,
Virginia spoke for all the victims
of the sex-trafficking ring.
She ruined so many lives.
She belongs in jail.
You want to hurt kids,
that's where you go.
In 2022, Maxwell was convicted
on five sex-trafficking counts,
the then 60-year-old
sentenced to 20 years in jail.
She has lodged an appeal
which will be reviewed in March
and continues to claim her innocence
from jail,
as she told her brother,
Kevin Maxwell.
Everyone is always asking,
"Who is the real G?
"Who's the real Ghislaine?"
It's definitely
not the person portrayed.
I feel completely divorced
from the person that people
reference and talk about.
And so, the biggest misconception
of you?
That I'm the cruellest, meanest,
'horriblest' person who's done...
committed crimes.
Yeah.
And, I mean, it...
I... I literally haven't seen...
any details that are accurate.
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
was one of the few journalists
granted access to the court
to report on Maxwell's trial.
It was surprising that even at her
own federal sex-trafficking trial,
she didn't appear to have
a lot of humility
she didn't appear to have
and still was incredibly confident
and I certainly got the sense that
she did not expect to be convicted.
And certainly no remorse.
Certainly no remorse.
She basically said that she was
sorry for the damage
that Jeffrey Epstein had caused them
and that's all she said.
With Maxwell behind bars
and Epstein dead,
this case appeared to be resolved.
But the recent release
of these court documents
shows how little we still know.
There are so many names that we are
left with question marks about.
What was his appeal?
Why did some of the most powerful
men in the world flock to him?
What was Bill Gates doing
around Jeffrey Epstein?
I'd love to hear from Bill Clinton
what he saw in Jeffrey Epstein.
That would be great to know.
In all, more than 150 names have been
linked to the disgraced millionaire
but apart from some denials
of any wrongdoing,
the silence from those identified
has been deafening.
We've got evidence
of sworn testimony
where people are naming
very, very powerful people
who would've been
in a position potentially
to do something
about what was going on here
and instead, we have
a sex-trafficking ring that went on
for at least two decades,
possibly three,
with almost complete impunity.
And so, that's the point
that I think we really all need to
hold onto about scale here,
is that...
not the splashiness of these names
but just how many there are,
just how many people there are
that victims pointed to, to say,
"This person can corroborate
my story.
"This person can be a witness.
This person met me on the island.
"This person saw me."
And those are very, very wealthy,
powerful people
and so far they've escaped without
many questions being asked of them.
We'd have to assume
that they're just running from this
as far and as fast as they can.
Yes.
Well, I mean, I've been
quite surprised at the silence
over the last couple of weeks,
if I'm completely honest.
I would've thought
that at least some of these people
would've felt an obligation
to do some explaining.
VICKY WARD: At the very least,
association with Jeffrey Epstein
raises questions of judgement,
right?
Nobody looks good for having
hung out with Jeffrey Epstein,
now knowing everything that we know.
Whether or not they should be
held accountable
is to whether or not
there was any criminal activity.
And obviously we just don't know.
One has to hope that
because we now know so much more,
that there is so much
public scrutiny on this,
that the wheels of justice
will turn in a way
that they definitely didn't
for a very long time.
The legacy of Jeffrey Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell
is to expose a darkness
too awful to imagine.
But as difficult as it is
to comprehend,
it would seem
there's even more to be revealed.
Certainly, from what I know,
there are more people
who aren't even on this list
that either knew
or potentially participated in
what was going on
around Jeffrey Epstein.
Do you expect that others
will be charged,
that others will face prosecution?
I very much hope so.
I think it's really important to
know it is actually much, much worse
than we think
and that we're comfortable
accepting.
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