English Podcast

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was arrested in New York City for sex trafficking underage girls. He had connections to many powerful people. Documents have been released naming over 170 of his associates. Epstein was born in Brooklyn and had a successful career in finance before starting his own firm. He owned properties around the world, including a private island. He abused and raped underage girls at his residences. Epstein was caught with victims as young as 12 years old. The released documents provide more insight into his sex trafficking operation and the involvement of other individuals. The public wants more people held accountable for their actions. The names of some individuals connected to Epstein have been redacted, and it is unclear why. I'm your host Dalton, with your co-hosts Dylan and Cameron. Today we are going to be talking about financer Jeffrey Epstein. He was 66 when he died of suicide in August of 2019. He was being held at Manhattan's Correctional Center. He had been arrested in New York City on suspicion of sex trafficking underage girls in the early 2000s. As a businessman and criminal, Epstein has a long documented history. He owns homes around the world, including an entire private island in the Caribbean. He was also connected to dozens of rich and powerful people, including presidents, CEOs, and billionaires. On Wednesday, a federal judge unsealed documents naming more than 170 of his associates, again bringing the convicted pedophile to the news. Here is a look at Epstein's life, career, criminal charges, and famous connections. Epstein was born on January 20, 1953, and raised in Brooklyn, New York. In his early 20s, he taught physics and math at Manhattan's elite K-12 Dalton School. After attending Lafayette High School in Brooklyn, Epstein dropped out of Manhattan's Cooper Union in 1971. Then he enrolled in New York's University's Coren Institute of Mathematical Sciences, but left without a degree. Despite the gaps in his education, Epstein taught calculus and physics at Dalton between 1973 and 1975. Jay Epstein was soon expecting his financial situation to change. He began tutoring Bearstein's chairman, Ace Greenberg's son, and was friendly with his daughter, and left the school in 1976 to work at the firm. Vanity Fair reported, Epstein did well at the firm and was made a limited partner before he decided to leave in 1981 to start his own firm. Then, by 1996, Epstein was the official owner of the largest private residence in Manhattan. He would also later purchase homes in Paris, Miami, New Mexico, and the entire island of Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. During the time of Epstein's scheme, he abused and raped dozens of underage girls at his private New York estate called the New York Residence. With the help of employees scheduling the underage girls at the New York Residence, or his private beach mansion, the Palm Beach Residence, Epstein had a vast network of underage victims as young as 13-14 years old. The way he did things at that was Epstein's employees scheduled the victims to come to the New York Residence, and the victims would walk in and see a massage table and Epstein. Epstein would then proceed to get on the table and instruct the victims to give him a massage. Then Epstein would touch the victims and make them interact in sexual activity. Many girls were beaten, abused, and locked in rooms on multiple subsequent occasions. Epstein sometimes personally contacted other girls and scheduled private appointments at the New York Residence. In 2018, Epstein was caught getting off a private plane with victims as young as 12 years of age. Then authorities investigating this sighting. Although these documents don't implicate anyone directly, we know that some people have been identified as having sex with some of these girls. It certainly warrants more investigation by the federal authorities. We spoke recently with two of Epstein's victims who said that anyone who would have visited a thousand of pages of court documents tied to the late financer and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have been made public as part of a settled lawsuit involving one of his victims. The records detail Epstein's sexual abuse and trafficking of underage girls include the names of 150 people who were in contact with him. The magnitude of this sex trafficking operation was first brought to light by Miami Herald Investigate reporter Julie K. Brown, who joins us now. She is the author of the book, Preservation of Justice, the Jeffrey Epstein story. Thanks for being with us, Julie. As we mentioned, hundreds of documents have been released over the last two weeks, which are the part of the definition lawsuit filed by Epstein's victim, Virgia Giffey. There are names of previously associated people, people associated with Epstein, such as Prince Andrew, former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, that are mentioned in these court documents. But there's little information outside of what we already know to the public. What should we make of what's been released? Well, remember, this has been a long process. We first sued these records over five years ago and have been released on a rolling basis. And I think you have to look at the total picture here of the sex trafficking operation and that's what we're getting at. In the beginning, we first started getting the documents. We knew very little. Other than the fact that he had abused lots of younger girls in Palm Beach. Now as a result of these recordings being released, we know that his operation went far beyond Palm Beach. In fact, it was an international sex trafficking operation. Well, to your point, the documents certainly confirm the scale, the magnitude of his sex trafficking reign and powerful social network. How do these documents add new insights and more dimension to the reporting that you have been doing it for years? Well, I think it also sheds more light on the criminal justice system. We know that this is an operation that he could not have run by all himself. And as of right now, we only have one person paying the price for this crime. We know that there were other people, none of his homes would certainly have been aware of his depravity. And for them, just having one person arrested isn't enough. They want the truth. They want the other people brought to justice. I mean, he had pilots, he had assistants, he had business people who were helping him. And so the question for them is, why haven't some of those people been looked at or at least been asked to provide more information about his operation? I want to ask you about something else. When that federal judge denied the motion by the Miami Herald to make the public a master list of Epstein's so-called gendos, these are people who have been connected with him. The names of folks except the victims, what's the value in making those names public when the acquisition documents that we received still have redictions in them? For example, there's a disposition by one of the victims where she said she was forced to have sex with two high-profile politicians. And one of the politicians' name is completely redacted. We do not know why the judge is still redacting that particular doe because we don't know who the doe is. So providing the list would also help us understand why she considers that person to still have empathy. Thank you for listening to the Solvers of Crime podcast. Today we talked about Jeffrey Epstein and the hundreds of girls he raped and trafficked through his New York residence and Palm Beach residence. Thank you for listening to the Solvers of Crime podcast.