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Jeffrey Epstein’s Victims, Denied a Trial, Vent Their Anger: ‘Justice Has Never Been Served’ Jeffrey Epstein’s Victims, Denied a Trial, Vent Their Fury: ‘Justice Has Never Been Served’
(about 2 hours later)
One woman was an aspiring violinist from Texas. Another was a struggling model from overseas. One woman invoked her own daughters in her remarks. Another said she had stayed single for years because of her experience. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.]
One by one, the women walked up to a podium in a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan on Tuesday, and told their story of how the financier Jeffrey Epstein had abused them, and then had leveraged his power and wealth to silence them, sometimes for years. For many, it was their first time speaking about their experience in public. One woman was an aspiring model from a small town. Another invoked her own daughters in her remarks. Another said she had struggled with relationships because of her experience.
Mr. Epstein was not there, having killed himself in jail two weeks ago. But more than 16 of his accusers showed up at a routine hearing about dismissing the indictment to talk about the distress they had endured and a criminal justice system that they said had failed them. One by one, the women told a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan on Tuesday how Jeffrey Epstein had sexually abused them and used his power and wealth to silence them, sometimes for years. For many, it was their first time speaking about it in public.
Many expressed anger that Mr. Epstein had robbed them of the chance to confront him in court after he hanged himself with a bedsheet. “For that, he is a coward,” one of the women, Courtney Wild, said. A chair at the defense table remained empty: Mr. Epstein hanged himself in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center this month, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
“I feel very angry and sad,” Ms. Wild added. “Justice has never been served in this case.” “For that, he is a coward,” said one of his accusers, Courtney Wild, who has said Mr. Epstein sexually abused her when she was 14.
The hearing was a moment of catharsis in a criminal proceeding that had attracted intense national attention because of Mr. Epstein’s ties to several wealthy and powerful people, including President Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew of Britain. It was a moment of catharsis in a case that, for more than a decade, has eluded any sense of closure. Never had so many of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, from so many places, gathered to tell grotesquely similar stories, laying bare the breadth of the Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
Several of Mr. Epstein’s accusers told how they had been coerced at a young age into having sex with him for money, then were pressured through threats and promises of career help to continue seeing him. “These are things that so many girls can relate to,” said one of the women, speaking anonymously. “Change needs to happen.” “The fact I will never have a chance to face my predator in court eats away at my soul,” said Jennifer Araoz, who has accused Mr. Epstein of raping her when she was a 15-year-old student at a performing arts high school in New York. “They let this man kill himself and kill the chance of justice for so many others in the process, taking away our ability to speak.”
Mr. Epstein’s suicide was particularly galling for his accusers because he had escaped federal prosecution on similar charges in Florida in 2008, when he reached a widely criticized plea bargain with the United States attorney in Miami. Under that deal, Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges, including soliciting a minor for prostitution, and served 13 months in a local jail, where he was allowed out on work-release six days a week. Ms. Wild and Ms. Araoz were among the nearly two dozen accusers who addressed Judge Richard M. Berman at a hearing called after federal prosecutors said they planned to drop the sex trafficking charges against Mr. Epstein in light of his death — a decision that requires a judge’s approval.
Then in July, the possibility that he might face a stiffer punishment was rekindled, as prosecutors in Manhattan, who had reopened the investigation, charged Mr. Epstein, 66, with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy. The indictment said that between 2002 and 2005 he paid dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14, to have sex with him at his mansions in New York and his compound in Palm Beach, Fla. Though throwing out an indictment after a defendant dies is usually a routine matter, Judge Berman, who called the suicide “a rather stunning turn of events,” said he convened the hearing to give the women their day in court.
The actress Anouska De Georgiou said she was appearing in court out of a spirit of solidarity. “I am every girl he did this to, and they are all me,” she said, “and today we stand together.” “Mr. Epstein’s death obviously means that a trial in which he is a defendant cannot take place,” Judge Berman said. “I believe it is the court’s responsibility, and manifestly within its purview, to ensure that the victims in this case are treated fairly and with dignity.”
Several of the women turned toward prosecutors during their remarks and urged them to continue investigating Mr. Epstein’s employees and associates, who they said had helped lure them into Mr. Epstein’s scheme. “Please, finish what you have started,” said Sarah Ransome, another of Mr. Epstein’s accusers. At the hearing, Mr. Epstein’s lawyers said they were unsatisfied with the city medical examiner’s investigation into their client’s death, which found that Mr. Epstein had killed himself.
Prosecutors assured the court that the investigation would continue into others who are believed to have aided Mr. Epstein in his long-running sex-trafficking scheme, helping to procure dozens of teenage girls and women. Reid Weingarten, one of Mr. Epstein’s lawyers, implored Judge Berman — even if he dismissed the indictment — to conduct an independent investigation into Mr. Epstein’s death. Mr. Weingarten, citing the public interest in the case and “conspiracy theories galore,” said Judge Berman could hold hearings or assign an independent lawyer.
The dismissal of Mr. Epstein’s case “in no way prohibits or inhibits the government’s ongoing investigation into other potential co-conspirators, nor does it prevent the bringing of a new case in the future,” a government prosecutor, Maurene Comey, said. She added those inquiries “have been ongoing, remain ongoing and will continue.” “The court has a role to play,” Mr. Weingarten said. “It is the institution that most people have confidence in these very troubled times.”
Judge Richard M. Berman had scheduled the hearing on Tuesday after federal prosecutors wrote to him last week, saying that in light of Mr. Epstein’s death, they planned to drop the criminal charges against him — a decision that requires a judge’s approval. Noting the intense public interest in the case, he invited victims to speak. The judge did not immediately act on the request. Prosecutors said a grand jury was already investigating Mr. Epstein’s death.
“I believe it is the court’s responsibility, and manifestly within its purview, to ensure the victims in this case are treated fairly and with dignity,” he said at the start of the hearing. In 2008, Mr. Epstein avoided federal prosecution on sex trafficking charges in Florida, when he reached a widely criticized plea bargain with the United States attorney in Miami that let him plead guilty to state prostitution charges and serve 13 months in a local jail.
The judge, in a brief order, said he wanted to hold the hearing because the public might still have an “interest in the process by which the prosecutor seeks dismissal of an indictment.” But the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan opened its own investigation and charged Mr. Epstein, 66, with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy in July. The indictment said that between 2002 and 2005 he paid dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14, to have sex with him at his mansions in New York and his compound in Palm Beach, Fla.
The judge did not elaborate, but his statement seemed to acknowledge the extraordinary public interest in the questions surrounding Mr. Epstein’s death and the future of the government’s broader investigation into his associates. The possibility Mr. Epstein might face a stiffer punishment was extinguished, however, when he was found dead in his cell around 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10. He had been taken off the jail’s suicide watch two weeks earlier after an earlier, failed attempt to kill himself. No guard had checked on him for about three hours, a violation of jail protocol, law enforcement officials said.
Judge Berman said in the order that he wanted to hear from the prosecution and the lawyers who had been representing Mr. Epstein, and he also invited Mr. Epstein’s accusers and their lawyers to address the court if they wished to. At the judge’s invitation, the rows of women in the gallery on Tuesday stood and formed a line leading into the well of the packed courtroom, some clasping each other’s hands and whispering words of encouragement.
As if to underscore the wide interest in the matter, the hearing was moved from the judge’s regular courtroom to a much larger one that is typically used for the high-profile cases. For more than an hour, they took turns describing their trauma and voicing their anger that Mr. Epstein had avoided a long prison sentence for decades. Some women spoke anonymously; some through lawyers. Sixteen of them spoke in person, many with shaky voices, trembling hands and tears.
Mr. Epstein was found dead around 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10 after apparently hanging himself with a bedsheet in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he was being held pending trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. “I am every girl he did this to, and they’re all me, and today we stand together, those that are present and those that aren’t,” said Anouska De Georgiou, who said she was a naïve teenager when Mr. Epstein sexually abused her.
Law enforcement officials say he had not been checked on for about three hours, a violation of jail protocol. The city medical examiner said on Aug. 16 that it had determined Mr. Epstein died by suicide. Another woman, identified only as a Jane Doe, described how she was flown to Mr. Epstein’s New Mexico ranch in 2004 when she was 15. There, she said, he sexually assaulted her and took her virginity, telling her he was helping her “to grow.”
The news of Mr. Epstein’s death — and the circumstances surrounding it — sent shock waves through the justice system and prompted an outcry in Congress and investigations by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department’s inspector general. “After he finished with me, he told me to describe in detail how good my first sexual experience felt,” she said.
Chauntae Davies, an aspiring masseuse, said Mr. Epstein had flown her to his private island in the Caribbean, where his associates instructed her to give him a massage. She said the encounter became violent, when Mr. Epstein grabbed her wrist and pulled her body “onto his already naked body,” she said. She said she begged him to stop but “that just seemed to excite him more.”
Several of the women turned toward prosecutors during their remarks and urged them to continue investigating Mr. Epstein’s employees and associates, who they said had helped lure them into Mr. Epstein’s scheme. Some named Sarah Kellen or Ghislaine Maxwell as women who had helped bring them into Mr. Epstein’s orbit.
“Please finish what you have started,” said Sarah Ransome, another of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, who has said she was sexually abused by Mr. Epstein after she had been recruited to give him a massage.
Seated in the front row were the United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, and the head of the F.B.I.’s New York office, William F. Sweeney Jr.
Maurene R. Comey, a prosecutor, assured the judge that the government would still pursue others who may have aided Mr. Epstein in the sex-trafficking scheme, saying those investigations “have been ongoing, remain ongoing and will continue.”
Attorney General William P. Barr called the shortcomings at the jail “serious irregularities,” and pledged to determine why Mr. Epstein was apparently left unsupervised just weeks after he was taken off suicide watch after an apparent initial attempt at killing himself on July 23.Attorney General William P. Barr called the shortcomings at the jail “serious irregularities,” and pledged to determine why Mr. Epstein was apparently left unsupervised just weeks after he was taken off suicide watch after an apparent initial attempt at killing himself on July 23.
“We will get to the bottom of what happened and there will be accountability,” Mr. Barr said after Mr. Epstein’s death. For Mr. Epstein’s accusers, his death was his final escape from justice. Some spoke in anguish, some appeared relieved, and others said they were still haunted by Mr. Epstein’s abuse.
“I refuse to let this man win in death,” Ms. Davies said. “I have found my voice now, and while Jeffrey may no longer be here to hear it, I will not stop fighting, and I will not be silenced anymore.”