However whereas investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually abused underage women, they discovered scant proof the well-connected financier led a intercourse trafficking ring serving highly effective males, an Related Press evaluate of inner Justice Division data reveals.
Movies and images seized from Epstein’s properties in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn’t depict victims being abused or implicate anybody else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in a single 2025 memo.
An examination of Epstein’s monetary data, together with funds he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and international diplomacy, discovered no connection to legal exercise, stated one other inner memo in 2019.
Whereas one Epstein sufferer made extremely public claims that he “lent her” to his wealthy pals, brokers couldn’t verify that and located no different victims telling an analogous story, the data stated.
The AP and different media organizations are nonetheless reviewing hundreds of thousands of pages of paperwork, lots of them beforehand confidential, that the Justice Division launched underneath the Epstein Information Transparency Act and it’s attainable these data comprise proof neglected by investigators.
Dozens of victims come ahead
The Epstein investigation started in 2005, when the dad and mom of a 14-year-old woman reported she had been molested on the millionaire’s house in Palm Seaside, Florida.
Police would establish at the very least 35 women with comparable tales: Epstein was paying highschool age college students $200 or $300 to provide him sexualized messages.
After the FBI joined the probe, federal prosecutors drafted indictments to cost Epstein and a few private assistants who had organized the women’ visits and funds. However as a substitute, then-Miami U.S. legal professional Alexander Acosta struck a deal letting Epstein plead responsible to state fees of soliciting prostitution from an underage woman. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.
In 2018, a collection of Miami Herald tales concerning the plea deal prompted New York federal prosecutors to take a recent have a look at the accusations.
Epstein was arrested in July of 2019. One month later, he killed himselfin his jail cell.
A yr later, prosecutors charged Epstein’s longtime confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she’d recruited a number of of his victims and typically joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year jail time period.
Prosecutors fail to seek out proof backing most sensational claims
Prosecution memos, case summaries and different paperwork made public within the division’s newest launch of Epstein-related data present that FBI brokers and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential coconspirators. Even seemingly outlandish and incomprehensible claims, known as in to tip traces, had been examined.
Some allegations couldn’t be verified, investigators wrote.
Investigators stated they confirmed that Giuffre had been sexually abused by Epstein. However different components of her story had been problematic.
Two different Epstein victims who Giuffre had claimed had been additionally “lent out” to highly effective males informed investigators they’d no such expertise, prosecutors wrote in a 2019 inner memo.
“No other victim has described being expressly directed by either Maxwell or Epstein to engage in sexual activity with other men,” the memo stated.
Giuffre acknowledged writing a partly fictionalized memoir of her time with Epstein containing descriptions of issues that didn’t happen. She had additionally provided shifting accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote, and had “engaged in a continuous stream of public interviews about her allegations, many of which have included sensationalized if not demonstrably inaccurate characterizations of her experiences.” These inaccuracies included false accounts of her interactions with the FBI, they stated.
Nonetheless, U.S. prosecutors tried to rearrange an interview with Andrew, now often called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He refused to make himself out there. Giuffre settled a lawsuit with Mountbatten-Windsor wherein she had accused him of sexual misconduct.
In a memoir revealed after she killed herself final yr, Giuffre wrote that prosecutors informed her they didn’t embrace her within the case towards Maxwell as a result of they didn’t need her allegations to distract the jury. She insisted her accounts of being trafficked to elite males had been true.
Prosecutors say images and movies don’t implicate others
Investigators seized a large number of movies and images from Epstein’s digital gadgets and houses in New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They discovered CDs, arduous copy pictures and at the very least one videotape containing nude photos of females, a few of whom appeared as in the event that they is likely to be minors. One system contained 15 to twenty photos depicting industrial youngster intercourse abuse materials — footage investigators stated Epstein obtained on the web.
Had they existed, the federal government “would have pursued any leads they generated,” Comey wrote. “We did not, however, locate any such videos.”
Investigators who scoured Epstein’s financial institution data discovered funds to greater than 25 girls who seemed to be fashions — however no proof that he was engaged in prostituting girls to different males, prosecutors wrote.
Epstein’s shut associates go uncharged
In 2019, prosecutors weighed the potential of charging certainly one of Epstein’s longtime assistants however determined towards it.
Prosecutors concluded that whereas the assistant was concerned in serving to Epstein pay women for intercourse and should have been conscious that some had been underage, she herself was a sufferer of his sexual abuse and manipulation.
Investigators examined Epstein’s relationship with the French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who as soon as was concerned in an company with Epstein within the U.S., and who was accused in a separate case of sexually assaulting girls in Europe. Brunel killed himself in jail whereas awaiting trial on a rape cost in France.
Prosecutors additionally weighed whether or not to cost certainly one of Epstein’s girlfriends who had participated in sexual acts with a few of his victims. Investigators interviewed the girlfriend, who was 18 to twenty years previous on the time, “but it was determined there was not enough evidence,” in line with a abstract given to FBI Director Kash Patel final July.
Days earlier than Epstein’s July 2019 arrest, the FBI strategized about sending brokers to serve grand jury subpoenas on folks near Epstein, together with his pilots and longtime enterprise consumer, retail mogul Les Wexner.
Wexner’s legal professionals informed investigators that neither he nor his spouse had information of Epstein’s sexual misconduct. Epstein had managed Wexner’s funds, however the couple’s legal professionals stated they reduce him off in 2007 after studying he’d stolen from them.
In an announcement to the AP, a authorized consultant for Wexner stated prosecutors had knowledgeable him that he was “neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect,” and that Wexner had cooperated with investigators.
Prosecutors additionally examined accounts from girls who stated they’d given massages at Epstein’s house to friends who’d tried to make the encounters sexual. One lady accused personal fairness investor Leon Black of initiating sexual contact throughout a therapeutic massage in 2011 or 2012, inflicting her to flee the room.
The Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace subsequently investigated, however no fees had been filed.
Black’s lawyer, Susan Estrich, stated he had paid Epstein for property planning and tax recommendation. She stated in an announcement that Black didn’t interact in misconduct and had no consciousness of Epstein’s legal actions. Lawsuits by two girls who accused Black of sexual misconduct had been dismissed or withdrawn. One is pending.
No consumer listing
However FBI brokers wrote superiors saying the consumer listing didn’t exist.
A day later, an FBI official replied that the case agent had confirmed no consumer listing existed.
