Seven years ago (yesterday) — July 2, 2019 — Jeffrey Epstein was indicted by a federal Grand Jury for perpetrating a “sex trafficking conspiracy,” based on conduct alleged to have taken place between 2002 and 2005, and which the Feds had largely already investigated over a decade before, culminating in a 2007 determination that any indictment brought against Epstein would’ve faced such severe evidentiary and legal “challenges” that prosecutors actually feared he could be
Michael-have you considered turning all your research into a book? I could imagine challenges finding a publisher, but at least this subscriber would be interested in purchasing compendium of yours on this topic.
Will the rapidly exfoliating and vehemently believed Epstein conspiracy phenomenon, complete with savage attacks on anyone daring to objectively examine the actual knowable facts of the case, one day go the way of Russiagate? Five years from now how many will be saying, "Oh, I always knew it was a fake. Never made much sense."
An excellent, well-written overview of the case. Thanks for this. It took me 20 minutes to read, but I did get up to get coffee and a couple of cookies. Nice ironic joke at the very end, too.
Some people on this platform specifically designed to feature longer-form writing (or so I thought) are apparently quite offended if they have to spend ~20 minutes reading something!
Wow. I didn't expect a second article so fast. Interesting. I'm piecing together a timeline. So the 2019 indictment covered acts only for 2002-05. Missing from the 2019 indictment: Epstein Island, New Mexico property, use of any aircraft, any post 2005 acts, any under-age-14 pedophilia. And as you write: "Strangely, SDNY prosecutors couldn’t find any illicit sexual contact from the years 2005-2019." So it's looking like if Epstein did anything from 2005-19, it was never even alleged. And Virginia Giuffre doesn't emerge until 2014 when she files a motion in civil litigation under the CVRA claiming she was trafficked to others during the pre 2005 era. It will be interesting to get the full picture in a timeline order.
Virginia Giuffre's first legal action was in 2009 as "Jane Doe 102". See court records for Doe 102 v. Epstein. Prior to that I believe she tried to get restitution after his plea deal. But in that lawsuit she didn't give specific details besides accusing Ghislaine Maxwell for the first time, who went virtually unmentioned during the 2005-2008 investigations.
I had been working on a timeline but it's just so much information for the little time I have. Endlessly fascinating story if we stop being emotionally invested in it.
Thanks for this. I'll have to check where I got the 2014 date. I thought it was in the article or one linked in it. Something about her filing under the CVRA. I'll add the 2009 filing into my list. I agree re not being emotionally invested. It's quite the convoluted story, but I'm glad Michael is focusing on the evolution of, and interplay with, these draconian sex trafficking statutes.
Anytime. The filing you're thinking of is indeed in the CVRA case, Doe v. United States. That had the bigger impact for sure and we see the effects today. Michael is doing great work. I wish he'd testify to Congress!
It’s not clear to me who the victims were that were listed in the 2019 Epstein indictment. Victim 1 was apparently a Jane Doe 84 according to Ghislaines habeus petition
If you do a google search all you get is Jane Doe 4 with that bogus 1984 allegation
I suppose Caroline was one victim but did Epstein know she was under 18? She had so many credibility issues and never even mentioned Ghiislaine Maxwell in her previous civil suits
The Jane Doe in Ghislaines trial (Nadia B) was approached by FBI/DOJ in 2019 but declined to interview. After Epstein suicided and the Victim Claims Compensation Fund was announced she got a lawyer and was interviewed but she clearly had no intention of doing so with Epstein alive. It doubtful Ghislaine could have been convicted without her
The amazing thing is she described going to Epstein’s E71 st St house from 1994-1995 and his New Mexico ranch before Epstein lived in either. Same problem with the Katie Johnson claim about being raped there in 1994 .
Those $600 million in assets (Epsteins) could not be unlocked for Victims lawyers/victims without an Epstein conviction which was uncertain, or his death. Ghislaines conviction proved important as well, and Epsteins suicide without a conviction contaminated jury pools who presumed guilt. Think about that when considering motives. Also, those huge settlements with JPM, Deutsche Bank and BoA would not have been possible
One of the victims in 2019 indictment was Marina Lacerda. She later came out she was the Jane Doe number XYZ (I dont remember) herself. Google her interview with Soft White Underbelly YT channel. She was 14 when she started going to Epstein. A lot of details, the most terrifying part of her life story is that she was raped by an actual pedophile - her own stepfather, as a prepubescent girl... With Epstein it was always in NY, she never traveled anywhere. And it was more than 'massages'. And he knew her age very well. She was not brought to him by Maxwell but by her own friend. She mentioned only she had a group sex encounter with Maxwell, Epstein and another girl once.
Her testimony is widely available and its very interesting that Michael totally omitted her name throwing a 5,000 word salad how "lame" the indictment was. It wasnt. Epstein knew about it.
As much as I can agree regarding the adult women who went there voluntarily and then suddenly rebranded as victims to get some $$$ - Epstein had no chance when it comes to what he was doing to Marina Lacerda for almost two years, sorry. By the way, she was not involved in Maxwell's indictment.
She was the only one listed (Minor Victim-) in the indictment. Thats pretty weak stuff if you are trying to prove he was running a trafficking ring.
There is also the question of how old she was before Epstein progressed from sexual contact (max 2 yr sentence) to sexual act (heavy sentence up to life). If she was 17 age of consent in NY is 17. Sex with a person under 17 is a misdemeanor if the perpetrator is 16
Sexual contact" with a person less than 17 but at least 14, by a perpetrator who is at least five years older than the victim is "Sexual abuse in the third degree," a class B misdemeanor. (NY Penal Law § 130.55.)
And why wasn’t she named a victim in the Maxwell trial. Maxwell had nothing to do with Annie Farmer going to New Mexico and Marinas group sex encounter with Maxwell easily trumps anything Annie alleged with Maxwell.
Alleging something to be true is not sufficient in a criminal case where the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, unlike in civil cases. She would need corroborating evidence such as a diary, telling friends, family, therapists years ago.
Did she file a civil suit like so many others before Epstein was investigated a 2nd time? I am sure lawyers would have been in touch with her long before this.
Regrettably I have not seen her redacted FBI interview summary (along with Annie Farmers). Why are they not in the Epstein files?
She was part of the bigger Brazilian-community group visiting Epstein regularly around 2002-2004 and she brought some of the girls herself so i guess that would be treated as trafficking by prosecutors. She said in the YT interview that the progression from “some sexual act” to “full sexual act” took him half a year. So she was still 14 at the time, max 15. His whole line of defense he was trying to use in Florida case (“I didnt know they were 18, they lied to me they were, these were happy ending massages mostly, different people all the time so i dont really remember majority of them, many came to see me only once”) are laughable when it comes to Marina Lacerda’s case. I remember MT wrote about a woman in Florida who agreed to have full intercourse with Epstein a day before her 18th bday and they classified her as a minor victim even though she didnt consider herself such. But here it is different - it started when she was 14, he allegedly got to know her age pretty quickly and it escalated quickly too when it comes to what was happening. It was indefensible in any aspect and I am pretty sure Epstein realized that very well.
Too bad Marina Lacerda does not fit the narration of adult women who rebranded as victims or ‘those who lied about their age’ or “it was JUST a happy ending massage”. That's why, like i said, her name never came up on Michael’s Substack until i posted my comment last night - yes i checked 😎
Okay we can agree that Epstein Has been sensationally accused of doing far more he has probably done and the whole case has become a circus long ago but he still did terrible, indefensible and CRIMINAL things to some people. And no, he wasnt “just a john’”. He indeed was a sex criminal /offender coz no 50 year old mam has any reason to have sex with a 14 year old female multiple times in the span of over 2 years.
Btw why Maxwell wasnt named - Lacerda allegedly recognized her during Maxwell’s trial only as that friend of his that Epstein once invited to join. She didnt know her name before.
Another question on related lines. Have you folks read Jacob Shamsian's reporting in Politico? He names several victims (other than Giuffre) and potential perpetrators to whom Epstein trafficked girls. Curious what everyone makes of it.
He was referring to the secret confidential agreements. After Epsteins 2nd indictment and suicide contaminated jury pools nationwide, the calculus for settling any allegation in a civil suit changed markedly. Rich men with active careers/business had too much to lose being named so quickly settled these cases in return for confidentiality. Since prosecutors cases in criminal cases relied almost entirely from evidence provided by victims lawyers they also served as protection from prosecution. Such agreements are not necessarily proof the allegations are true. You might look into Edwards previous employer Scott Rothstein
My understanding is sex act includes intercourse, oral sex or vaginal /anal penetration with digit/object . So the earlier massages starting at 14 seem sex contact while later descriptions (age up to 17) progressed to sex acts. The timeline of progression is uncertain
I didn't know that there was anything beyond massages alleged at scale for underage victims. I know of the one victim who was part of the 2008 NPA who went beyond. Were there others who were underage?
I have been doing some googling on this topic, since it doesn't seem to have received much attention thus far. I am curious specifically about what is the number of victims of sex *acts* committed on minors by Epstein. Google/ChatGPT tell me that there is (a) one documented plaintiff claiming sex acts when she was a minor, although it is not clear what her precise age was at the time, (b) dozens of minors in the 2019 indictment where Epstein is alleged to have engaged in encounters that “would typically include one or more sex acts.”
She was part of the bigger Brazilian-community group visiting Epstein regularly around 2002-2004 and she brought some of the girls herself so i guess that would be treated as trafficking by prosecutors. She said in the YT interview that the progression from “some sexual act” to “full sexual act” took him half a year. So she was still 14 at the time, max 15. His whole line of defense he was trying to use in Florida case (“I didnt know they were 18, they lied to me they were, these were happy ending massages mostly, different people all the time so i dont really remember majority of them, many came to see me only once”) are laughable when it comes to Marina Lacerda’s case. I remember MT wrote about a woman in Florida who agreed to have full intercourse with Epstein a day before her 18th bday and they classified her as a minor victim even though she didnt consider herself such. But here it is different - it started when she was 14, he allegedly got to know her age pretty quickly and it escalated quickly too when it comes to what was happening. It was indefensible in any aspect and I am pretty sure Epstein realized that very well.
Too bad Marina Lacerda does not fit the narration of adult women who rebranded as victims or ‘those who lied about their age’ or “it was JUST a happy ending massage”. That's why, like i said, her name never came up on Michael’s Substack until i posted my comment last night - yes i checked 😎
Okay we can agree that Epstein Has been sensationally accused of doing far more he has probably done and the whole case has become a circus long ago but he still did terrible, indefensible and CRIMINAL things to some people. And no, he wasnt “just a john’”. He indeed was a sex criminal /offender coz no 50 year old mam has any reason to have sex with a 14 year old female multiple times in the span of over 2 years.
Btw why Maxwell wasnt named - Lacerda allegedly recognized her during Maxwell’s trial only as that friend of his that Epstein once invited to join. She didnt know her name before.
Another good one. What amazes me is that jurors in the Maxwell case said they convicted her solely on the basis of Carolyn Andriano's testimony because they felt sorry for her! The judge told the jury to discount the testimony of Annie Farmer and the fruitcake English/French actress because no crime had been committed. This whole thing demonstrates that people will believe anything unscrupulous "journalists" and equally unscrupulous attorneys feed them.
Now, to say that Carolyn was a mess would be a gross understatement. She was born in New York and lived there until 1999 when her mother moved to Florida when she was about eleven. She dropped out of middle school in the seventh grade. She testified that her mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict and that she basically let her run free. She claimed she was molested and raped by her grandfather from age four. She met Roberts through her boyfriend, who was seventeen when she was thirteen or fourteen. They hung out with Roberts and her boyfriend, who was a known drug dealer, and smoked pot. Roberts asked her if she wanted to make some money by giving a rich guy a massage and she said sure. Roberts took her to Epstein for a massage and was paid $300 for it, as was she. After that, she went on her own. Her boyfriend often took her. He’d wait in the car while she was with Epstein. He testified in court that he took two other girls too. Sometimes her mother dropped her off at Epstein’s villa.
Andriano talked to the FBI during the Epstein investigation and was deposed for suits she filed against him and Sara Kellen on the basis that they had caused her emotional harm. Not once did she mention Maxwell either in her FBI interview or in the depositions. She testified in the court that the reason she didn’t mention Maxwell is that the FBI wasn’t interested in her. She said in court that she was a diagnosed schizophrenic and took medicine for it. She said she heard voices and feared she was going to lose her children, she had had them taken away before. She was addicted to several drugs and had served time in jail. Andriano managed to get several sob stories into her testimony blaming Epstein and Maxwell for all her problems over the Maxwell defense objection. Even though the judge ordered the comments to be stricken and rebuked her for making them, the jury had heard her pleading. One jurist would later state that they voted to convict Maxwell primarily because of Andriano’s story. In other words, she was convicted based on the word of a woman with known emotional issues and mental problems! They seemed to ignore the fact that she actually had been raped and sexually abused repeatedly as a child – by her grandfather. She blamed her problems on Epstein and Maxwell (who she had not accused before.) Andriano was paid several million dollars from the Epstein Victim’s fund. She had purchased property in North Carolina and was planning to move at the time of her death from a drug overdose.
You can read the entire article on my Substack. The site won’t let me attach it in a comment. I wrote it right after the Maxwell interview. I read all of the testimony by the four witnesses as well as news accounts of the trial and its aftermath. One of the jurors told reporters that Andriano’s testimony was the primary reason they voted to convict Maxwell.
I actually already mostly read your articles. I am only aware of one juror ever making on the record comments and he certainly didn't say they convicted solely because they felt bad for her.
It came from news reports after the trial. I read all the transcripts and accounts. The jury found Maxwell guilty because they believed she and Epstein were responsible for all of Andriano’s problems, even though she said on the stand that she had been raped by her grandfather as a child and was basically neglected by her mother.
Thanks. I hate to badger, but nobody else is gonna do it, so please consider upgrading to a paid subscription if you (apparently!) think I am worthy of a Pulitzer!
Moreover, as Dennis McCarthy and June Schleuter have argued, the recently uncovered, hand-written source text for the details of Cade's demise (which has his body dragged through the streets and left for carrion crows) had a strongly anti-rebellion perspective. (McCarthy and Schleuter, A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels by George North: A Newly Uncovered Manuscript Source for Shakespeare's Plays, Boydell and Brewer/British Museum, 2018).
Longest article I've ever seen on Substack. Tried to focus and made it about 1/4 of the way down. Would you like an editor as a courtesy for your readers?
If you can’t sustain focus for long enough to read ~5000 words — should maybe take around 17 minutes — on a platform specifically designed for longer-form writing, no, I don’t think I require your assistance. But thanks.
It's not only the length. Any writer will tell you that it's hard to lose a reader's interest during good/interesting dialogue, even when lengthy. Your rambling list of historic inconsistencies in a twenty year investigation, and your subjective opinions on what the errors prove reminds me of how the New York Times attacks President Trump. It's hard to prove that an inaccurate statement is a lie. So they do not even try. It's hard for readers to finish NYT articles too.
I'm sure captivating journalists almost never build causal arguments or prove anything. It's probably the reader's fault, or Putin's, or President Trump's, or the 1/6 insurrectionists, or Iran's, or Israel's....
I wrote a longer article (~8,000 words) on the “Dancing Israelis” on 9/11 that extensively cites the FBI report on the topic. I’d be curious if you find my writing palatable and easy to read even if you don’t agree with my conclusions.
It's a much different read and, well, you're not pretending to be a journalist or criticizing the moral inferiority of your fellow hack pseudo-journalists.
I’m not a professional writer or journalist, my only criticisms of others stem from a lack of careful review of the facts. That goes for everybody. I appreciate your willingness to give it a look and for the feedback.
So the most obvious question; on first contact with the cops why didn’t he hire the best lawyers on earth and fight like hell? Why take any deal at all?
Well, that's exactly what Epstein did! When he first learned of the local police investigation in October 2005, he immediately hired some of the most prominent defense attorneys in South Florida, such as Roy Black, who then *did* tentatively obtain a relatively favorable resolution with the State Attorney's Office, whereby Epstein would only have to plead to a generic "solicitation of prostitution" offense, which would not have required lifetime registration as a Sex Offender. But as police and public consternation grew over the State's handling of the case, thanks in large part to strategic leaks to the media, the Feds were brought in by July 2006, and the legal landscape changed drastically. He only took the initial federal "deal" once it became clear that all other options with the Feds were exhausted -- they were threatening to indict, which was perhaps a bluff, but still. He signed the "NPA" in September 2007, but *even then,* his swelling team of lawyers continued to aggressively challenge the NPA's terms and other legal/procedural matters for another nine months, appealing all the way up the DOJ chain of command in DC -- Ken Starr was brought in for this, due to existing relationships with the Bush-era Republicans who were then in power, and Starr's unique standing and ability to make arguments that might be amenable to them. But... it just didn't work -- the DOJ brass and Acosta did not budge. It was speculated that this could have partially been for political reasons, as the only reason Epstein had any public notoriety at the time was because of the publicity around his relationship with Bill Clinton, and the reporting that he had flown Clinton on his private jet in 2002-2003. But appealing to political bias (Alan Dershowitz AND Ken Starr both tried this argument) did not work either. Finally, in June 2008, Epstein and his attorneys were told by Acosta's office in South FL that the clock had finally run out, and if he did not plead guilty at once as required by the NPA he had signed the previous September, he would be federally indicted -- the deadline was June 30, 2008, to be precise, and that was in fact the day that his lawyers scheduled the required state plea hearing, and he entered his guilty plea to two state-level offenses, as the federal NPA dictated. Whatever the potential deficiencies in the Feds' prospective case, NO ONE wants to go on trial for "sex trafficking" or similar, especially in the federal court system -- only 0.4% of federal criminal defendants go to trial and are acquitted. Again, maybe the SDFL's ultimatum-style threat to indict in June 2008 was just another bluff to compel his compliance -- it's difficult to know for sure. But he'd done pretty much everything he could at that point.
If it’s so clear to you that he had a good chance at fighting the case, it surely would also have occurred to his highly paid expert legal team and Epstein himself.
That certainly puts the notion that he killed himself out of a sense of defeat or inevitable conviction to bed, then.
It seems clear that if somebody is being paid for “massages” that include sexual behavior that goes so far as to compel the person to watch them masturbate or touch them sexually, the reason they are paying that person isn’t massages themselves. Whether that was ever explicitly stated doesn’t make it any less the case.
That might matter in legal parlance, but morally it is the same as explicitly engaging in prostitution. Trafficking as a concept is highly flawed but there was a system for grooming (or since you dislike that word, procuring and acclimatizing young women to give sexualized massages), and that system consistently allowed minors into the sexual activity.
It also seems his recruiters knew he liked underage girls. Even if he didn’t ask for minors, his preference for them was revealed as he had reoccurring sexual encounters with them and kept asking for more whether it can be proven he knew they were minors or not.
This includes a 14 year old girl who was told to say she was not a minor, if I remember correctly, and she also was subjected to his sexual advances and behavior at 14.
Since I'm very familiar with all your previous missives about Epstein, very little here was a surprise. Yet it still manages to boggle the mind that the many myths surrounding the 2008 NPA, the 2019 indictment and the Maxwell trial eludes 99.9 percent of media.
It's those in the 99.9 percent that are the real Epstein class.
"Oh, so I thought all this stuff was taken care of years ago? Guess I'm just going to be another societal human sacrifice. People never really change - do they?"
Michael-have you considered turning all your research into a book? I could imagine challenges finding a publisher, but at least this subscriber would be interested in purchasing compendium of yours on this topic.
Thank you! Yes, I am working on it. Hope to have something to announce soon.
Will the rapidly exfoliating and vehemently believed Epstein conspiracy phenomenon, complete with savage attacks on anyone daring to objectively examine the actual knowable facts of the case, one day go the way of Russiagate? Five years from now how many will be saying, "Oh, I always knew it was a fake. Never made much sense."
An excellent, well-written overview of the case. Thanks for this. It took me 20 minutes to read, but I did get up to get coffee and a couple of cookies. Nice ironic joke at the very end, too.
Some people on this platform specifically designed to feature longer-form writing (or so I thought) are apparently quite offended if they have to spend ~20 minutes reading something!
Too bad. They can read people mag then. Nobody else will touch this sea of legal malfeasance. Keep it coming. And for the record, I do pay.
Wow. I didn't expect a second article so fast. Interesting. I'm piecing together a timeline. So the 2019 indictment covered acts only for 2002-05. Missing from the 2019 indictment: Epstein Island, New Mexico property, use of any aircraft, any post 2005 acts, any under-age-14 pedophilia. And as you write: "Strangely, SDNY prosecutors couldn’t find any illicit sexual contact from the years 2005-2019." So it's looking like if Epstein did anything from 2005-19, it was never even alleged. And Virginia Giuffre doesn't emerge until 2014 when she files a motion in civil litigation under the CVRA claiming she was trafficked to others during the pre 2005 era. It will be interesting to get the full picture in a timeline order.
Virginia Giuffre's first legal action was in 2009 as "Jane Doe 102". See court records for Doe 102 v. Epstein. Prior to that I believe she tried to get restitution after his plea deal. But in that lawsuit she didn't give specific details besides accusing Ghislaine Maxwell for the first time, who went virtually unmentioned during the 2005-2008 investigations.
I had been working on a timeline but it's just so much information for the little time I have. Endlessly fascinating story if we stop being emotionally invested in it.
Thanks for this. I'll have to check where I got the 2014 date. I thought it was in the article or one linked in it. Something about her filing under the CVRA. I'll add the 2009 filing into my list. I agree re not being emotionally invested. It's quite the convoluted story, but I'm glad Michael is focusing on the evolution of, and interplay with, these draconian sex trafficking statutes.
Anytime. The filing you're thinking of is indeed in the CVRA case, Doe v. United States. That had the bigger impact for sure and we see the effects today. Michael is doing great work. I wish he'd testify to Congress!
It’s not clear to me who the victims were that were listed in the 2019 Epstein indictment. Victim 1 was apparently a Jane Doe 84 according to Ghislaines habeus petition
If you do a google search all you get is Jane Doe 4 with that bogus 1984 allegation
I suppose Caroline was one victim but did Epstein know she was under 18? She had so many credibility issues and never even mentioned Ghiislaine Maxwell in her previous civil suits
The Jane Doe in Ghislaines trial (Nadia B) was approached by FBI/DOJ in 2019 but declined to interview. After Epstein suicided and the Victim Claims Compensation Fund was announced she got a lawyer and was interviewed but she clearly had no intention of doing so with Epstein alive. It doubtful Ghislaine could have been convicted without her
The amazing thing is she described going to Epstein’s E71 st St house from 1994-1995 and his New Mexico ranch before Epstein lived in either. Same problem with the Katie Johnson claim about being raped there in 1994 .
Those $600 million in assets (Epsteins) could not be unlocked for Victims lawyers/victims without an Epstein conviction which was uncertain, or his death. Ghislaines conviction proved important as well, and Epsteins suicide without a conviction contaminated jury pools who presumed guilt. Think about that when considering motives. Also, those huge settlements with JPM, Deutsche Bank and BoA would not have been possible
One of the victims in 2019 indictment was Marina Lacerda. She later came out she was the Jane Doe number XYZ (I dont remember) herself. Google her interview with Soft White Underbelly YT channel. She was 14 when she started going to Epstein. A lot of details, the most terrifying part of her life story is that she was raped by an actual pedophile - her own stepfather, as a prepubescent girl... With Epstein it was always in NY, she never traveled anywhere. And it was more than 'massages'. And he knew her age very well. She was not brought to him by Maxwell but by her own friend. She mentioned only she had a group sex encounter with Maxwell, Epstein and another girl once.
Her testimony is widely available and its very interesting that Michael totally omitted her name throwing a 5,000 word salad how "lame" the indictment was. It wasnt. Epstein knew about it.
As much as I can agree regarding the adult women who went there voluntarily and then suddenly rebranded as victims to get some $$$ - Epstein had no chance when it comes to what he was doing to Marina Lacerda for almost two years, sorry. By the way, she was not involved in Maxwell's indictment.
She was the only one listed (Minor Victim-) in the indictment. Thats pretty weak stuff if you are trying to prove he was running a trafficking ring.
There is also the question of how old she was before Epstein progressed from sexual contact (max 2 yr sentence) to sexual act (heavy sentence up to life). If she was 17 age of consent in NY is 17. Sex with a person under 17 is a misdemeanor if the perpetrator is 16
Sexual contact" with a person less than 17 but at least 14, by a perpetrator who is at least five years older than the victim is "Sexual abuse in the third degree," a class B misdemeanor. (NY Penal Law § 130.55.)
And why wasn’t she named a victim in the Maxwell trial. Maxwell had nothing to do with Annie Farmer going to New Mexico and Marinas group sex encounter with Maxwell easily trumps anything Annie alleged with Maxwell.
Alleging something to be true is not sufficient in a criminal case where the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, unlike in civil cases. She would need corroborating evidence such as a diary, telling friends, family, therapists years ago.
Did she file a civil suit like so many others before Epstein was investigated a 2nd time? I am sure lawyers would have been in touch with her long before this.
Regrettably I have not seen her redacted FBI interview summary (along with Annie Farmers). Why are they not in the Epstein files?
She was part of the bigger Brazilian-community group visiting Epstein regularly around 2002-2004 and she brought some of the girls herself so i guess that would be treated as trafficking by prosecutors. She said in the YT interview that the progression from “some sexual act” to “full sexual act” took him half a year. So she was still 14 at the time, max 15. His whole line of defense he was trying to use in Florida case (“I didnt know they were 18, they lied to me they were, these were happy ending massages mostly, different people all the time so i dont really remember majority of them, many came to see me only once”) are laughable when it comes to Marina Lacerda’s case. I remember MT wrote about a woman in Florida who agreed to have full intercourse with Epstein a day before her 18th bday and they classified her as a minor victim even though she didnt consider herself such. But here it is different - it started when she was 14, he allegedly got to know her age pretty quickly and it escalated quickly too when it comes to what was happening. It was indefensible in any aspect and I am pretty sure Epstein realized that very well.
Too bad Marina Lacerda does not fit the narration of adult women who rebranded as victims or ‘those who lied about their age’ or “it was JUST a happy ending massage”. That's why, like i said, her name never came up on Michael’s Substack until i posted my comment last night - yes i checked 😎
Okay we can agree that Epstein Has been sensationally accused of doing far more he has probably done and the whole case has become a circus long ago but he still did terrible, indefensible and CRIMINAL things to some people. And no, he wasnt “just a john’”. He indeed was a sex criminal /offender coz no 50 year old mam has any reason to have sex with a 14 year old female multiple times in the span of over 2 years.
Btw why Maxwell wasnt named - Lacerda allegedly recognized her during Maxwell’s trial only as that friend of his that Epstein once invited to join. She didnt know her name before.
Another question on related lines. Have you folks read Jacob Shamsian's reporting in Politico? He names several victims (other than Giuffre) and potential perpetrators to whom Epstein trafficked girls. Curious what everyone makes of it.
He was referring to the secret confidential agreements. After Epsteins 2nd indictment and suicide contaminated jury pools nationwide, the calculus for settling any allegation in a civil suit changed markedly. Rich men with active careers/business had too much to lose being named so quickly settled these cases in return for confidentiality. Since prosecutors cases in criminal cases relied almost entirely from evidence provided by victims lawyers they also served as protection from prosecution. Such agreements are not necessarily proof the allegations are true. You might look into Edwards previous employer Scott Rothstein
Are the massages Epstein received categorized as 'sexual contact'or as a 'sex act'?
My understanding is sex act includes intercourse, oral sex or vaginal /anal penetration with digit/object . So the earlier massages starting at 14 seem sex contact while later descriptions (age up to 17) progressed to sex acts. The timeline of progression is uncertain
I didn't know that there was anything beyond massages alleged at scale for underage victims. I know of the one victim who was part of the 2008 NPA who went beyond. Were there others who were underage?
I have been doing some googling on this topic, since it doesn't seem to have received much attention thus far. I am curious specifically about what is the number of victims of sex *acts* committed on minors by Epstein. Google/ChatGPT tell me that there is (a) one documented plaintiff claiming sex acts when she was a minor, although it is not clear what her precise age was at the time, (b) dozens of minors in the 2019 indictment where Epstein is alleged to have engaged in encounters that “would typically include one or more sex acts.”
Is this an accurate summary?
She was part of the bigger Brazilian-community group visiting Epstein regularly around 2002-2004 and she brought some of the girls herself so i guess that would be treated as trafficking by prosecutors. She said in the YT interview that the progression from “some sexual act” to “full sexual act” took him half a year. So she was still 14 at the time, max 15. His whole line of defense he was trying to use in Florida case (“I didnt know they were 18, they lied to me they were, these were happy ending massages mostly, different people all the time so i dont really remember majority of them, many came to see me only once”) are laughable when it comes to Marina Lacerda’s case. I remember MT wrote about a woman in Florida who agreed to have full intercourse with Epstein a day before her 18th bday and they classified her as a minor victim even though she didnt consider herself such. But here it is different - it started when she was 14, he allegedly got to know her age pretty quickly and it escalated quickly too when it comes to what was happening. It was indefensible in any aspect and I am pretty sure Epstein realized that very well.
Too bad Marina Lacerda does not fit the narration of adult women who rebranded as victims or ‘those who lied about their age’ or “it was JUST a happy ending massage”. That's why, like i said, her name never came up on Michael’s Substack until i posted my comment last night - yes i checked 😎
Okay we can agree that Epstein Has been sensationally accused of doing far more he has probably done and the whole case has become a circus long ago but he still did terrible, indefensible and CRIMINAL things to some people. And no, he wasnt “just a john’”. He indeed was a sex criminal /offender coz no 50 year old mam has any reason to have sex with a 14 year old female multiple times in the span of over 2 years.
Btw why Maxwell wasnt named - Lacerda allegedly recognized her during Maxwell’s trial only as that friend of his that Epstein once invited to join. She didnt know her name before.
Another good one. What amazes me is that jurors in the Maxwell case said they convicted her solely on the basis of Carolyn Andriano's testimony because they felt sorry for her! The judge told the jury to discount the testimony of Annie Farmer and the fruitcake English/French actress because no crime had been committed. This whole thing demonstrates that people will believe anything unscrupulous "journalists" and equally unscrupulous attorneys feed them.
I doubt that any jurors said they convicted her "solely" or even partially because they felt sorry for Carolyn.
Now, to say that Carolyn was a mess would be a gross understatement. She was born in New York and lived there until 1999 when her mother moved to Florida when she was about eleven. She dropped out of middle school in the seventh grade. She testified that her mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict and that she basically let her run free. She claimed she was molested and raped by her grandfather from age four. She met Roberts through her boyfriend, who was seventeen when she was thirteen or fourteen. They hung out with Roberts and her boyfriend, who was a known drug dealer, and smoked pot. Roberts asked her if she wanted to make some money by giving a rich guy a massage and she said sure. Roberts took her to Epstein for a massage and was paid $300 for it, as was she. After that, she went on her own. Her boyfriend often took her. He’d wait in the car while she was with Epstein. He testified in court that he took two other girls too. Sometimes her mother dropped her off at Epstein’s villa.
Andriano talked to the FBI during the Epstein investigation and was deposed for suits she filed against him and Sara Kellen on the basis that they had caused her emotional harm. Not once did she mention Maxwell either in her FBI interview or in the depositions. She testified in the court that the reason she didn’t mention Maxwell is that the FBI wasn’t interested in her. She said in court that she was a diagnosed schizophrenic and took medicine for it. She said she heard voices and feared she was going to lose her children, she had had them taken away before. She was addicted to several drugs and had served time in jail. Andriano managed to get several sob stories into her testimony blaming Epstein and Maxwell for all her problems over the Maxwell defense objection. Even though the judge ordered the comments to be stricken and rebuked her for making them, the jury had heard her pleading. One jurist would later state that they voted to convict Maxwell primarily because of Andriano’s story. In other words, she was convicted based on the word of a woman with known emotional issues and mental problems! They seemed to ignore the fact that she actually had been raped and sexually abused repeatedly as a child – by her grandfather. She blamed her problems on Epstein and Maxwell (who she had not accused before.) Andriano was paid several million dollars from the Epstein Victim’s fund. She had purchased property in North Carolina and was planning to move at the time of her death from a drug overdose.
Actually, they did.
Got a source?
You can read the entire article on my Substack. The site won’t let me attach it in a comment. I wrote it right after the Maxwell interview. I read all of the testimony by the four witnesses as well as news accounts of the trial and its aftermath. One of the jurors told reporters that Andriano’s testimony was the primary reason they voted to convict Maxwell.
I actually already mostly read your articles. I am only aware of one juror ever making on the record comments and he certainly didn't say they convicted solely because they felt bad for her.
That’s basically what he said as I recall. It’s been a while since I read it but he definitely stated the conviction was based on Adriano’s testimony.
It came from news reports after the trial. I read all the transcripts and accounts. The jury found Maxwell guilty because they believed she and Epstein were responsible for all of Andriano’s problems, even though she said on the stand that she had been raped by her grandfather as a child and was basically neglected by her mother.
Well, I'll give you the highest accolade I can for this sphere of genuine journalism. You're a worthy successor to Dorothy Rabinowitz.
And boy. Does Shakespeare remain evergreen in his remarks about lawyers.
Thanks. I hate to badger, but nobody else is gonna do it, so please consider upgrading to a paid subscription if you (apparently!) think I am worthy of a Pulitzer!
Well, with the Pulitzer people having discredited themselves so badly I'd say that the independent judgment of readers should warm your heart more.
Though I'm no journalist and, even, quite bad at basic math, I'm willing to declare that I could use your money far more than you could use mine.
I'm being neither churlish, or cheap. Just the way it is, kid. If I win the lottery I'll sign up on the day I cash the check.
It depends which ones. But I think the good ones will find Michael's work highly respectable as legal analysis.
In putting those words in the mouth of an associate of the rebel Jack Cade, the playwright was hardly giving his own opinion. See here for a mainstream commentary on the subject: https://lithub.com/what-did-shakespeare-mean-when-he-wrote-lets-kill-all-the-lawyers/
Moreover, as Dennis McCarthy and June Schleuter have argued, the recently uncovered, hand-written source text for the details of Cade's demise (which has his body dragged through the streets and left for carrion crows) had a strongly anti-rebellion perspective. (McCarthy and Schleuter, A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels by George North: A Newly Uncovered Manuscript Source for Shakespeare's Plays, Boydell and Brewer/British Museum, 2018).
The great thing about creative writing is creating characters who are not, in fact, the writer and do not necessarily hold any of the writer's views.
I testify before all of you that I am in fact not a murderer.
Longest article I've ever seen on Substack. Tried to focus and made it about 1/4 of the way down. Would you like an editor as a courtesy for your readers?
If you can’t sustain focus for long enough to read ~5000 words — should maybe take around 17 minutes — on a platform specifically designed for longer-form writing, no, I don’t think I require your assistance. But thanks.
It's not only the length. Any writer will tell you that it's hard to lose a reader's interest during good/interesting dialogue, even when lengthy. Your rambling list of historic inconsistencies in a twenty year investigation, and your subjective opinions on what the errors prove reminds me of how the New York Times attacks President Trump. It's hard to prove that an inaccurate statement is a lie. So they do not even try. It's hard for readers to finish NYT articles too.
I'm sure captivating journalists almost never build causal arguments or prove anything. It's probably the reader's fault, or Putin's, or President Trump's, or the 1/6 insurrectionists, or Iran's, or Israel's....
Have you tried Bazooka Joe comics? You might find them a very rewarding read, assuming you make it to the end
No problem! They are all dialogue and nobody is pretending to be a journalist.
The Midwestern Doctor has you beat by a mile! The articles from the good doctor can take well over an hour to read, depending on the topic.
So you think you could probably read about 8k words in under 30 minutes then, right?
If these stories are turning into a high-volume book, I'd be honored to edit it. I'm just finishing up my novel, so I'd have some time.
I wrote a longer article (~8,000 words) on the “Dancing Israelis” on 9/11 that extensively cites the FBI report on the topic. I’d be curious if you find my writing palatable and easy to read even if you don’t agree with my conclusions.
https://andrewdolgin.substack.com/p/911-and-the-dancing-israelis-refuting?r=8yze6&utm_medium=ios
It's a much different read and, well, you're not pretending to be a journalist or criticizing the moral inferiority of your fellow hack pseudo-journalists.
I’m not a professional writer or journalist, my only criticisms of others stem from a lack of careful review of the facts. That goes for everybody. I appreciate your willingness to give it a look and for the feedback.
So the most obvious question; on first contact with the cops why didn’t he hire the best lawyers on earth and fight like hell? Why take any deal at all?
Well, that's exactly what Epstein did! When he first learned of the local police investigation in October 2005, he immediately hired some of the most prominent defense attorneys in South Florida, such as Roy Black, who then *did* tentatively obtain a relatively favorable resolution with the State Attorney's Office, whereby Epstein would only have to plead to a generic "solicitation of prostitution" offense, which would not have required lifetime registration as a Sex Offender. But as police and public consternation grew over the State's handling of the case, thanks in large part to strategic leaks to the media, the Feds were brought in by July 2006, and the legal landscape changed drastically. He only took the initial federal "deal" once it became clear that all other options with the Feds were exhausted -- they were threatening to indict, which was perhaps a bluff, but still. He signed the "NPA" in September 2007, but *even then,* his swelling team of lawyers continued to aggressively challenge the NPA's terms and other legal/procedural matters for another nine months, appealing all the way up the DOJ chain of command in DC -- Ken Starr was brought in for this, due to existing relationships with the Bush-era Republicans who were then in power, and Starr's unique standing and ability to make arguments that might be amenable to them. But... it just didn't work -- the DOJ brass and Acosta did not budge. It was speculated that this could have partially been for political reasons, as the only reason Epstein had any public notoriety at the time was because of the publicity around his relationship with Bill Clinton, and the reporting that he had flown Clinton on his private jet in 2002-2003. But appealing to political bias (Alan Dershowitz AND Ken Starr both tried this argument) did not work either. Finally, in June 2008, Epstein and his attorneys were told by Acosta's office in South FL that the clock had finally run out, and if he did not plead guilty at once as required by the NPA he had signed the previous September, he would be federally indicted -- the deadline was June 30, 2008, to be precise, and that was in fact the day that his lawyers scheduled the required state plea hearing, and he entered his guilty plea to two state-level offenses, as the federal NPA dictated. Whatever the potential deficiencies in the Feds' prospective case, NO ONE wants to go on trial for "sex trafficking" or similar, especially in the federal court system -- only 0.4% of federal criminal defendants go to trial and are acquitted. Again, maybe the SDFL's ultimatum-style threat to indict in June 2008 was just another bluff to compel his compliance -- it's difficult to know for sure. But he'd done pretty much everything he could at that point.
This is embarrassing for you.
If it’s so clear to you that he had a good chance at fighting the case, it surely would also have occurred to his highly paid expert legal team and Epstein himself.
That certainly puts the notion that he killed himself out of a sense of defeat or inevitable conviction to bed, then.
It seems clear that if somebody is being paid for “massages” that include sexual behavior that goes so far as to compel the person to watch them masturbate or touch them sexually, the reason they are paying that person isn’t massages themselves. Whether that was ever explicitly stated doesn’t make it any less the case.
That might matter in legal parlance, but morally it is the same as explicitly engaging in prostitution. Trafficking as a concept is highly flawed but there was a system for grooming (or since you dislike that word, procuring and acclimatizing young women to give sexualized massages), and that system consistently allowed minors into the sexual activity.
It also seems his recruiters knew he liked underage girls. Even if he didn’t ask for minors, his preference for them was revealed as he had reoccurring sexual encounters with them and kept asking for more whether it can be proven he knew they were minors or not.
This includes a 14 year old girl who was told to say she was not a minor, if I remember correctly, and she also was subjected to his sexual advances and behavior at 14.
I wonder how many 14 year olds pass for 18+?
Rest in power
Good piece. But look, if you're gonna throw in dictionary hunt-worthy words like cockamamie I recommend in your next article use "Spiffidy".
Since I'm very familiar with all your previous missives about Epstein, very little here was a surprise. Yet it still manages to boggle the mind that the many myths surrounding the 2008 NPA, the 2019 indictment and the Maxwell trial eludes 99.9 percent of media.
It's those in the 99.9 percent that are the real Epstein class.
"Oh, so I thought all this stuff was taken care of years ago? Guess I'm just going to be another societal human sacrifice. People never really change - do they?"