When the central goal of their investigation took his personal life in jail, federal investigators sought to widen their aperture into who else may need helped Jeffrey Epstein commit his crimes, in line with paperwork included within the Division of Justice’s release Friday.
The late intercourse offender and rich financier’s far-reaching net of affect, and his roster of workers, helped make attainable each his lavish life-style and — allegedly — his intercourse trafficking scheme. Following Epstein’s jail cell suicide in August 2019, prosecutors redoubled their efforts to determine those that have been aware of, and enabling of, his abuse – and who they may probably cost.
4 months after Epstein’s dying, federal prosecutors laid out the proof and allegations they’d gathered in a confidential “prosecution memorandum” despatched to the then top-prosecutor in New York, U.S. Lawyer Geoffrey Berman – to investigate “the extent to which sure of Epstein’s associates and workers might or might not be criminally liable for his or her conduct throughout their employment with Epstein.”
“Epstein created an enormous community of underage victims — as younger as 14 — in areas together with New York and Palm Seashore,” the December 2019 memo states.
Paperwork that have been included within the U.S. Division of Justice launch of the Jeffrey Epstein information are photographed, Jan. 2, 2026.
Jon Elswick/AP
“In creating and sustaining a community of minor victims whom he abused, Epstein labored with others, together with workers and associates who facilitated his exploitation of minors by, amongst different issues, contacting victims and scheduling their sexual encounters with Epstein, each in New York and in Florida,” the memo mentioned.
Prosecution memos are usually ready prematurely of charging selections in federal circumstances to permit attorneys to evaluate internally the strengths and vulnerabilities of prison circumstances.
As investigators interviewed dozens of Epstein’s alleged victims in addition to his associates and former workers, a number of names saved popping up, together with Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein’s former govt assistant Lesley Groff, who allegedly helped schedule therapeutic massage appointments for girls and minor ladies, in line with a number of individuals interviewed within the investigation.
Prosecutors have been evaluating whether or not the authorized instruments and proof have been adequate to cost any associates, together with Maxwell and Groff, they wrote within the memo. That authorized evaluation is sort of totally redacted.
Maxwell would in the end be arrested in July 2020 for her function within the sexual exploitation scheme — the one individual to have been charged apart from Epstein. She was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to twenty years. Groff has denied all wrongdoing.
An lawyer for Groff beforehand instructed ABC Information that Groff “by no means knowingly booked journey for anybody underneath the age of 18, and had no information of the alleged criminal activity by any means. Ms. Groff, a guardian herself, is extremely shocked and deeply upset in regards to the alleged wrongdoings of Mr. Epstein.”
The 86-page memo lays out particulars of interviews with greater than two dozen alleged victims in addition to potential topics of the prison investigation and their attorneys. The names of all these alleging abuse are redacted within the doc.
Attorneys for Maxwell instructed prosecutors in an October 2019 assembly that Maxwell denied ever hiring minors for massages and denied ever partaking in intercourse acts with minors. Her attorneys additionally “defined their views of why the people making these claims [against Maxwell] weren’t credible,” the doc says.
One other Epstein affiliate, modeling agent Jean Luc Brunel, indicated he was unwilling to fulfill with prosecutors and would invoke the Fifth Modification if subpoenaed, in line with the memo. Brunel was later charged in France with intercourse crimes towards minors. He died by suicide in his Paris jail cell in February 2022.
Different unredacted names within the prosecution memo belong to some on the highest echelons of finance, style, and Hollywood energy – with whom Epstein was identified to rub elbows even after changing into a convicted intercourse offender.
The memo additionally particulars allegations made by an alleged Epstein sufferer of wrongdoing by two distinguished associates of Epstein — Wall Road billionaire Leon Black, and Jes Staley, Epstein’s former personal banker at JP Morgan.
An lawyer for Black mentioned in an announcement to ABC Information the claims have been a pack of lies.
“There may be completely no fact to any of the allegations towards Mr. Black,” the lawyer mentioned.
A lawyer who has beforehand represented Staley in circumstances involving Epstein didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, however Staley has beforehand said that he “deeply regrets” his relationship with Epstein.
DOJ officers have contended that most of the allegations towards distinguished figures weren’t corroborated or weren’t thought-about credible — and none of these males have been charged with crimes related to Epstein.
“Look, we mentioned in July and it stays as true as we speak as in July, if we had data — which means the Division of Justice — about males who abused girls, we’d prosecute them,” Blanche instructed reporters Friday.
“There may be this built-in assumption that one way or the other there’s a hidden tranche of data of males that we learn about that we’re masking up or that we’re selecting to not prosecute. That isn’t the case,” Blanche mentioned. “I have no idea whether or not there are males on the market who abused these girls, and if we find out about data and proof that enables us to prosecute them, you higher imagine we are going to. However I don’t suppose that the general public otherwise you all are going to uncover males inside the Epstein information.”
