Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alec. We all love true crime podcasts, but
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Speaker 1: All episodes of Art Fraud are available right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's our show. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. In the
Speaker 1: aftermath of Jeffrey Epstein's death, the world turned its attention
Speaker 1: to the trial of his associate, Gilain Maxwell. Maxwell, it seems,
Speaker 1: is the last hope for resolution and accountability in a
Speaker 1: case with so many missing pieces. My guest today, Vicky Ward,
Speaker 1: is the perfect person to shed some light on the
Speaker 1: questions that remain. She's a New York Times bestselling author
Speaker 1: and investigative reporter who has covered Jeffrey Epstein and Gilain
Speaker 1: Maxwell since two thousand two. Ward has a long history
Speaker 1: as a columnist and feature writer at The New York Post,
Speaker 1: Huff Post, and Vanity Fair. She's written books about New
Speaker 1: York real estate, the financial sector, and most recently, the
Speaker 1: White House and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's path to
Speaker 1: occupying it. Last year, she reported from the Maxwell trial
Speaker 1: in her sub stack News that of Vicky Ward Investigates,
Speaker 1: and now she brings us up to speed on the
Speaker 1: results of two decades of reporting as the host and
Speaker 1: producer on Chasing Gillaine, a podcast and documentary series on Discovery.
Speaker 1: Vicky Ward and I spoke about her entry point into
Speaker 1: the world of Jeffrey Epstein, long before the world would
Speaker 1: come to know his secrets. Well, it actually is twenty
Speaker 1: years only because I began reporting on him in the
Speaker 1: fall of two thousand and two, and the reason for
Speaker 1: that was actually because I was pregnant with twins and
Speaker 1: it was a high risk pregnancy, and I had been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of work on the West Coast. Actually
Speaker 1: prior to that, but my doctors didn't want me flying
Speaker 1: too much. And Jeffrey Epstein's name came up in page
Speaker 1: six of the New York Post. And this was a
Speaker 1: man who, despite the fact that he lived in what
Speaker 1: was said to be the biggest town house in New York,
Speaker 1: he was known by then to have his own island
Speaker 1: and the Caribbean, known to have a big ranch. Nobody
Speaker 1: knew anything about him. No one knew how he had
Speaker 1: made his money. He wasn't someone whose name appeared in
Speaker 1: the financial press. He was like Gatsby. He was a
Speaker 1: mystery figure. So Graydon Carter said to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard about this guy for years. I have no
Speaker 1: idea where all his money came from. He's an enigma.
Speaker 1: He lives in New York. You live in New York,
Speaker 1: you're pregnant. This is the perfect moment. Go find out
Speaker 1: how he made his money. And that's how it all began. Now,
Speaker 1: when you approach him, what was the template for what
Speaker 1: you wanted to do in the beginning. So I absolutely
Speaker 1: reached out to him straight away, not least because you
Speaker 1: know one of the differences, but acute twenty years ago
Speaker 1: at it. When you report for Vanity Fair as opposed
Speaker 1: to same reporting for The New Yorker or the New
Speaker 1: York Times is that pictures really matter. And as reporters
Speaker 1: for Anti Fair, we were all trained to sort of
Speaker 1: remember that if you had great words and no great photographs,
Speaker 1: that's a New Yorker article you may not run in
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair. And so access is really critical. So absolutely
Speaker 1: I reached out to him. You know, I did a
Speaker 1: clipping search on him. There was almost nothing. He was
Speaker 1: like the invisible man, and so I knew that my
Speaker 1: best bet initially was to try and charm him, try
Speaker 1: and persuade him to answer my questions, and at the
Speaker 1: very least, because he was reluctant, was to get from
Speaker 1: him a list of people who he thought might wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about him and might say whatever it is
Speaker 1: he wanted to say about himself. It was. It was
Speaker 1: a start. The man of mystery who there's almost there's
Speaker 1: little to know record of him, but a man who
Speaker 1: was this type of cipher if you will, What pitch
Speaker 1: did you make? How did you get him to come
Speaker 1: out of his shell and talk? Wow? It was so
Speaker 1: I perhaps had an advantage in that he did some
Speaker 1: homework on me, and I think what he found out
Speaker 1: about me frightened him. I mean, he told me that
Speaker 1: he had a dossier on me and my then husband,
Speaker 1: and in some ways I wasn't a complete stranger to
Speaker 1: his world. My then husband's boss and step uncle was
Speaker 1: someone who knew Jeffrey, who knew Gillen Maxwell pretty well.
Speaker 1: I knew Gillen Maxwell socially, but not well. So you know,
Speaker 1: I had a reputation back then as being the kind
Speaker 1: of journalist that if they came knocking on your door,
Speaker 1: it probably wasn't because I wanted to write a puff
Speaker 1: piece about you, and so I think he gathered that
Speaker 1: quite quickly. The reason I say that to you is
Speaker 1: one of the first things he said to me was, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's play chess. You'd be white, you
Speaker 1: get the first move. I mean, he was ready to
Speaker 1: do battle. And also at the very beginning, I ran
Speaker 1: into Gillen Maxwell at a baby shower on the Upper
Speaker 1: East Side of New York and I had heard I've
Speaker 1: done enough reporting to know that they were in some
Speaker 1: sort of bizarre relationship that she was supposed to be
Speaker 1: obsessed with him. It was not reciprocated I didn't know
Speaker 1: much more than that, but I didn't think that point
Speaker 1: in my reporting that a piece about Epstein's money would
Speaker 1: involve her. She studiously avoided me at that baby show,
Speaker 1: but I think she had to walk past me on
Speaker 1: her way out, and I said, I'm sure you've heard.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this fancy fair piece on on Jeffrey and
Speaker 1: his money, but as of yet, I found no reason
Speaker 1: to call you. And she started to cry. That was
Speaker 1: totally bewildering to me, and sort of still crying, she
Speaker 1: left the room. And I did wonder at that point
Speaker 1: what on earth that was all about. But you know,
Speaker 1: it was quite clear that Jeffrey Epstein viewed me as
Speaker 1: a sort of hostile incoming missile. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: the next bizarre thing that happened was that James Caine,
Speaker 1: who's just died, the CEO of bear Sterns. Then an
Speaker 1: investment bank, phoned me at home on my landline. And
Speaker 1: I hadn't yet reached out to Jimmy Caine. He was
Speaker 1: on a list of people that I wanted to speak
Speaker 1: to you, because what was known about Jeffrey Epstein is
Speaker 1: that he had worked for I think from memory six
Speaker 1: or seven years at bear Sterns and then abruptly left,
Speaker 1: and that there was a bit of a mystery as
Speaker 1: to why he had left, but that you know, Jimmy
Speaker 1: Caine was somebody he got very very close to whilst
Speaker 1: at that bag. So when Jimmy Caine phones me up
Speaker 1: and says, can you come and see me this afternoon, unprompted,
Speaker 1: you know, that was a sign that sort of Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein was was going on the offensive here. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not normal for the CEO of an investment back
Speaker 1: to phone a channelist unsolicited and say can you get
Speaker 1: over here, and then spend all afternoon trying to tell
Speaker 1: me what an amazing guy Jeffrey Epstein was, you know,
Speaker 1: so something was clearly really wrong now to get to
Speaker 1: Gillen for a moment. It seems that everywhere you look
Speaker 1: in the in the Epstein case, people are being threatened.
Speaker 1: There's threats. You were threatened. And when I'm wondering, is
Speaker 1: did Maxwell even attempt to make that defense ins the
Speaker 1: Epstein threatened her if you don't go out and recruit
Speaker 1: these girls from me, you're going to be taken down
Speaker 1: and somebody there was none of that. There wasn't Alec. Actually,
Speaker 1: that's the big question mark that was left hanging over
Speaker 1: that trial. You know, I was in the courtroom every
Speaker 1: day of testimony and in some pre trial hearings. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't get to hear the Gillen Maxwell story. And
Speaker 1: if what you say were to be true, you would
Speaker 1: have thought that that's a that's a pretty good defense, right,
Speaker 1: But they kept very far away from the narrative that
Speaker 1: she was any kind of victim of his. Her narrative
Speaker 1: was that she's not guilty. And I think what you
Speaker 1: start saying, well, I'm a victim, then you're admitting some
Speaker 1: kind of guilt. And the two very big question marks
Speaker 1: that came out of that trial regarding her was why
Speaker 1: did he wire her approximately thirty million dollars over a
Speaker 1: period of time. It's a huge amount of money for
Speaker 1: someone to work someone they're not married to, not related to.
Speaker 1: And why did she stay with him for over a
Speaker 1: decade in a relationship that clearly was at times unkind
Speaker 1: and cruel. I mean we heard how he treat you,
Speaker 1: cheated on her, how the butler in Palm Beach took
Speaker 1: down photographs of her when he had other women coming
Speaker 1: to stay to me Epstein threatening people. It seemed likely
Speaker 1: that she could turn over that card in court because
Speaker 1: that's consistent behavior for Epstein. It was documented that Epstein
Speaker 1: threatened people, bribed people, that he would go to many
Speaker 1: lengths to cover up his tracks. And as you just said,
Speaker 1: to say I was a victim is to admit I
Speaker 1: did something. I did something under duress. And she tried
Speaker 1: to say something. If I'm following you correctly, she tried
Speaker 1: to say in court I didn't do anything. Is that
Speaker 1: what was that the case? That is exactly what she said.
Speaker 1: I I am completely innocent. I didn't do anything. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think that although obviously the defense is
Speaker 1: not obliged to put her on the stand, it's up
Speaker 1: to the government. They have the burden of proof. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: I think that there just were too many question marks
Speaker 1: in a way that were left hanging there for the
Speaker 1: jury to not quote unquote use their common sense, which
Speaker 1: is what Maureen Comey, the lead prosecutor, told them to do.
Speaker 1: And she said, look at that money. Who gets paid
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars and look at the fact that this
Speaker 1: woman sticks with this man. And you could see from
Speaker 1: the photographs that were shown the sort of the aging process,
Speaker 1: how they aged, and and so even though you heard
Speaker 1: these stories the sort of poor behavior by Epstein as
Speaker 1: a boyfriend to Maxwell, she's still there. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think for the jury to have swung to her favor,
Speaker 1: she actually needed to tell a story that was believable,
Speaker 1: and she didn't. Now, of course, my friends, a couple
Speaker 1: in particular, the word they coined for me is conspira noiak.
Speaker 1: They say that I'm a conspira noiak. I'm very keen
Speaker 1: on a handful of really what I consider great conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: And the first thing I thought to myself when Epstein
Speaker 1: turned up dead, the one thing that is just like
Speaker 1: a light pulsing in the in the distance all the
Speaker 1: time that never goes off, is what happened to all
Speaker 1: the material that was in his town house, or in
Speaker 1: his Palm Beach house, or in any of his holmes,
Speaker 1: that were the CDs and the recorded material. If any
Speaker 1: of these people of his guests quote unquote having sex
Speaker 1: in his house with these underaged people, are these recruited people. Now,
Speaker 1: so he turns up dead. You know, the FBI had
Speaker 1: rated that house in New York, and I'm sure I'm
Speaker 1: sure if there's anything to be had there, they've got it.
Speaker 1: Where is it? Do you believe there is such stuff?
Speaker 1: And where is it? So, first of all, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who think that the circumstances under
Speaker 1: which Jeffrey Epstein died, including his own defense team. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think we've heard the last of that. I
Speaker 1: don't think you're a conspiraoid to suggest something strange went on,
Speaker 1: and I think we have not heard the last of that.
Speaker 1: And I don't say that based on speculation. I say
Speaker 1: that based on something I know, the question of tapes.
Speaker 1: Where are they? So one of the really I found
Speaker 1: shocking moments of testimony in the Maxwell trial was actually
Speaker 1: from the FBI who raided Epstein's house in New York.
Speaker 1: Because what happened, I mean they described it to us.
Speaker 1: They went in around five o'clock in the afternoon, they
Speaker 1: spent all night, they took pictures of everything, they had
Speaker 1: it all labeled, and then they left it there. And
Speaker 1: they left it there. They're killing me, I'm not. I
Speaker 1: think it was absolutely astonishing because they didn't have the
Speaker 1: right warrant to take it out. So three days goes
Speaker 1: by before they return, Oh, it's not there. That would
Speaker 1: be a great scene, would be a great scene in
Speaker 1: the movie, is there's a guy that's like, there's a
Speaker 1: guy that's a property manager. He's there in the vestibule
Speaker 1: of the house. And the FBI says, now, whatever you do,
Speaker 1: don't take your eyes off these boxes. We've got the
Speaker 1: wrong warrant and we're gonna be back in a few
Speaker 1: days with the right warrant. And if this stuff were
Speaker 1: to disappear, it would have such a dileterious effect on
Speaker 1: the case. It would ruin the case, our case against Epstein.
Speaker 1: Whatever you do, don't remove these boxes that I mean,
Speaker 1: how the hell does this happen? It was just remarkable
Speaker 1: and would on the stat you know, the testimony was
Speaker 1: given by the FBI agents. They go back, the stuff
Speaker 1: is missing. They phone up Epstein's lawyers and say, could
Speaker 1: you bring it back? Well, I mean, okay, the and
Speaker 1: that that the lawyers bring it back and it's their
Speaker 1: beliefs that everything was given back. But I mean, by god,
Speaker 1: who the heck really does To the extent you can
Speaker 1: say in your work covering Maxwell Uh covering Epstein years ago,
Speaker 1: did he record people having sex in his house. According
Speaker 1: to my sources, yes he did, and in the recording
Speaker 1: of those and is that what got him killed? I mean,
Speaker 1: this is an obvious question. I'm sorry to accellent tried question,
Speaker 1: but I mean, does Epstein become somebody who everybody wants
Speaker 1: them dead? Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter, and does Epstein becomes
Speaker 1: somebody who it's better for a lot of people that
Speaker 1: he's dead, famous people, Well, it's yes, and not necessarily
Speaker 1: just Americans. I mean, I mean, you know, if you've
Speaker 1: listened to the podcast or watch the documentary series in
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of series that come out, and
Speaker 1: I try and explain it why some sources are more
Speaker 1: credible than others. There are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: would have been glad to see jeff Re Epstein dead. Right. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: the question of those tapes, you know, we have this
Speaker 1: guy aribaminashe who's got credibility problems, saying he thinks the
Speaker 1: Israeli government has them. I don't know. All I do
Speaker 1: know is that that it's amazing to me that there
Speaker 1: was a three day area between the FBI rated Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein's house when those tapes that got taken out and
Speaker 1: supposedly put back. It's just astonishing. Do you think that
Speaker 1: she has because she have a fear she's gonna get
Speaker 1: killed in prison too? Because if because if that's the case,
Speaker 1: if the FBI leaves the boxes in the hallway for
Speaker 1: three days and they disappear, if Epstein's dead, she's one
Speaker 1: of the last people with the real dope on Epstein.
Speaker 1: And thus all the of Epstein's guests. I'm of the
Speaker 1: belief that Epstein was murdered because he had information We're
Speaker 1: going to bring down the high end the money on
Speaker 1: both sides of the aisle. Does she you think she
Speaker 1: has that fear and that that would be maybe speculation
Speaker 1: on your part. And I wonder how someone who was
Speaker 1: in prison guards against that no pun intended. How did
Speaker 1: they communicate their lawyers saying this person needs special protection.
Speaker 1: We don't want to end up like Epstein. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Well, the only thing I mean, look
Speaker 1: is that I have asked former assistant U S Attorneys
Speaker 1: for the Southern District about this, and thereof the view
Speaker 1: that what happened to Jeffrey Epstein was extremely unfortunate and
Speaker 1: that the powers that be are going to go out
Speaker 1: of their way to ensure that that doesn't happen again.
Speaker 1: So I think she'll be very closely, really closely watched.
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine if that was to happen again. Her
Speaker 1: demeanor in court, it was really fascinating to behold. She
Speaker 1: didn't look like somebody who was in the fight for
Speaker 1: her life. She didn't look like somebody who thought she
Speaker 1: was in the wrong. I mean, it was almost as
Speaker 1: if this was her show and the rest of us
Speaker 1: we're all in it. She was incredibly tactile with her lawyers,
Speaker 1: who obviously had become extremely fond of her. You know,
Speaker 1: she didn't come in with shackles or anything like that.
Speaker 1: She had her bottle of Fiji water. She didn't look malnourished.
Speaker 1: Her hair was dyed black and shoulder length, and you know,
Speaker 1: when her lawyers had to leave the room for sidebars
Speaker 1: with the judge, she would actually turn around a quite
Speaker 1: brazenly stare at all of us. At one point she
Speaker 1: sketched the court artist. This was a woman who seemed confident.
Speaker 1: Maybe the wrong word, but she wasn't on the defensive.
Speaker 1: Put it that way. She wasn't on the defensive. Whereas
Speaker 1: you know, I was in court when Jeffrey Epstein was
Speaker 1: sitting there and was denied bail, and his body language
Speaker 1: was different. He was he was rattled journalist Vicky Ward.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy conversations with tenacious journalists breaking the biggest stories,
Speaker 1: check out our episode with Pulitzer Prize winning reporters Megan
Speaker 1: Tooey and Jody Canter, who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Speaker 1: So when Megan and I were on the phone, she
Speaker 1: suggested a kind of argument that she had used with
Speaker 1: victims in the past, which is to say to them
Speaker 1: very early in the conversation, look, I can't change what's
Speaker 1: happened to you in the past, but if we work together,
Speaker 1: maybe we can take the pain that you experienced and
Speaker 1: put it to some constructive purpose that will help other people.
Speaker 1: Because it's the best reason to talk to a journalist.
Speaker 1: You are doing this to have a constructive impact on society.
Speaker 1: It is. It may be very difficult, but our goal
Speaker 1: is to do something that you can eventually feel very
Speaker 1: proud of. To hear more of my converse station with
Speaker 1: authors and New York Times journalist Megan Tooey and Jodie Canter,
Speaker 1: go to our archives and here's the thing. Dot Org.
Speaker 1: After the break, Vicky Ward shares with us the time
Speaker 1: she felt her life was in danger from Jeffrey Epstein himself.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Many who watched the Gillain Maxwell trial felt a sense
Speaker 1: of relief and closure from the guilty verdict, but following
Speaker 1: the trial, when a juror disclosed the press that he
Speaker 1: shared personal experiences of child sexual abuse with his fellow
Speaker 1: jurors during deliberations, it throw open the possibility of a
Speaker 1: potential mistrial. It is extraordinary, right, what's happened with this jura.
Speaker 1: We don't yet know what Judge Nathan is going to do,
Speaker 1: but it will be taken very seriously. And you know
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that one of her lawyers, Christian ever Adele,
Speaker 1: was the prosecutor who ultimately put away al Chapo. But
Speaker 1: I believe in El Chapo that was also a mistrial
Speaker 1: because of a juror who turned out to have made
Speaker 1: a mistake. So the one thing, you know, how this
Speaker 1: juror got through is a question we need to see unfold.
Speaker 1: We need answers to if we can, and we ought
Speaker 1: to get some I mean, I will say that Judge
Speaker 1: Nathan ran that courtroom with an iron rod. She must
Speaker 1: be furious that this has happened, but it was but
Speaker 1: it was her. She didn't have to let the jurors
Speaker 1: say anything. She's not obligated to do that. She chose
Speaker 1: to tell the jurors that they could speak if they wished,
Speaker 1: so to some degree, this is on her. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like Robert Kraft going to his little stopping shop
Speaker 1: and massage parlor there and being recorded and him being acquitted,
Speaker 1: I believe, and the evidence destroyed. All the evidence. He's acquitted,
Speaker 1: but the evidence of him doing what he's doing is destroyed.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me how the Maxwell case, the Epstein
Speaker 1: case that eventually the women are heard. Let's give these
Speaker 1: women their day in court, and and and they're heard,
Speaker 1: and they're believed, and it leads to something. But one
Speaker 1: thing that's going to lead to is we've got to
Speaker 1: destroy this evidence. That Epstein and Maxwell are a prism
Speaker 1: through which you can see this sort of behavior on
Speaker 1: behalf of all these celebrities, or what happened. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm somebody who I had people. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: endured online months of people writing to me online saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you're in Epstein's book. You're a petto, You're
Speaker 1: a peto. And I'm like, well, I'm in Epstein's book,
Speaker 1: like his dry cleaner is in his book, like his
Speaker 1: tree repair stories, and it I mean, I never met
Speaker 1: Epstein in my life. And number he's got a number
Speaker 1: which is what we call in my office, we called
Speaker 1: the dummy line. That's the number we give and we
Speaker 1: don't want you to have our number. And and people
Speaker 1: go on from there. They're like, you know, you went
Speaker 1: down to the island, you were on his plane. You
Speaker 1: win his flight log. I'm like, no, actually, I wasn't
Speaker 1: on the flight log. And then then we come to
Speaker 1: where we are now where this this this ability of
Speaker 1: them to protect his guests, to protect So that was
Speaker 1: the big frustration of the trial, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: where are all the men. There was a whole system
Speaker 1: going on, and it was referred to sort of frustratingly
Speaker 1: fleeting Lee when they talked about some of the names
Speaker 1: on the planes and you know some of the people
Speaker 1: that Jeffrey Epstein was photographed with. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that he had met with Fidel Castro. I have
Speaker 1: to say that was new, and I didn't know about
Speaker 1: the pope. That was a whole new one as well.
Speaker 1: But the men who are presumably the ones on the
Speaker 1: c ds have disappeared from this story. And without the men,
Speaker 1: there would have been no enterprise because and I'm not
Speaker 1: just talking about the sex. I'm talking about the money.
Speaker 1: We still don't know where Jeffrey Epstein's money came from.
Speaker 1: But what is you know, has always drupped me as
Speaker 1: really interesting is that I have not found anyone who
Speaker 1: knew Jeffrey Epstein in the nineteen eighties, when he had
Speaker 1: relatively little money, lived in a studio apartment in New York,
Speaker 1: that ever saw any evidence of this kind of behavior.
Speaker 1: He had normal girlfriends of a normal age. I mean
Speaker 1: they may have been in their twenties and sort of
Speaker 1: model types, but there was nothing that unusual about that.
Speaker 1: It's only when he gets all this money very quickly
Speaker 1: and he builds the shangri las, these dens of iniquity,
Speaker 1: and he stops going out and instead the world comes
Speaker 1: to him. And it's not just the girls who come
Speaker 1: to him, you know, these very powerful men. He holds
Speaker 1: these salons inside his houses. He takes them on his planes.
Speaker 1: It's all hidden from view. And you know, it seems
Speaker 1: to be that the men and the money and the
Speaker 1: money that propped up this massive In the end, it
Speaker 1: was we know, it was a global enterprise. He had
Speaker 1: pictures of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi, cried Prince on
Speaker 1: the Wall. He talked about doing business with African dictators.
Speaker 1: He had an apartment in Paris, which is where he
Speaker 1: would meet with them. So that whole aspect of this
Speaker 1: is still in the dark, and you know, it's to
Speaker 1: me is a critical part of this. And what I'm
Speaker 1: hoping is that the investigation that's going on the US
Speaker 1: virgin Islands is investigating the Epstein estate, that that will
Speaker 1: produce a money trail of sorts. I'm hoping that that
Speaker 1: maybe some of the I mean, who knows what's going
Speaker 1: to come out. If the Virginia Roberts Geoffrey suit gets
Speaker 1: Prince Andrew goes forward, if anything will come out of that.
Speaker 1: The other suit that might be very interesting is the
Speaker 1: suit between David Boys and Alan Dershowitz, two legal titans
Speaker 1: who have really looked heads on all of this and
Speaker 1: are trying to get the each other and the and
Speaker 1: the vice versa, and as of now they're headed to trial,
Speaker 1: and Dershowitz certainly wants Leslie Wexner, who we know was
Speaker 1: a patron of Jeffrey Epstein's, to take the stand. So
Speaker 1: you know, again it's not over. I mean, I really
Speaker 1: hope it's not over. Let me let me ask you
Speaker 1: three quick questions, because I don't want to lose these topics. Now,
Speaker 1: Epstein eventually threatens you. Correct, Yeah, I didn't take him
Speaker 1: very long. How long after you've been talking to him
Speaker 1: regularly for a couple of months? Correct, So he got
Speaker 1: wind of the fact that I must have spoken to somebody.
Speaker 1: I don't uh. What had actually happened was I went
Speaker 1: to see Steve Hoffenburg, who was doing time in prison
Speaker 1: in Devon's, Massachusetts, sentenced to twenty years for committing the
Speaker 1: biggest Ponzi scheme in American history before Bernie made off. Now,
Speaker 1: what Hoffenburg told me inside that prison was that, in fact,
Speaker 1: it was Jeffrey Epstein's Ponzi scheme, and that Jeffrey had
Speaker 1: very cleverly managed to manipulate the legal system that had
Speaker 1: all fallen on Hoffenburg. He wasn't able to prove any
Speaker 1: of this but he also explained to me where I
Speaker 1: could find various sec depositions that Jeffrey had given that
Speaker 1: would show me that he was not everything he pretended
Speaker 1: to be, that he wasn't just this brilliant money manager
Speaker 1: for billionaires that he had in fact had a very
Speaker 1: checkered end to his career at best Terns. And Hoffenberg
Speaker 1: also told me that he had leverage overs bear Sterns,
Speaker 1: he knew various secrets. And so after that meeting, I
Speaker 1: did go and I did pull an sec deposition of
Speaker 1: that Epstein had given. I went and found another deposition
Speaker 1: that he'd given in the archives of a law firm
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania. Because I was pregnant, I wasn't allowed ben Dover,
Speaker 1: so I had to have an assistant from Fancy Fair
Speaker 1: come with me. And we got very lucky because in fact,
Speaker 1: what we found what we needed in the first box
Speaker 1: that we came across, and we each had to we
Speaker 1: weren't allow write anything down, We had to remember what
Speaker 1: was in it. Well. I kept from Epstein until sort
Speaker 1: of the the eleventh that was that I had met
Speaker 1: these two sisters, Annie Farmer, who just gave testimony in
Speaker 1: the Maxwell case, who said that she had been sixteen
Speaker 1: when she'd had this absolutely horrible weekend stuck alone with
Speaker 1: Epstein and Gillen Maxwell in New Mexico. A Maria Farmer,
Speaker 1: her sister who had looked for Jeffrey Epstein for I
Speaker 1: think nearly a year in her twenties before something also
Speaker 1: completely horrible happened in Ohio. But I think once I
Speaker 1: started to ask questions about the money, I sort of
Speaker 1: waited till the end to ask him about the farmers,
Speaker 1: he began to really really push back and go into
Speaker 1: hyper gear about well, one with the threats. You know,
Speaker 1: I've got this dossier. I'm going to sue you personally.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to have my witch doctor place
Speaker 1: a curse on your children, you know, asking me very
Speaker 1: invasive questions about my body, where I was giving birth,
Speaker 1: and who my doctors were, and but also then really
Speaker 1: pushing it was at that point, you know, he wanted
Speaker 1: me to speak to Les Wexner all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: because he thought that the more famous or important people
Speaker 1: he could get on the phone to me, the more
Speaker 1: I would back down, that I would see that I
Speaker 1: must be I must be out of my mind like
Speaker 1: the bear Stearns phone call, right, you know, I just
Speaker 1: I kept going. I mean, ultimately I got somebody who
Speaker 1: had been on the executive committee at best Terns to
Speaker 1: tell me to be confident in what I had from
Speaker 1: the documents that in fact, Jeffrey Epstein had been up
Speaker 1: to no good and as it turned out, so to
Speaker 1: Jimmy Caine, and as Greenberg hadn't been spotless either, which
Speaker 1: is why Jeffrey Epstein left and had some leverage over them. Now,
Speaker 1: one other thing that occurred to me, and I want
Speaker 1: to approach this with the proper amount of sensitivity to this,
Speaker 1: which is not everybody who's making a charge of sexual
Speaker 1: assault has created equal You have people who are making
Speaker 1: a claim and they and they have a lot of evidence.
Speaker 1: What is the young woman's namers have pronounced Giffrey, Virginia Roberts, Giffrey.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering during the trial, during your coverage, did you
Speaker 1: think for a moment it was ever suggested that all
Speaker 1: of the grooming quote unquote that was alluded to and
Speaker 1: was testified about, which is, you know, horrific, But was
Speaker 1: it ever mentioned by the defense that these women specifically
Speaker 1: I want to attribute this to the defense that these
Speaker 1: women could have walked out the door at any given time.
Speaker 1: None of them were held against their will. Were they
Speaker 1: no or their families threatened if they left the compound
Speaker 1: and didn't do what they were asked to do. No.
Speaker 1: The defense's strategy was not to get into that, and
Speaker 1: in fact, the prosecution even let the witnesses lean in
Speaker 1: two the fact that they kept one they wanted to
Speaker 1: come back. You know, one case Caroline, who was the
Speaker 1: only accuser around whom the sex trafficking charges were based,
Speaker 1: and the sex trafficking charges are carried the longest sentence,
Speaker 1: She was very clear that she was so desperate financially,
Speaker 1: so addicted to drugs. I mean, it was a tragic
Speaker 1: story that she fact, the worst moment when she was
Speaker 1: eighteen was when Jeffrey Epstein said, actually, we're too old
Speaker 1: for me. She came back and back and back. So
Speaker 1: I would say it was the reverse. What what the
Speaker 1: defense tried to do and what made this trial very
Speaker 1: different from the Harvey Weinstein trial, Bill Cosby, all the
Speaker 1: all the sexual abuse trials that we've had recently, is
Speaker 1: that because the FBI and prosecutors were initially not going
Speaker 1: after Gillen, Maxwell they were focused on Jeffrey Epstein. These
Speaker 1: women had all given interviews in the last three years
Speaker 1: to the FBI about Jeffrey Epstein and the problem. And
Speaker 1: what was useful for the defense was that they may
Speaker 1: have either not mentioned Gillen Maxwell at all in those interviews,
Speaker 1: or they may have not said they can't remember what
Speaker 1: she was doing, or they may have said no, I
Speaker 1: don't think she was in the room, because they were
Speaker 1: focused on somebody else. And that's what complicated I think
Speaker 1: this trial. The prosecution obviously pointed out, well, memories change.
Speaker 1: These are not verbatim recordings their notes. But that's what
Speaker 1: the defense lead into. What they didn't lead into was, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: these these girls really really wanted the money. Yeah they didn't.
Speaker 1: They didn't lead into that. If anything, the prosecution did
Speaker 1: because they were they were children. I was working on
Speaker 1: a film once. The director of the film, who was
Speaker 1: an older man, he was he was older, he was
Speaker 1: in the seventies, he employed two women as extras on
Speaker 1: the set of the film, and they were prostitutes. It
Speaker 1: really is the money. I mean, it's like shattering what
Speaker 1: lengths they got for money. Well, when Caroline stood up
Speaker 1: and gave her testimony. Her life story was I think
Speaker 1: just tragic. Are just deep, deeply, deeply, deeply upsetting to
Speaker 1: hear you a child at sixteen then having to work
Speaker 1: off post Jeffrey Epstein as a stripper and an escort,
Speaker 1: and you know she when she she fell apart under
Speaker 1: aggressive defense cross examination. But I think that everyone in
Speaker 1: that courtroom just felt so incredibly sorry that anybody should
Speaker 1: have to be in that position that there's nothing left
Speaker 1: to sell except their body. It was, it was awful.
Speaker 1: Do you think Epstein killed himself? I think that whatever happened,
Speaker 1: he had help. Whatever happened, he didn't do it by himself.
Speaker 1: Vicky Ward, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on the
Speaker 1: I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. When we come back the key, Ward tries
Speaker 1: to shed some light on Jeffrey Epstein's appeal to socialite
Speaker 1: Gilain Maxwell. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear
Speaker 1: the thing. Metropolitan Correctional Centered guards Toven Noel and Michael
Speaker 1: Thomas discovered Jeffrey Epstein's unresponsive body. Their desk was fifteen
Speaker 1: feet away from Epstein's cell, and they somehow missed their
Speaker 1: rounds between ten thirty pm and six thirty am, leaving
Speaker 1: Epstein alone for eight hours. It was revealed that the
Speaker 1: guards had falsified records certifying they had performed their duties,
Speaker 1: and yet charges against them were dropped. In December, Vicky
Speaker 1: Ward shared her thoughts on this development. I have wanted
Speaker 1: that I have said there and I were, But the
Speaker 1: moment the Maxwell trial finished, I read a little tidy
Speaker 1: story in the newspaper somewhere saying that all charges against
Speaker 1: those guards had been dropped, like buried. To prosecute them
Speaker 1: would invite more discovery material people want to keep secret. Right.
Speaker 1: I do have a very reliable source on this, and
Speaker 1: I think that that story is not it's not over right.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I think what's so shocking about
Speaker 1: this is that, you know, Maxwell, when you look at
Speaker 1: her on the outside, you see pictures of her, she
Speaker 1: seems very winning. She's this attractive. You know, at first
Speaker 1: she's a very young woman and she's a bit older.
Speaker 1: She's got her arm around Epstein, their dear friends, and
Speaker 1: there's no way she could downplay her relationship with Epstein.
Speaker 1: The photographic evidence is like a family album. She's hugging
Speaker 1: him and rubbing up against him or what have you,
Speaker 1: regardless of their relationship, and you look at her and
Speaker 1: you think, how the hell did this woman with her
Speaker 1: connections and her family. Yes, her father was a scoundrel
Speaker 1: and he dies under these very h strange circumstances. But
Speaker 1: you just need to yourself, how does someone like her?
Speaker 1: How does she end up in this mess? How does
Speaker 1: she end up her life being destroyed by this relationship
Speaker 1: with this man? What did Epstein have? Was Epstein this
Speaker 1: bon vivant, raconteur, elegant, sophisticated, funny. Why do you think
Speaker 1: people were loyal to Epstein? Beyond blackmail? What did he have? Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting what you say about GILLN. Maxwell is completely true,
Speaker 1: and it was funny. I was. I was taking an
Speaker 1: interview with the BBC. A new Epstein accuser had just
Speaker 1: come forward, and she was describing meeting Gilenn Maxwell, and
Speaker 1: she described her as electrifying um and Gilen Maxwell was
Speaker 1: electrifying and she was much I mean, she was everything
Speaker 1: that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't. But I found Jeffrey at swe
Speaker 1: crass vulgar, a bully, a thug, but he was rich.
Speaker 1: And you know, many people who were at Oxford with
Speaker 1: Gilen Maxwell have asked the same question, what on earth
Speaker 1: was she doing with him? I do know that in
Speaker 1: Britain they are now going back, certainly various documentary companies
Speaker 1: and are going to really really dig into the life
Speaker 1: of her father, because there's clearly something very messed up
Speaker 1: about someone who you know, prizes money so much that
Speaker 1: she's willing to do the kinds of things that we
Speaker 1: heard in that courtroom, and that that was the story
Speaker 1: that the prosecution laid out. And this was a woman who,
Speaker 1: if anybody could have got out and made something of
Speaker 1: themselves by themselves. She had the roller decks, she had
Speaker 1: the ability. Why on earth, I have asked, did she
Speaker 1: just not go out and get a job when her
Speaker 1: dad died? But she had grown up spoiled, used to
Speaker 1: all these trappings with money that was stolen, and you know,
Speaker 1: when you have to remember that her father's you know,
Speaker 1: millions were actually fraudulent. It was a facade right from
Speaker 1: the beginning. And you know, I suspect that she very
Speaker 1: cold bloodedly calculated that the route to power, particularly in
Speaker 1: America is through money, and that's what Jeffrey Epstein had.
Speaker 1: And also you see quite often people who have money
Speaker 1: and lose money, they have to go back, well, they
Speaker 1: have to, they have to go down a few natches.
Speaker 1: I've seen this so often, and they sit there and
Speaker 1: they go. You know, it's like Scarlett O'Hara, as God
Speaker 1: is my judge, I'll never go hungry again. You know
Speaker 1: these people, as God is my judge, I'll never live
Speaker 1: off of less than eight figures again. You know that
Speaker 1: once you have that level of wealth and privileges, private planes,
Speaker 1: life is just so much easier. Life is just so
Speaker 1: much more convenient. I'm not standing in line at the
Speaker 1: airport of the baggage claimed with a bunch of trolls.
Speaker 1: Once you have that and you lose it, you'll pretty
Speaker 1: much go to any lengths to get it back. And
Speaker 1: when you get it back, you're like, I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do whatever it takes to stay here now
Speaker 1: because I went down to the basement and I hate it.
Speaker 1: What are you working on next? Is it a book
Speaker 1: or is it a podcast or is it a documentary?
Speaker 1: Because have you fallen in love with the two latter formats.
Speaker 1: Have you've grown fond of documentary filmmaking, I have. I'm
Speaker 1: doing all three. I'm doing all three. And I've been
Speaker 1: following this story in South Carolina about this family of
Speaker 1: lawyers who have been running the low country in South
Speaker 1: Carolina since and how there's been a series of tragedies
Speaker 1: down there, culminating in the very mysterious murder. Yes, I
Speaker 1: saw the articles along which which I'm The investigation into
Speaker 1: that murder has also led to the investigation into other
Speaker 1: murders that have happened down there. But the bigger picture
Speaker 1: is it's it's really a story about corruption in the
Speaker 1: law in South Carolina, and how right now you're seeing
Speaker 1: one group of people being replaced by another group of people.
Speaker 1: The question is is the new group any better than
Speaker 1: the old? I don't know, That's what That's what I'm
Speaker 1: going to go find out. The documentary you had on
Speaker 1: about Maxwell was your first filmed piece. What would you
Speaker 1: say are the advantages that books have over filmed reporting
Speaker 1: and vice versa. What did you find was the advantage
Speaker 1: to filming over writing? Well, it's interesting, you know, we
Speaker 1: we also we filmed the making of the podcast, so
Speaker 1: we did something unusual, so I was I was learning
Speaker 1: how to do a podcast at the same time as
Speaker 1: doing the film. There's great value in being able to
Speaker 1: bring viewers into the room with you as you're asking
Speaker 1: the questions, and for viewers to see people's faces, to
Speaker 1: see their reactions very helpful, I think for viewers to
Speaker 1: see me push back and say, well, you know, how
Speaker 1: do you know this? Do you really know it? It
Speaker 1: was a joy in a way for me to be
Speaker 1: able to take viewers on the journey that I do
Speaker 1: all the time, the journalistic journey. That was really fun.
Speaker 1: It was really interesting to learn into in the podcasting
Speaker 1: how telling a story for the ear is not the
Speaker 1: same as writing that. You have to really write episodes
Speaker 1: very thematically, and I learned to very great deal with that.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I've come away with a
Speaker 1: much clearer idea of what stories lend themselves to certain mediums,
Speaker 1: and I think it will be very useful for me
Speaker 1: going forward to be able to do all of them. Well,
Speaker 1: let me just say, I live my life looking at
Speaker 1: people and contemplating alternatives. Had they made a monest adjustment
Speaker 1: this way or that way, had they not done this,
Speaker 1: had they gone in this direction, their life would be
Speaker 1: completely different, and they make the choices they make it
Speaker 1: now Maxwell as poised to go to prison and maybe
Speaker 1: dye in prison, be in prison for the rest of
Speaker 1: her life, and that's just so, and you think to yourself,
Speaker 1: Good God, it didn't have to be that way, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sympathetic to the victims, but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: saddened for everyone who they allow their life to be
Speaker 1: led in that direction. Do they allow them they destroy
Speaker 1: their own lives that way. So anyway, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Author and journalist Vicky Ward. You
Speaker 1: can find her podcast Catching Gilaine on Audible and her
Speaker 1: documentary series of the same name on Discovery. This episode
Speaker 1: was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeese, and Maureen Hoban.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.