Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, fellow conspiracy realist. The following
Speaker 1: classic episode may not be appropriate for all listeners, so
Speaker 1: if you've got some kiddos in the crowd in the
Speaker 1: road trip with you, maybe check out a future episode
Speaker 1: or tune into our earlier interview with Aaron Manky. This
Speaker 1: is the story of Jeffrey Epstein at its way back
Speaker 1: in what January twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is right before the major news started hitting
Speaker 2: or with Jeffrey Epstein getting arrested and all the stuff
Speaker 2: that we're not going to spoil right now. Just to
Speaker 2: listen to this episode because it takes you back to
Speaker 2: a time when I think maybe we and much of
Speaker 2: the world was really discovering what this guy was doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, at this time that we recorded it,
Speaker 1: one of our big questions was why is this guy
Speaker 1: not arrested? So you can get a snapshot here and
Speaker 1: tune in for our upcoming episode on the aftermath of
Speaker 1: the Epstein scandal. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies,
Speaker 1: history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
Speaker 1: now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 1: My name is Noman. They call me Ben. We are
Speaker 1: joined with our super producer Paul Mission controlled Decat most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are here and that makes this stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. Before we get started, we have
Speaker 1: a very important message regarding today's episode.
Speaker 3: Today's episode discusses very frankly, some horrific sexual crimes against
Speaker 3: underaged victims, and it's quite disturbing, but I think it's
Speaker 3: an important discussion to have and we try as always
Speaker 3: to be as respectful and thoughtful about it as possible.
Speaker 1: Let's cut straight to the heart of the matter. In
Speaker 1: an earlier episode, we mentioned the ongoing legal battles of
Speaker 1: one Jeffrey Epstein. Today we are diving into a sordid
Speaker 1: tale that will take us from the posh tony area
Speaker 1: of Palm Beach Island, Florida, to New York, to New Mexico,
Speaker 1: to Paris, to a private island in the Virgin Islands
Speaker 1: and a particularly strange series of private plane flights. But
Speaker 1: first things first, who is Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: Oh, the man of the hour. Jeffrey Epstein was born
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty three on Coney Island. He went to
Speaker 2: Lafayette High School. He also attended Cooper Union. He dropped
Speaker 2: out of Cooper Union. By the way. He also went
Speaker 2: to New York University's current Institute, which he also left
Speaker 2: without a degree, surprisingly, especially as we continue to learn
Speaker 2: a little more about this gentleman.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. For two years, from nineteen seventy three to
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, Epstein taught at a very upscale Ivy
Speaker 1: League prep school called Dalton School in Manhattan. You'll read
Speaker 1: accounts that say he taught calculus and physics, and then
Speaker 1: you'll read accounts that say he taught physics and math.
Speaker 1: But it was definitely the quantitative, the quantitative disciplines. New
Speaker 1: York Magazine initially likened his time at Dalton School to
Speaker 1: the teacher that Robin Williams plays in Dead Poets Society.
Speaker 1: Do you guys remember that film.
Speaker 3: Oh Captain, My Captain, Yeah, man, the first really really
Speaker 3: sad movie I ever saw.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, poetry was made for one reason, boys to.
Speaker 2: Woo women and also carpe dm Right.
Speaker 1: So, one parent of a student worked on Wall Street,
Speaker 1: and this guy was so inspired by Epstein's methods and
Speaker 1: the math rants that he was known for that he
Speaker 1: approached Jeffrey Epstein and said, essentially, what the hell are
Speaker 1: you doing here, buddy, Why are you a teacher? You
Speaker 1: should be on Wall Street, which lets you know what
Speaker 1: Wall Street thinks about teachers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why would you be inspiring the young people? Just
Speaker 2: make more money.
Speaker 1: And so this guy, this parent, doubled out on this
Speaker 1: and said, no, really, I'm serious, jeff Let me introduce
Speaker 1: you to my buddy, Ace Greenberg. You've got to call him.
Speaker 1: Ace Greenberg is a senior partner at the time at
Speaker 1: bear Stearns. Greenberg really dug Epstein because this guy Greenberg
Speaker 1: definitely played favorites. And one thing that he was known
Speaker 1: for was he had a certain type of young employee
Speaker 1: he liked or knew hire. He didn't want people who
Speaker 1: were just fattened off inherited money or third generation bankers.
Speaker 1: He wanted brilliant poor people and poor as anything beneath
Speaker 1: a millionaire to him, who were very, very hungry. And
Speaker 1: at the time, Epstein ticked all these boxes. So nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six he says, all right, screw teaching, I'm going
Speaker 1: to work at bear Stearns under as Greenberg. He started
Speaker 1: from the bottom kind of the way Drake wants you
Speaker 1: to believe his career began it's untrue, But in Epstein's case,
Speaker 1: it is. He started as a junior assistant to a
Speaker 1: floor trader at the American Stock Exchange, and it quickly
Speaker 1: became apparent that Jeff had a gift for this sort
Speaker 1: of work.
Speaker 3: So Epstein was, to be fair either a complete genius
Speaker 3: or very very close to that. He had a specialty,
Speaker 3: which was in options, and that was at the time
Speaker 3: something that wasn't particularly well understood, and he amassed a
Speaker 3: group of clients, really really quite wealthy clients who thought
Speaker 3: that his ability to assess the tax implications on large
Speaker 3: portfolios and then to recommend kind of tax loopholes I
Speaker 3: guess advantages you could say for some of these transactions.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, this At this level of finance, the way
Speaker 1: in which you move money and the order of operations
Speaker 1: can make a huge difference in how much of a
Speaker 1: cut Uncle Sam gets or the state of New York
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 2: And it's really crazy that it only took him four
Speaker 2: years to go from assistant to a floor trader all
Speaker 2: the way up to a full partner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he beat the game. He became a partner and
Speaker 1: then what do you do after you beat a game?
Speaker 1: You stop playing. So he left the firm in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one and set up his own shop. This is
Speaker 1: really this is really strange and sketchy. Okay. So the
Speaker 1: premise behind his shop, Epstein and Co. Is that he
Speaker 1: would manage the individual and family fortunes of clients with
Speaker 1: a minimum of one billion dollars in their portfolio.
Speaker 2: Wow. Minimum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And according to the scuttle butt about this guy
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two, he immediately began collecting clients. And
Speaker 1: he didn't go out and have some sort of Ted
Speaker 1: talk or some sort of Steve Jobs big Apple reveal speech.
Speaker 1: People just started coming to him because they knew he
Speaker 1: was open for business and he was also very controlling.
Speaker 1: He had these specific conditions. If you made one billion
Speaker 1: or more, you could talk, but you also had to
Speaker 1: accept this. He would not just offer investment advice. He
Speaker 1: was going to become your financial architect, from soup to nuts,
Speaker 1: stem to stern, from investments to philanthropy to tax planning
Speaker 1: to security to a swatching. The guilt and burdens that
Speaker 1: people felt because they had, you know, inherited wealth that
Speaker 1: they clearly did not earn. He said to one of
Speaker 1: his friends at the time, I want people to understand
Speaker 1: the power, the responsibility, and the burden of their money.
Speaker 1: He would take total control of the billion dollars. He
Speaker 1: would charge a flat fee, and he would also get
Speaker 1: power of attorney to do whatever he deemed necessary to
Speaker 1: advance his client's financial goals. And he was really strict
Speaker 1: about all these conditions.
Speaker 2: And there's this whole thing where he really did stick
Speaker 2: to this whole. If you're a billionaire, we're cool. If
Speaker 2: you're not, get the hell out. I mean it's I mean,
Speaker 2: as crazy as that sounds, like. People would come to
Speaker 2: him with seven hundred million dollars, put it on the
Speaker 2: table essentially, and say, Jeff, I need your help, buddy.
Speaker 2: I've got seven hundred million dollars and I need you
Speaker 2: to work this through or three and he's like, no,
Speaker 2: get out, basically, not so kind, no thank you, basically because.
Speaker 1: They were just a little that billion. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: I don't run a business for hobos. Yeah, And that's okay.
Speaker 1: So there is a quick pause here because that's a
Speaker 1: question I have. How many billionaires were there in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one. We know there are more now, you know,
Speaker 1: partially due to inflation, partially due to rise of business
Speaker 1: in other countries. But were there that many billionaires in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I would think not.
Speaker 1: I would imagine it was a very very rarefied field,
Speaker 1: right were they couldn't have been that many.
Speaker 2: I mean that inherited wealth. There are at least several
Speaker 2: hundred families that have.
Speaker 1: You know, that's true because I was thinking of individuals.
Speaker 1: So it might be like a dynasty that collects all
Speaker 1: of their ill gotten.
Speaker 2: Gains or happy gotten gains. You know, some billionaires are
Speaker 2: really sweet and do nice things for the earth and
Speaker 2: for its inhabitants.
Speaker 1: Right sure, maybe I don't personally know everybody on the planet,
Speaker 1: so I want to be fair.
Speaker 3: Well, there's also probably some that you know, do it
Speaker 3: with great humility and just don't brag about it, right, right,
Speaker 3: I would, I would, I would hope.
Speaker 2: But then you give it to Jeffrey Epstein who says
Speaker 2: I'll handle you all.
Speaker 1: And that's, you know, that's the smart thing to do.
Speaker 1: It just makes me think of that Balls Act quote.
Speaker 1: Behind every great fortune, there is a crime, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you guys are absolutely right there are clearly
Speaker 1: people who you know, if you're born into wealth and
Speaker 1: you don't have control over your circumstances, then of course
Speaker 1: there are people who want to do great acts to
Speaker 1: make the world a better place. Bill Gates took himself
Speaker 1: down several notches financially to help combat disease. That's that's
Speaker 1: a stand up thing. I still hate Clippy, but fighting
Speaker 1: disease is a noble thing.
Speaker 3: Do you know what? When Josh Chuck interviewed Bill Gates,
Speaker 3: I actually got to go with them and meet him
Speaker 3: in a hotel room, and Josh brought up Clippy, and
Speaker 3: apparently Bill Gates is still quite fond of Clippy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bill Gates loves Clippy. He has like a relationship
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 2: Uh, he's the only one.
Speaker 1: So when I was a kid, I liked it, but
Speaker 1: it just slowed down the word processor. So, speaking of billionaires,
Speaker 1: who are Jeffrey's clients? Aside from one client, a billionaire
Speaker 1: named Leslie Wexler. Epstein keeps his list a closely guarded secret,
Speaker 1: and he's also sort of evasive about his process and
Speaker 1: what he does. Yeah, you could call it wealth management,
Speaker 1: but that's sort of like calling something a structure. A
Speaker 1: shot can be a structure, so can a skyscraper or
Speaker 1: a pyramid or a nuclear bunker. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that could be considered that wealth management. So
Speaker 1: he's firm employees as many or employed as many as
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty people, but their tasks were overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: day to day bureaucracy and admin stuff like accountants to
Speaker 1: make sure the internal finances of the company are running.
Speaker 1: All the actual decisions, investment and management decisions were made
Speaker 1: by Epstein himself, and he's sort of computer phobic, not
Speaker 1: a big fan of emails and so on, so he's
Speaker 1: always talking on the phone, which will be important later.
Speaker 1: So how much money is he making. Some estimates will
Speaker 1: say he is or was raking in around seventy five
Speaker 1: million a year, but that's a guestimate, and that's why
Speaker 1: in a lot of stories about the guy, and there
Speaker 1: weren't many until fairly recently, you'll hear him described as
Speaker 1: either a multi millionaire or a billionaire. People don't really know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to imagine if he's bringing in even
Speaker 2: somewhere around seventy five million dollars a year with his acumen,
Speaker 2: his understanding of investment, he's probably gotten well upward of
Speaker 2: a billion, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like the Putin question. How much money does
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin have?
Speaker 2: Not? I mean, which palace are you going to search?
Speaker 1: Right? How long do you want to live?
Speaker 2: Oh jeez? Okay, Well here's the big question. With however
Speaker 2: much money he's acquired. What does a guy like Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Epstein do with all of those piles of cash?
Speaker 1: Beanie babies?
Speaker 2: He sets them on fire? Oh man, see, buy a
Speaker 2: bunch of beanie babies, buy them a bunch of magic cards,
Speaker 2: then set the whole thing on fire.
Speaker 1: Wear it a cape. What's his monoical top hat position?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Well, I'll tell you for real what
Speaker 2: he does is and what anyone should probably do.
Speaker 1: I want a cape so bad, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Buy a cape first, then just start purchasing real estate,
Speaker 2: purchasing land, purchasing stuff that goes on land, different structures.
Speaker 2: Put them on land that you own. That's what you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he owns that private island in the US
Speaker 1: Virgin Islands. We didn't mention what the nickname for this
Speaker 1: thing is. No, it's Little Saint Jeffrey.
Speaker 2: Little Saint Jeffrey.
Speaker 1: Well lit saints, Jeffrey of the US virtu pilots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but seriously, he owns an island.
Speaker 1: He owns an island. It's it's who was asking Oh,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland was asking me about this earlier. And it
Speaker 1: is in fact not shaped like a skull, which I
Speaker 1: know is a huge downer for everyone.
Speaker 2: Do you think he still has a layer though.
Speaker 1: Yes, he does have a layer. He also has a
Speaker 1: Japanese bathhouse on this island.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna learn more about that in just a
Speaker 2: little bit. But here's the other thing, Noel, he owns
Speaker 2: on the island of Manhattan, the what is considered the
Speaker 2: largest private.
Speaker 1: Residence nine stories tall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he owns that and an island. It's insane.
Speaker 1: He also funds extensive, legitimate scientific research through something humbly
Speaker 1: named the Jeffrey Epstein the six the Foundation.
Speaker 2: And it's cool. It is genuinely cool.
Speaker 1: It's genuinely good. Since two thousand, the foundation is given
Speaker 1: around two hundred million a year per year to people
Speaker 1: like Stephen Hawking, Marvin Minsky, Eric Lander, George Church, Ben Goertzel,
Speaker 1: other like numerous Nobel.
Speaker 2: Laureates, Lawrence Krausman.
Speaker 1: Lawrence Krauss as well, And over the years, the Foundation
Speaker 1: has brought a lot of these scientists together and these
Speaker 1: sort of brainstorming conference situations to get on the same
Speaker 1: page about fundamental topics like gravity, global threats to Earth,
Speaker 1: the evolution of language. So you can see some of
Speaker 1: the implications here. Usually when billionaires or philanthropists are saying,
Speaker 1: let's understand gravity, they're asking, how can we use it somehow?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, global threats to Earth. I mean, this all goes
Speaker 1: back to making smart investment choices too. I think the
Speaker 1: language thing is really interesting. I'm sure there's a lot
Speaker 1: of group think theory because that would be valuable in
Speaker 1: the stock market.
Speaker 2: So this is, in my opinion, one of those things
Speaker 2: that you do see every once in a while when
Speaker 2: a certain individual or a group acquires enough wealth that
Speaker 2: philanthropy is able to kick in at this point, at
Speaker 2: least to this level where a big, a new creation
Speaker 2: occurs that is helping that truly is helping humanity in
Speaker 2: some way, in some small way. In this case, just
Speaker 2: bringing scientists to a consensus could be massively important to
Speaker 2: get everyone on the same page to actually get the
Speaker 2: Earth to start making some big changes, right, Rather than
Speaker 2: just a country or one small groups. It's tough for
Speaker 2: me to know this and then also know what we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: Right, Let's stick with the good stuff while we can.
Speaker 1: You can see the official about age for the Epstein
Speaker 1: Foundation when he talks about how his funded in two
Speaker 1: thousand and how it in two thousand and three established
Speaker 1: a program for evolutionary dynamics at Harvard University with thirty
Speaker 1: thirty five million dollars seed money gift. The program studies
Speaker 1: the evolution of microbiology through the lens of mathematics. Then,
Speaker 1: since its establishment, it's made advances in the treatment of cancer, HIV,
Speaker 1: infectious diseases. He's also get this well known for his
Speaker 1: work funding early education for youth in the Virgin Islands
Speaker 1: to other places other areas of the world.
Speaker 2: So far, so good, right, Yeah, these are genuinely good things.
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein, a self made financial giant. Isn't just killing it.
Speaker 1: In the world of finance, A lot of finance guys
Speaker 1: defined success by violent terms. Crushing it, killing it, nailed it,
Speaker 1: so smashing it, smashing it.
Speaker 2: Destroyed that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did all of that stuff. He's also putting
Speaker 1: a significant amount of capital into globally important issues, though
Speaker 1: his motivations are not clearly, not entirely true, altruistic, you
Speaker 1: can make some money off that. Yet, while Epstein remained
Speaker 1: for many years an international man of intrigue and mystery, tantalizing,
Speaker 1: bits of information about his private life gradually emerged. And
Speaker 1: that's when things got ugly.
Speaker 2: And we'll learn about those things right after a quick
Speaker 2: word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2: Rumors.
Speaker 1: We're true, yep, even more so than we thought.
Speaker 2: Wait waits, there were rumors. Guys.
Speaker 1: Yes, she was well open secrets. Ah, people called nieces.
Speaker 1: That's a gross that's a gross detail. First, let's get
Speaker 1: let's get the one almost side note rumor out of
Speaker 1: the way. He's a member of a lot of clubs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The Trilateral Commission that you may remember from an
Speaker 2: episode that we've done. We have done an audio episode
Speaker 2: on Trilateral right, I don't remember. Oh man, it's in
Speaker 2: a video. Go check out our YouTube channel and watch
Speaker 2: the Trilateral Commission if you don't know much about it.
Speaker 2: Also the Council on Foreign Relations also a video also
Speaker 2: maybe not audio topic yet, honestly, don't know.
Speaker 1: A ton of people are in the Council of Foreign Relations, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the Trilateral Commission has movers and shakers
Speaker 2: that kind of come and go over time. But you
Speaker 2: can imagine how upsetting these two things are for certain
Speaker 2: a certain number of us within the conspiracy minded world, like,
Speaker 2: being a part of both of those organizations is pretty bad,
Speaker 2: because just being part of one is potentially bad. It
Speaker 2: isn't necessarily a bad thing overall, but for people who
Speaker 2: believe this, yes it is.
Speaker 1: Do you think they have capes capes not like in
Speaker 1: public but when.
Speaker 2: They're in the meetings. Yeah, I think it's more of
Speaker 2: like crowns and different masks that they wear.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, Okay, I mean I feel like that's
Speaker 1: a big compromise. Okay, maybe you have to be in
Speaker 1: this straight up illuminati to earn a cape.
Speaker 2: So that you know, that's one of those things that
Speaker 2: makes you go ooh, interesting, I wanted to know more
Speaker 2: about this guy if you're of a certain mind. But
Speaker 2: there's another thing.
Speaker 1: And this is we're being relatively lighthearted about the inequality
Speaker 1: of wealth and the globe and some of the ridiculous
Speaker 1: things that could happen when you're a billionaire.
Speaker 2: Because those are the lighthearted things.
Speaker 1: The multi millionaire. Yeah, but those are the lighthearted things.
Speaker 1: This is where this is where the disclaimer, the warning
Speaker 1: we had at the beginning, really comes into effect. From
Speaker 1: here on out, things are going to be pretty pretty dark.
Speaker 1: So Secondly, and apparently for decades, Jeffrey Epstein had been
Speaker 1: routinely seducing, assaulting, and in some cases violently assaulting underage girls.
Speaker 2: And it goes even further than that. The really upsetting
Speaker 2: thing is that this whole deal that he had going
Speaker 2: on seemed to be pretty much an open secret in
Speaker 2: certain parts of both Wall Street as well as Washington.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a quote from current president as we
Speaker 1: record this, Donald Trump in two thousand and two, talking
Speaker 1: about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: He said, I've known jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy.
Speaker 2: He's a lot of fun to be with.
Speaker 3: It's even said that he likes beautiful women as much
Speaker 3: as I do, and many of them are on the
Speaker 3: younger side, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Jeffrey enjoys his social life. Well, that was hard to
Speaker 2: get through that.
Speaker 1: I know. You know, that guy's the president. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: guy's the president. In a two thousand and seven New
Speaker 1: York Magazine article, Vanity Fair column list Michael Wolfe described
Speaker 1: flying on Epstein's private plane in the nineties, saying Epstein
Speaker 1: was followed onto the plane by how shall I say this,
Speaker 1: by three teenage girls, not his daughters, who were eighteen
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty. Who knows they were model like. He's never
Speaker 1: been secretive about the girls, wolf said. At one point,
Speaker 1: when his troubles began, he was talking to me and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: what can I say? I like young girls? I said,
Speaker 1: maybe you should say I like young women.
Speaker 2: A lot of smoke.
Speaker 1: A lot of smoke here, A lot of smoke, A
Speaker 1: lot of smoke. The mainstream public learned of this semi
Speaker 1: open secret in the early two thousands, thanks in large
Speaker 1: part to some groundbreaking work by the Miami Herald. These
Speaker 1: encounters with undraged under A victims the ones that were
Speaker 1: the subject of the investigation in Florida. They took place
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and five in
Speaker 1: mister Epstein's mansions, the one in Palm Beach Island, New York,
Speaker 1: and the US Virgin Islands. Many of the girls were
Speaker 1: runaways or foster children. People from broken homes, people of
Speaker 1: vulnerable situations. And it's important to note Epstein did not
Speaker 1: work alone, like we remember when Matt earlier said this
Speaker 1: is just the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: His his operation functioned like a pyramid scheme. A girl
Speaker 1: would be approached by one of Epstein's assistants or often
Speaker 1: a previous victim, and told, hey, you can make pretty
Speaker 1: good money by giving this middle aged rich guy a massage.
Speaker 1: Already creepy, right, So once the victim arrives at the mansion,
Speaker 1: this in the Palm Beach operation, at least not far
Speaker 1: from Mar al Lago, not very far, she would be
Speaker 1: escorted to a particular room and then that person would leave,
Speaker 1: and you can find descriptions of the room in the
Speaker 1: Miami Herald's piece. Epstein would come in wearing only a
Speaker 1: towel on the phone, this robe, lay down naked, belly down,
Speaker 1: belly first, and he would tell the victim to massage
Speaker 1: his legs. And then you would start escalating this stuff
Speaker 1: and offering more money. Also, there were sex toys around.
Speaker 1: And again I cannot emphasize this enough. When we say underage,
Speaker 1: we're talking about kids who are fourteen and fifteen years old.
Speaker 2: I can't even say words. I'm going to be making
Speaker 2: guttural noises for the rest of this.
Speaker 3: And I know this doesn't make me like special sensitive,
Speaker 3: but it does a little just having a daughter that's
Speaker 3: entering into kind of the teenage pre teenage phase.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1: It's insane things. A lot of these kids are coming
Speaker 1: from terrible home lives anyway, you know, so.
Speaker 3: They're even like thinking they might get an opportunity or
Speaker 3: something that might help them out, and right they're just
Speaker 3: totally abused and used.
Speaker 2: The rage, the rage really just immediately sets in. We
Speaker 2: haven't even gotten like all the way into this.
Speaker 1: So he would attempt to entice entice some victims to
Speaker 1: disrobe and do increasingly intimate physical things. He would intimidate others.
Speaker 1: In at least one case that made it to the
Speaker 1: public sphere, he did forcibly assault somewhat, and afterwards the
Speaker 1: girls would be paid two hundred and three hundred dollars
Speaker 1: so to pay on what they did. The person that
Speaker 1: he forced himself on says she gave him a thousand
Speaker 1: bucks and asked her to be quiet, yeah and apologize,
Speaker 1: so they would get paid and they would be informed
Speaker 1: that if they'd like to make more money, they could
Speaker 1: recruit their friends to come visit Epstein, so long as
Speaker 1: they were around the same age. And some of the handlers,
Speaker 1: they're very careful about this. Some of the handlers told
Speaker 1: the girls the victims when they first came to Epstein
Speaker 1: to say that they were eighteen to him. Who the
Speaker 1: idea being that this will providability, Yeah, some kind of
Speaker 1: legal defense, but that doesn't fly in Florida. Florida specifically
Speaker 1: has laws say ignorance of that age is not an excuse.
Speaker 2: Geez, man, you can already see in my mind, I'm
Speaker 2: picturing something like Nexium that we covered not long ago. Hm,
Speaker 2: that kind of extremely wealthy person somehow just with the
Speaker 2: enticement of money, and in Jeffrey's case, I guess in
Speaker 2: some way not necessarily for the younger girls, but this
Speaker 2: aura of a wealthy man that knows what he's doing
Speaker 2: is going to make more money and like has this
Speaker 2: special place in Palm Beach, but then also knowing that
Speaker 2: perhaps he has an island it's and then getting your friends,
Speaker 2: like everything just feels so disgusting and icky about this
Speaker 2: and calculated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. It's very calculated. This is not
Speaker 1: an impulse decision, you know what I mean. And not
Speaker 1: that not that an impulse decision is in any way better.
Speaker 1: It's just that this calculated, organizational systematic approach is it
Speaker 1: is insidious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the spider thing in the web.
Speaker 1: And so let's look at some of the characters that
Speaker 1: become involved in this ongoing story. First is Epstein's associates
Speaker 1: and staff. So one of his assistants was a person
Speaker 1: named Sarah Kellen, and Kellen was accused by lawyers and
Speaker 1: legal filings of bringing girls to Epstein's mansion to be abused.
Speaker 2: Yeah, according to the police files, there was this whole
Speaker 2: series of alleged victims that told investigators that they were
Speaker 2: led like this is the person, Sarah Kellen led these
Speaker 2: girls to the massage room in the mansion where all
Speaker 2: this other stuff with the disrobing occurred. And this was
Speaker 2: in the Palm Beach mansion. I mean, this literally is
Speaker 2: a conspiracy.
Speaker 3: There are other players involved that are being used as
Speaker 3: pieces in this like elaborate ploy.
Speaker 2: I mean, well, and it's so scary because who knows,
Speaker 2: who knows how much of a victim somebody like Sarah
Speaker 2: Kellen is of him right early on in some other way,
Speaker 2: like she's in his pocket in some way or something. Well,
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, who knows the psychologically trapped. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: not just excusing her of what her actions and what
Speaker 2: she did, but still like we don't know the circumstances.
Speaker 3: How deep this guy's kind of tendrils go, you know,
Speaker 3: absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 1: And speaking of that, there's another character, Nada Marstankova or Marchinkova.
Speaker 1: She We'd first learned about her through statements of some
Speaker 1: alleged victims, who one claimed the police that Epstein told
Speaker 1: her that he had purchased Nada from her parents in
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe when she was fifteen. They were described as
Speaker 1: Yugoslavian or Slovakian. Another victim alleged that she was forced
Speaker 1: to have sex with Nada marstan Kova and then watch
Speaker 1: her have sexual interactions with Epstein. According to the Miami Herald,
Speaker 1: sometimes Jeffrey would instruct a young woman he described as
Speaker 1: his quote Yugoslavian sex slave, not Mrsenkova, who was over eighteen,
Speaker 1: to join in, and he took photographs, and he displayed
Speaker 1: these photographs around the house. The guys. There's a phrase
Speaker 1: noll that you in your roommate used, I think applies here.
Speaker 1: That the guy's proclivities were wide, rife, wide rife throughout
Speaker 1: his house. This was not a secret. There was also
Speaker 1: Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite and heiress who was occasionally referred
Speaker 1: to as Epstein's madam and was asked to turnover records.
Speaker 1: And then there's Alan Dershowitz.
Speaker 2: Alan Freakin Dershowitz, whose into.
Speaker 1: This like an enormously prestigious lawyer. He worked with Epstein
Speaker 1: on the business side. Dershwitz told outfit called Axios that
Speaker 1: Epstein lent his family the Palm Beach, Florida house and
Speaker 1: that he received a therapeutic massage with an old Russian there,
Speaker 1: but that he'd had no idea anything improper had even
Speaker 1: taking place in that house. In twenty eighteen, he said
Speaker 1: that Epstein, after this stuff became public, he said, Epstein's
Speaker 1: called me a couple times about legal issues because I'm
Speaker 1: still technically his lawyer, but I haven't had any social
Speaker 1: or any other kind of contact with him. But you
Speaker 1: never stopped being someone's lawyer. And then there's a guy
Speaker 1: we got to mention just casually he'll come back. Trust
Speaker 1: us guy named alex Acosta. He was formerly the US
Speaker 1: attorney in South Florida. He's currently the US Secretary of Labor.
Speaker 1: We'll get to him in a bit, but just remember
Speaker 1: the name alex Acosta.
Speaker 2: We shall remember you. So let's talk about the victims here.
Speaker 2: The authority has identified more than thirty victims of Epstein.
Speaker 2: And then if you look at the Miami Harold in
Speaker 2: their latest report, they identified eighty victims and they located
Speaker 2: sixty and spoke to four of them officially on the record.
Speaker 2: So again, trying to track down all of these people
Speaker 2: who are alleged victims, and you know, you can only
Speaker 2: get a certain percentage of those people to even talk
Speaker 2: because this kind of thing is it's so in citia.
Speaker 2: Even being able to speak about something like this, especially
Speaker 2: on the record, is difficult. So let's go through a
Speaker 2: few of these. The first one is Virginia gfree geuffree
Speaker 2: g I U F f r E. She claimed in
Speaker 2: court papers that she was recruited into this whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call child's sex ring that this billionaire was
Speaker 2: running when she was only fifteen years old. She was
Speaker 2: working as a towel girl at mar A Lago, Oh boy,
Speaker 2: and that's how she got wrapped up in it. And
Speaker 2: she also claims that Dershwitz as well as Prince Andrew
Speaker 2: participated in her sexual abuse. What is a towel girl
Speaker 2: a towel girl, I'm assuming at mar A Lago because
Speaker 2: there's a vast outdoor area at mar A Lago with
Speaker 2: a pool and everything like that, as well as there
Speaker 2: are or what do you call them, all of the
Speaker 2: other things you find out a spa bathhouse kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I can only imagine that a towel girl had the towel.
Speaker 1: They bring towels. It's like a like a caddy, but
Speaker 1: with towels instead of clubs.
Speaker 2: I see. And in this case, she's fifteen, which is fifteen,
Speaker 2: and sixteen is a very common age for these private
Speaker 2: clubs to hire. When I was fifteen, that's no. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when I was fifteen I started working at one of
Speaker 2: these places.
Speaker 1: Not as a towel girl.
Speaker 2: I was in I was a pool boy, right, so
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: And it's a great and it's also that's a great
Speaker 1: summer job for kids. Yeah, it is, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. You make a little scratch, can save up
Speaker 1: for Nintendo Switch.
Speaker 2: Or whatever, especially out in that area. Some of these
Speaker 2: private clubs provide some of the best money for your work. Oh,
Speaker 2: I bet.
Speaker 1: And then there's Courtney Wilde, who was a victim beginning
Speaker 1: at the age of fourteen. Wild says, by the time
Speaker 1: I was sixteen, I had probably brought him seventy to
Speaker 1: eighty girls who are all fourteen. I'm fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: He was involved in my life for years.
Speaker 2: Ugh. Ugh, And do you me just not skip over
Speaker 2: the fact that this one person Virginia claimed that both
Speaker 2: Dershowitz the lawyer and Prince Andrew Royalty were involved. How
Speaker 2: intense is that and especially occurring at mar A Lago
Speaker 2: where all of these highly important people are just kind
Speaker 2: of coming through whenever whenever, and now we have somebody
Speaker 2: who's claiming to have brought him seventy to eighty girls.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, we just had to pause for a moment,
Speaker 2: and now let's continue with the disgustingness.
Speaker 1: So there's Jenna Lisa Jones who said that she was
Speaker 1: also she was also assaulted by Epstein when she was fourteen,
Speaker 1: and she has a chilling and haunting quote here. I
Speaker 1: was I was somewhat divided over whether we should read
Speaker 1: it aloud, but here it is. You can't ever stop
Speaker 1: your thoughts. A word can trigger something.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 1: It is the word pure, because he called me pure
Speaker 1: in that room, and then I remember what he did
Speaker 1: to me in that room. Just I don't know gets
Speaker 1: to me. And there's Haley Robinson. Virginia Robinson was working
Speaker 1: at mar A Lago when she was recruited to be
Speaker 1: a massuset to Palm Beach Hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: There are tons of Jane does. We don't know how
Speaker 1: many there are. We know what the Harald found, right
Speaker 1: The Harold says they found eighty. They located sixty. They
Speaker 1: talked to eight, but only four would go on the
Speaker 1: record with their names. And you can understand that too,
Speaker 1: because a lot of these people have been quashed by
Speaker 1: settlements and non disclosure agreements. A settlement with a NDA
Speaker 1: or non disclosure agreement means that if someone if someone
Speaker 1: alleges a crime and you want to keep it out
Speaker 1: of court, regardless of what it is, you can have
Speaker 1: a legal team drop a contract that says, without admitting guilt,
Speaker 1: here's X amount of dollars, And in.
Speaker 2: Turn, you can't talk about it.
Speaker 1: You agree to never talk about this. The problem is
Speaker 1: that a lot of those things, as we see, don't
Speaker 1: really hold up in court if you're asking someone not
Speaker 1: to confess a crime, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 1: Those are victims, those are collaborators or as you said,
Speaker 1: no old conspirators. But there are some people fighting the
Speaker 1: good fight on this side as well.
Speaker 3: So there were several investigators involved in the case. We
Speaker 3: have Joseph for Carey, who was the lead detective for
Speaker 3: the case, and in his first interview, he said the
Speaker 3: evidence the department collected to support the girl's stories was
Speaker 3: overwhelming and included all kinds of stuff, all kinds of
Speaker 3: damning evidence. Phone call records, copies of written phone messages
Speaker 3: from the girls found in Epstein's trash, and Epstein's flight
Speaker 3: logs that showed his private plane in Palm Beach on
Speaker 3: the days that girls were scheduled to give massages.
Speaker 1: Pretty damning stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The police also showed how eerily consistent the girl's stories were,
Speaker 3: just down to the tee, right down to their detailed
Speaker 3: descriptions of Epstein's genitalia.
Speaker 1: And then there's Michael Writer, who is the former chief
Speaker 1: of police in Palm Beach. He was the chief during
Speaker 1: this investigation, and he said detectives were astonished by the
Speaker 1: sheer volume of victims coming and going from the house,
Speaker 1: the frequency, sometimes several in the same day, and the
Speaker 1: universally young ages of these girls. Michael Writer says, it
Speaker 1: started out to give a man backrup but in many
Speaker 1: cases turned us so far worse than that, elevated to
Speaker 1: a serious crime in some cases sexual batteries. And then
Speaker 1: there's another good I mean, this is almost true detective level,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, as far as the
Speaker 1: web that is unearthed here, there's the attorney for the victims,
Speaker 1: Skinning Brad Edwards. He's representing several of the young women
Speaker 1: who were abused as miners by Epstein. His law office
Speaker 1: is packed with files from the case, and he's been
Speaker 1: fighting the power at every turn, often outnumbered, outgunned, outmanned.
Speaker 1: Because you see, that true detective thing is not just
Speaker 1: a pop culture reference for us.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: There are multiple very powerful people that have been implicated
Speaker 1: in one way or another with Epstein, and to be fair,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is not proven, other than the
Speaker 1: fact that we know they hung out, they maybe took
Speaker 1: his playing place as the plane, which was also informally
Speaker 1: known as the Lolita Express. That's true, was in formally
Speaker 1: known as that. But who are some of these implicated
Speaker 1: implicated celebrities.
Speaker 2: Well, let's jump in first with Bill Clinton, because he
Speaker 2: was known to have taken the Lolita Express to the
Speaker 2: Virgin Islands, to that island that Epstein owns on numerous occasions,
Speaker 2: as well as hanging out at the Palm Beach and.
Speaker 1: He went to Africa, Yeah, using that plane. I think
Speaker 1: Chris Tucker was on the plane too.
Speaker 2: There's this huge list of celebrities that have been on there,
Speaker 2: you know, but Bill Clinton was definitely one of the
Speaker 2: ones that popped out in my mind around the time.
Speaker 2: This is awful to say, but it was around the
Speaker 2: time that Pizzagate was kind of coming out. That's when
Speaker 2: I started to really learn about Bill Clinton's involvement with Epstein,
Speaker 2: and that connection was one of those things that freaked
Speaker 2: me out a little bit and made me start to
Speaker 2: think there was more to the whole Pizzagate thing, which
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily believe, but it's definitely one of those
Speaker 2: things that creeped me out.
Speaker 1: And then Donald Trump has come up several times here
Speaker 1: current President Donald Trump, he had this association.
Speaker 2: He made that really creepy quote.
Speaker 1: He made that quotation. He made that quote in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two that certainly didn't age well. And there's
Speaker 1: one thing we do have to say in Donald Trump's defense.
Speaker 1: When Trump was when Trump learned that Epstein may have
Speaker 1: been romantically entertaining or attempting to recruit underage girls at
Speaker 1: mar A Lago or bringing these young women with him,
Speaker 1: these young girls, these children with him and calling them
Speaker 1: his nieces, which is so creepy, Donald Trump said, Okay, look,
Speaker 1: this can't happen here. You gotta go. So Trump asked
Speaker 1: him to leave. Trump kicked him out.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: I guess I feel like that's the bare minimum of decent. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. The bare minimum of decency is calling the police.
Speaker 2: Yeah. His his whole thing is just don't do it
Speaker 2: where I can also be implicated.
Speaker 1: It's right, you think that was what it was.
Speaker 2: I mean in my opinion, Oh yeah, Oh well, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want to throw around implications like that.
Speaker 2: It sure feels like it based on what we know about. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the act of kicking someone out or not allowing someone
Speaker 2: to do something illegal in your place of business, but
Speaker 2: not alerting the authorities that someone is doing something illegal
Speaker 2: in your place of business. Now, that's that's that's very damning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And then we mentioned Prince Andrew, the Prince Andrew, the
Speaker 1: allegations that Epstein forced his teenage victims to become physically
Speaker 1: involved with Prince Andrew on three separate occasions. And the
Speaker 1: you know, the UK Press is having a field day
Speaker 1: with like tabloids like the Sun or whatever.
Speaker 2: Well, what's blowing up right now?
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of I mean also a lot of
Speaker 1: royalty are untouchable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: When When's when is the next time? When's the last
Speaker 1: time a royal family member went to jail?
Speaker 2: Prince Charles spent a lot of time in the old Slamma. No,
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding any slam.
Speaker 1: Little slammery that's what they call it there, right, So okay,
Speaker 1: as we said, the alleged abuse is pretty well documented
Speaker 1: by numerous sources going back to at least the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: And if you want to be less than optimistic, then
Speaker 1: you can reasonably say that it's possible it went or
Speaker 1: went back earlier than that. So how did this go
Speaker 1: from rumors scuttle button secrecy to an actual legal matter.
Speaker 1: How did the cops get involved? Well we'll get to
Speaker 1: that right after a quick break.
Speaker 2: So let's start in March of two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: when a woman called the police in Palm Beach, and
Speaker 2: after first refusing to give her name, she said that
Speaker 2: she believed her fourteen year old stepdaughter had in some
Speaker 2: way been molested by a wealthy man, just a wealthy man. So,
Speaker 2: at the time, the victim in this case lived at
Speaker 2: this involuntary admitted juvenile education facility, which I'm assuming is
Speaker 2: some kind of juvi what you would call a juvi
Speaker 2: or I guess something to that effect, because she was
Speaker 2: having behavioral problems, right, So apparently she shows up at
Speaker 2: this school with three hundred dollars cash in her purse,
Speaker 2: and it became basically the talk of the class. Everybody's saying,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you see that she's got three hundred cash.
Speaker 2: Now you get that, dude, that's crazy. And then the
Speaker 2: friend called the girl a terrible name, yes we'll say it,
Speaker 2: a whore. Another friend put a fist through the wall
Speaker 2: in anger, apparently like punched the wall. And then the
Speaker 2: girl left school, and then the stepmother gets this call
Speaker 2: from another student's mother. So this just this act of
Speaker 2: bringing three hundred dollars into this school was enough to
Speaker 2: get basically the entire school talking. Then a policewoman was
Speaker 2: talking to the girl with a therapist there, so they're
Speaker 2: just having a conversation about what's going on. That's when
Speaker 2: this victim she begins crying and breaking down, and she
Speaker 2: dug her finger into her thigh and she just began
Speaker 2: out telling this entire story about how she was. She
Speaker 2: was taken to this big house on the Atlantic in
Speaker 2: the Intracoastal Waterway, which is where Epstein's mansion was located.
Speaker 2: She remembers climbing this spiral staircase to the master bedroom
Speaker 2: where this woman, a blonde woman who you know, she's
Speaker 2: probably in her twenties, twenty five or something.
Speaker 1: Is likely Sarah Kellen.
Speaker 2: It's probably, yes, exactly, probably Sarah Kellen. She wasn't very friendly.
Speaker 2: She laid out sheets as she put lotions on a
Speaker 2: massage table, and then she leaves. That's when Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 2: comes in. This is the story. Worry this similar story
Speaker 2: that we've already talked about. He's naked except for a towel.
Speaker 2: He sternly orders the girl to take off her clothes
Speaker 2: and then the rest of the details are pretty much
Speaker 2: what you've heard before and stuff that I honestly don't
Speaker 2: want to say here. But the police at this point
Speaker 2: were very much convinced that this was at least worth
Speaker 2: looking into.
Speaker 1: And then this girl says that she had been brought
Speaker 1: there by two other girls. Please spoke to those two girls.
Speaker 1: Those two girls pointed to two more girls who had
Speaker 1: also been there and also recruited them. By the time
Speaker 1: detectives tracked down one victim, there were two or three
Speaker 1: more to find, and very very soon there were dozens.
Speaker 1: So also in two thousand and five, the Palm Beach
Speaker 1: PD obtains a search warrant and they visit Epstein's mansion.
Speaker 1: They cart off massage tables, photos of naked girls, soaps
Speaker 1: shaped like Genitalia. Epstein sent an urgent message to the
Speaker 1: detectives through his attorney. It said, the shadiest thing.
Speaker 3: Mister Epstein is this is laughable. I'm sorry, this is
Speaker 3: just mister Epstein is very passionate about massages. The massages
Speaker 3: are therapeutic and spiritually sound for him.
Speaker 2: That is why he has had many massages. I mean, really,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm laughing. It's just come on.
Speaker 1: It's laughable. It's like it's such a bad attempt at
Speaker 1: an excuse that it sounds like it was poorly translated
Speaker 1: from a different language.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the craziest thing here is that if you're
Speaker 2: a wealthy individual and you really are passionate about massages,
Speaker 2: it makes sense that you have massage therapy equipment in
Speaker 2: your home. You can afford that, even rooms dedicated just
Speaker 2: to getting therapeutic massages, and you can also hire a masseuse.
Speaker 1: A professional massuse, which she did have. He paid her
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars an hour. There you go, so he
Speaker 1: had a professional messuse.
Speaker 2: Yes, there are your massages that you're passionate about, enjoy them.
Speaker 1: So we shall also note that computers and hardware were
Speaker 1: missing in the mansion.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and five when the Palm Beach investigators
Speaker 2: were to.
Speaker 1: Be taken out pretty quickly, so that's two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: They're fighting this in court. As as we said earlier,
Speaker 1: the head detective on the cases like we have this,
Speaker 1: this is five by five, this is buttoned up, this
Speaker 1: is game over, you know what I mean. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: then quickly what he sees is that there are there's
Speaker 1: a network of things, institutions and people stymying the investigation.
Speaker 1: And this is where our previous cast member, Acosta makes.
Speaker 2: A return, good old Alex Costa.
Speaker 1: Remember we said he was a state attorney there for Florida.
Speaker 1: He started meeting with Epstein's team, who had such legal
Speaker 1: luminaries Zalan Derschwitz, Kenneth Starr from the Clinton investigation. Where
Speaker 1: these guys are in terms of their legal reputation, these
Speaker 1: are very, very influential and prominent lawyers and legal minds.
Speaker 1: So Acosta and his team eventually, in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: they strike a secret deal with Epstein to shield him
Speaker 1: from federal investigation and prosecution. The victims were not made
Speaker 1: aware of this agreement. It was called a quote non
Speaker 1: prosecution deal. Acosta and his team at the time were
Speaker 1: in possession of a fifty three page draft indictment charging
Speaker 1: Epstein with serial child abuse child molestation. Instead, he took instead, Acosta,
Speaker 1: acting on behalf of the US government, keep in mind,
Speaker 1: gave Epstein. This this deal in instead of quurte essentially
Speaker 1: immunity pretty much and worse than immunity. So Epstein pled
Speaker 1: guilty to two state level prostitution charges, so not sex trafficking,
Speaker 1: prostitution charges. They essentially made him a john. And what
Speaker 1: did he get in exchange for that?
Speaker 3: And man, I mean talk about a sweetheart deal. This
Speaker 3: is a lot immunity from all related federal criminal charges,
Speaker 3: not only for himself, but also for any quote, any
Speaker 3: potential co conspirators, royalty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh my god, the President.
Speaker 3: Anyone who might have been involved in these alleged federal crimes.
Speaker 3: This provision would effectively completely shut down any FBI investigation,
Speaker 3: any further investigation into the evidence, the overwhelming evidence, the
Speaker 3: piles of evidence.
Speaker 2: Of international sex trafficking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and essentially make it retroactively legal for anyone to
Speaker 3: have conspired with him to rape any of the alleged victims.
Speaker 2: Good god.
Speaker 1: He did get jail time. He got a thirteen month sentence.
Speaker 1: He served it in a private wing of the county jail,
Speaker 1: and he was there except for the six days a
Speaker 1: week when he was on work release. He would he
Speaker 1: went to he commuted to his private office for twelve hours,
Speaker 1: and his sentence was eighteen months, but he just served thirteen.
Speaker 1: There was also we mentioned this earlier, but there was
Speaker 1: also this important legal snag. There was a commitment verified
Speaker 1: through email chain, that this agreement would be kept secret
Speaker 1: from the people identifying as victims, so that they would
Speaker 1: not have the opportunity to protest this extraordinary agreement in court.
Speaker 1: And that's despite the fact that keeping a plea agreement
Speaker 1: secret from victims is a violation of the law and
Speaker 1: it should go without saying, this is not the typical
Speaker 1: plea deal. For his part, Acosta and his team would
Speaker 1: later say, all right, we caved on this agreement, but
Speaker 1: we did it because we were being harassed by Epstein's
Speaker 1: high powered legal team. They hired private investigators to defame witnesses,
Speaker 1: to dive into personal lives. They said they felt physically threatened. However,
Speaker 1: emails and documents show the lie here. The relationship between
Speaker 1: federal prosecutors in Epstein's was more collaborative than adversarial. They
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time figuring out how to settle
Speaker 1: the case with the smallest amount of scandal. They even
Speaker 1: decided not to charge them with the sex offense, they
Speaker 1: considered witness tampering and obstruction charges and misdemeanors, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to allow Epstein to secretly plead guilty in Miami
Speaker 1: instead of Palm Beach County, where the victims lived, because
Speaker 1: that would limit media exposure and it would make it
Speaker 1: less likely for the victims to appear at sentencing. And
Speaker 1: they also in these emails, again leaked by the Herald,
Speaker 1: they also referenced discussions they wanted to have by phone
Speaker 1: or in person, so there wasn't a paper trail. And
Speaker 1: this agreement, this non prosecution agreement, sealed until after it
Speaker 1: was approved by a judge, made it virtually impossible for
Speaker 1: anyone to interfere, including Edwards, the attorney. This all came
Speaker 1: to public attention with the Miami Herald released a comprehensive, damning,
Speaker 1: groundbreaking investigation of Epstein's activities and the Pleat deal and
Speaker 1: the corruption and the long term damage to the underage victims.
Speaker 1: Yet at this point there's very little indication that that
Speaker 1: deal will be thrown out or reneged upon, because he
Speaker 1: already fulfilled his part of the agreement. And I guess
Speaker 1: we just have to emphasize how extraordinary. It is that
Speaker 1: there's a federal agreement that says, not only do you
Speaker 1: have to do this, not only are suddenly now calling
Speaker 1: abused children prostitutes, which itself is an offensive term, right,
Speaker 1: because that's they're trying to be defamatory. Believe the correct
Speaker 1: term is sex worker.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So not only are they doing that, but they're also saying,
Speaker 1: if any potential co conspirator worked with you, then they're
Speaker 1: scott free. Yeah, scott free.
Speaker 3: Just by association, like even if they weren't named, like
Speaker 3: they were discovered later.
Speaker 2: Those are the real This is my This is my take.
Speaker 2: It's not about Jeffrey Epstein, and it's not about the
Speaker 2: billions and billions of dollars that he manages. It's about
Speaker 2: the high powered people. In my opinion, this is not proven.
Speaker 2: The high powered people that took trips with him on
Speaker 2: that Lolita Express, the high powered people they got massages
Speaker 2: other than Jeffrey Epstein. That's why he got that deal. No,
Speaker 2: I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I mean, because it's just it makes no sense. And
Speaker 3: I believe the lawyer that got him that deal is
Speaker 3: now a member of Trump's cabinet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Alex Cossa's Secretary of Labor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean once you start getting into those circles,
Speaker 3: those those power circles, there is just so much insulation
Speaker 3: that can happen. Favors owed, you know, from high up
Speaker 3: politicians or law enforcement or whatever, and people.
Speaker 2: Call that stuff in it it's real. This is not
Speaker 2: tinfoil hat stuff, not imaginary. These people have immunity to
Speaker 2: future international sex trafficking. They have immunity to anything that
Speaker 2: they would catch them up in that And it's like,
Speaker 2: it's ten years since two thousand and eight he spent
Speaker 2: his time in prison. Do you guys really think all
Speaker 2: of this, any of this has stopped. I mean, the
Speaker 2: guy is probably under surveillance of some sort, even though
Speaker 2: well would he be, because why would you spend your
Speaker 2: money if you're even the FBI or even the CIA
Speaker 2: looking at international stuff going on, which I guess I
Speaker 2: don't know how that works with the Virgin Islands because
Speaker 2: technically aren't they part of the United States?
Speaker 1: The US Virgin Islands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, it's just it's so infuriating to think
Speaker 2: that this kind of terrible abuse is occurring and is
Speaker 2: allowed to occur, and it's simply because have money and
Speaker 2: tremendous power.
Speaker 1: So maybe an act of Congress could change it, could
Speaker 1: trigger it, you know, maybe just legally speaking. Legally speaking,
Speaker 1: it's tough to get this. I mean, the DOJ is
Speaker 1: in this. You know. I hesitate so often to accuse
Speaker 1: people of operating in large groups and lockstep because, as
Speaker 1: we know, groups of people stink at cooperation after a
Speaker 1: certain threshold has reached. But while we were working on this,
Speaker 1: and while we're looking into it, I honestly started to wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, will there be consequences for us for making
Speaker 1: this episode interesting? Which I rarely think about. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody cares what we have to say
Speaker 1: about this, but we do want to get this out
Speaker 1: in the public sphere because regardless of what actually happened,
Speaker 1: even if you want to take this entities side and
Speaker 1: say that this was some sort of hit piece or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, since two thousand and five and before that, sure, since.
Speaker 1: The eighties, something happened, Something happened. There wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: deal like that. If there wasn't pernicious, horrific stuff there.
Speaker 1: Powerful people needed to be Powerful people are conspiring right
Speaker 1: and closing ranks. This is infuriating. This is infuriating. We
Speaker 1: want to hear what you think. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: We want to know what you believe would be the
Speaker 1: next step for a legitimate investigation which did not occur
Speaker 1: right at least on Uncle Sam's part. We want to
Speaker 1: know how far you think this goes. We want to
Speaker 1: know who else you think is involved, who are those
Speaker 1: unnamed potential co conspirators, And most importantly want you to
Speaker 1: know that, as we say in any episode that deals
Speaker 1: with the horror of abuse, that if you are if
Speaker 1: you have found yourself in that situation, or if you
Speaker 1: know someone that is in a situation like that, you
Speaker 1: are not alone. You are not powerless. There are people
Speaker 1: who are there to help and support you. You can
Speaker 1: call one eight hundred sixty five six four six seven three.
Speaker 1: That's one eight hundred sixty five six hope and contact
Speaker 1: people at the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline.
Speaker 2: I don't know what else to say here. That's thank you,
Speaker 2: Ben for that. If you want to learn more, literally,
Speaker 2: just do some Google searches. The Guardian is a good
Speaker 2: place to start. Like we said in New York mag Miami, Harold,
Speaker 2: there are a bunch of places where you if you
Speaker 2: want to continue to follow this story.
Speaker 3: You can, and I will say that there's some hope
Speaker 3: here because we're obviously in a time where powerful men
Speaker 3: are getting taken to task more so than we've seen
Speaker 3: in the past, certainly, but it still feels like once
Speaker 3: you get when you're at a certain level, it's very hard,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, It's very hard to actually
Speaker 3: make people answer for their crimes, even if it's all
Speaker 3: laid out on the table like this, which is which
Speaker 3: is the most gut wrenching part of this story. That
Speaker 3: it's like there's no doubt in anyone's mind of this
Speaker 3: stuff happened. And like you said, Matt, when you know
Speaker 3: back in the circulation, aside from maybe keeping his nose
Speaker 3: clean to appease his handlers for a little while, you know,
Speaker 3: this is a man that has a mission. He's driven
Speaker 3: to behave this way, and the fact that he's allowed
Speaker 3: to be out in.
Speaker 2: Makes me sick, all right? So what do you think?
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Speaker 2: If you want to get into a discussion about this.
Speaker 2: It'll be a difficult one for our mods. Sorry everyone,
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Speaker 2: conversation about this that isn't that it doesn't turn into
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Speaker 2: So let's go have a discussion on here's where it
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