“I have had some dealings with him,” Sussman said. “I don’t want to say what it’s about, because I don’t feel good about it, okay?”
Today, Epstein’s websites—JeffreyEpsteinFoundation.com and JeffreyEpsteinScience.com—are down. Their domain names have long since expired. Several recipients of Epstein’s charitable contributions, including New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital and Ballet Palm Beach, announced that they would not be accepting new gifts.
“The further I can keep myself from anything like that the better,” said Ballet Palm Beach founder Colleen Smith.
But in 2012, Epstein held one more conference on Little Saint Jeff’s. Once again, three Nobel Prize winners were in attendance. Stephen Hawking was also there. All in all, Epstein had gathered twenty-one physicists—from Princeton, Harvard, MIT, and CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research)—to “determine what the consensus is, if any, for defining gravity.”
According to a press release issued by Epstein’s foundation, the consensus that did emerge was that space is “not quite empty.”
CHAPTER 62
Jeffrey Epstein: February 2, 2011
It’s Groundhog Day, and once-reclusive Jeffrey Epstein is hitting the peak of his fame in a ripped-from-the-headlines episode of Law & Order: SVU that tracks, eerily well, with his own legal history.
The setup for this episode is the rape of a very young French girl. One who’s been flown to New York on a very rich man’s private jet, then flown back—coach class—to Paris.
On the plane, she has a freak-out. She thinks the middle-aged guy sitting next to her is trying to rape her. In Paris, the local police get involved.
“It was just a birthday party,” the tearful girl tells the SVU cops via videoconference from France. “We were his present.”
The cops ask: Whose present?
“The billionaire. The one who owns the jet.”
Does the French girl know his name?
“Jordan. He wanted a massage. But I had to take off my clothes. He climbed on top of me. It hurt. I started to bleed, and it wouldn’t stop. The doctor came.”
“Dominique,” the cops say. “We’re going to arrest this man. But we need you to return to New York so you can testify.”
“Non,” says the girl. “Non! Jamais! Jamais!”
For Epstein, there are other embarrassments, many of which have to do with his royal friends. The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton is approaching, and the ongoing troubles of Prince William’s uncle Prince Andrew keep threatening to derail the festivities. On March 6, a spokesperson for Sarah Ferguson confirms that Epstein paid off part of the seventy-eight thousand pounds that the duchess borrowed from a man who was once her personal assistant.
The next day, headlines appear in the Telegraph and other British papers: DUKE OF YORK “APPEALED TO JEFFREY EPSTEIN TO HELP DUCHESS PAY DEBT.”
“I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me,” Prince Andrew’s ex-wife tells journalists. “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf.
“I am just so contrite I cannot say. Whenever I can I will repay the money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.”
That week, as part of the ongoing civil lawsuits against Epstein, Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marcinkova are both asked about Prince Andrew’s relations with Epstein.
“Would you agree with me that Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein used to share underaged girls for sexual relations?” Kellen is asked.
“On the instructions of my lawyer,” Kellen replies, “I must invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege.”
“Have you ever been made to perform sexually on Prince Andrew?” lawyers ask Marcinkova.
“Fifth” is Nadia’s simple, succinct reply.
That same week, the government downgrades Prince Andrew’s role as Great Britain’s royal trade envoy. But the British press is tenacious, and in the Telegraph, the Guardian, and elsewhere, stories appear on a daily basis:
•The Duke, His Paedophile Guest, and the Most Unusual Use of an RAF Base
•Andrew’s Secret Love Life Revealed
•Royal Connections: Prince Andrew and the Paedophile Are Suddenly the Talk of New York
•Time to Show This Right Royal Clown the Door
•An Odd Trio: The Royal Trade Envoy, the Teenage Masseuse and the Fixer
•No. 10 Struggles to Contain Row Over Prince
•From Royal Asset to National Liability
•Royal Blush
•Duke Could Be Called to Two Epstein Trials
•It’s the Company You Keep…The Duke’s Dangerous Liaisons
•Nothing Grand About This Old Duke of York
•The Royal Family Has Feared a Blow-Up Over Duke’s Choice of Friends For Years
•Our Less-Than-Grand Old Duke of York
On March 11, a devastating undersea earthquake and tsunami move Japan’s main island by several feet, shifting the earth on its axis. The destruction is horrific and unprecedented. But on March 13, the Daily Mail devotes four pages and seven separate articles to Prince Andrew. That same day, the Telegraph runs three pieces, and the Sunday Times runs a two-page spread headlined GUN SMUGGLER BOASTS OF SWAY OVER ANDREW.
On March 14, the Guardian runs one more piece about Andrew’s troubles.
PRINCE ANDREW DOMINATES HEADLINES DESPITE THE EARTHQUAKE, the headline reads.
CHAPTER 63
Alan Dershowitz: September 2014
If the ongoing lawsuits are costing Epstein millions, he has millions left to spare. Meanwhile, the FBI’s investigation into whether Epstein trafficked underage women across state lines seems to be going nowhere. As 2014 draws to a close, it’s beginning to look as if Epstein is finally free and clear of the case.
But for Epstein’s friend and sometime lawyer Alan Dershowitz, things are about to get very unpleasant.
At the start of 2008, Bradley Edwards, the Fort Lauderdale lawyer, had filed a motion in a West Palm Beach court on behalf of two unnamed women accusing Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz of participating directly in Epstein’s illegal activities.
Prince Andrew had had no comment to make, and Dershowitz had objected to the accusations in the strongest possible terms.
“There’s absolutely no kernel of truth to this story,” he’d said. “I don’t know this woman. I’ve never been in the same place with her. She’s made the whole story up out of whole cloth.”
Bradley Edwards had already become involved in lawsuits against Epstein. In 2007, working with a former federal judge and University of Utah law professor named Paul Cassell, he had filed a lawsuit on behalf of another unnamed woman. Six years later, that case is still pending, and now, Edwards and Cassell petition to have the two suits combined.
All in all, four Jane Does take part in the lawsuit.
Jane Doe 3 is Virginia Roberts, the girl who says that Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her for Epstein at Trump’s resort, Mar-a-Lago.
Epstein had “lent” her and other young girls to prominent businessmen, important politicians, world leaders, and other powerful men in order “to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain, as well as to obtain blackmail information,” Roberts claims.
She says that Epstein forced her and other underage girls to take part in an orgy in the Virgin Islands.
She names Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz as two of the men she’d been forced to have sex with and claims that Dershowitz had been “an eyewitness to the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein and several of Epstein’s co-conspirators.”
This time, Prince Andrew does respond to the allegations.
“This relates to longstanding and ongoing civil proceedings in the United States, to which the Duke of York is not a party,” Buckingham Palace says in a short statement. “As such we would not comment on the detail. However, for the avoida
nce of doubt, any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue.”
Alan Dershowitz also goes on the attack. Virginia’s claims are part of a plot to extort him, he claims. The motion that Edwards and Cassell have filed is “the sleaziest legal document” he’s ever seen.
“They manipulated a young, suggestible woman who was interested in money,” Dershowitz says. “This is a disbarrable offense, and they will be disbarred. They will rue the day they ever made this false charge against me.” It’s a vehement denial. But then, the allegations made by Virginia Roberts, on January 15, 2015, in a declaration filed against the government in an attempt to overturn Jeffrey Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement, are highly disturbing.
CHAPTER 64
Declaration of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, filed on January 19, 2015 by attorneys representing Jeffrey Epstein’s victims (continued)
20. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz was around Epstein frequently. Dershowitz was so comfortable with the sex [that] was going on that on one occasion he observed me in sexual activity with Epstein.
21. I had sexual intercourse with Dershowitz at least six times. The first time was when I was about 16, early on in my servitude to Epstein, and it continued until I was 19.
22. The first time we had sex took place in New York in Epstein’s home. It was in Epstein’s room (not the massage room). I was approximately sixteen years old at the time. I called Dershowitz “Alan.” I knew he was a famous professor.
23. The second time that I had sex with Dershowitz was at Epstein’s house in Palm Beach.
24. I also had sex with Dershowitz at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico in the massage room off of the indoor pool area, which was still being painted.
25. We also had sex at Little Saint James Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
26. Another sexual encounter between me and Dershowitz happened on Epstein’s airplane. Another girl was present on the plane with us.
27. I have recently seen Alan Dershowitz on television calling me a “liar.” He is lying by denying that he had sex with me. The man I’ve seen on television, described as a former law professor, is the same man that I had sex with at least six times. Dershowitz also knows that Epstein had sex with other underage girls and lent me out to other people, but he is lying and denying that….
28. After years of abuse and being lent out, I began to look for a way to escape. I had first gone into Epstein’s household because I wanted to be a massage therapist. Epstein had taken me into his clutches through promises and talk and for some time I believed him. But once he had me under his control, regardless of my doubts and fears, I felt trapped.
29. I kept asking Epstein for my promised training and education. Epstein finally got me a plane ticket to Thailand to go to Chiang Mai to learn Thai massage. This sounded like my chance to escape. In September 2002, I packed my bags for good. I knew this would be my only opportunity to break away.
30. On September 27, 2002, I flew from JFK in New York to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I arrived around September 29 for my training. But Epstein was going to get something out of this trip as well. I was supposed to interview a girl and bring her back to the United States for Epstein.
31. [Left blank in the original]
32. I did the massage training in Chiang Mai. While I was there, I met a great and special guy and told him honestly what I was being forced to do. He told me I should get out of it. I told him that the people I was working for were very powerful and that I could not walk away or disobey them without risking serious punishment, including my life. He told me he would protect me. I had confidence [in] him and I saw his love and help as my opportunity to escape and to be with someone who truly loved me and would protect me. I married him and flew to Australia.
33. I called Epstein and told him I was not coming back. He asked why? I said “I’ve fallen in love.” Epstein basically said “good luck and have a good life.” I could tell he was not happy. I was afraid of what he was going to do to me. I thought he or one of his powerful friends might send someone to hurt me or have me killed.
34. From that point onward, out of concern for my safety and general well-being, I stayed in Australia with my husband. I was in Australia from late 2002 to October 2013. To be clear, I was never in the United States during these years, not even for a short trip to visit my mother. And my absence from the United States was not voluntary—I was hiding from Epstein out of fear of what he would do to me if I returned to the United States.
35. In around 2007, after not hearing from anyone for years, out of the blue I was contacted by someone who identified himself with a plain sounding name and claimed he was with the FBI. It seemed very odd for someone doing an official criminal investigation to just call up on the phone like that. I hadn’t heard Epstein’s name for years. I didn’t know who this person was and what it was really about. I couldn’t tell what was going on.
36. This man said he was looking into Jeffrey Epstein. The man asked if I had been involved with Epstein. My first instinct was to say nothing because I wasn’t sure he was really with the FBI or any authorities. I answered a few basic questions, telling him that I knew Jeffrey Epstein and had met him at a young age. But the conversation didn’t feel right. This man never offered to come and meet with me in person. Instead, he asked me right off the bat about Epstein’s sexual practices. I thought it would be strange for a true law enforcement officer to behave that way, so I became increasingly uncomfortable and suspicious about who was actually calling me.
37. I told the man nothing more about Epstein. The conversation probably didn’t even last three minutes, but it immediately triggered all of the fears of Epstein and his powerful friends that had caused me to escape in the first place. If the call accomplished anything, it only put me back in a state of fear and told me that I could be found quite easily and had nobody officially protecting me.
38. I suspected that the man who called me was working for Epstein or one of Epstein’s powerful friends. I believed that if this was really an agent who was investigating Epstein, he would have known who I was and how I fit into Epstein’s sexual crimes in many different places. He would have interviewed me in a way that would have established his credentials and would have shown how he could provide potential protection from Epstein. That never happened.
39. Getting a call from this supposed FBI agent made me scared all over again. I had left the old life of sexual slavery behind me and started a new life in a new country in hopes that the powerful people whose illegal activities I knew all about would never find me.
40. Shortly after this purported FBI call, I was contacted by telephone by someone who appeared clearly to be working for Epstein. The caller told me about an investigation into Epstein and said that some of the girls being questioned were saying that Epstein had had sexual contact with them. After they made these allegations, the man said they were being discredited as drug addicts and prostitutes, but in my case, if I were to keep quiet, I would “be looked after.” The fact that this call was made shortly after the supposed FBI call reinfor[c]ed my concern that the man I had talked to earlier was not really working for the FBI but for Epstein. I didn’t think that the FBI and Epstein would both be working together and would both get my phone number at almost exactly the same time. I played along and told this person that I had gotten a call from the “FBI” but that I didn’t tell him anything. The person on the phone was pleased to hear [that].
41. A short time later, one of Epstein’s lawyers (not Alan Dershowitz) called me, and then got Epstein on the line at the same time. Epstein and his lawyer basically asked again if I was going to say anything. The clear implication was that I should not. The way they were talking to me, I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t keep quiet. My thought was that if I didn’t say what they wanted me to say, or not to say, I might get hurt.
42. I promised Epstein and his lawyer that I would keep quiet. They seemed happy with that and that seemed to me t
o [be the] way to keep me and my family safe. And I did what Epstein and his lawyer told me. I kept quiet.
This declaration, stricken from the record by the judge in the victims’ lawsuit against the government, also set in motion events that led to Dershowitz’s and Roberts’s lawyers becoming involved in spectacular lawsuits, which included a complaint by Dershowitz that these allegations were false and had defamed him, and a complaint by Edwards that Dershowitz’s accusations against him were false and defamatory.
CHAPTER 65
Alan Dershowitz: October 2015
About fifteen minutes into the ripped-from-the-headlines episode of Law & Order: SVU that was inspired by the Jeffrey Epstein saga, the plot takes an interesting turn: before officers have a chance to arrest him, Jordan, the character modeled on Epstein, shows up at SVU headquarters.
The twelve-year-old French girl raped him, Jordan says.
Wearing a monogrammed fleece pullover like the ones favored by Jeffrey Epstein, he describes an evening at home.
“The party was in full swing,” he explains. “A friend said she wanted to give me a special present. Told me to wait in my massage room—”
An SVU guy interrupts: “Guy has a massage room?”
“I suffer from chronic back pain,” Jordan says.
“While I was waiting, I fell asleep. Now, at first I thought I must be dreaming. I was aroused. I felt myself being manually manipulated. Then I remembered it was my present. I started to enjoy myself. But then it got rough, and that’s when I opened my eyes.”
“What did you see?”
“A woman. A woman I’d never seen before.”
“A woman? Dominique Moreau was twelve!”
“It was dark. I just wanted her off of me. I tried to stop her.”
“But the twelve-year-old overpowered you?”
“No. She threatened me. She said if I didn’t let her…continue, she was going to scream ‘Rape.’”