DOBBS: Um, there’s two ways. There’s two ways you can make money. He’ll, all right—
RECAREY: That’s all right. Talk to me. Talk to me like, like nothin’.
DOBBS: How do I say—this is going to sound really sleazy, but—
RECAREY: No. Go ahead. Talk to me.
DOBBS: Every girl that meets Jeffrey starts off with giving him a massage. The more you do with him, the more you make. Basically, if you take off your clothes, you’re gonna make more. If you let him do things to you, you’re gonna make more.
RECAREY: Like “do things” you mean, touch you?
DOBBS: Yeah. Touch you in inappropriate places.
RECAREY: Okay. Does he use his hand? Does he—
DOBBS: He uses his hands and, I really wouldn’t call it a vibrator—I guess it’s like a massager? But um—I was one of the girls that refused to do that. I did it basically my—I did it naked, but I wouldn’t let him touch me or anything like that. So after that he’s like, “You know what?” He’s like, “Listen, I’ll pay you $200 for every girl that you bring to me.” He’s like, “I don’t want you to massage me anymore, you know, just bring girls to me….” So that’s the other way you can make money. For every girl that you bring to the table—so, for every girl that I brought to Jeffrey—I would make $200. Flat. Just right there.
RECAREY: Just to bring a girl.
DOBBS: Yeah. Just to bring a girl.
RECAREY: Okay. And the girl that was going knew that she would have to massage him.
DOBBS: She knew everything. She knew everything. That was one of Jeffrey’s rules. He had a problem with girls coming to the house that didn’t know what they were getting into. He would tell me, you know, “Make sure these girls know what I expect, make sure they know what they want, because when I get in that room I don’t want them to—you know—they need to know.” And, as far as [redacted]’s case, she knew everything she was getting herself into. It was all volunteer.
RECAREY: Okay. What did you tell her that she was gonna do?
DOBBS: I told her the same thing. I told her, you know, this guy Jeffrey—she came to me saying she needed money, da da da. I basically told her about it. She was like, um, you know, “What do you have to do?” I told her. I was like, “The more you do, the more you make. That’s it. In order to make money, you’re gonna have to go up there. You’re gonna take your clothes off. But the more you do, is the more you make.” She walked out of there with $300. So she obviously and evidently let him do a little more. Plus, on our way home, she kinda told me what she did.
RECAREY: Which was? Give the massage….
DOBBS: She gave the massage, and she basically let him, like, touch her, down there. Basically.
RECAREY: Did he touch her with his hands?
DOBBS: All with his hands. And then he brought out the massager. From what she told me.
…
RECAREY: How old were you when you were approached to see Jeffrey?
DOBBS: Um, I think I was seventeen?
RECAREY: Seventeen.
DOBBS: Sixteen or seventeen.
RECAREY: Okay. When was the last time you talked to him?
DOBBS: It’s been a while. I can honestly say it’s probably been about close to a year. About a year. I actually stopped working for him.
RECAREY: Who was the last girl you brought over?
DOBBS: The last girl I brought over was [redacted]….
RECAREY: Okay. You got paid two hundred bucks for taking her over?
DOBBS: Yes.
RECAREY: Okay. [Redacted] knew…
DOBBS: She knew everything.
RECAREY: That she’d have to massage him, and the more she did—
DOBBS: The more she’d make.
RECAREY: The more she got paid.
DOBBS: Yeah.
RECAREY: So, she had intercourse with him.
DOBBS: Um, I don’t know about the intercourse. I heard different stories on that. I’ve never asked him “Oh, you know…” But when I was first introduced to him, my friend [redacted] who introduced me to him, told me that she knew a girl who slept with him and made $1,000. But from what his intern—or secretary—told me, is that he doesn’t do that. He just plays around with them. So I heard two different stories.
…
RECAREY: So, when you went and you massaged him, nothing happened between you two.
DOBBS: Nothing. I wouldn’t let him.
RECAREY: Okay. Did he become forceful? Did he get upset?
DOBBS: I wouldn’t say he became upset. I think he was a little disappointed. But I’m not—I didn’t care. I knew I was getting paid. I let him—I let him look, but I never let him touch. It was out of the question for him. And I think that’s pretty much why he just, kind of down-promoted me? He was just kind of like, “You can bring girls.” But as far as working, you know—
RECAREY: Okay. How many girls have you brought to him, aside from [redacted]?
DOBBS: Oh. Um. A lot.
RECAREY: A lot?
DOBBS: Um, let’s see, there’s [several redacted names]….
RECAREY: And all these girls knew what they had to do?
DOBBS: Every one of them.
…
RECAREY: How long have you been working for him?
DOBBS: Um…I probably worked for him for a year.
RECAREY: Okay. And out of all these girls…
DOBBS: Those were all the girls I brought. But you have to remember, those girls brought other girls, too.
RECAREY: Oh, okay.
DOBBS: So it’s like—it’s like a train. It’s like, I introduced him to all my friends, and then…it goes on and on, like that.
…
RECAREY: Okay….[Redacted] being fourteen or fifteen at the time—I think [redacted] was fourteen when this happened—who else was underage? Out of all these?
DOBBS: Underage, what do you mean?
RECAREY: Under eighteen.
DOBBS: Under eighteen? All of ’em.
RECAREY: All of them?
DOBBS: All of them….
RECAREY: Okay. Did Jeff know anybody’s real true age? Or he didn’t care.
DOBBS: I don’t think he cared. He told me the younger the better.
RECAREY: The younger the better. All right.
DOBBS: Pretty much. That’s how it worked. He didn’t—let me just put it this way: I tried to bring him a woman who was twenty-three, and he didn’t really like it.
RECAREY: Didn’t go for it.
DOBBS: It’s not that he didn’t go for it. He just didn’t care for it. And he likes the girls that [are] between the ages of, like, eighteen and twenty….But some of them, I think, lie about their age. I know that when I started off young, I think he knew better [than] to believe me. I think he knew that I was younger—like, seventeen—but I told him I was, like, eighteen. Most of those girls lie when they go in there.
…
RECAREY: Let’s talk about [Mary] for a minute.
DOBBS: Okay.
RECAREY: [Mary] at the time was dating your cousin, right?
DOBBS: Mm-hmm.
RECAREY: Okay. She told you she needed to make money. Did she know you worked for Jeffrey?
DOBBS: I told her.
RECAREY: You had told her you worked for Jeffrey.
DOBBS: Mm-hmm.
RECAREY: Did you tell her what it entailed? So she knew that?
DOBBS: She knew everything before she even agreed to it.
RECAREY: Okay. So she knew that there was going to have to be some kind of—
DOBBS: Contact. Pretty much. Yeah. I told her. I told her exactly what his expectations were. I told her what goes on with the girls that go up there. I told her—it was like, “It’s your call.” I was like, “If you want to do this, fine. If not, fine. But when you go in that room, I don’t want to hear you say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know he was going to do all that.’ Because I’m telling you right now, he’s expecting it.”
RECAREY: Basically
, this is touching—
DOBBS: Fondling—
RECAREY: Fondling—
DOBBS: Or whatever. And I told her when she went on her own. Just like, “Just remember, the more you do, the more you make. But that’s—that’s up to you.” And she asked me, and I brought up, told her I wouldn’t do more.
RECAREY: Okay. You made that clear, you wouldn’t do more.
DOBBS: No. Screw that!
RECAREY: But as far as [Mary] is concerned. What did she tell you that happened in that room?
DOBBS: Exact words? If I can recall, when she came downstairs from—when she came downstairs, me and her and [redacted], we all walked out. We got into the car. And I was like, “How much did you make?” She’s like, “Three hundred dollars.” And I looked at [Mary] and I just knew right then she did more.
RECAREY: Than just a massage, right?
DOBBS: Yeah. And I asked her. I was like, “Well, what’d you do?” She’s like, “Well, I started giving a massage, and then my clothes came off and, you know, he put his fingers inside me. And then he brought out the massager.” And that’s basically what she said.
…
RECAREY: It’s all right. You can talk to me. It’s all right.
DOBBS: It’s kind of incredible talking about it, now that I—I can’t believe I worked for him.
RECAREY: But it’s okay. You know what, we all go through things in life, you know what I mean? It’s an experience. And you can put this experience behind you.
…
Do girls that—people that you brought over—how did you approach them? That they were going to have to do this…Like, if they wanted to work, how did you approach them? Say, “Listen, I got this guy in Palm Beach?”
DOBBS: Um…Two of them were my friends. The others were, like, my acquaintances. It was a little more easier talking to them about it, ’cause, like, I knew them.
RECAREY: Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. ’Cause I can see you’re working up again. You’re working up the tears, I can see it, and I don’t want to get you like that.
DOBBS: I, um, pretty much I just would ask them—
RECAREY: Straight up?
DOBBS: “If you’re looking for extra money, let me know; this guy down in Palm Beach, he’s really, really, really wealthy. You have to give him a massage.” That’s all I would tell them. Then, if they were interested or told me, “Yes, I want to do it,” I’d go into detail with them before they’d actually agree. If they told me, “Yeah, that sounds good, I’m interested,” then I’d tell them, “Okay, well I’m gonna let you know, this is what you have to do, this is what’s gonna go on.”
RECAREY: Did you tell them that you were going to make money from bringing them over? Or—
DOBBS: Most part? I believe they knew….Most of the girls, we were open about that. We didn’t—they pretty much knew I was making money under the table. So…
RECAREY: Okay. Gimme two seconds. Let me get the soda….Gimme two seconds.
…
All right, I talked to my boss a little bit—
FRICK:—Which is why I’m here.
DOBBS: Okay.
FRICK: Obviously I was listening to what you were saying. And at this point you clearly implicated yourself on a crime, okay? You’ve taken girls to somebody’s house for the purpose of prostitution. More importantly, more significantly, one of those girls was fourteen at the time, okay? Now that’s a pretty significant second-degree felony, okay? I’m not going to kid you, that is—it’s a significant thing, okay? Now, you came in, you cooperated with us. The question we have for you now is, do you want to continue cooperating with us and try and help us make a case against Jeff?
DOBBS: I don’t think that’s really going to help me in the long run, though. I’ve already admitted to a second-degree felony, right?
FRICK: Yeah, you have.
DOBBS: Okay, so there you go. What’s going to keep me out of trouble? It’s not going to keep me out of trouble. I’ve already admitted committing a crime.
FRICK: I’m not going to argue with that….
DOBBS: So basically I just fucked myself. I can go two ways. I can agree not to cooperate, which is going to put me at—well—now you can use the second-degree felony against me. Or you can help and work with it and maybe get myself some slack….
FRICK: We’re still talkin’ here. What would the odds be of you contacting Jeff at this point? Have you had any contact with him at all?
DOBBS: I have not had any contact—
FRICK: How about with—
DOBBS: No, none of ’em. None of ’em….I had a phone call about four or five months ago, and I told my parents. Look, I swear to you I’m not anywhere—like, no connection with him at all. That’s why I pretty much got my number changed. I have not made any communication with him. It stopped.
FRICK: Okay. Well, I mean, that’s good. That’s good that you stopped….
…
This is what we’d like to do: We would like to reach out to some of your ex-friends and [unintelligible] talk to them. Now, the question is, do we think that they are currently still working for Jeff, in which case they would make a phone call to Jeff? Or can we just kinda show up and, you know, have you make a call as we’re standing outside and say: “Hey, you know, these guys wanna talk to you, and I’ve already told ’em everything?” Our goal is to make a better case against Jeff, all right?
RECAREY: With your cooperation.
FRICK: Let me, let me get back to—past—the cooperation thing, okay? There are lesser charges that can easily be filed: leading to the delinquency of a minor, as compared to a second-degree felony. You know what I mean? That’s a misdemeanor….First of all, I’ll tell you straight up, okay, we’re not going to take you to jail today….
DOBBS: Not today.
FRICK: Well, you’re—And here’s the other thing: If you cooperate and if we can—If you cooperate, whether we pull it off or not—that’s not up to you, that’s up to us, okay? So what we would do is if we ended up charging you with like a misdemeanor, we’d give you a call, we’d say: “Hey, you gotta come in, you know.”
RECAREY: You sign it….
FRICK: That’s our preference. You come in, you’ve been very forthright with us, you’ve been very up front—
RECAREY: Very truthful.
…
FRICK: Do you want us to call your parents, or do you want to deal with it, or do you—As far as we’re concerned you’re an adult, okay? You’re nineteen. You do what you do. You know, we can drop you off at the end of the block if you’d like. Or we can cushion the blow beyond what—but again, you’re helping us at this point. We’ve been pretty forthright with you on what is going on, our options for your future. And what we’d like you to do obviously is make a couple of calls with us this evening to talk to a couple of your, you know, these other girls.
DOBBS: I’m not really on a…Me and my parents really don’t get along right now…
FRICK: So you’d prefer that—
DOBBS: If they found out that I was—If they found out that I was into some other stuff….I’m actually stripping now….So they’re not exactly happy with me at the moment, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to piss ’em off even furthermore.
CHAPTER 15
Michael Reiter: October 3, 2005
Chief Reiter sifts through the evidence: information about underage girls—six of them—whom Wendy Dobbs procured for Epstein. Phone numbers pulled from the trash on El Brillo. An arrest report for Alison, the girl who’d been caught with a dime bag of weed.
She’d told Detective Recarey about an encounter that sounded very much like a rape.
Soon Reiter will ask a judge for a warrant. But not yet. There’s more footwork to do, and Reiter calls Detective Joe Recarey into his office.
Later that day, Detective Recarey and Sergeant George Frick arrive at the home of a girl named Jenny.* An older woman greets them at the front door and invites them inside. She int
roduces them to her husband and daughter. Jenny is sixteen years old. Sitting down at the dining room table, they see that she’s nervous. In between biting her lip and fidgeting, she tells them that yes, she’s been to Jeffrey Epstein’s house.
Wendy took her there once. But nothing much happened. She met Epstein’s chef and spent some time in the kitchen is all. Then she left.
“I get what you’re asking,” she says. “But really, I just want to put the whole thing behind me.”
“Okay,” the officers tell her. “You have our numbers. But Jenny, if you remember anything else, you’ll find that we’re very good listeners.”
One down. Five to go.
Detective Recarey and Detective Michael Dawson have better luck the next day with Francine, a girl who tells them that a year earlier, Wendy Dobbs—someone she knew from high school—
drove her to the house on El Brillo Way.
Francine would have been seventeen at the time.
Now she’s willing to make a sworn statement. The officers noted:
She was told she could make money working for Jeff. She was told she would have to provide a massage for Jeff….She was brought to the kitchen area by [Dobbs]. They met with the house chef who was already in the Kitchen area. Francine stated [Wendy] would wait for her in the kitchen.
Just as she did with Mary, a woman named Sarah had taken Francine upstairs and into a bedroom. Then Epstein had entered the room, wearing only a towel.
She kept her clothes on during the massage. She advised sometime during the massage, Epstein grabbed her buttocks and pulled her close to him. Francine said she was [made] uncomfortable by the incident involving Jeff. At the conclusion of the massage she was paid $200.00 for the massage.
“Do you have any formal training in massages?” the officers ask.
“No,” says Francine.
But she does have one more thing to tell them.
Sarah’s been calling Francine’s cell phone.
It could mean any number of things. The police know already that Epstein’s caught wind of their investigation. Now it appears he’s doing something about it, or at least he’s delegating the responsibility. This troubles the cops. But then, on that same day, they get one more break: Jenny calls and says that without her parents around she’s willing to make a sworn statement.