The American financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ran a ring of female sex traffickers, who were tasked with recruiting underage females into his orbit for his sexual gratification. His close friend and associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was the chief recruiter and some-time participant in his crimes.
The New York Times in 2019 reported that Sarah Kellen, Lesley Groff, Adriana Ross and Nadia Marcinkova were part of the Epstein system, as well as Haley Robson, and published that "Recruiters were allegedly told to target young, financially desperate women, and to promise them help furthering their education and careers." Rina Oh is another Epstein recruiter who spoke to the press in 2021. Kellen, Groff, Ross and Marcinkova were listed as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the Acosta 2007 plea deal; when Judge Alison Nathan sentenced Maxwell in 2022, she described Kellen as "a knowing participant in the criminal conspiracy" and said she was "a criminally responsible participant". Journalist Nick Bryant maintained in an October 2024 interview with Shawn Ryan that Epstein trafficked girls below the age of 10 in part from places like Yugoslavia, which in the 1990s was undergoing a particularly brutal civil war. In 2021, Politico magazine wrote:
Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, the co-executors of Epstein's estate, have inserted a clause in the estate's victim compensation fund whereby applicants cannot sue Epstein's employees.
Cordero v. Epstein (2007) On October 16, 2007, Ava Cordero, a transgender woman and aspiring model based in New York City, filed a lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court accusing Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was sixteen years old. She alleged that Epstein made her perform "bizarre and unnatural sex acts" in return for assistance with her modeling career. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2008.
Jane Doe v. Epstein lawsuits (2008) In 2008, three lawsuits made by anonymous women were filed against Epstein by the lawyer Jeffrey Herman. Each sought $50 million in damages. On February 6, 2008, an anonymous Virginia woman, known as Jane Doe No. 2, filed a $50-million civil lawsuit in federal court against Epstein, saying that when she was a 16-year-old minor in 2004 and 2005, she was "recruited to give Epstein a massage". She claimed she was taken to his mansion, where he exposed himself and had sexual intercourse with her, and paid her $200 immediately afterward. A second suit was filed on March 5, 2008. A third suit was filed in March 2008 by a different woman. These and several similar lawsuits were dismissed. All other lawsuits had been settled by Epstein out of court.
Jane Doe 102 v. Epstein (2009) In May 2009, Virginia Roberts Giuffre filed a lawsuit (with Katherine Ezell as her lawyer) as Jane Doe 102 against Epstein and accused Maxwell of recruiting her to a life of being sexually trafficked while she was a minor. The 2009 suit stated that "In addition to being continually exploited to satisfy defendant's [Epstein] every sexual whim, [Ms Giuffre] was also required to be sexually exploited by defendant's adult male peers, including "royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and or other professional and personal acquaintances." At the time, she named Epstein and Maxwell but did not identify any of the men. The suit was settled that same year for $500,000 and other unspecified "valuable consideration".
Epstein v. Scott Rothstein, et al. (2009) Epstein filed a civil racketeering lawsuit in December 2009 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, against Scott Rothstein (of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler) and named one of Rothstein's former associates Bradley J. Edwards. along with L.M., one of Epstein's alleged 14 year old victims. Epstein accused Rothstein of using him to prop up his Ponzi scheme by selling settlement shares. Epstein also alleged that Edwards sought to harass and depose his friends. Epstein dropped the charges against Edwards three years later, in August 2012.
Bradley Edwards v. Epstein and Rothstein (2009) Victims rights attorney Bradley J. Edwards filed a countersuit against Epstein for malicious prosecution in Florida state civil court. After a protracted legal battle and an appeal the suit was scheduled for trial in December 2018. The trial was expected to provide victims with their first opportunity to make their accusations in public. However, the case was settled on the first day of the trial, with Epstein publicly apologizing to Edwards; other terms of the settlement were confidential.
Victims' rights: Jane Does v. United States (2014) A December 30, 2014, federal civil suit was filed in Florida by Jane Doe 1 (Courtney Wild) and Jane Doe 2 against the United States for violations of the Crime Victims' Rights Act by the U.S. Department of Justice's NPA with Epstein and his limited 2008 state plea. There was a later, unsuccessful effort to add Virginia Roberts (Jane Doe 3) and another woman (Jane Doe 4) as plaintiffs to that case. The addition accused Alan Dershowitz of sexually abusing a minor, Jane Doe 3, provided by Epstein. The allegations against Dershowitz were stricken by the judge and eliminated from the case because he said they were outside the intent of the suit to re-open the plea agreement. A document filed in court alleges that Epstein ran a "sexual abuse ring", and lent underage girls to "prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders".
This long-running lawsuit is pending in federal court, aimed at vacating the federal plea agreement on the grounds that it violated victims' rights. On April 7, 2015, Judge Kenneth Marra ruled that the allegations made by alleged victim Virginia Roberts against Prince Andrew had no bearing on the lawsuit by alleged victims seeking to reopen Epstein's non-prosecution plea agreement with the federal government; the judge ordered that allegation to be struck from the record. Judge Marra made no ruling as to whether claims by Roberts are true or false. Though he did not allow Jane Does 3 and 4 to join the suit, Marra specifically said that Roberts may later give evidence when the case comes to court.
On February 21, 2019, in the case of Two Jane Does v. United States, Senior Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Kenneth Marra said federal prosecutors violated the law by failing to notify victims before they allowed him to plead guilty to only the two Florida offenses. The judge left open what the possible remedy could be.
Virginia Giuffre v. Epstein (2015)
In a December 2014 Florida court filing by Bradley Edwards and Paul G. Cassell meant for inclusion in the Crime Victims' Rights Act lawsuit, Virginia Giuffre (then known as Virginia Roberts), alleged in a sworn affidavit that at age 17, she had been sexually trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell for their own use and for use by several others, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Alan Dershowitz. Giuffre also claimed that Epstein, Maxwell and others had physically and sexually abused her. She alleged that the FBI may have been involved in a cover-up. She said she had served as Epstein's sex slave from 1999 to 2002, and had recruited other underage girls. Epstein, Mountbatten-Windsor, and Dershowitz denied her claims. Dershowitz took legal action over the allegations.
Giuffre filed a defamation suit against Dershowitz, claiming he purposefully made "false and malicious defamatory statements" about her. A diary purported to belong to Giuffre was published online. In January 2015 Epstein entered an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre, as he had done in several other lawsuits. In 2019, Giuffre was interviewed by the BBC's Panorama where she continued to attest that Epstein had trafficked her to Prince Andrew. She appealed directly to the public by stating: "I implore the people in the UK to stand up beside me, to help me fight this fight, to not accept this as being okay." As of January 2015 these accusations had not been tested in any court of law.
Jean-Luc Brunel v. Epstein (2015) In January 2015, modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel filed a lawsuit against Epstein in Miami-Dade County court in Florida. The suit alleged that Brunel and MC2 Model Management had lost millions in revenue due to Epstein's high profile legal troubles which prompted model scouts and Elite Model Management to avoid doing business with the agency. The lawsuit was later settled under undisclosed terms.
Virginia Giuffre v. Ghislaine Maxwell (2015) As a result of Giuffre's allegations and Maxwell's comments about them, Giuffre sued Maxwell for defamation in September 2015. After much legal confrontation, the case was settled under seal in May 2017. The Miami Herald, other media, and Alan Dershowitz filed to have the documents about the settlement unsealed. After the judge dismissed their request, the matter was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
On March 11, 2019, in the appeal of the district judge's refusal to unseal the documents relating to the 2017 defamation settlement of Giuffre v. Maxwell, the Second Circuit Court gave parties one week to provide good cause as to why they should remain under seal, without which they would be unsealed on March 19, 2019. Due to speculation of what prominent names might be exposed related to Epstein’s trafficking of minors, the documents were misrepresented on social media and news outlets as a "list". In testimony, Giuffre claimed that she was "directed" by Maxwell to give erotic massages and engage in sexual activities with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor; Jean-Luc Brunel; Glenn Dubin; Marvin Minsky; Governor Bill Richardson; another unnamed prince; an unnamed foreign president; a well known Prime Minister; and an unnamed hotel chain owner from France, among others. Giuffre testified: "my whole life revolved around just pleasing these men and keeping Ghislaine and Jeffrey happy. Their whole entire lives revolved around sex."
On August 9, less than 24 hours before Epstein's death, 2,000 pages of previously sealed documents from the case were released. Two sets of additional sealed documents were expected to be analyzed by a federal judge to determine whether they should also be made public. A "John Doe" asked the judge on September 3 to permanently keep the documents secret, claiming "unproven allegations of impropriety" could damage his reputation, though he had no evidence his name was included.
Jane Doe v. Epstein and Trump (2016) A federal lawsuit filed in California in April 2016 against Epstein and Donald Trump by a California woman alleged that the two men sexually assaulted her at a series of parties at Epstein's Manhattan residence in 1994, when she was 13 years old. The suit was dismissed by a federal judge in May 2016 because it did not raise valid claims under federal law. The woman filed another federal suit in New York in June 2016, but it was withdrawn three months later, apparently without being served on the defendants. A third federal suit was filed in New York in September 2016; the plaintiff, who resided in California, demanded a jury trial. The plaintiff alleged that Epstein raped her "anally and vaginally despite her loud pleas to stop, [and that he] attempted to strike Plaintiff about the head with his closed fists while he angrily screamed that he, Defendant Epstein, rather than Defendant Trump, should have been the one who took Plaintiff's virginity."