Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (2020) s01e01 Episode Script

1
[WOMAN] Raise your hand, please.
Do you swear the testimony you're
about to give in this matter
shall be the truth, whole truth,
- and nothing but the truth?
- Yes, ma'am.
[LAWYER 1] Would you
please state your full name?
It's Jeffrey Edward Epstein,
and my residence address
is 6100 Red Hook Boulevard
in Virgin Islands.
[LAWYER 1] Do you maintain
any other residences presently?
I have vacation homes in New Mexico
uh Palm Beach, New York and Paris.
[LAWYER 1] Have you ever
been convicted of a crime?
Yes.
[LAWYER 1] What was the crime
of which you were convicted?
[STAMMERING] Uh Two, uh,
counts. One soliciting prostitution,
and procuring a minor for prostitution.
[LAWYER 1] Did you in
fact commit those acts?
I'm going to invoke my
Fifth Amendment right.
[LAWYER 1] How many
times have you solicited
- a minor for prostitution?
- Same answer.
[LAWYER 1] How many times have you
solicited a minor for prostitution
- in the State of Florida?
- Same answer.
[LAWYER 1] Have you
ever solicited a minor
for prostitution in the Virgin Islands?
Same answer.
[LAWYER 1] That is that you are
invoking your Fifth Amendment
- Yes. Yes, Mr. [INAUDIBLE].
- right?
[LAWYER 1] Have you ever solicited
for prostitution in New York?
Same answer.
[LAWYER 1] Have you ever solicited
for prostitution in New Mexico?
- Same answer.
- [LAWYER 1] Have you ever solicited for prostitution in Paris?
- Same answer.
- [LAWYER 1] Have you ever solicited a minor
for prostitution anywhere at any time?
Again, I'm going to assert my right.
[LAWYER 2] Let's take a
break. We'll go off the record.
[LAWYER 1] So you are terminating
the deposition at this time?
[LAWYER 2] We are
recessing the deposition.
[UNINTELLIGIBLE DIALOGUE]
[POLICE SIREN WAILING]
I'm Vicky Ward.
I'm an investigative journalist.
I wrote a story about Jeffrey
Epstein for Vanity Fair back in 2003.
I heard about Jeffrey Epstein, actually,
long before I was
asked to write about him
because he was known
as this sort of Gatsby-like
figure of mystery in New York.
He was this single guy,
very wealthy, very good-looking,
and people knew that he
had made a lot of money,
but they didn't know how.
He claimed to be the money
manager for the uber-rich.
People knew that he hung out
with a lot of famous people:
Prince Andrew,
Bill Clinton,
a lot of famous academics,
the lawyer Alan Dershowitz,
and that he was always
surrounded by very beautiful,
often very young, women.
I knew Ghislaine Maxwell,
his then supposed girlfriend.
She was Oxford educated,
very witty, very funny.
She was a great connector for Jeffrey.
Graydon Carter, who was then the
editor of Vanity Fair, said to me,
"I've been hearing about
this guy, Jeffrey Epstein,
for years, but no one
knows anything about him."
And so he gave me the story.
It was a society piece.
It wasn't supposed to be
anything more than that.
But right away
there was a red flag.
One of my sources said,
"I know a woman who had a
very unpleasant experience
working with Jeffrey.
And even worse,
her younger sister was abused
by him when she was underage.
Maybe they will talk to you."
And, obviously, this took
what had primarily been
a business investigation
in a whole
different direction.
[WOMAN] I began painting
my senior year of college.
I just dedicated myself
to painting constantly.
I looked at it like I
was an Olympic athlete,
and I was just working all
the time, you know, training.
And then I was just giving myself
the fresh mind every time to the canvas.
This is my graduate school,
the New York Academy of Art.
I graduated in 1995,
and the night of our graduation,
actually, you usually have an art show,
and Eileen Guggenheim used
to be the Dean of Students,
and she would run it.
At this show, I decided
to enter a triptych.
So that's three paintings, and it
was the Alice in Wonderland series.
The show is phenomenal for me.
All three of my
paintings sold right away.
The first painting I sold for $14,000,
and then the other
two for $12,000 apiece.
And I was really, obviously, excited,
but Eileen then walked over to me,
and Eileen's literally
like twisting my arm,
and she says, "This couple right here is
who is going to buy your
art. Do you hear me?"
And I said, "Well,
I've already sold it."
And she said, "That's too bad.
You're gonna tell them
that it's not sold,
and you're selling to this couple.
They're very important
benefactors of the Academy."
And Eileen says, "This
is Jeffrey Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell,
my dearest friends.
And they're just completely delighted,
and you will be selling to them,
and they will get a discount."
And so I got 6,000 instead
of 12,000 that night.
And Jeffrey Epstein said, "Don't
worry. We'll make it worth your while.
Don't worry."
I didn't see or hear from
Jeffrey for a couple of months.
And one day the phone rang, and he
said, "I have a great job for you."
Jeffrey had just acquired
this mansion on 71st Street.
He told me, "This is your new job.
You're going to be managing the door,
and you're going to be managing
the people coming and going,
the decorators, the visitors."
One day Jeffrey Epstein
said, "I would like to know
how many siblings you have."
And I described that I had two sisters,
and I told him that my sister
Annie was very intelligent
and has hopes and dreams for a
career, probably in Ivy League.
[ANNIE FARMER] I was 16 years old,
and it was my junior
year in high school.
Maria was living in Manhattan
and had told us that she'd
gotten a job, a great job,
working for this man, Jeffrey Epstein,
and that he might be interested
in helping me in some way.
He had proposed it
would be helpful for me
to go on some kind of international trip
to Thailand and Vietnam in
order to build up my résumé
and to be more appealing
for a competitive school.
He agreed that he
would pay for that trip.
At the time, it was very
[LAUGHING] It seemed very
expensive, you know, so
um I was just feeling
really grateful for that.
The trip was supposed to
be that summer in July,
and so he suggested that I come out
to meet him and Ghislaine Maxwell
at their ranch in New Mexico.
My mom's understanding of
what that trip would be was
a chance for me to
meet some other students
who would also be
going on similar trips.
But when I got there,
I realized I was the only
one there staying with them.
They showed me around the property.
It was part of building up this
sense of, like, look at who I am,
look at all that I
have, be impressed by me.
Ghislaine was very interested in whether
I had ever had a massage before,
like a professional
massage, and I had not.
It was really presented as, like,
you're so lucky that you get to do this,
to, you know, get this massage.
She told me to undress,
and there was a table
there with a sheet on it.
You know, a portion of it
was just pretty typical, um
but there was a time when
she had me lay on my back,
and she, you know, pulled the sheet down
so that my breasts were exposed.
Because of the layout of the
house and the doors that were open,
I knew that Epstein could see me.
I think the way that she
rubbed my chest in, you know,
in the massage also was inappropriate.
The scariest moment of the weekend was
when he came into my
bedroom in the morning
and said that he would like to cuddle.
He crawled into bed with me.
And, um you know, was touching me,
and I don't remember
how long that lasted
because I was sort
of checking out a bit.
But I remember making an excuse
like I needed to go to the bathroom.
Got out of bed, and, like,
went into the bathroom,
and kind of shut the door, and was
you know, very scared
of what was going on.
And afterwards, I just avoided it.
I didn't tell my closest friends,
and I didn't tell Maria and my family,
and I just thought,
"I'm going to focus on
this trip this summer."
And I went to Thailand and Vietnam.
[MARIA FARMER] Annie was
on this program in Thailand,
and I received a call
from Jeffrey saying
that we want to help
you with your career.
So I was asked to go do
an artist-in-residency.
I was to go to Ohio,
and I would be living in
this 26,000 square foot home
behind Les Wexner's house.
When I asked Jeffrey who Les Wexner was,
he said, "He is my client
and my very good friend,
who happens to be a billionaire,
and he would do anything for me."
So I drove a Penske truck to Ohio
because I took all of my art supplies.
I set up shop,
and I started painting.
These paintings were
paintings about puberty,
girls partially nude,
voyeuristic kind of private moments,
but not sexual.
My process is that I take
photographs, and I work from them.
And I was using my two
sisters as the models.
So, Jeffrey and Ghislaine
came to visit one day.
[INSECTS BUZZING]
[MARIA] That night, Ghislaine
came and got me and said,
"Jeffrey would like to
have his feet rubbed."
And my stomach sank.
I felt like, "Gosh, I don't want
them to think I'm not grateful,
but this is so inappropriate," you know?
And so I [GROANS] rubbed
his feet for a little while
and he said, "Come up here."
Then he patted over here
for me to sit next to him.
Then Ghislaine sat down
on the other side of me.
Jeffrey immediately was doing this.
Like, it was really
mechanical and bizarre,
and Ghislaine then was doing this on me.
And then they were touching me
in different ways on my chest.
It didn't feel right at
all, and I didn't like it.
I kind of had like,
you know, some tears,
and she goes, "Shh, it's gonna be okay."
And she was like really
with her other hand, like,
rubbing on my hand
and telling me that it
was going to be okay.
I had escaped my body at that point.
I wasn't really in that moment at all.
And at some point,
I was able to like catapult
my body out of that bed.
I went to my room, and
I barricaded my door.
I put a piece of furniture against it.
Just kind of huddled up in that room
until Jeffrey and
Ghislaine left that morning.
When I woke up, I
went and checked to see
if my photographs of
my sisters were there,
and realized three
photographs had been stolen.
And I was freaking out.
So, I called Annie.
[ANNIE] My sister confronted me
about whether anything
had happened to me
when I was at the ranch.
I told her things that had made me
really uncomfortable had happened,
but I really don't
want to talk about it.
[MARIA] I said, "Listen,
you're never going to have
to deal with them again.
Do not worry.
I am so sorry you were exposed to this."
It was just a very uncomfortable feeling
to know that he had these photos of us,
and
in particular of my younger sister
because she was just 12
when those photos were taken.
And
it was just so
um
It was just upsetting to
know that he had those photos,
and to never know what happened
to them or how he was using them.
He could be using them to
sexually please himself.
[MARIA] So the next
day, Jeffrey called me,
and he tried to pretend like
it was a really fun time
he'd had the night before,
and he tried to kind of
play it off like that.
And I said, "That wasn't fun for me."
And then he offered to give
me basically what I wanted
to not make a stink about
everything, just, "What do you want?"
Like, "How much money do you
want? What can I do for you?"
Um
And I s I didn't say
anything. I hung up on him.
When I got back to New York City,
I told the NYPD everything
that had happened.
I told them I'd been
assaulted. And they said,
"It's just not in our jurisdiction.
Like, we have nothing to do with this.
These things happened
in Ohio, New Mexico.
You're gonna have to call the FBI."
When I called the FBI, I
laid it out very specifically.
I said, "I'm reporting these people:
Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell."
I told them everything, and I
could tell that he believed me.
So, I really had believed that
he was going to take care of this.
And then we just actually
did not hear back.
[VICKY WARD] Because these sisters
had been ignored for so long,
they were very, very frightened
of going on the record,
speaking up about what
Jeffrey would do to them.
Part of them, understandably,
just thought they could never
fight against a man of his power.
We proceed, very reluctantly
after a family decision,
um that we're going to do this thing.
We're going to talk about this.
[WARD] I spoke to the younger sister,
who was molested by him
and lived in fear.
[ANNIE] So, after we had
presented our story to Vicky,
then Vanity Fair had to
take this account to Epstein
to essentially fact-check it
and get his perspective
and his side of things.
And when they did that, he
came back with his own story,
which was we were in fact women
that were infatuated with him.
And that's what this was
coming out of. It was,
you know, revenge for
that being unrequited.
[WARD] He would say, "Well,
Vicky, if I don't like this piece,
it's going to be bad
for you and your family."
And I was newly pregnant with twins.
He said, "Where are you giving birth?"
He followed that up with,
"I know all the doctors
in all the hospitals,
so it doesn't matter. If you
don't tell me, I'll find out.
If I don't like this piece,
I'm going to have a witch doctor
place a curse on your unborn children."
He was beginning to spook me out,
and these are just conversations.
So I could only imagine
how the women must have felt.
I got a phone call from Graydon.
He was pretty spooked
because he'd found a severed
cat head in his garden.
He also found a bullet on his doorstep.
And then suddenly, I
was told by my editor
that the girls were being
taken out of the story.
I was horrified. I said,
"Why? They've been so brave.
They've laid so much on the line. Why?"
And the message came back,
"Well, he's obviously sensitive
about the girls. That's a sore point."
I'll never forget Graydon
Carter saying to me,
"I believe Jeffrey Epstein."
[ANNIE] I remember buying
the copy of Vanity Fair
and seeing the spread, you
know, "The Talented Mr. Epstein."
And it said nothing about
any of his interest in girls.
I think that Vanity Fair basically
got bought off by Jeffrey.
The excuse was, "Well,
it's a business story."
It was a business story,
but, just like life,
the story was more complicated,
far more complicated.
I cried in public. [LAUGHS]
Um
You know,
so much work,
so much bravery,
and for what?
[ANNIE] It seemed it was more evidence
of the fact that he was powerful,
and he could fix whatever thing came up.
[WARD] Jeffrey Epstein
is the ultimate story
of the abuse of power and money.
But, of course, what none of us knew
was that the girls who I'd spoken to
were only the tip
of the iceberg.
And it actually got
even worse in Florida.
[SINISTER MUSIC]
[MAN 1] Jeffrey Epstein bought
his Palm Beach mansion in 1990.
Epstein was new money.
He didn't have generations
of growing up there,
sailing in the Intracoastal Waterway
but he had tons of new money.
And if you have enough money, you
can buy your way in to any society.
There are things that have been true
about Palm Beach since I was a kid.
Some of the protectiveness,
some of the clannishness
It's definitely a very insular world.
There is almost a
hermetic seal around it.
It's not just an
extremely wealthy zip code.
It's an island.
And I think that
it almost has a psychological effect
on the very wealthy
people who move there,
or who have grown up there,
or whose fathers or grandfathers
bought estates there,
because there's a sense of
security, and safety, and privacy,
and they like it that way.
[MAN 2] Epstein and I
essentially were neighbors.
And why would Jeffrey
Epstein come here?
You know, here it is.
I mean, you're on the ocean.
It's quiet and secluded.
I came down here in 2007,
and back then, there was very
little known about Jeffrey Epstein.
What people knew about him was
that he was stunningly rich.
The guy was living a life
that most people dream about.
He had a 15 to 20 million
dollar house here in Palm Beach.
He had one of the largest
townhouses in New York City,
a massive apartment in Paris,
his own private island in the Caribbean,
a sprawling ranch in New Mexico,
a helicopter,
two airplanes, one a 727.
[AIRPLANE ENGINE ROARING]
That's the commercial
side of the airport
there where all the JetBlue
and everyone else lands.
But the west side of the airport
is where all the private jets are.
And that's where
Jeffrey parked his jets.
I was a reporter here for 25 years.
I also lived over in Palm Beach.
Covered the Epstein case extensively.
This guy was a bit of a ghost down here.
Nobody really saw him. Nobody knew him.
In the '80s, he hit
it out of the ballpark.
A lot of powerful men liked him
and trusted him to handle his money.
Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump,
they were both wealthy
guys from New York,
and they both ended
up living a mile apart
along billionaire's row in Palm Beach.
They knew each other. Epstein
frequented Mar-a-Lago for a time.
There's now a widely circulated
quote from Donald Trump,
which he probably would
like to reel back in,
"I've known Jeff for
15 years. Terrific guy.
It is even said that he likes
beautiful women as much as I do,
and many of them are
on the younger side."
[CARL HIAASEN] Palm Beach
is a very small town.
It's almost impossible
to conceive living there
and moving in that world
and not hearing rumors about Epstein
or not being aware of something
odd going on at Jeff's place.
[ENGINE STARTING]
I'm Michael Reiter.
I've been here 38 years,
on the Palm Beach
Police Department for 28,
and I was Police Chief in Palm
Beach from 2001 through 2009.
I first met Jeffrey Epstein
somewhere around 2001.
Epstein visited me in my office
to talk about making a donation of
equipment to the police department,
which was nearly $100,000.
It was a brief visit. It was
just a little bit of chit-chat.
My impression was that he was
just a wealthy, very private guy.
Nearly two years later,
we received reports from his neighbors
that there was a large
number of young women
going to and from his residence.
We thought, "That's suspicious."
We sent personnel to stop them
and interview them.
They were all adults, the
three or four that we talked to,
and they said that they were simply
doing office work for Mr. Epstein.
Since they were all adults,
there didn't seem to be
any further police interest.
Then in 2005,
the parent of a young girl
called the police station.
- [DIAL TONE]
- [DIALING NUMBERS]
[TELEPHONE RINGING]
- [PAGAN] Hello?
- [STEPMOTHER] Hi, how are you?
[PAGAN] I'm good. I'm
returning your call,
I apologize. I don't know what for.
[STEPMOTHER] It's okay. It
was an incident that occurred
maybe three and a half weeks
ago with one of my stepdaughters.
One day at school, she got into a
fight, and she had over $300 on her.
So after asking her and
asking her what was going on,
I found out that it ended up being that
they went to Palm Beach
to a gentleman's house.
And they start off by giving
this gentleman a massage.
And he pays them.
If he likes them and thinks
that they're pretty enough,
- he keeps them around to do other things.
- [PAGAN] Okay.
[STEPMOTHER] So I wasn't quite
sure if there was an investigation
or if you guys had any word
[PAGAN] Well, this is the
first I'm hearing of it.
- [STEPMOTHER] Okay.
- [PAGAN] I'll need some more information.
Would your stepdaughter
be willing to come in
to provide me with a statement?
[MICHAEL REITER] When a juvenile reports
that they have been a victim of a
sex crime to the police department,
we immediately take that very seriously.
The parent was asked to bring the
victim into the police station.
A detective conducted an interview.
Immediately upon, uh
that victim's report to us,
which we found very credible,
we launched an investigation.
The very first victim was
about 14 years old at that time.
We were able, from the interview,
to figure out exactly
where the house was.
From the description
the victim provided,
it was clear that it was Mr. Epstein.
The case was assigned to our
special investigations unit
partly because of the
nature of the crime,
and partly because Mr. Epstein
was a powerful, influential person.
Joe Recarey was the lead
investigator of the case.
Unfortunately, Joe Recarey
passed away a few years ago,
but at the time, he believed
there were other victims.
So he began contacting them
and listening to their stories.
[RECAREY] I appreciate you
coming down to talk to me.
- You're not in any trouble.
- [STEPHANIE] Okay.
[RECAREY] I want to put
that out there right now.
- How did you meet Mr. Epstein?
- [STEPHANIE] Through a friend.
[JOYCE] It was like two years ago or so.
[RECAREY] About two years ago?
That's when you first met him?
[JOYCE] Yeah. Yeah.
- [RECAREY] You were 17 then?
- [SHARON] Mm-hmm.
[RECAREY] What is it that you
were told you would have to do?
- [SHARON] Give him a massage.
- [RECAREY] Okay.
[RECAREY] During the
massage, did he um
ask you to remove your pants or
[HEATHER] Yes.
[REITER] Every victim told
essentially the same story.
They thought that they
would give him a massage.
That's what most of them were told.
That's what lured them there
for a small amount of money.
[RECAREY] What else happened when
you were providing the massage?
[SUSAN] He took the towel off,
and he started pleasing himself,
which I was very uncomfortable with.
- I wanted to leave right when I got there.
- [RECAREY] Okay.
[REITER] Our biggest concern
was that the victimization
not to continue.
That's why we started
surveillance right away.
We surveilled the airport
[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]
[REITER] the house.
[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]
[REITER] As we found additional victims,
one victim would tell us about others,
those others would tell us about others,
and it began to multiply geometrically.
[RECAREY] Okay. First of all, I
know this is hard on you, okay?
Just take a deep breath.
[HEATHER SIGHS] I'm trying. It's just
I wasn't aware that I
was going to be alone
with him for that ten minutes.
And I thought I was gonna die.
[RECAREY] Did you have
intercourse with him?
- [SUSAN QUIETLY] Yes.
- [RECAREY] Okay.
[REITER] After two or three months,
we feared that this involved a
really large number of victims.
[RECAREY] Can you raise your right hand?
Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth,
- so help you God?
- [MICHELLE LICATA] I do.
- [RECAREY] State your name for the record.
- Michelle Licata.
I found the calendar
from December 2004
the month that I met Jeffrey Epstein.
I wrote down my first
party that I'd ever been to,
talked to a boy 'til three
o'clock in the morning.
And then right before Christmas,
that's the weekend
that everything changed
in my entire life.
[RECAREY] All right. In your own words,
tell me exactly how you were
introduced to this gentleman
by the name of Jeffrey
in, uh Palm Beach.
[LICATA] Um My friend
told me in class that
she could find a way of
making money for Christmas.
I didn't really know what
she was talking about,
but I was like, "Okay."
[LICATA] I was a good kid.
I always thought that my
life was just ordinary.
I had seven kids in my family.
- [MALE TEACHER] Michelle Licata.
- [APPLAUSE]
[LICATA] I was really good in school.
I had a lot of friends.
[CHEERING]
[LICATA] In cheerleading,
I got the Spirit Award.
[CROWD CHEERING]
[LICATA] Just a normal teenage girl.
[WOMAN] And what are we gonna do?
We're gonna shop!
[WOMAN LAUGHING]
[LICATA] One day, this girl wrote
me a note in class that said,
"Do you want to make some
extra money massaging old guys?"
And I was like, "Okay,
that seems weird. But okay."
[LICATA] She said to just
go to this old guy's house
and just massage him for 45
minutes, and you'll get like $200.
- [RECAREY] Okay. How old were you?
- [LICATA] Sixteen.
[RECAREY] Okay.
[LICATA] We're driving probably
like a good 45-minute ride.
We pulled into a big,
expensive-looking mansion.
Before we got out of the car, she said,
"Okay, so if anybody asks,
uh, you're over the age of 18,
but I don't think anybody is
going to ask, just if they do."
I was only there for like
maybe a minute or two,
and then he walked in.
He laid down on his stomach.
He said, "Okay, there's
some lotions over there
if you wanted to start
massaging my feet and my legs."
He flipped over, and
he was talking to me
about, uh, the way that I looked.
He was telling me how beautiful I was.
I never thought I was the
pretty girl in high school.
I had braces,
and for somebody to be
pointing the spotlight at me,
it was like, "Okay, he's
giving me compliments.
I never thought of myself that way."
And then he kind of was like
grabbing my hip and kind
of like maneuvering it
so that he could look at me.
He was telling me to take
off my shirt and pants.
He's like, "You can get
down into your underwear."
You know, you start
thinking, "Okay. So
if I try to leave or be like,
'Uh, no, we're not going
to do this, ' you know
how would you leave?
Like, is there a gun hidden somewhere,
like, he was going to pull out?"
As a young girl, you just do
Because he's an adult, you just
do what someone asks you to do.
[LICATA] And then he sort of
grabbed my thighs, and he was
jacking himself off at the same time.
He just tried, like,
rubbing me down there.
[RECAREY] Okay.
[INHALES DEEPLY] And
[STAMMERING] th that was where
I started freaking out completely.
I was like [SIGHING] "Okay, okay
Can we just get this over with?
This is just so unreal.
This is not happening."
He just looked like a scary sicko
in my mind, like
He just looked like [STAMMERS]
[STAMMERING] I just still
have the vision of his face.
[LICATA] I backed away, and I said,
"Well, I don't know
if I should do that."
And I freaked.
I was very hesitant and so scared.
[RECAREY] As I told you before
and I explained to your mom,
what he did was wrong, okay?
- [LICATA] Okay.
- [RECAREY] Um
[RECAREY] I want to
reassure you on that, okay?
[LICATA] When he was done,
he wrapped himself up in a towel,
and he said, "There's 200 for you.
I would really like to see you again."
And I was like [INHALES DEEPLY]
"Okay, okay." In the back
of my mind, I was like,
"I am not ever coming
back here ever again."
And I just went downstairs,
and I felt so used.
I felt so used, like it was
I was just like this dirty person.
Before Epstein, I was
[EXHALES SHAKILY]
[VOICE BREAKING] I was
I was
[SOBBING] something else.
The way I saw myself
[INHALES SHARPLY]
a long time ago
[SOBBING] I was, like
like this flower.
A flower that was, like, opening up.
And afterwards, it was
[INHALES SHARPLY]
like somebody just
picked up that flower [SNIFFLES]
plucked it from its roots,
and stomped on it and smashed it.
[SNIFFLES]
[RECAREY] I know this
is difficult for you,
and I know it was difficult
for you to talk to me today.
Is there anything else you'd
like to add to this statement?
[LICATA] No.
[RECAREY] Okay. Then I
conclude this statement.
The time on my watch is 5:25 p.m.
[TAPE PLAYER CLICKS]
[SINISTER MUSIC]
[HIAASEN] Many of the girls
were brought across the bridge
from the mainland,
which is West Palm Beach.
And it's a whole different
world when you cross the bridges.
Parts of West Palm Beach are like
a lot of other communities
along the Gold Coast
where it's working class.
It's not necessarily high end at all.
It's a real world.
To think what it must have been
like to come from modest means,
and in some cases broken
homes, troubled homes.
Palm Beach is like Oz.
[CHUCKLING] If you live in West Palm,
that's just not a world you experience.
My name is Shawna Rivera. This
is the house that I grew up in.
This is where usually
we would sit out here.
We had a big hammock on the patio.
This room was my room.
The time that I first met Jeff, my
girlfriend came over here to, um
to take me with her to Jeff's, right?
Like right after this street here
there's a trailer park, there's a canal
and then there's a trailer park,
and so she walked over here
and convinced me to go with her.
I didn't have a good childhood.
I was a runaway for two years.
My mom used drugs pretty
heavily most of my life.
My dad went to prison when I was three.
And when I was ten, my
dad got out of prison.
At some point, my dad
had a girlfriend
who had some kids,
and the kids had clearly
been abused prior to this.
And I would say it was like a
week or so after my 12th birthday,
my dad and his girlfriend beat her son,
her eight-year-old son, to death
[INHALES DEEPLY] Um
In front of me.
And so I, um
[CLEARS THROAT] ran away from home.
I lived in, like, shelter homes.
Finally, my grandma was
able to get custody of me.
I was 14 years old when
I met Jeffrey Epstein.
My girlfriend, she's like, "Shawna,
I'm going to this guy's house.
I can't go by myself.
I just can't do it.
I just need you to come with me."
I was just like, "All right. Fine."
I didn't know what was going to
happen. I just went along with it.
Once you get over the bridge
into Palm Beach, you see yachts
and all these huge mansions.
This is like
not something I'm familiar with.
We walk into the back,
and there's this girl.
She's young
with an accent. I don't know her.
She's familiar with my
friend. "Hi. Hi. Hi."
We walk into this room,
and this dude walked in.
I remember thinking he was kind of rude.
He says, "Oh, hey. Hi."
He's, like, on the phone,
and he, like, lays down.
So then my girlfriend tells me,
"We're just going to
give him a massage."
And she said, "Oh, well, we
have to take our clothes off."
And I'm like
"I have to take my clothes off?"
And she says, "Yeah,
we have We both
We both have to take our
clothes off. All of them."
So you have me and my
14-year-old girlfriend
totally naked, and I'm
giving this old man a massage.
But then my girlfriend says,
"Well, I'm going to go."
And I'm like, "What
the fuck are you doing
leaving me here?" Like, "Why?"
I couldn't believe she
was walking out of there.
Then this guy, he asked
me how old I was
and I remember telling him
that I was 15 years old,
and I was actually 14 years old.
That didn't scare him.
[INHALES DEEPLY] It was kind of,
like, "Oh, okay. You're 15. Okay."
Then he turned over [SNIFFLES]
and he wanted me to rub the lotion
that we were using, like,
all over his chest. [SNIFFLES]
And he told me to just grab his nipples
and squeeze and pinch
as hard as I could.
[SNIFFLES] And I just, like,
I just remember standing
there and just being, like
"What is going on? This is so weird."
I just couldn't wrap my head around it.
I was like, "What the fuck is this?"
I'm 14 years old.
I'm a virgin.
It just went on like that
for a couple of minutes,
and he finished
and there was money sitting there.
He told me to go ahead
and pick up the money.
So I just got dressed,
and I walked out and left.
I was so embarrassed.
I didn't know how to say, like,
"No, I don't I
don't want to do that."
I don't know how long it was
after the first time
I had gone over there
but I one day, I got
a phone call at my house.
They called me a cab
to take me to Jeff's.
There was no explanation. There
was just, "Take the cab to Jeff's."
I assumed if I went back
I would get more money.
I mean, I didn't have any money.
I didn't have a family like that.
I just
didn't know how to handle it, you know.
So, I think I kind of went
into this kind of like
pilot mode kind of
situation, where I just
[INHALES DEEPLY]
tried to, like, get
through it and just go home.
I couldn't say, "This isn't right."
I couldn't say, "This isn't normal."
I couldn't say, like,
"This is a sick man."
And it was probably for
like three or four years
I continued to go.
[WOMAN] I'm an educational psychologist
and mental health counselor.
I've worked with many
victims of sexual trauma.
And the first thought that I had
when reading about the
Jeffrey Epstein case
is that he targeted girls
that were so vulnerable.
Um, and this is something
that most sexual predators do.
The first step in the grooming process
is spotting a vulnerable victim,
someone who is financially disadvantaged
or that already have some
sexual trauma in their past.
Sexual predators like Jeffrey Epstein
have an eye for picking out someone
who is in need of something,
and they identify that need,
and then they exploit it.
When you're pairing a teenage girl
with a brilliant,
narcissistic billionaire,
their adolescent brain was not equipped
to understand or react
to what was happening.
[REITER] We were frustrated that,
while some people were cooperative,
most of the victims
did not want to prosecute
for fear of Jeffrey Epstein.
They knew that Mr. Epstein was
a powerful, influential,
very wealthy person.
So they were very reluctant.
And so we decided to talk
to some of his employees.
[TELEPHONE RINGING]
- [RECAREY] Good morning, Mr. Alessi?
- Yes, speaking.
Hi. This is Detective Joe
Recarey with Palm Beach Police.
I'm investigating a case against,
uh, a former employer of yours,
Jeffrey Epstein.
[ALESSI] This is something
that I really would
not like to be involved,
- if I'm not involved with it.
- [RECAREY] I understand that,
but you may hold some information
which would assist me in this case.
[ALESSI] But I don't want
to get in trouble or
I don't want to get sued by
Mr. Epstein or by his company.
[TELEPHONE RINGING]
[RECAREY] You are Alfredo
Rodriguez, correct?
- [RODRIGUEZ] Yes, that's me.
- [RECAREY] Okay.
I just wanted to touch base with
a case that I'm investigating
involving Mr. Epstein.
[RODRIGUEZ] Okay.
[RECAREY] My main concern, obviously, is
the girls that come
over to work for him.
[RODRIGUEZ] Okay.
[RECAREY] What can
you tell me about that?
[RODRIGUEZ] He has a lot of masseuses.
He has a list of favorite,
uh female personnel
to give him massage, you know.
So he gets massage in the
morning, massage in the afternoon.
They were very private, sir, you know.
So I didn't know what went
on behind closed doors.
It was my job to keep
everything discreet.
So
[RECAREY] Would you say
these girls were young?
[RODRIGUEZ] Um
Oof, you put me on the spot, sir.
[REITER] Every part of this
case was an uphill battle.
His employees didn't want to cooperate,
so we went through
the trash at his home.
In one case, we found
a school report card
for one of the victims.
And in another case, we
learned that he sent a messenger
to the school to provide
flowers to the victim
who had been part of
a performance there.
[JAMES PATTERSON] West Palm
Beach has dozens of high schools
and middle schools.
Thousands and thousands of kids.
Some private schools out there.
All these schools became a
hunting ground for this predator.
[WOMAN] I think at 16, 17,
when you're in high school,
I think we're all vulnerable.
This is Royal Palm Beach High School.
This is where we went to high school.
Not the happiest moment in my life.
My name is Haley Robson, and I
was 16 when I met Jeffrey Epstein.
Growing up in West Palm Beach, I
had a big family, lots of cousins.
I have two sisters.
My dad was a police officer.
My mom worked in banking.
I love horses.
I started riding when I was 11.
Couple years later, I got competitive.
This was probably the
most happy time of my life.
But I had gone through
a traumatic experience
before I met Jeffrey Epstein.
The summer before I
turned 16, I was raped.
[CLEARS THROAT] It was my
first experience with a man.
He was 21.
I just closed up.
Um I started using drugs. I was
drinking all the time, smoking weed.
I just kind of wanted to
just vanish, just disappear.
The girl that introduced
me to Jeffrey Epstein
went to High School with me.
She said, "I know this guy
and he would give me $200
just to give him a massage."
And my first immediate reaction
or thought that came to my mind was
"This is my ticket out of
West Palm. This is my way out."
We drove to Palm Beach island
and we actually walked in
It wasn't the front door.
It was almost like this side
door that led into the kitchen.
I remember we walked up a flight
of stairs that kind of curved.
And the first thing that I noticed,
because it was so distracting,
was the wall art.
A lot of nudity.
Naked statues, naked pictures.
It made me feel uncomfortable
and then I saw, like,
a photograph of kids.
It wasn't normal.
The massage began as a massage,
then he turned over.
He was naked on the table.
And I just remember
feeling really scared.
It just brought up a lot of bad
emotions.
[RECAREY] Did he touch you?
[HALEY ROBSON] Yeah,
in inappropriate places.
[RECAREY] Does he use his hands?
[ROBSON] He uses his hand, and
I guess it's like a vibrator.
But, um
I refused to do that.
He tried to touch me below the belt.
I declined.
Um, I told him I
didn't feel comfortable.
"No, it's not going to happen."
At that moment, he was offering me,
"Okay. Well, this isn't
going to happen, so
just if you have any friends,
if you bring them to
me, I'll give you $200."
- [RECAREY] Just to bring a girl?
- [ROBSON] Yeah.
[RECAREY] The girl that was going
knew she would have to massage him.
[ROBSON] She knew everything.
[RECAREY] How long have
you been working for him?
[ROBSON] I probably
worked for him for a year.
I probably recruited
maybe 24 girls.
[ROBSON] Those girls
brought other girls, too.
- [RECAREY] Okay.
- [ROBSON] So, it's like a train.
[RECAREY] Who else was underage?
[ROBSON] Under 18?
- All of them.
- [RECAREY] All of them?
[ROBSON] All of them.
[ROBSON] I would recruit
girls that were friends.
I would just casually bring it up.
And we would drive
together to his house.
I would take them to the room.
And then I would walk out.
Sometimes I would wait out by the pool.
When the girls would leave, Jeffrey
would come outside to pay me.
He would say, you know, "How are you?
How is everything? How's your family?"
He wanted you to think he was
a friend and that he cared.
[RECAREY] All right, I talked
to my boss for a little bit.
- [FRICK] Which is why I'm here.
- [ROBSON] Okay.
[FRICK] Um [SNIFFLES]
[GROANS]
At this point, you've clearly
implicated yourself in a crime.
Okay? You've taken
girls to somebody's house
for the purpose of prostitution.
More importantly, and
more significantly,
one of those girls was 14 at the time.
Okay? Now that's a pretty
significant second-degree felony.
I remember them being
really tough on me,
and I think at one
point I started crying.
And I remember feeling really scared.
And they treated me like
I was his right-hand man.
But what about the
girl that recruited me?
What happened to her?
What about the girl that recruited
the girl that recruited me?
I feel like I've been putting
the blame on myself for so long,
bashing myself, and just
being hard on myself,
but I shouldn't feel guilty
about it because I was 16
and he's the adult,
and he should not
make me feel
guilty.
[SOBBING] I've never said
Never ever come forward like this.
It just, like, brings up,
like, so many emotions.
[DR. KATHRYN STAMOULIS] The girls
that are recruiting the other girls
are definitely victims
of Jeffrey Epstein.
They were manipulated in a unique way.
They were made to feel special,
and they were also offered opportunities
that could get them out of
their life circumstances.
And the added bonus that they
didn't have to do anything sexual
with this middle-aged man.
This is how Jeffrey Epstein
created a sexual pyramid scheme.
[REITER] After months
of our investigation,
we realized that this was a
way of life for Mr. Epstein,
and I believe he felt that
he would never be caught.
And so it was very important for us
to get inside of Mr. Epstein's home,
because we wanted to see if
there was additional evidence
and to validate the information
given to us by the victims.
But we had to be very careful.
We did not want to reveal to Mr.
Epstein that he was being investigated
until we had an airtight case.
Finally, seven months into the case,
we felt as though that was the
time to execute the search warrant.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[RECAREY] This is a complete description
of the residence desired to be searched,
including the curtilage
attached thereof.
I will leave a list of
what items we're taking.
[REITER] We were extremely surprised
at what we found inside Epstein's house.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]