NEW YORK (AP) — Newly disclosed authorities recordsdata on Jeffrey Epstein are providing extra particulars about his interactions with the wealthy and well-known after he served time for intercourse crimes in Florida, and on how a lot investigators knew about his abuse of underage women once they determined to not indict him on federal fees almost twenty years in the past.
The documents launched Friday embrace Epstein’s communications with former White Home advisers, an NFL workforce co-owner and billionaires together with Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
President Donald Trump’s Justice Division mentioned it will be releasing greater than 3 million pages of paperwork together with greater than 2,000 movies and 180,000 photos beneath a regulation supposed to disclose a lot of the materials it collected throughout twenty years of investigating the rich financier.
The recordsdata, posted to the division’s web site, included paperwork involving Epstein’s friendship with Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, previously generally known as Prince Andrew, and Epstein’s electronic mail correspondence with onetime Trump adviser Steve Bannon, New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch and different outstanding contacts with folks in political, enterprise and philanthropic circles.
Different paperwork provided a window into varied investigations, together with ones that led to intercourse trafficking fees in opposition to Epstein in 2019 and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021, and an earlier inquiry that discovered proof of Epstein cavorting with underage women however by no means led to federal fees.
Draft indictment detailed Epstein’s abuse
The FBI began investigating Epstein in July 2006 and brokers anticipated him to be indicted in Could 2007, in keeping with the newly information launched. A prosecutor wrote up a proposed or draft indictment after a number of underage women advised police and the FBI that that they had been paid to present Epstein sexualized massages.
The draft, included within the newest batch of paperwork, indicated prosecutors had been getting ready to cost not simply Epstein but additionally three individuals who labored for him as private assistants.
In line with interview notes launched Friday, an worker at Epstein’s Florida property advised the FBI in 2007 that Epstein as soon as had him purchase flowers and ship them to a pupil at Royal Palm Seashore Excessive Faculty to commemorate her efficiency in a college play.
The worker, whose identify was blacked out, mentioned a few of his duties had been fanning $100 payments on a desk close to Epstein’s mattress, putting a gun between the mattresses in his bed room and cleansing up after Epstein’s frequent massages with younger women, together with disposing of used condoms.
Finally, the U.S. lawyer in Miami on the time, Alexander Acosta, signed off on a deal that allow Epstein keep away from federal prosecution. Epstein pleaded responsible as a substitute to a state cost of soliciting prostitution from somebody beneath age 18 and obtained an 18-month jail sentence. Acosta was Trump’s first labor secretary in his earlier time period.
Well-known names present up in Epstein’s emails
The information have hundreds of references to Trump, together with emails by which Epstein and others shared information articles about him, commented on his insurance policies or politics, or gossiped about him and his household.
Additionally included was a spreadsheet created in August summarizing uncorroborated ideas from folks claiming to have some information of wrongdoing by Trump.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s identify seems at the least a number of hundred instances within the newly launched information, in information clippings, Epstein’s non-public emails and visitor lists for dinners Epstein organized. Some information doc prosecutors’ try and get him to conform to be interviewed.
The information additionally present Musk, the Tesla, SpaceX and X billionaire, reached out to Epstein on at the least twice to plan visits to a Caribbean island the place a lot of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse purportedly occurred.
It was not instantly clear whether or not the visits occurred. Spokespeople for Musk’s corporations didn’t reply to emails searching for remark. Musk has mentioned he repeatedly rebuffed Epstein’s overtures.
Epstein additionally seems to have tried to attach Tisch with ladies, in keeping with emails. In a single change, Tisch advised Epstein he had had lunch with one in all Epstein’s assistants’ associates, a “very candy lady,” and requested if Epstein knew something about her.
Tisch mentioned in a press release that he had a “transient affiliation” with Epstein, “by no means went to his island,” and “deeply regrets” figuring out him.
The paperwork present that Bannon, a conservative activist who served as a strategist in Trump’s first time period, bantered over politics with Epstein, mentioned get-togethers with him over meals and, in March 2019 requested Epstein if he may provide his airplane to select up Bannon in Rome.
In December 2012, Epstein invited Howard Lutnick, the Wall Avenue billionaire who’s now Trump’s commerce secretary, to his island for lunch, the information present. Lutnick’s spouse accepted the invitation and said they would arrive on a yacht with their children. On another occasion in 2011, the men had drinks, in keeping with a schedule shared with Epstein.
Lutnick has mentioned he reduce ties with Epstein way back. A Commerce Division spokesman mentioned Lutnick had “restricted interactions with Mr. Epstein within the presence of his spouse and has by no means been accused of wrongdoing.”
One other Epstein contact was former Obama White Home basic counsel Kathy Ruemmler. In a single change, Epstein emailed Ruemmler to advise that Democrats ought to cease demonizing Trump as a mafia-type determine whilst he derided Trump as a “maniac.”
A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, the place Ruemmler is basic counsel and chief authorized officer, mentioned she had a “skilled affiliation” with Epstein and “regrets ever figuring out him.”
Information construct on authorities’s earlier launch
Final month’s launch of tens of hundreds of pages included beforehand launched flight logs displaying Trump flew on Epstein’s jet within the Nineteen Nineties and photographs of former President Bill Clinton. None of Epstein’s victims who’ve gone public has accused Trump, a Republican, or Clinton, a Democrat, of wrongdoing. Each males mentioned that they had no information that Epstein was abusing underage women.
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail in August 2019, a month after being indicted.
In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of intercourse trafficking for serving to recruit a few of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
U.S. prosecutors by no means charged anybody else in reference to Epstein’s abuse. One sufferer, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, sued Mountbatten-Windsor, saying she had sexual encounters with him beginning at age 17. The now-former prince denied having intercourse with Giuffre however settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.
Giuffre died by suicide final 12 months at age 41.
Tucker and Richer reported from Washington. Related Press journalists from across the nation contributed to this report.
Observe the AP’s protection of Jeffrey Epstein at https://apnews.com/hub/jeffrey-epstein.
