In March 2014, Jeffrey Epstein took his private jet to Seattle to visit Bill Gates at his office. Epstein brought along a Polish model he had met a few months earlier. Dressed in a long gray coat, she posed for a photo with the Microsoft co-founder. Epstein took the picture.
Looking at the photograph now brings back difficult memories for the Polish model, who was then in her 20s. She notes how young she looks at the time. And how strange she must have appeared to Gates and other famous people that Epstein was escorting her to meet.
“Now when I look at myself there, it couldn’t have looked normal,” she said in a recent interview. “I saw the looks of those people, like what is she doing here?”
In the years after he registered as a sex offender, Epstein was rarely alone. He was often accompanied by attractive young women in their late teens or 20s. They opened the door at his New York townhouse when billionaires came calling. They sat beside him at meetings with bankers and celebrities. They traveled with him on his private jet to visit scientists, political leaders and tech-company founders. Photos of some of them with Epstein appeared in tabloid newspapers.
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal revealed that numerous prominent people had met with Epstein after he pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. Many of those people said they believed the convicted sex offender had reformed. Most, including Gates, said they now regret their association with Epstein and that they didn’t know Epstein was using those ties in his dealings with the women. A Gates spokeswoman said the software billionaire neither knew nor interacted with the woman that Epstein brought to Seattle.
The trove of documents reviewed by the Journal, which included Epstein’s daily calendars and his typo-laden private emails, also contained hundreds of entries with young women, including the Polish model. Many of those women were Russian or European models that Epstein had lured into his orbit and sexually exploited while he was hobnobbing with the powerful and wealthy people.
Interviews with several of those women, others familiar with his operations and the trove of documents reveal, for the first time, how Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, used his powerful connections to groom a new generation of women to exploit.
The Journal’s investigation shows that Epstein’s sexual exploitation and abuse didn’t end with his 2008 conviction—as many of his famous associates later said they believed—but continued until his second arrest in 2019. He lured dozens of women by promising to use his connections to powerful people to get them jobs or other opportunities. He then groomed most of the women for his personal sexual exploitation, and passed a select group to other men for sex.
Epstein told some of the women he could get them into Woody Allen films or secure them a job at the United Nations. He promised others he could help them get modeling gigs at Victoria’s Secret. He told the Polish model he could help her get involved at the Gates Foundation. He conjured up many such offers for women.
“Without having legitimate connections to so many high-powered people, Jeffrey Epstein would not have been able to traffic most of these women after 2008,” said lawyer Brad Edwards. Along with his law-firm partner, Brittany Henderson, he represents the Polish model and more than 150 of Epstein’s accusers. “These are smart women who would not have believed him otherwise.”
Under federal law, sex trafficking of adults involves the use of force, fraud or coercion to compel sex acts in exchange for money or favors. The law doesn’t require movement across a border, and the coercion can be psychological. When the victims are minors, the law doesn’t require proof of fraud or coercion.
Edwards’s clients have sued Epstein’s estate and financial institutions that provided banking services to him. Edwards said that most of the women were sexually abused and exploited by Epstein himself, but that he also groomed some for certain of his friends. He said a total of more than 20 men have been named as participants in sexual exploitation or abuse by women who were trafficked by Epstein. He declined to name the men, citing client confidentiality.
Epstein often instructed women to report back their encounters with other men, Edwards said. “He would make the women describe the details of the abuse, and if they were upset, it would get him excited,” he said.
Henderson recently interviewed more than 130 Epstein accusers who came forward in class actions against the banks. She said about 45 of the roughly 55 women who told her they had been sexually exploited by Epstein after 2008 were models from Eastern Europe or Russia, and they were all at least 18 at the time.
The Polish model spent about eight months with Epstein in 2014. She met him through one of Epstein’s middlemen, and Epstein drew her in by promising career help. Epstein took her to academic conferences and to his private island. He photographed her with famous people who visited his New York townhouse, including Allen and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Both men have since said they weren’t aware of Epstein’s alleged crimes.
Privately, Epstein began to sexually exploit her. He told her she needed to stop being prudish, should take massage courses instead of singing classes, start birth control and watch pornography. He berated her for buying her own car and advised her to marry another woman to get a green card. He eventually told her she could get millions of dollars to become a mistress for one of his friends. She realized it was a trap and tried to cut contact.
“At the end, he told me that I’m not going to do well,” she said. “I’m not going to even find a job, and I’m going back to Poland to my small room.”
She is one of dozens of women whose names appear in Epstein’s private calendars. Epstein’s executive assistant Lesley Groff circulated the daily schedules that between 2010 and 2018 listed hundreds of appointments and flights with women in their teens or 20s, sometimes referring to them in the schedules only by their first names and phone numbers. On many days, Epstein would have appointments scheduled with young women between his meetings with businesspeople, politicians and celebrities.
A lawyer for Groff said that part of her job, as a member of Epstein’s professional staff, was to make appointments as directed by Epstein. “At no time during Lesley’s employment with Epstein did she ever engage in any misconduct,” said the lawyer, Jonathan Whitcomb.
On Epstein’s daily schedules for those years, which were reviewed by the Journal, roughly one of every five meetings was with a young woman. The Journal couldn’t identify or reach all of the women listed in the documents.
Many of the appointments with the women at his New York townhouse were for massages that involved sexual activity, according to the women. The schedules don’t capture all of Epstein’s activity. Several women said Epstein would personally text or invite them for visits that weren’t listed on the schedules. Some of the women said Epstein brought them to his business meetings.
Separate interviews with more than half a dozen women, most of whom don’t know each other, reveal eerily similar experiences: Intermediaries, including other female models, pitched Epstein as a wealthy philanthropist who helped struggling models with their careers. After they met him, he gave them money and dangled career opportunities, then coerced them to perform sex acts. The women interviewed by the Journal either said they weren’t passed by Epstein to his friends or declined to address the matter.
The women described similar patterns of how the sexual exploitation began: Epstein offered massages to get them relaxed and then began masturbating and pressuring them into sex acts, sometimes involving a sex toy and participation from other women he was exploiting. Some also said Epstein sexually assaulted them. Afterward, he often made jokes about their discomfort, shared tips on how they could improve their sexual prowess for next time and pressured them to bring their female friends.
Epstein was never charged with a crime for his activities after 2008. His arrest and indictment in 2019 focused on his alleged abuse and exploitation of underage girls between 2002 and 2005 in Palm Beach, Fla., and New York. The indictment accused him of enticing the girls to engage in sex acts with him in exchange for money, and of paying several of those victims to recruit other underage girls to engage in similar sex acts for money.
Although his accusers after 2008 were mostly adults, lawyers representing the women said his behavior constituted criminal sex trafficking because he coerced and defrauded the women into commercial sex acts.
Some of the women, including the Polish model, said they realized that they were being exploited and distanced themselves after a few months despite fearing consequences, while others said they were sexually exploited for years and still have trouble reconciling what happened. Most of the women told the Journal that they feel intense shame and fear public exposure of their association with Epstein.
Some have gone on to successful careers. Others are married and have started families. Many said they are still struggling with trauma. Few have shared their ordeal with their parents or spouses.
“It’s part of life after Jeffrey Epstein,” said a Ukrainian model who said she was sexually exploited by Epstein in 2011, when she was 19. “You feel totally embarrassed and can’t really share anything with people close to you.” She said she decided to share her story with the Journal in hopes that it might help other women. “It’s better for women to understand that you cannot blame yourself,” she said.” You should not suffer alone.”
RECRUITMENT
The Polish model was renting a room in New York in 2013 when she was introduced by another model to Ramsey Elkholy, who billed himself to her as a modeling scout. She had been modeling for years, but confided in Elkholy that she was struggling with finding modeling jobs in the U.S. and wanted to branch out from modeling.
Elkholy, an anthropologist and musician living in New York, suggested that she meet a friend of his with connections to Harvard University who could help her pursue other careers. “He said this person had helped so many people already,” she said. “He never mentioned that this Jeffrey Epstein had a criminal record.”
Harvard said in a 2020 report that Epstein donated $9.1 million before 2008 and had visited the campus dozens of times after his conviction. It declined to comment further.
Unbeknown to the Polish model, Elkholy was communicating with Epstein about finding attractive women who might interest him, and Elkholy brought several of them to Epstein, according to the schedules and people familiar with the matter.
In an interview earlier this year, Elkholy said he brought friends, including models, to Epstein’s townhouse. He said he knew Epstein was a wealthy bachelor who liked beautiful women and massages, but wasn’t aware of the extent of Epstein’s activities. He said Epstein had told him his arrest in Florida occurred because he had been entrapped by a minor who lied about her age.
“On the one hand, you can call that a red flag,” Elkholy said. “On the other hand, you don’t know. It’s just one of those things where you try not to judge. And so if somebody actually went to jail, did his time, then at that point, is he still unsavory or was he unsavory?”
Bruce Rosen, a lawyer for Elkholy, said his client was a modeling agent and that he believed Epstein was going to use his fashion contacts to further the careers of the models he introduced. Elkholy didn’t know that any guests he brought to the townhouse were later sexually exploited by Epstein, Rosen said.
“He did not realize at the time that Epstein was such a manipulator and sexual predator,” Rosen said. “My client was star-struck being around Epstein and the celebrities in his orbit and tried to impress him…he deeply regrets his interactions with Epstein.”
Epstein used a network of intermediaries to find and bring him women. Some were people who owed him favors. Others were women he was sexually exploiting.
The Ukrainian model said she attended a 2010 fashion event for Naomi Campbell in Paris when Epstein spotted her and sent a Russian woman to talk to her. The woman described Epstein to her as a wealthy philanthropist who was a friend of Campbell and could help her modeling career. “She seemed very upper-class,” the Ukrainian said of the Russian woman. “I saw her standing next to the celebrities in the VIP crowd.”
Campbell “had no idea Epstein was using her name to attract young girls interested in modeling, and as he did with many others, he overstated their acquaintanceship,” said a spokeswoman for the model. “She deeply regrets having had any contact with Epstein after his conviction.”
The Russian woman, also a model, told the Journal Epstein ordered her to approach the Ukrainian model. The Russian model said she had been sexually exploited by Epstein since she traveled to the U.S. by herself in 2008.
Epstein took control of her U.S. immigration paperwork starting in 2009 through her modeling agency, MC2 Model Management, in which Epstein was an investor. She showed the Journal five letters that Epstein arranged to support her visa applications over the years, including from a Harvard professor, the head of the International Peace Institute and a Russian minister.
“Even if I were to go back home to Europe or Russia, he had connections there at a very high level,” she said. “I don’t know where I could have gone to escape him.”
She said he pressured her and other women to introduce him to additional women, sometimes telling them whom to approach and what to say. For many years, she said, she believed that he was going to help them achieve their career goals.
A second Russian model was scheduled to bring at least five women to Epstein’s townhouse between 2010 and 2016, according to the documents. In an interview, she said the women were mostly her roommates who were agency-signed models. “They wanted to meet him because they have no one else—no money, no family, no [immigration] papers,” she said. “They needed his help.”
She said she met Epstein when she was 17. Her agency, MC2, put her in an apartment shared with other models and sent her to meet Epstein at his office. She showed Epstein her portfolio, and was surprised that he pulled out $300 in cash from his pocket and told her that he wanted to make her week a little easier. Over the years, Epstein helped her in emergencies, including a 2008 stay at his apartment in Paris and a 2018 flight from Moscow.
She said Epstein tried to massage her and discuss sex, but she declined his offers. She said she doesn’t know what happened between Epstein and the women she introduced and that she wasn’t compensated for the introductions. “I’m confused about it,” she said. “I’m not sure if I was being manipulated or used. I’m working with a psychiatrist to figure out the reality.”
MENTAL MANIPULATION
In late 2013, Elkholy brought the Polish model to Epstein’s townhouse for the first time. They met Epstein in his office there. A taxidermied tiger was sprawled on the floor in front of his desk.
Epstein invited her back for a one-to-one appointment. In that meeting, they discussed her professional goals. She told him she aspired to a career in the arts, including singing and acting.
After the meeting, the model had a fever. A few days later, Epstein contacted her on Skype. “I have no clue where he got my nickname from, because I don’t have an obvious nickname on Skype,” she said. He offered to bring her medicine or connect her with a doctor. Neither her modeling agency nor her friends checked in. “Nobody else cared at all,” she said.
Epstein offered to mentor her in her career and pay for her studies. He told her he had a girlfriend, which she took as assurance he wasn’t interested in her. He transferred around $1,000 to her account and told her to travel with him. In January 2014, he invited her on a trip to his private island in the Caribbean.
The documents indicate the Polish model took a January 2014 flight to St. Thomas along with the first Russian model and one other woman.
The Polish model said that when they got to Epstein’s island, she was “so uncomfortable.” The Russian model, she said, “was walking around naked, and he wanted me to become like her.”
She said Epstein sexually assaulted her, and before she left, gave her $500 in cash.
Upon her return home, he started emailing her suggestions for her career. He told her that she should take classes at a university and that he would pay for them, as well as provide an apartment.
“I suspect that you are a quasi sex virgin,” he wrote in a Jan. 18 email. “Its ok. your sensittivty to the subject and highly emotional reactions to concepts leads me to beleive that this is an issue.”
In another email, he also told her to take the TOEFL, a test measuring English proficiency, and sent links to specific art classes. He said she needed to improve her sexual prowess to gain self-confidence and achieve success.
“Is my impression correct of what you said that braking moral beliefs is a must to achieve sth in life?” she replied in a Jan. 20 email. “I know you would like to help but sex education is not what i want right now. If you feel disappointed i can send you money back.”
“again you misunderstood,” he wrote back within minutes. “I am making an investment in your future , asking if you should return the money , makes little sense. if you dont wnat to do as i recommend thats ok. , I don’t use money as a means to control you. only to empower you.”
Despite his assurances, he continued sexually exploiting her. She said the sexual demands didn’t stop even after she confided in him about her past struggles with physical abuse and anorexia.
He also pressed her to live in apartments provided by him, which she said she declined, and continued paying her sporadically. “I never asked for any money,” she said.
Other women said Epstein showed keen interest in their troubles and asked them intimate questions about their pasts. Several said they confided in him not just about their financial and visa problems, but also relationship troubles, eating disorders and mental-health problems. Two women said they told him about previous sexual assaults.
He typically started by giving them small amounts of cash. The Ukrainian model said when she arrived in New York, Epstein put her up in an apartment and gave about $200—just enough for food and toiletries. “I remember that I couldn’t even afford a return ticket,” she said.
Epstein promised to help the women make powerful connections, find work, pay for their university studies, obtain immigration papers or get an apartment. When they accepted, he would begin to both counsel them and critique them.
He advised some to change their physical appearance. If their hair was longer than he liked, he sent them to “Patrick” at celebrity stylist Frédéric Fekkai’s salon for a haircut. If he thought their teeth were crooked or yellow, he sent them to Manhattan dentist Thomas Magnani for a consultation. Sometimes they were sent shopping to dress how Epstein advised. One of his favorite looks was baggy pants, a lace bra and a semi-sheer top.
The Russian model said Epstein frequently weighed her and other women. He told her she needed to lose weight—she said she was around 5 feet 10 inches and 130 pounds—to qualify for better modeling gigs including Victoria’s Secret, and he urged her to do liposuction in 2010 with Steven Victor, a dermatologist who had appointments with other women sent by Epstein. Epstein also advised her to go on a juice diet when she became bulimic.
“I needed to put on weight, then I needed to lose weight,” she said. “There was always something with my body that was not right.”
A spokesman for Leslie Wexner, the billionaire behind Victoria’s Secret, said Wexner “severed all ties with Epstein in 2007 and never spoke with him again.” Epstein had been Wexner’s money manager before his first arrest. The dentist, the dermatologist and hair stylist didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Henderson, the lawyer representing Epstein’s accusers, said his favors and criticisms were often customized to women’s insecurities, calling his tactics “insidious mental manipulation.”
Epstein set up an array of nonprofits and other entities and paid the women as if they were employees, Henderson said. From 2009 to 2013, he sent payments totaling about $1.8 million through
accounts to women, including many with Eastern European names, court documents show.Henderson said Epstein targeted vulnerable women who didn’t have family around, including several with a history of sexual abuse in their native countries. “He knew they weren’t going to report it because they were trained not to report abuse,” she said.
Some arrived through modeling agencies on tourist visas and weren’t yet legally allowed to work in the U.S., making them particularly vulnerable, she said. Epstein sometimes sent intermediaries to find women in this predicament before they arrived in the U.S., she said. The women didn’t know they were targeted.
“This was international human trafficking,” said Henderson. “These women came to this country deserving and hoping for more.”
POWERFUL PEOPLE
Epstein forwarded emails to the Polish model that he had exchanged in January 2014 with Thorbjørn Jagland, a former Norwegian prime minister who had several scheduled meetings at Epstein’s townhouse. “jagland is head of the council of europe and the chair of the nobel peace prize, I want you to meet,” he wrote to the Polish model. Jagland didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In the first half of 2014, the Polish model said, she flew with Epstein to various places, including his Paris apartment and his ranch in New Mexico. When her modeling agency called her for a job, she sometimes had to decline because she was in a different part of the world with Epstein.
During that time, she met Epstein’s associates, including Gates, Terje Rød-Larsen, then president of the International Peace Institute, and Ariane de Rothschild, the head of a Swiss private bank. That is when the Polish model took the photos at the New York townhouse with Allen and Barak.
She posed in photos with TV journalist Charlie Rose and Joi Ito, then head of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, when she accompanied Epstein to a TED conference in Vancouver.
A lawyer for Rose said his client had limited interactions with Epstein about funding for scientific programming and had “no knowledge of Epstein’s improprieties until they were widely reported.” He said “the photograph in question was a momentary, one-off random event.”
Rød-Larsen said in a written statement that he met Epstein because of his philanthropic connections. “At no point did I suspect, let alone know, that Mr. Epstein was involved in criminal conduct, including the abhorrent crime of sex trafficking,” he said.
Allen said in a written statement he has no idea what Epstein said to others about him. “At no time did he ever request I cast anyone in a movie—and I never did it,” he said.
A company lawyer said de Rothschild declined to comment. Barak and Ito didn’t respond to requests for comment.
After her March 2014 visit to Gates’s office, Epstein’s accountant, Richard Kahn, emailed the Polish model a letter of support for a visa, which said she planned to survey the progress of the Gates Foundation’s work in three African countries.
“This work is critical to our continued operations in Africa,” Kahn wrote in the July 25 letter. “Please accelerate the visa process so that she may continue this valuable work.” A lawyer for Kahn said he had no comment.
Epstein had forwarded to the model a suggested itinerary for an Africa trip for her that was sent to him by Melanie Walker, whose email identified her as a Gates Foundation deputy director. Epstein also connected the Polish model with Walker, who acknowledged she had her résumé. Walker, who had known Epstein for years, was one of several Gates Foundation employees who had visited the townhouse.
A spokesman for Walker, who no longer works at the Gates Foundation, said: “Melanie has always been happy to provide career advice to anyone who asks.”
Several women said Epstein led them to believe he could make or break their careers and name-dropped contacts in the fashion industry, including designer Vera Wang and Naomi Campbell, who both appear in Epstein’s schedules after 2008, according to documents.
Wang said she regrets ever associating with Epstein. “I never knew he was using my name in any capacity, and it horrifies and repulses me to now hear that he did so,” she said.
He controlled units in an apartment building near his townhouse where he housed dozens of young women as well as prominent guests, the documents show. The Ukrainian model said Epstein regularly instructed her and two other young women by email when to walk from the apartment unit to the townhouse.
After sexual activity, which she described as a ritual for Epstein akin to brushing his teeth, they stuck around for other meetings. “He was speaking business, and we were just listening in silence,” she said. “It was fascinating because I was never able to meet these kinds of people anywhere else in the world.”
Epstein frequently had the women attend such meetings or listen to calls with billionaires. He sometimes brought them on trips to visit Harvard and other universities, the documents show.
“He used the powerful people he was intermingling with to further facilitate his sex trafficking scheme, whether those people knew it or not,” said Henderson. “He was using everyone around him to create this facade of legitimacy.”
In 2010, Epstein told the Russian model that she could get an audition with a Hollywood film director, then instructed her to wear a Snow White costume in the townhouse to practice for a role. She said she didn’t get any auditions for the role.
When it became clear to the Russian model that she wasn’t getting the types of acting or modeling jobs Epstein had been promising for years, he connected her with Rød-Larsen, then head of the International Peace Institute, and dangled an opportunity to work at the United Nations.
“Jeffrey said the IPI people loved me,” she wrote in an email to her mother in Russia in 2012. “Waiting to hear back from their lawyers.”
Rød-Larsen wrote an email in 2013 inviting her to Norway, which she used to obtain a visa to travel with Epstein to Norway. She said she accompanied an IPI team to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan in 2014, but a job never materialized. The Journal reviewed emails exchanged with IPI staff, including one in which she sent her résumé in 2013. Rød-Larsen resigned from the nonprofit in 2020 after disclosing he had taken donations and a personal loan from Epstein.
The IPI said it has new leadership and that it finds the revelations in the Journal’s reporting to be “utterly shocking and shameful.”
The Russian model said Epstein asked her and other women to pose with famous men, then encouraged them to post the pictures on social media. The Journal reviewed three photos of her with Gates in different locations, including a Four Seasons Hotel in New York and Epstein’s townhouse.
“Epstein tried, unsuccessfully, to connect himself to Mr. Gates by any means possible, including spontaneously bringing in people for photos with Bill, whom Bill did not know or interact with further,” said a Gates spokeswoman. “Mr. Gates only ever met with Epstein for philanthropic purposes, which he regrets.”
Epstein also used the women to try to impress his guests. The second Russian model said Epstein sometimes asked her to dress in expensive brands like Chanel and sit in on meetings with high-profile men. He showed off Playboy covers for which she had posed. She declined to name the men, fearing retaliation.
“He would ask me to show up to meet some super-wealthy people who he probably needed for an investment,” she said. “The request was to sit there and look pretty.”
THE CULT
As the Polish model spent more time with Epstein, he tried to take charge of her life. He pushed her to quit modeling and become a massage therapist. She said she stopped modeling.
“I want you to be serious abvout making your life secure and better,” he wrote in April 2014.
He said he could help her with a green card if she would agree to marry another woman. He also told her to watch pornography and take birth control. She didn’t do either.
That May, Epstein told her Woody Allen wanted to use her as an extra in one of his films. The offer didn’t materialize.
In emails, Epstein expressed frustration that she wasn’t working on massage therapy enough or learning the skills of becoming a personal assistant.
“I am your friend, I am also your employer, but I am you friend first,” he wrote. “I believe in you, I understand you, I seem unable to communicate the need to grow up.”
By then, the Polish model understood the interactions were hurting her mental health. Epstein kept telling her she was “too old,” she said, but also kept sexually exploiting her.
She said she had taken about 10 courses in massage therapy, but Epstein still wasn’t satisfied. She was struggling with anorexia. In August 2014, she returned to Poland.
“I saw what was happening to his assistants,” she said. “They were really dependent on Jeffrey. I witnessed a few conversations between them, and it was pretty shocking to me the way they acted so devoted to him. So, yeah, it was a trap.”
Epstein called some of the young women he sexually exploited “assistants.” They were expected to dress how he wished, come when he called and travel with him at a moment’s notice. The ones he kept around for years became part of his inner circle.
“These women didn’t go there to be assistants, but they became so reliant on him,” said Henderson. “It’s a textbook cult where everybody is taught they have to worship the guy at the top.”
Existing assistants taught new ones Epstein’s preferences and how to interact with him. They sometimes gave him foot massages and combed their fingers through his hair in front of guests. On his private island, some were instructed to walk around naked.
“He created this group where his behavior appeared completely normalized,” said the Ukrainian model. “Once, the assistants found some news article on the Internet, and I remember hearing, ‘Oh, my God, I cannot believe they wrote again about you, Jeffrey. Like, you know, you’re so nice, Jeffrey.’”
“It was like the book by George Orwell,” she said. “Black is white. White is black. Rape is good.”
The documents show how Epstein oversaw the assistants’ lives. The schedules included visits by their family members, haircuts and doctors’ appointments, including to gynecologists. He arranged for some female assistants to marry other women he was exploiting to get green cards. He even drafted their messages to boyfriends.
When the assistants complained, he berated them or made subtle threats. “You have been eating and eating, though you say you want to lose weight,” he wrote in a July 2013 email to one assistant. “You complain about many mnay things, though it is better than going back to russia.”
Around Thanksgiving 2013, several assistants received a note from Epstein that said: “When I ask that a job get done , i will no longer accept an answer that says , I called , texted , emailed, contacted and I NEVER HEARD BACK. This is unacceptable. Call a minimum of twice a day and then you are to move into high gear and call 10 times a day if necessary until you receive an answer.”
Sometimes, he put his fingers on his lips, advising the women not to talk too much, or he waved his hand in a downward motion to tell women to remove their clothes. Some women said he talked about himself in the third person, describing what “Jeffrey” likes and dislikes.
Epstein often reminded them that their fate was tied to his. “We are like a family,” Epstein wrote to a group of the assistants in 2015.
The first Russian model, who became part of the inner circle, said Epstein dictated when she could leave the townhouse, tracked her daily activities and usually emailed her “???” when he didn’t hear from her. She said the women in the inner circle didn’t have many outside friends because they had to be available to fly with Epstein on demand.
He required thank-you notes for the favors he did for them. He instructed them to smile in naked photos and videos. “It was almost like he was documenting everything so we can’t go against him,” she said.
“If you’re not smiley and positive, he was going to give you a talk, because then you’re acting ungrateful,” she said. “And those gratitude letters, I’m sure he was using them as just another guarantee that we wouldn’t go against him.” The Journal reviewed emails from Epstein to several women demanding gratitude.
The women catered to his various peculiarities. Some were asked to familiarize themselves with a recipe for muffins made with whole wheat flour and digestive bran that they packed in Epstein’s luggage, along with his passport and $6,000 in cash, documents show.
“After a couple of years in the JE circle, none of us had any legitimate things to add to our résumés, and none of the jobs he promised ever materialized,” said the Russian model. “The only option was to stay and keep waiting to see if he fulfills his promises.”
ESCAPE
When she returned home, the Polish model had trouble finding a modeling job. She said she suspected Epstein had used his connections to obstruct her.
Epstein barraged her with messages and Skype calls. He criticized her when she told him she had enrolled in a university on her own and bought herself a car. He wrote that she shouldn’t go on the Gates Foundation trip to Africa. The trip didn’t happen.
“I really am trying to be a friend. and guide you,” he wrote in an email in September 2014. “I have to see many former models whose lives are troubled beacuse they did nt make hard choices.”
He told her to visit a doctor and take contraception. “The hormones will do you good,” he wrote later that month.
“taking your own advice, is rarely the way to succeed,” he told her in a November email.
He forwarded her thank-you notes he had received from other women, including a long email exchange he had with a young woman whom he had paid to visit Africa for development work—the type of work the Polish model had wanted to explore.
“He was trying to make me feel bad because he knew that I was having a hard time,” she said.
While he was trying to lure her back, Epstein told a different story to the other women around him. He told the first Russian model that the Polish model wanted to be his girlfriend. “He said he had to get rid of her and send her back home,” the Russian model said.
In March 2015, Epstein emailed the Polish model the photo with Gates from their visit to the Seattle area, and reminded her what her life was like before she left. “now you are back in your room , as you only follow your own advice,” he wrote.
Soon after, Epstein suggested that she could earn millions of dollars if she was a mistress for one of his friends. “It sounded like a really concrete offer,” she recalled. “I had already said it’s not going to happen.”
The Polish model said her last interactions with Epstein came when she confronted him in the summer of 2015.
“I hope you are living well,” Epstein wrote to her that July 29.
“It’s bit hard to believe that, but thanks,” she replied.
“why ? I always wish you well , and have given you my best advice,” he wrote back.
“Unfortunately my impression is that becoming a mistress was the only one job proposition you were really serious about,” she responded. “Meeting Gates or Woody was great – thank you – will never forget it – although nobody hire me just because I have a nice pictures with them.”
“I guess orgainzing hours of singin lessons , toefl exam, help; special doctors to get you more time so that you could enroll in school, was forgotten,” he wrote. “no need to respond to me anymore. my mistake.”
Other women who tried to distance themselves also said Epstein showed them the thank-you messages from others. They said they received subtle threats and reminders of the favors he had done. At times, he sent intermediaries to coax women into staying in touch.
The women said they were afraid that Epstein could end their careers or ruin their reputations, and believed the only way to avoid consequences was to cave to his demands. “If they disobeyed him, he could take it all away, and he really could take it all away,” said Edwards.
When some women in his inner circle tried to cut ties, they were presented with bills showing they were on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in housing, dental and other expenses—money they didn’t have. The Journal reviewed one woman’s bill detailing years of expenses totaling more than half a million dollars.
The Ukrainian model said Epstein told her that if she left the U.S., she wouldn’t get a visa to come back. Her mental health deteriorated so badly that he had to send her back to Europe after a few weeks. “I looked and felt terrible,” she said. After her visa expired, she said she hasn’t been able to re-enter the U.S., just as Epstein warned.
The first Russian model said she never cut ties. “The more you are in, the harder it was to leave,” she said. “My life didn’t begin until his death, and I still have nightmares that he might be alive.”
THE FALLOUT
In the years after the Polish model left, the schedules show Epstein continued having appointments with aspiring models. In 2015 alone, the schedules show more than 60 appointments with young women.
Several of the women told the Journal that they didn’t report Epstein because they feared deportation or consequences for their careers because of his connections. Some said they blamed themselves for not being good enough to get the jobs they thought Epstein was pursuing for them.
After the Miami Herald reported that dozens of women said they were abused by Epstein, calling into question the leniency of his 2008 plea deal, prosecutors charged Epstein in July 2019 and indicted him on federal charges of sex-trafficking underage girls from 2002 to 2005. That August, he died in jail in what the New York City medical examiner ruled a suicide.
Edwards said Epstein defrauded the adult victims after 2008 by luring them under false pretenses and dangling connections and career prospects that he usually didn’t deliver, and that he coerced them into his scheme by making them believe they could be deported or face other consequences if they declined his demands.
“The power disparity is too great,” Edwards said. “What was left in their mind is that their career is going to be ruined, their reputation is going to be ruined and they personally could be in danger.”
In late 2022, Edwards and Henderson filed class-action lawsuits on behalf of the women, accusing JPMorgan and
of enabling sex trafficking by Epstein. In settlements with the banks, more than 200 accusers who said they were abused from the 1990s to 2019 are eligible to receive compensation—a process that requires them to provide emails, photos and other material to support their stories.To settle the suits, JPMorgan agreed to pay $290 million to Epstein accusers, while Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $75 million. Neither bank admitted wrongdoing. JPMorgan said it regretted its association with Epstein. Deutsche Bank also said it regretted the association and had taken additional measures to combat trafficking.
Not all the women who appeared in the schedules and spoke to the Journal were part of those lawsuits. Henderson said she also knows of dozens of women who were sexually exploited by Epstein but didn’t come forward for compensation out of fear of exposure.
In 2017, long after the Polish model last communicated with Epstein, Elkholy reached out to her on Facebook. “Jeffrey is always asking about u, he thinks we are friends, lol,’ Elkholy wrote in a message. “Why don’t you email him?” Elkholy doesn’t recall the exchange, his lawyer said.
The Polish model is married now and has a family. She works at a large financial-services firm. She said she has tried to forget that period in her life, but still ruminates about what happened.
“He abused me for so long that I don’t understand myself and how I let this happen,” she said. “I’m never going to get rid of those thoughts.”
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/jeffrey-epstein-sexual-abuse-women-vip-connections-f5451078
