The Most Eye-Opening Things In The Epstein List

When financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell from an apparent suicide on August 10, 2019, his death served as a shocking, conspiracy-inspiring capstone to an already highly disturbing set of criminal charges. Epstein, a prominent businessman, philanthropist, supposed math savant, and more, had connections spanning the realms of politics, economics, and finance. As The Sydney Morning Herald reminds us, he created financial portfolios for the ultra-rich and hob-knobbed with elites — including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump — at various soirées, owned properties across the world (including two whole Virgin Island islands), and was accused of directing an underage sex trafficking ring involving up to 80 young women that involved daily massages and sexual acts. And just to top things off, he was a big into eugenics and cryogenics and wanted to "seed the human race with his DNA," per The Sydney Morning Herald.  

Until very recently, nearly 950 pages of court documents related to Epstein were kept partially redacted. Now, the floodgates have opened, and all of those documents are viewable online via sites like The Guardian. Ultimately, there's not a lot of new, substantial information. There's lots of insinuation and name-dropping, though, which won't be good for the conspiracy mill. That being said, Epstein seemingly had contact with some unexpected folks like Michael Jackson and David Copperfield. We've also got access to some further details regarding his alleged criminal actions. 

Before the current 950 pages of documents regarding Jeffrey Epstein's court proceedings were unsealed, we already knew that former President Bill Clinton had dealings with the disgraced financier. As the BBC outlines, Clinton used Epstein's private jet to travel and make trips to the African continent in the early days of the Clinton Foundation following the end of Clinton's presidential term. The Clinton Foundation website says that the organization launched its very first initiative in 2002 to help African and Caribbean countries develop treatment plans for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. As the National Review reports, Clinton used Epstein's plane 26 times in total.  

That's all well and good, but folks may ask: "Okay, but why use Epstein's plane?" We're not sure. That plane, by the way, was dubbed the "Lolita Express" by media outlets — in reference to author Vladimir Nabokov's controversial 1955 novel containing pedophilia. The Cut explains that Epstein not only used it to fly prominent people around, but also used it for his alleged illicit sexual activities. 

Such information takes on an unsavory light given Bill Clinton's well-known sexual history with his former intern, Monica Lewinsky, who was more than half his age at the time of their relationship. While the BBC points out that there's no evidence that Clinton engaged in any wrongdoing related to Epstein's activities, new information in the unsealed documents suggests that the accused sex trafficker knew about Clinton's proclivities. Notably, one of Epstein's accusers, Johanna Sjöberg, cited Epstein telling her that "'Clinton likes them young,' referring to girls."

[Featured image by Ralph Alswang, White House photographer via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled]

The next installment of unsealed court information regarding Jeffrey Epstein's criminal case was previously reported in 2019 and involves a truly bizarre, even surreal incident reported once again by Epstein accuser Johanna Sjöberg. As the Independent reports — and the original deposition transcription writes in full — Sjöberg said that Epstein's partner Ghislaine Maxwell summoned her upstairs one day at Epstein's townhouse on East 71st Street, New York City. There, Maxwell supposedly retrieved a puppet of Prince Andrew from a closet and put it on the lap of another Epstein accuser, Virginia Giuffre. The real Prince Andrew was purportedly there, too. As some kind of joke, Sjöberg said she was told to sit on the royal's lap next to Virginia and the puppet. Someone allegedly put the puppet's hand on Virginia's breast, and as the story goes, Prince Andrew mirrored the action by putting his hand on Sjöberg's breast.

Prince Andrew stepped down from public life following the fallout from allegations of his misconduct toward Giuffre. He has always vociferously denied these allegations, and also claimed to have never met Giuffre to begin with — no matter that there are pictures of the two of them together.

In the newly unsealed documents regarding Jeffrey Epstein's court case is an email he wrote on January 12, 2015, to partner and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell: "You can issue a reward to any of Virginia's friends, acquaints, family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false. The strongest is the Clinton dinner, and the new version in the Virgin Islands that Stephen Hawking participated in an underage orgy." The gist is this: Epstein was willing to pay accuser Virginia Giuffre's friends for proof that renowned English physicist Hawking was not involved in an alleged underage orgy in the Virgin Islands. In other words, as The Business Standard clarifies, Epstein wanted to disprove the story. It's unclear what he meant by "Clinton dinner."

The only confirmable claim implied in Epstein's email is that, yes, Hawking attended a conference in the Caribbean in 2006 hosted by the financier, as the Independent reported in 2015. A Telegraph article from the same year further shows Hawking on Epstein's "Island of Sin" looking out of a porthole on a submarine. Notably, accuser Virginia Giuffre filed her civil lawsuit against Maxwell in 2015 — the same year as these two reports, as well as Epstein's email to Maxwell about Hawking. Where the orgy story came from and why Epstein would seek to refute it is unclear.

Speaking of individuals with iffy histories regarding relationships with minors: Michael Jackson. Before his death in 2009, the King of Pop had long endured the rumor mill regarding his allegedly inappropriate relationships with children. In 2005, The New York Times reported that Jackson was acquitted of molestation charges against a 13-year-old boy and cancer survivor. Before that — and afterward — plenty of people accused Jackson of being a chronic child molester, including his former maid (via Irish Central). Truth of such allegations aside, all this is to say: If anyone looks bad having anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein, it's Jackson.

Thankfully though, even though the newly disclosed court documents mention Jackson, they only do that: mention him. As the report says and The Telegraph describes, this information once again comes from alleged victim Johanna Sjöberg. In a conversation that also name-dropped world-famous magician David Copperfield, Sjöberg was asked where or not she'd "met anybody famous" when she was with Epstein. Michael Jackson was the first person off the top of her head, and she said she met him at one of Epstein's houses in Palm Beach. When asked whether or not she massaged Jackson, Sjöberg said no, and that was that. The reader will recall that Sjöberg reported being coerced into giving frequent massages to Epstein that included sex. Later, the interviewer again asks her whether or not she gave Jackson a massage, and she simply repeats, "No."

Attorney and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has had quite the career. He was an appellate advisor for O.J. Simpson in the bombastic 1995 case, a consultant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's defense team in 2011, and helped Jeffrey Epstein get his non-prosecution agreement in 2008. Notably, Epstein pled guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution and avoided sex trafficking charges, per the Associated Press. The sex offender would face similar charges in 2019, and Dershowitz was implicated in the disgraced financier's alleged crimes in the unsealed documents, as Forbes outlined.

In the files is sworn testimony from Epstein's housekeeper Juan Alessi, who said Dershowitz was a regular at the financier's Florida property. "[He] came 'pretty often' to Epstein's Florida mansion and got massages while he was there," he said. Another one of Epstein's housekeepers — Alfredo Rodriguez — went further and said the lawyer was "present alone at the home of Epstein, without his family, in the presence of young girls."

The files also say Epstein forced "then-minor Jane Doe #3" to have "sexual relations" with Dershowitz," who was referred to as a "close friend of Epstein's." This allegedly happened "on numerous occasions while she was a minor, not only in Florida but also on private planes, in New York, New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands."

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).