If we were to compile a profile of the stereotypical billionaire with a limitless sense of entitlement, Jeffrey Epstein would be it. Last Saturday he was arrested for child-sex trafficking when returning from a trip to Paris. "Epstein is accustomed to having an entourage meet his private jet at the airport; he's just not used to it being made up of FBI agents," noted The Atlantic.
The 66-year-old Epstein is a former hedge-fund manager who started on Wall Street and amassed a vast fortune. An inventory of his possessions includes a seven-storey stone townhouse that is considered the largest private residence in Manhattan (apparently with heated sidewalks). He owns a ranch in New Mexico, an island called Little St James in the US Virgin Islands, a palatial home in Palm Beach, Florida, and a Gulfstream jet.
"He's sort of like a Nazi who fled to South America," gossip columnist George Rush told Vanity Fair. "He was living in peace, like Dr Mengele in Paraguay, literally on his own island. I think he got too relaxed. It just seemed like he had gotten away with so much, and that the world had moved on."
"Jeffrey Epstein is the ultimate symbol of plutocratic rot," wrote Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times, adding that the financier had been enabled by powerful elites.
LONG PRISON SENTENCE
Epstein is already a registered sex offender who notoriously escaped similar charges a decade ago via a widely criticised, shockingly lenient plea deal. He was instead allowed to plead guilty to two counts of soliciting prostitution from a minor and sentenced to 18 months in prison
Now he faces prosecution by the famously tough Southern District of New York and a long prison sentence if convicted.
The latest accusations stem partly from a year-long investigation by the Miami Herald published in November last year. Thousands of pages of court records and lawsuits, witness depositions and newly released FBI documents were analysed.
The allegations against the mogul are also viewed as a test of the power of the #MeToo movement, not only in the US, but internationally. Was the movement a flash in the pan, with little more consequence than glamorous women choosing black for their couture dresses at one or two Hollywood occasions?
Will we see long-term changes in how our society deals with powerful men who commit sexual abuse with little fear of consequences?
— salon.com columnist
"Will we see long-term changes in how our society deals with powerful men who commit sexual abuse with little fear of consequences? Or are we moving back toward business as usual and sweeping such things under the rug?" wrote a salon.com columnist.
If Epstein goes down, he could bring some powerful men with him. He had a big network of associates who included presidents and princes.
Prince Andrew, who reportedly knew Epstein from the 1990s but has since broken all ties with him, has been named by victim Virginia Roberts in a civil court claim against Epstein. She claims she was "loaned out" by Epstein to engage in sex acts with his wealthy friends at his Palm Beach mansion and homes in New York and the US Virgin Islands.
Bill Clinton rode on his jet, nicknamed the "Lolita Express", several times. In 2002 Epstein flew Clinton, actor Kevin Spacey, comedian Chris Tucker and others to SA on a fact-finding Aids mission.
His good pal Donald Trump told the New York magazine in 2002: "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
A Florida businessman claimed that in 1992 he had organised a "calendar" party of 28 young women at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Palm Beach resort. Trump and Epstein were the only male guests. Trump and the businessman have now distanced themselves from the billionaire sex offender.
The legal battle against Epstein and the perversions he is accused of consist of two chapters, each more than a decade apart.
In 2006 Epstein was charged with assembling a large network of underaged girls in Palm Beach for sex acts at his pink waterfront mansion after one of the girls' mothers went to the police and they started interviewing young victims.
Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life.
Former Palm Beach county police detective Joe Recarey, who was part of that investigation, told the Herald last year: "The common interview with a girl went like this: 'I was brought there by so-and-so. I didn't feel comfortable with what happened, but I got paid well, so I was told if I didn't feel comfortable, I could bring someone else and still get paid'."
Michael Reiter, a retired Palm Beach police chief, said: "We had victims who didn't know each other, never met each other, and they all basically, independently told the same story."
During massages Epstein paid extra for oral sex and intercourse and to find other girls. One victim was a petite, blonde 14-year-old still with braces. She told police Epstein preferred girls who were white, prepubescent and from vulnerable backgrounds.
Most girls entered through a side door into a kitchen. A chef might prepare them a meal. They would ascend a staircase to a large bedroom and bath.
Epstein would be clad in a towel. He would select a lotion, lie face down on a massage table, order the girl to strip partially or fully, and tell them to massage his feet and backside. Then he would turn over and have them massage his chest, often instructing them to pinch his nipples, while he masturbated.
YUGOSLAV SEX SLAVE
At times he would try to penetrate them with his fingers or use a vibrator. He would go as far as the girls were willing to let him, including intercourse.
According to police documents, he would sometimes instruct a woman whom he described as his Yugoslavian sex slave, Nadia Marcinkova, to join in. Epstein often took photographs of the girls having sex and displayed them around the house.
Afterwards, Epstein would take a shower in his huge bathroom, which the girls described as having a large shower and a hot-pink and mint-green sofa.
Pupils at Royal Palm Beach High School soon heard about the $200 to $300 they could earn for giving "a creepy old guy" a massage.
Detectives were dumbstruck by the sheer volume of young girls coming and going from his house, the frequency - sometimes several in the same day - and the young ages of the girls.
"He told me he wanted them as young as I could find them," said one of the accusers.
"If I had a girl to bring him at breakfast, lunch and dinner, then that's how many times I would go a day. He wanted as many girls as I could get him. It was never enough." Another victim said Epstein didn't like her because her breasts were too big. A victim told police that during one session, Epstein, unable to control himself, held her down on a massage table and penetrated her.
Reiter said: "This was not a 'he said, she said' situation. This was 50-something 'shes' and one 'he' - and the 'shes' all basically told the same story."
Epstein was careful to choose girls who came from disadvantaged backgrounds or broken homes. According to the Herald exposé, some had parents and friends who had committed suicide; mothers abused by husbands and boyfriends; fathers who molested and beat them. One girl had watched her stepfather strangle her eight-year-old stepbrother.
"We were stupid, poor children," said one woman, who at the time was 14 and had just started high school.
"We just wanted money for school clothes, for shoes. I remember wearing shoes too tight for three years in a row. We had no family and no guidance, and we were told that we were going to just have to sit in a room topless and he was going to just look at us. It sounded so simple, and was going to be easy money for just sitting there," said another.
Epstein hired top lawyers. One of them was Alan Dershowitz, who had served as part of the "Dream Team" in the 1995 OJ Simpson trial.
Prosecutors and the defence reached an agreement that many regarded as a travesty of justice and one of the most outrageous examples of how the rich pervert justice.
Epstein would serve just 13 months in the county jail. The deal essentially shut down an FBI probe into other victims and culprits in the scandal.
The deal also granted immunity to "any potential co-conspirators" and would be kept from the victims until the agreement was sealed.
Unlike other convicted sex offenders, Epstein was housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach county jail and allowed work-release privileges that enabled him to leave the jail six days a week, for 12 hours a day.
The main figure on the prosecution side was the then 38-year-old Alexander Acosta.
Acosta, a rising Republican star who had served in several White House posts, was appointed to Trump's cabinet as labour secretary. He abruptly resigned on Friday.
A few days before his resignation, Acosta had been unapologetic at a press conference, saying his office in Palm Beach had done the best it could under the circumstances. Many legal pundits disagreed.
How in the world do you, the US attorney, engage in a negotiation with a criminal defendant, basically allowing that criminal defendant to write up the agreement?
— Bradley Edwards
"The damage that happened in this case is unconscionable. How in the world do you, the US attorney, engage in a negotiation with a criminal defendant, basically allowing that criminal defendant to write up the agreement?" said Bradley Edwards, a former state prosecutor who represents some of Epstein's victims.
Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, took a different view from that originally expressed by Acosta.
The new, more serious, charges of sex trafficking against Epstein carry a 45-year maximum sentence. Prosecutors are also seeking the forfeiture of his townhouse, where some of his alleged crimes took place.
FORGOTTEN, UNTIL NOW
More than a decade since the offences, at a time when celebrities have told their stories of sexual abuse, Epstein's victims were forgotten. Until now.
"Jeffrey preyed on girls who were in a bad way, girls who were basically homeless. He went after girls whom he thought no-one would listen to and he was right," said Courtney Wild, who was 14 when she met Epstein.
"You beat yourself up mentally and physically," said Jena-Lisa Jones, 30, who said Epstein molested her when she was also 14. "You can't ever stop your thoughts. A word can trigger something. For me, it is the word 'pure' because he called me 'pure' in that room and then I remember what he did to me in that room."
As their client sat in a New York jail this week, Epstein's high-end lawyers asked district judge Richard Berman to allow Epstein to wait out his
pre-trial proceedings at his opulent Upper East Side townhouse, where authorities this week found a stash of photos of underage girls.
The attorneys proposed 14 conditions for Epstein's stay there, including that he deregister his private jet.
Defence lawyers also claimed that denying him bail unduly punished the rich simply because they happened to be rich.
Will his wealthy and privileged friends stick by Epstein if he goes to prison? As a source told the Daily Beast this week: "A jail sentence doesn't matter any more. The only thing that gets you shunned in New York society is poverty."
Epstein will face a bail hearing tomorrow.
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