Sex Abuse Scandals Media Articles

Excerpts of Key Sex Abuse Scandals Media Articles in Major Media

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A defense lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein on Tuesday expressed deep skepticism that the wealthy financier died by hanging himself in a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges, as a medical examiner has ruled. The injuries suffered by Epstein are “far more consistent with assault” than suicide, the lawyer, Reid Weingarten, told Judge Richard Berman in U.S. District Court in Manhattan during a hearing. Weingarten cited the defense’s own medical sources. Broken bones were found in Epstein’s neck during an autopsy after he died Aug. 10. Such fractures are somewhat more common in cases of strangulation than in hanging. Weingarten told the judge that when he and other defense attorneys spoke to Epstein shortly before his death “we did not see a despairing, despondent, suicidal person.” Weingarten’s comments came during a proceeding where prosecutors were seeking the dismissal of child sex trafficking charges against the Epstein as a result of his death. More than 20 alleged victims of Epstein spoke or had statements read during the hearing. Weeks before his death, Epstein was found semiconscious in his cell in the Manhattan Correctional Center with marks on his neck. That incident led to him being placed on suicide watch, but he was taken off of that status about a week later. Weingarten also pointed out that “we’ve heard that” the surveillance video at the jail around Epstein’s cell “were either corrupted or not functioning.”

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Jeffrey Epstein's body has reportedly been laid to rest in an exclusive, leafy memorial chapel in Florida, after his remains were snuck in via mini-van on the Sabbath. According to reports from The Daily Mail, Epstein, the high-risk, registered sex offender, who took his own life after being jailed on international child sex trafficking charges, has had his remains placed in a crypt next to his deceased parents. Next to Epstein's unmarked remains are the names of numerous other deceased Jewish people, who have now been laid to rest next to one of contemporary history's most notorious and hated figures. Epstein, a mysterious financier, whose wealth was believed to be in the billions, cavorted with royalty and powerful politicians, including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. According to ... The Daily Mail, a memorial plate, formerly in place at the IJ Morris Star of David Cemetery of the Palm Beaches, in Palm Beach, Florida, was removed and replaced with a blank slab. When Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein, was contacted to confirm whether his paedophile brother had been entombed at the Jewish crypt, he said ... "It's a private family matter, you got that? I'm not going to answer your question." The IJ Morris at Star of David Cemetery is a large site for burials, cremations and tributes, housing dozens of crypts and community vaults, according to their website. The Palm Beach Cemetery is a half-hour drive from one of Epstein's many properties, where he is believed to have abused numerous underage victims, according to unsealed court documents.

Note: This news supports the belief of many that Epstein may have been killed or even that he was taken and the body of a double put in. With his body being hidden, an independent autopsy may never be possible to determine if the body was indeed Epstein and if the injuries to the body suggest suicide or murder. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

The will that disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein signed just two days before his jailhouse suicide puts more than $577m in assets into a trust fund that could make it more difficult for his dozens of accusers to collect damages. “This is the last act of Epstein’s manipulation of the system, even in death,” said attorney Jennifer Freeman, who represents child sex abuse victims. By putting his fortune in a trust, he shrouded from public view the identities of the beneficiaries, whether they be individuals, organizations or other entities. For the women trying to collect from his estate, the first order of business will be persuading a judge to pierce that veil and release the details. From there, the women will have to follow the course they would have had to pursue even if Epstein had not created a trust: convince the judge that they are entitled to compensation as victims of sex crimes. The judge would have to decide how much they should get and whether to reduce the amounts given to Epstein’s named beneficiaries, who would also be given their say in court. Attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents several Epstein accusers ... said attorneys for the women will go after Epstein’s estate in the US Virgin Islands, where the will was filed and where he owned two islands. Bloom said it was “gross negligence” on the part of Epstein’s lawyers and jail personnel to allow him to sign a new will, given that he had apparently attempted suicide a short time before.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Child sexual abuse material has exploded since the dawn of the internet era, while child sex trafficking also has increased as a result of being made easier for traffickers. The number of child sexual abuse files exchanged online grew from 450,000 in 2004 to 25 million in 2015, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore cofounded Thorn to combat this problem. The non-profits mission is to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse online by eliminating all child sexual abuse material from the internet. Thorn partners across the tech industry, government and NGOs and leverages technology to combat predatory behavior, rescue victims, and protect vulnerable children. The non-profits products are used today in 35 countries and have helped identify more than 30,000 victims of abuse, 10,000 of whom were children. Recently, Thorn was one of eight recipients to share in an over $280 million grant from The Audacious Project by TED. As CEO of Thorn, Julie Cordua manages the Thorn Technology Task Force, the largest organization of its kind, uniting technology companies committed to fighting child exploitation. We saw how technology was being used to exploit our children through child sex trafficking, the spread of child sexual abuse material, and online grooming and coercion. Yet there was no concentrated effort to use technology to fight back and stop this abuse, Cordua says.

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A chilling picture of how hundreds of girls and young women from around the world were trafficked for sex by Jeffrey Epstein, his madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, and — allegedly — a number of powerful business and world leaders emerged Friday in court documents unsealed in New York. [They] offer brutal details about Epstein’s trafficking of teenage girls ... as well as Maxwell’s obsessive and often abusive quest to provide him with new girls. Virginia Roberts Giuffre ... provided testimony and evidence ... through photographs, plane logs and even a medical record from Presbyterian Hospital in New York where Giuffre was taken by Epstein after a particularly abusive sex episode. Johanna Sjoberg ... who was a college student at Palm Beach Atlantic University when she was recruited by Maxwell, said that Maxwell’s primary role in Epstein’s life was to provide him with young girls at least three times a day. “He explained to me that ... he needed to have three orgasms a day,” Sjoberg said in a sworn deposition. The names of some prominent, wealthy men Giuffre says she was directed to have sex with ... include: former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, 71, former Sen. George Mitchell, 85, Hyatt hotels magnate Tom Pritzker, 69, and prominent hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, 62. Epstein's ... butler, in a sworn statement, said [one] girl, visibly traumatized, told him that Epstein and Maxwell had physically threatened to harm her and seized her passport. Giuffre’s lawyer, David Boies, said ... “What the lawsuit was about is this massive sex trafficking operation which went on for years. Every institution in our society failed these girls. Many people knew about this and did nothing. ”

Note: Watch an intriguing video linking Jeffrey Epstein to a global sex trafficking ring reaching to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Mind Control Information Center.

For anyone familiar with Bureau of Prisons [BOP] standard operating procedures, Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide is more than mysterious; it is unfathomable. The 66-year-old accused sex trafficker was found dead in his prison cell at the Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC) Saturday morning, apparently after having hanged himself. The Bureau of Prisons, the federal agency that runs the MCC, has said the FBI will investigate. It had better. Epstein’s death almost certainly means that astounding blunders occurred, perhaps by multiple personnel. If any prisoner in the federal system should have been a candidate for suspicion of suicide, it was the high-profile and disgraced Epstein. All administrative and structural measures should have been in place to ensure it could not happen. And yet it apparently did. Epstein was found last month unconscious in his MCC cell with marks on his neck. If he was not on suicide watch, it would be astonishing. Yet if he were on suicide watch, his death would be virtually inconceivable. BOP personnel, especially at MCC, are the best professionals in the corrections industry, and they receive special training in administrating suicide prevention. How exactly did Epstein manage to kill himself, and why exactly was it that he had access to the tools? Is there a video of Epstein’s cell at the crucial time? There should be, and it will reveal exactly how and when Epstein killed himself. And none of this begins to address the royal mess it leaves in the efforts to take stock of Epstein’s crimes and their prior slap-on-the-wrist treatment, nor the shambles in which it leaves Epstein’s victims.

Note: See also this New York Times article on this highly suspicious death. There are many reasons why those in power who have close ties to Epstein would want him dead. It looks like he was "suicided" as so many others have been who threatened the power structure of our world. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Mind Control Information Center.

The more we learn about the late Jeffrey Epstein’s 13 months in so-called custody at the Palm Beach County Stockade, the clearer is the lesson: It definitely helped to be rich. Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Epstein’s coddled life while serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty in 2008 to two felony counts of prostitution. One of those crimes involved soliciting sex from a minor, serial behavior of Epstein’s that had caught the attention of the FBI. A 53-page federal indictment resulting from that probe was spiked by then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, paving the way for the multimillionaire’s mysteriously lenient plea deal. For Epstein, jail wasn’t an incarceration so much as an inconvenience. Deputies were given permission to leave his cell unlocked. During his daily road trips, he was followed by off-duty deputies who were paid $126,000 for their respectful supervision. Attorney Bradley Edwards, who represents some of Epstein’s female accusers, said he knows of women who were brought to Epstein for sex while he was away from the stockade during the day. Toward the end of his term, Epstein was even allowed to hang out at his mansion. Another aspect of the 2008 case begging to be examined is ex-State Attorney Barry Krischer’s decision not to prosecute the well-connected businessman on more serious child-sex charges, despite the urging of Palm Beach detectives.

Note: Read a revealing article written by a close relative of media mogul Conrad Black on how Jeffrey Epstein easily manipulated top publishers and politicians because of his relationship to intelligence agencies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Jeffrey E. Epstein, the wealthy financier who is accused of sex trafficking, had an unusual dream: He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch. Mr. Epstein over the years confided to scientists and others about his scheme ... although there is no evidence that it ever came to fruition. Mr. Epstein, who was charged in July with the sexual trafficking of girls as young as 14, was a serial illusionist: He lied about the identities of his clients, his wealth, his financial prowess, his personal achievements. But he managed to use connections and charisma to cultivate valuable relationships with business and political leaders. He used the same tactics to insinuate himself into an elite scientific community. Mr. Epstein attracted a glittering array of prominent scientists. They included the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who discovered the quark; the theoretical physicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking; the paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould; Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-selling author; George M. Church, a molecular engineer who has worked to identify genes that could be altered to create superior humans; and the M.I.T. theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, a Nobel laureate. The lure for some of the scientists was Mr. Epstein’s money. He dangled financing for their pet projects. Some of the scientists said that the prospect of financing blinded them to the seriousness of his sexual transgressions.

Note: A probing 16-episode program titled "EPSTEIN: Devil in the Darkness" has incredibly revealing interviews with dozens who worked directly with Epstein. Incredibly detailed, it reveals the huge blackmail operation, connections with Israel, and much more. This series goes where others have not dared go. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and corruption in science from reliable major media sources.

In May 1997, Alicia Arden, a model in California, was introduced to a man who identified himself as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret. He invited her to his Santa Monica hotel room to audition for the brand’s catalog. When she arrived, Ms. Arden said, the man grabbed her, tried to undress her and said he wanted to “manhandle” her. Ms. Arden, then 27, fled in tears. In the mid-1990s, two senior executives had discovered that the same man, a close adviser to the company’s chief executive, Leslie H. Wexner, was trying to pitch himself as a recruiter for Victoria’s Secret models. Mr. Wexner was alerted. It is unclear what if any action Mr. Wexner took in response. But the man - Jeffrey E. Epstein, a New York financier - had developed an unusually strong hold on Mr. Wexner, one of the country’s most influential corporate titans. Within years of meeting Mr. Epstein, Mr. Wexner handed him sweeping powers over his finances, philanthropy and private life, according to interviews with people who knew the men as well as court documents and financial records. [Ms. Arden] said she went to the police the day after Mr. Epstein attacked her, worried that he could be using his connection to Victoria’s Secret to hurt other women. A week later, when she could not stop thinking about what had happened, she returned to the police station to put her report on the record. That police report ... is one of the earliest known police records of an allegation of sexual misconduct against Mr. Epstein.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Jeffrey Epstein’s lenient 2008 conviction for his sexual assaults on adolescent girls may be described as one of the greatest travesties of justice in recent history. Brad Edwards, an attorney for many of Epstein’s victims, announced last week that Epstein continued to prey on young women while serving his sentence in Palm Beach. Unlike other sex offenders in Florida, Epstein had his own wing of the Palm Beach County jail and liberal work release policies. Due to this new information, the Miami Herald reported, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) has suddenly opened an internal affairs investigation of Epstein’s incarceration. The sheriff’s office personnel who provided security for him had to create logs for when they watched him at the Florida Science Foundation (a foundation he apparently set up for his work-release). This appears to have involved two shifts (from 7am to 3pm and 3pm to 11pm). On July 11, 2009 the officer noted that Epstein had one female visitor who signed in. The officer reported that he followed Epstein to his Palm Beach estate at 12pm where Epstein stayed for two and a half hours. The officer did not enter Epstein’s residence and sat outside in his car. At 2:31pm he brought Epstein back to his office. The starting and ending mileage implies that the officer drove 75 miles that day. The distance from the county jail to the Florida Science Foundation, to Epstein’s house is 4 to 5 miles. It is unclear how 75 miles were logged that day.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Detective Michael Fisten hung up his badge after 30 years in law enforcement and started a new career as a private investigator. The subject of his [first] investigation was Jeffrey Epstein, the jet-setting multimillionaire with a criminal sexual interest in young girls. At the time Fisten started investigating the case in 2009, Epstein and prosecutors had already signed a controversial "non-prosecution agreement" that allowed the financier to plead guilty to less serious sex offenses and escape punishment for alleged trafficking crimes that could have landed him in prison for the rest of his life. Epstein spent 13 months in jail for two counts of prostitution. Even then, Epstein was given work-release privileges. Fisten was hired to investigate the case by attorney Brad Edwards, who was suing Epstein in civil court on behalf of many of his accusers. Edwards wanted Fisten to dig deeper. "I started going out and interviewing witnesses that became victims," Fisten said. "One after another, three girls turned into four girls, turned into five, six, seven and so on...I couldn't help but think that this could've been my daughter." He said he found it inconceivable that people who traveled in Epstein's social circles weren't aware of his misconduct, particularly with so many underage girls in his company. "Once these girls lost their braces and their pubescent look and started becoming 16-years old or 17-years old, they were too old for him, so then he started using them as recruiters to bring the younger girls," Fisten said.

Note: Watch a video compilation of excellent information on the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

A former IT contractor for Jeffrey Epstein who said that he ended their business relationship over personal concerns about gaggles of apparently unsupervised young women on the embattled financier's private island told ABC News that his reluctance to continue working there was underscored by what he said was an extensive collection of photos of topless women displayed throughout the island's compounds. “There were photos of topless women everywhere," said contractor Steve Scully, who said he worked for Epstein for six years beginning in 1999. "On his desk, in his office, in his bedroom,” Scully ... said of the private island dubbed "Little St. James." Scully ... was contracted by Epstein to set up a communications network on Little St. James. But it’s what Scully said he saw on the island itself more than six years ago that led him to agree to an interview with ABC News: revolving groups of young girls that appeared to him to be minors who were guests on the island. “They couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16 years old," he said. Scully said that he would see them on the island whenever he visited for work, riding ATVs, or at times bathing topless on the island's pools and beaches. Scully said he became increasingly alarmed by the presence of these groups of young girls that appeared to him to be without any visible parental supervision.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

A federal judge on Thursday denied bail to wealthy investor Jeffrey Epstein, citing the potential danger to “new victims” from his apparently “uncontrollable” sexual fixation on young girls, and the risk that Epstein would flee to avoid prosecution for child sex trafficking charges. The decision by Judge Richard Berman means that the 66-year-old Epstein will remain in jail pending trial in the case, where he faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted. Berman, in a damning written order ... said that lewd photos of young women found in Epstein’s mansion are troubling, as is evidence that he tried to influence the potential testimony of accusers and people who allegedly abetted his conduct. “This newly discovered evidence also suggests that Mr. Epstein poses ‘ongoing and forward-looking danger,’” the judge wrote. “Mr. Epstein’s dangerousness is considerable and includes sex crimes with minor girls and tampering with potential witnesses.” In the order, Berman said, “Mr. Epstein’s alleged excessive attraction to sexual conduct with or in the presence of minor girls - which is said to include his soliciting and receiving massages from young girls and young women perhaps as many as four times a day - appears likely to be uncontrollable.” “I doubt any bail package could overcome dangerousness ... to community,” Berman said during the hearing, agreeing with the recommendation by prosecutors to keep Epstein locked up.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

The Jeffrey Epstein case is an asteroid poised to strike the elite world in which he moved. No one can yet say precisely how large it is. But as the number of women who’ve accused the financier (at least, that’s what he claimed to be) of sexual assault grows to grotesque levels - there are said to be more than 50 women who are potential victims - a wave of panic is rippling through Manhattan, DC, and Palm Beach, as Epstein’s former friends and associates rush to distance themselves. Donald Trump’s labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, architect of the original 2007 non-prosecution agreement that let Epstein off with a wrist slap, has already been forced to resign. Why did Acosta grant Epstein an outrageously lenient non-prosecution agreement? (And what does it mean that Acosta was reportedly told Epstein “belonged to intelligence”?) “There were other business associates of Mr. Epstein’s who engaged in improper sexual misconduct at one or more of his homes. We do know that,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Courtney Wild, one of the Epstein accusers. “In due time the names are going to start coming out.” Of course, the two Epstein friends that people are most curious about are Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, both of whom have denied anything untoward. During the 2016 presidential race, Hillary Clinton’s campaign consulted Bill’s post–White House Secret Service logs because they were worried Trump would bring up Bill’s close association with Epstein and wanted to get ahead of the story.

Note: New York Magazine has a detailed article listing the many high-level contacts found in Epstein's little black book. And in this article on salon.com, a former friend of Epstein gives some salacious details of his life. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire financier, registered sex offender and acquaintance of presidents of both parties, was expected to appear in federal court in New York on Monday in connection with federal sex trafficking allegations, multiple law enforcement officials said. Epstein, 66, of Palm Beach, Florida, was being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan after he was arrested Saturday in Teterboro, New Jersey, in a joint investigation by the FBI and New York police. The arrest stems from incidents spanning from 2002 to 2005. Epstein has been in the news for more than a decade since he pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and felony solicitation of prostitution, according to his plea agreement on charges brought in Florida. Epstein is registered as a sex offender in Florida under a non-prosecution agreement he signed with the office of the U.S. attorney for Miami. Epstein's non-prosecution agreement ... limits the scope of the agreement to only the Miami area. If Epstein is alleged to have committed illegal acts in other parts of the country, the agreement would no longer protect him. Federal prosecutors in New York allege that from at least 2002 through 2005, Epstein paid girls as young as 14 hundreds of dollars in cash for sex at either his Manhattan townhouse or his estate in Palm Beach. Epstein is being charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking, and faces up to 45 years in prison if found guilty.

Note: For lots more, see this Miami Herald article and this one. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated for having run a child sex trafficking ring, is proposing 80% funding cuts for the government agency that combats child sex trafficking. Acosta’s plan to slash funding of a critical federal agency in the fight against the sexual exploitation of children is contained in his financial plans for the Department of Labor for fiscal year 2020. In it, he proposes decimating the resources of a section of his own department known as the International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB). The bureau’s budget would fall from $68m last year to just $18.5m. The proposed reduction is so drastic that experts say it would effectively kill off many federal efforts to curb sex trafficking and put the lives of large numbers of children at risk. ILAB has the task of countering human trafficking, child labor and forced labor across the US and around the world. It is seen as a crucial leader in efforts to crack down on the sex trafficking of minors. Acosta is facing mounting pressure from Democrats to resign, over the lenient deal he gave Epstein and in the wake of the billionaire’s new prosecution. Epstein was arrested on Saturday and indicted on two sex trafficking counts by federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York. Under the 2008 deal negotiated by Acosta, an FBI investigation that had produced a 53-page draft indictment involving more than 30 potential underage victims was shut down.

Note: Alexander Acosta announced his resignation shortly after this article was published. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.

On Monday, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York unsealed a 14-page indictment against Jeffrey Epstein, charging the wealthy financier with operating and conspiring to operate a sex trafficking ring of girls out of his luxe homes on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and in Palm Beach, Fla., “among other locations.” Even in the relatively sterile language of the legal system, the accusations against Mr. Epstein are nauseating. From “at least in or about” 2002 through 2005, the defendant “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls,” some as young as 14 and many “particularly vulnerable to exploitation.” The girls were “enticed and recruited” to visit Mr. Epstein’s various homes “to engage in sex acts with him.” To “maintain and increase his supply of victims,” he paid some of the girls “to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused,” thus creating “a vast network of underage victims.” But Mr. Epstein is not the only one for whom a reckoning is long overdue. The allegations in the New York indictment are a depressing echo of those that Mr. Epstein faced in Florida more than a decade ago. In 2008, federal prosecutors for the Southern District of Florida, at the time led by Alexander Acosta, who is now the nation’s secretary of labor, helped arrange a plea deal for Mr. Epstein that bent justice beyond its breaking point. In addition to short-circuiting federal charges, the plea agreement killed an F.B.I. investigation and granted immunity to any “co-conspirators.”

Note: Explore an in-depth article from New York Magazine giving a thorough and balanced view of the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Back in 2002, when Jeffrey Epstein was known only as a mysterious financial whiz with a private island and a roster of A-list friends, being friendly with him was something to boast about. And Donald Trump did. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine that year for a story headlined “Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery.” “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. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Now, Epstein is in jail, charged with sex trafficking by federal prosecutors who allege he abused dozens of female minors in New York and Palm Beach, Fla. He is no longer a friend anyone would want to claim. And now, Trump doesn’t. Alan Garten, an attorney for the Trump Organization, has said Trump had “no relationship” with Epstein. Outside of Trump’s own words, there is clear evidence that the two men — both members of the same highflying societies in Manhattan and Palm Beach — socialized together in the past. One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, was a towel girl in the Mar-a-Lago locker room when she was “recruited” at the club by Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, according to Giuffre’s attorney. Maxwell asked Giuffre whether she would like to earn money and learn how to give massages, which led to Epstein sexually abusing her at his homes in Palm Beach and New York, according to Giuffre’s lawsuit against Maxwell.

Note: For clear evidence that Trump distanced himself from Epstein years ago, see this video. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

In the past year the Jeffrey Epstein case was catapulted onto the national news radar by one newspaper, the Miami Herald, and by one reporter in particular, Julie K. Brown. The paper's "Perversion of Justice" series came out last November, and Brown has stayed on the story ever since. As soon as The Daily Beast broke the news that Epstein had been arrested on Saturday evening, fellow journalists and other observers credited Brown and thanked her for the tenacious investigation. Law enforcement officials are also giving credit to the reporting. "We were assisted" by "some excellent investigative journalism," Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a Monday morning press conference. William Sweeney, the assistant director-in-charge of the FBI's New York office, added, "We work with facts. When the facts presented themselves, as Mr. Berman hinted at, through investigative journalists' work, we moved on it." While they didn't cite Brown or the newspaper by name, Berman said in response to a question about the Herald, "we are certainly aware of that reporting." Brown was ... actually scheduled to interview another one of Epstein's accusers on Monday. But after he was arrested, she cancelled that flight and booked a ticket to New York. True to form, she sought to shift the spotlight, away from her own work and toward her subjects. "The REAL HEROES HERE were the courageous victims that faced their fears and told their stories," she tweeted Sunday.

Note: Explore an in-depth article from New York Magazine giving a thorough and balanced view of the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Christi Bragg listened in disbelief. It was a Sunday in February, and her popular evangelical pastor, Matt Chandler, was preaching on the evil of leaders who sexually abuse those they are called to protect. But at the Village Church, he assured his listeners, victims of assault would be heard, and healed. Ms. Bragg nearly vomited. She stood up and walked out. Exactly one year before that day, on Feb. 17, 2018, Ms. Bragg and her husband, Matt, reported to the Village that their daughter, at about age 11, had been sexually abused at the church’s summer camp for children. Since then, Matthew Tonne, who was the church’s associate children’s minister, had been investigated by the police, indicted and arrested on charges of sexually molesting Ms. Bragg’s daughter. Ms. Bragg waited for church leaders to explain what had happened and to thoroughly inform other families in the congregation. But none of that ever came. Nearly 400 Southern Baptist leaders, from youth pastors to top ministers, have pleaded guilty or been convicted of sex crimes against more than 700 victims since 1998, according to a recent investigation by The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News. At the Village, one of the most prominent Southern Baptist churches in the country ... Ms. Bragg said leaders had offered prayer. But as months passed, she came to believe their instinct to protect the institution outweighed their care for her daughter or their interest in investigating the truth.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.

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