An Unbiased Look at What We Know About the Epstein Scandal So Far

Dagny Taggart, The Organic Prepper
Waking Times

Several years ago while I was writing for another publication, I came across the story of a very wealthy man who was accused of doing atrocious things to young women. YOUNG women. Girls, even.

The man allegedly had ties to some prominent people, including past presidents, a prince, and other public figures. Many of those people are accused of participating in heinous activities with this man.

Independent media outlets reported on this man and his vile activities for years – but the mainstream media, which has other agendas, largely ignored him.

  • Until now.

    That man, Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested – finally – for his crimes, and thankfully, the media has taken notice.

    As a journalist, it is my job to report facts, no matter how unpleasant. Here, I will share all of the documented information I can find on Epstein. I will do my best to report them accurately and without bias. (I am non-partisan and my goal is always to expose the truth, no matter how painful).

    This article contains content that may be upsetting to many. Reader discretion is advised.

    Who is Jeffrey Epstein?

    Jeffrey Epstein, 66, is an American financier, philanthropist, and registered sex offender. Epstein, a billionaire, began his career at the investment bank, Bear Stearns, before forming his own firm, J. Epstein & Co.

    He allegedly had (or has) a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends on “Orgy Island,” an estate on his 72-acre island, called Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to a Fox News report.

    Epstein has been under scrutiny for over a decade, with teenage girls saying he used his employees to bring them to his Florida mansion for sex and paid them to recruit new victims. Bloomberg reports:

    In a 2008 plea deal that has received intense criticism, Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges of soliciting a prostitute and served 13 months in a Florida state prison (he was allowed to spend 16 hours a day outside of prison), while avoiding prosecution for federal sex-trafficking offenses and the decades of prison time he could have faced if convicted.

     

    The Miami Herald last year published a series of articles reporting that the top federal prosecutor in southern Florida at the time, Alex Acosta, worked with Epstein’s lawyers to fashion the deal. Acosta, now the U.S. labor secretary, violated federal law when he failed to clear the federal non-prosecution agreement with many of Epstein’s alleged victims, a federal judge ruled in February.

    The Herald said it found about 60 victims. (source)

    To elaborate on the federal judge’s ruling: The deal given to Epstein was illegal because it violated provisions of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. That decision was the result of a federal lawsuit brought by two of Epstein’s victims who had been fighting to put him in prison for more than a decade.

    In a lengthy report titled Perversion of Justice, The Miami Herald detailed Acosta’s involvement in the case:

    For years, Epstein lured an endless stream of teenage girls to his Palm Beach mansion, offering to pay them for massages. Instead, police say, for years he coerced middle and high school girls into engaging in sex acts with him and others.

    As evidence emerged that there were victims and witnesses outside of Palm Beach, the FBI began an investigation in 2006 into whether Epstein and others employed by him were involved in underage sex trafficking.

    But in 2007, despite substantial evidence that corroborated the girls’ stories of abuse by Epstein, the U.S. attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, signed off on a secret deal for the multimillionaire, one that ensured he would never spend a day in prison.

    Acosta, now President Donald Trump’s secretary of labor, agreed to seal the agreement so that no one — not even Epstein’s victims — would know the full extent of his crimes or who was involved. (source)

    Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life, but Acosta ensured that would not happen:

    But on the morning of the breakfast meeting, a deal was struck — an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein’s crimes and the number of people involved.

    Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal — called a non-prosecution agreement— essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes, according to a Miami Herald examination of thousands of emails, court documents and FBI records.

     

    The pact required Epstein to plead guilty to two prostitution charges in state court. Epstein and four of his accomplices named in the agreement received immunity from all federal criminal charges. But even more unusual, the deal included wording that granted immunity to “any potential co-conspirators’’ who were also involved in Epstein’s crimes. These accomplices or participants were not identified in the agreement, leaving it open to interpretation whether it possibly referred to other influential people who were having sex with underage girls at Epstein’s various homes or on his plane.

     

    As part of the arrangement, Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims. As a result, the non-prosecution agreement was sealed until after it was approved by the judge, thereby averting any chance that the girls — or anyone else — might show up in court and try to derail it. (source)

    The Herald series also revealed that Acosta held an unusual one-on-one meeting with Epstein’s lawyer, Jay Lefkowitz, in October 2007, at a West Palm Beach Marriott. “Records showed that it was at that meeting that Acosta acceded to a non-prosecution agreement that gave Epstein and others involved in his operation federal immunity,” the report states.

    Also from that report:

    It would be easy to dismiss the Epstein case as another example of how there are two systems of justice in America, one for the rich and one for the poor. But a thorough analysis of the case tells a far more troubling story.

     

    A close look at the trove of letters and emails contained in court records provides a window into the plea negotiations, revealing an unusual level of collaboration between federal prosecutors and Epstein’s legal team that even government lawyers, in recent court documents, admitted was unorthodox.

     

    Acosta, in 2011, would explain that he was unduly pressured by Epstein’s heavy-hitting lawyers — Lefkowitz, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, Jack Goldberger, Roy Black, former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, Gerald Lefcourt, and Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater special prosecutor who investigated Bill Clinton’s sexual liaisons with Monica Lewinsky. (source)

    Federal prosecutors identified 36 underage victims, but none of those victims appeared at Epstein’s sentencing on June 30, 2008, in state court in Palm Beach County. Most of those victims heard about it on the news — and even then they didn’t understand what had happened to the federal probe that they’d been assured was ongoing, The Herald reports.

    Given this troubling history, Acosta was a surprising choice to head the Department of Labor, unless there is something going on behind the scenes that we aren’t aware of.

    Epstein had a “little black book” filled with high-profile contacts.

    Epstein had a little black book filled with the names and personal phone numbers of some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential people, from Bill Clinton and Donald Trump to actors, actresses, scientists, and business tycoons. To view the contents of the black book, click here: Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Black Book REDACTED

    In January 2015, Gawker published an article about the little black book, which turned up in court proceedings after Epstein’s former house manager Alfredo Rodriguez tried to sell it.

    Here is an excerpt from that article that explains how the book’s contents became public:

    About 50 of the entries, including those of many of Epstein’s suspected victims and accomplices as well as Trump, Love, Barak, Dershowitz, and others, were circled by Rodriguez. (The existence of the book has been previously reported by the Daily Mail. Gawker is publishing it in full here for the first time; we have redacted addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, and the last names of individuals who may have been underage victims.)

     

    According to an FBI affidavit, Rodriguez described the address book and the information contained within it as the “Holy Grail” or “Golden Nugget” to unraveling Epstein’s sprawling child-sex network. But despite having been subpoenaed for everything he had on his former boss, Rodriguez didn’t share it with the FBI or Palm Beach Police Department detectives investigating Epstein. Instead, he tried to make a $50,000 score by covertly peddling the black book to one of the attorneys launching lawsuits at Epstein on behalf of his victims.

     

    The plot backfired when the attorney reported Rodriguez to the FBI, and he was promptly charged with obstruction of justice. But not before he had, according to the FBI affidavit laying out the crime, marked up the book and an accompanying notepad with “handwritten notes” that contained “information material to the underlying investigation that would have been extremely useful in investigating and prosecuting the case, including the names and contact information of material witnesses and additional victims.” (source)

    Some high-profile figures may go down with Epstein.

    Alan Dershowitz: As I noted above, Dershowitz is one of Epstein’s lawyers, and was on the team that allegedly pressured Acosta into giving Epstein a slap on the wrist rather than an actual prison sentence back in 2008.

    Dershowitz and fellow attorney Gerald Lefcourt “defended their client vigorously, reportedly having witnesses followed and discrediting the alleged victims by offering their MySpace pages as evidence of supposed drug use and scandalous behavior,” The Daily Beast reported in 2016.

    In an April 2019 affidavit, a woman named Sarah Ransome claimed that she and another woman had sex with Dershowitz. Ransome also reported that there were many other women at Epstein’s private island, and some appeared to be young teenagers.

    Flight logs show that Dershowitz flew on Epstein’s private jets more than once:

    But according to the flight logs, Dershowitz was close enough to Epstein to have accompanied him on a flight from Palm Beach to New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport as early as December 1997. On that flight, the pair was accompanied by a number of people, including one unidentified “female,” a “Hazel,” a “Claire,” and Maxwell.

    The logs also show Dershowitz on a flight with Epstein from Bedford, Mass., to Teterboro in October 1998, and a flight from Teterboro to Martha’s Vineyard in 1999. And a 2005 trip from Massachusetts to Montreal shows him traveling with Epstein, “Tatianna,” and others. (source)

    Bill and Hillary Clinton: Bill was one of the most famous and frequent passengers on Epstein’s “Lolita Express”. Epstein donated money to the Clinton Foundation even after his conviction. For more on the Clintons’ ties to Epstein, see The Billionaire Pedophile Who Could Bring Down Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and this report from The Miami Herald: Explore Epstein’s connections.

    On May 13, 2016, Fox News reported:

    Former President Bill Clinton was a much more frequent flyer on a registered sex offender’s infamous jet than previously reported, with flight logs showing the former president taking at least 26 trips aboard the “Lolita Express” — even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail for at least five of the flights, according to records obtained by FoxNews.com.

     

    Clinton’s presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported, but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by their initials or first names, including “Tatiana.” The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls.

     

    Official flight logs filed with the Federal Aviation Administration show Clinton traveled on some of the trips with as many as 10 U.S. Secret Service agents. However, on a five-leg Asia trip between May 22 and May 25, 2002, not a single Secret Service agent is listed. The U.S. Secret Service has declined to answer multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed by FoxNews.com seeking information on these trips. Clinton would have been required to file a form to dismiss the agent detail, a former Secret Service agent told FoxNews.com. (source)

    The Miami Herald has identified two possible enablers who “could be charged or named as cooperating witnesses”:

    Among those potentially on the list: Ghislaine Maxwell, a 57-year-old British socialite and publishing heir who has been accused of working as Epstein’s madam; and Jean-Luc Brunel, who, according to court records, was partners with Epstein in an international modeling company.

     

    For her part, Maxwell, whose social circle included such friends as Bill and Hillary Clinton and members of the British Royal family, has been described as using recruiters positioned throughout the world to lure women by promising them modeling assignments, educational opportunities and fashion careers. The pitch was really a ruse to groom them into sex trafficking, it is alleged in court records. (source)

    What are President Trump’s ties to Epstein?

    Last year, Epstein filed suit against Bradley J. Edwards, the lawyer for several of his victims. Epstein claimed Edwards was acting as part of a financial scheme but later dropped the case. Edwards filed a countersuit, in which he accused Epstein of malicious prosecution and defamation, according to Law & Crime. Trump’s name came up as a witness for Edwards:

    As part of his defense that he acted appropriately in seeking pre-trial testimony from Trump and other Epstein associates,  Edwards’ lawyers had initially put then-private citizen Trump’s on the trial witness list. Once he was elected, Edwards’ lawyers conceded it was unlikely they could get a sitting President on the stand. (source)

    Why would Trump’s name appear on Edwards’ witness list?

    Law & Crime explains:

    Edwards also had initially sought the pre-trial testimony of another of Epstein’s powerful friends, former President Bill Clinton. There is no allegation that either Trump or Clinton was involved with the underage girls, but the court filings in the civil case describe extensive relationships between Epstein and both men during the time Epstein was accused of the repeated sexual assaults.

     

    According to the documents, Epstein’s brother testified that “Trump flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane with him”, the same plane that one of the victims alleged, “was used to have sex with underage girls.” The documents also claim that “message pads confiscated from Epstein’s home indicated that Trump called Epstein’s West Palm Beach mansion on several occasions during the time most relevant” to the complaints of the young woman who were Edwards’ clients.

     

    Trump is alleged to have said in 2005, according to the court documents, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen 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. No doubt about it–Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” ( Trump’s quote actually first appeared in a New York Magazine article in 2002).

     

    But according to the court filings, “Trump allegedly banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach because Epstein sexually assaulted an underage girl at the club.” (source)

    In December 2018, Edwards told independent journalist Derrick Broze that Trump was the only high-powered person who was willing to talk to him about Epstein when Edwards served subpoenas and notices to high-profile individuals connected to Epstein:

    Edwards: The only thing that I can say about President Trump is that he is the only person who, in 2009 when I served a lot of subpoenas on a lot of people, or at least gave notice to some pretty connected people, that I want to talk to them, is the only person who picked up the phone and said, let’s just talk.  I’ll give you as much time as you want.  I’ll tell you what you need to know, and was very helpful, in the information that he gave, and gave no indication whatsoever that he was involved in anything untoward whatsoever, but had good information. That checked out and that helped us and we didn’t have to take a deposition of him in 2009.

    You can view that conversation here, at the 5:30 mark:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqb59n69Z80

    Epstein was arrested again on Saturday.

    Epstein was arrested again on July 6, 2019. He is charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York.

    The federal indictment was unsealed and shared with the public just moments ago. To read it, click here: Jeffrey Epstein indictment

    The indictment states that Epstein sexually exploited many “minor girls” between 2002 and 2005 in Florida and New York.

    Some of the girls were as young as 14 at the time of the alleged abuse.

    Courtney Wild met Epstein when she was 14, reports The Herald:

    Before she met Epstein, Courtney Wild was captain of the cheerleading squad, first trumpet in the band and an A-student at Lake Worth Middle School.

     

    After she met Epstein, she was a stripper, a drug addict and an inmate at Gadsden Correctional Institution in Florida’s Panhandle.

     

    “By the time I was 16, I had probably brought him 70 to 80 girls who were all 14 and 15 years old. He was involved in my life for years,” said Wild, who was released from prison in October after serving three years on drug charges.

     

    The girls — mostly 13 to 16 — were lured to his pink waterfront mansion by Wild and other girls, who went to malls, house parties and other places where girls congregated, and told recruits that they could earn $200 to $300 to give a man — Epstein — a massage, according to an unredacted copy of the Palm Beach police investigation obtained by the Herald.

     

    “He told me he wanted them as young as I could find them,’’ she said, explaining that as she grew older and had less access to young girls, Epstein got increasingly angry with her inability to find him the young girls he desired.

     

    “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.’’ (source)

    Over the years, many women have come forward to say they were abused by Epstein:

    The Herald also identified about 80 women who say they were molested or otherwise sexually abused by Epstein from 2001 to 2006. About 60 of them were located — now scattered around the country and abroad. Eight of them agreed to be interviewed, on or off the record. Four of them were willing to speak on video. (source)

    This video from The Miami Herald features some of Epstein’s alleged victims:

    The Epstein case is filled with bizarre details that are difficult to unravel.

    Maurene Comey, daughter of fired FBI Director James Comey, is reportedly one of the prosecutors in the Jeffrey Epstein case. She is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the SDNY who has worked on cases involving alleged racketeering, drugs and weapons offenses, embezzlement, obstruction of justice, and robbery.

    Robert Mueller led the FBI at the time of the original charges against Epstein.

    There are additional bizarre details in the Epstein story, as Michael Krieger explains in The Jeffrey Epstein Rabbit Hole Goes a Lot Deeper Than You Think. Krieger works through a series of connections (to read them, click on the link to his article – his points are made in a series of Tweets) and eventually forms a theory that Epstein’s entire operation was designed to ensnare the rich and powerful – and that the billionaire may be funded by Israeli spy agency Mossad.

    Earlier this year, Derrick Broze (the journalist who interviewed Edwards in the video I embedded earlier in this article) posted a video analysis and compilation of links to articles that support that theory. That video and Broze’s sources can be viewed here: The Evidence for Jeffrey Epstein’s Mossad Connection.

    U.S. Attorney General William Barr has recused himself from Epstein’s case because his former law firm once represented the convicted sex offender, reports Law & Crime:

    Barr was right that Kirkland & Ellis was involved in the case. The firm’s senior partner, Jay Lefkowitz, was among high-profile lawyers like Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr who represented Epstein. The so-called all star cast of lawyers, with the apparent blessing of former federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta (President Donald Trump‘s current Labor Secretary), secured a plea agreement for Epstein that got federal sex trafficking charges taken off the table, and then some.

     

    The aforementioned Alexander Acosta and Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen have also worked at Kirkland & Ellis in the past.

     

    Quite a bit of attention has otherwise been devoted on social media to a Barr Family-Epstein connection. (source)

    Barr’s headmaster father, Donald Barr, had once hired Epstein to teach at the private Dalton School in New York. According to Law & Crime, Epstein taught calculus and physics at the school from 1973 to 1975.

    Prominent attorneys who have worked at Kirkland & Ellis include former appellate court judge Robert Bork, Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh, Clinton-era Special Counsel Ken Starr, and other Trump administration officials, including National Security Adviser John R. Bolton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar.

    Epstein is in jail awaiting a hearing.

    Epstein pleaded not guilty on Monday and is being held without bail.

    He will be detained in jail until at least the detention hearing on July 15, where prosecutors are expected to continue their argument that Epstein should be detained without bail pending trial.

    He faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison if convicted. This is a case which the mainstream media all but ignored until now, but the alternative media has been covering it for years. This, if nothing else, is a case for the fact that an alternative media is an essential part of American journalism that should not be purged if we’re ever to know the sordid details of the crimes rich and powerful people seem to blithely commit.

    What do you think?

    Do you think there is more to this story than meets the eye? Do you believe that Epstein is part of a large scheme to blackmail elites for Mossad (or for someone else)? Do you think Epstein will provide names to the feds, or will he keep quiet? Will he do any time for his alleged crimes if found guilty? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

  • About the Author

    Dagny Taggart is the pseudonym of an experienced journalist who needs to maintain anonymity to keep her job in the public eye. Dagny is non-partisan and aims to expose the half-truths, misrepresentations, and blatant lies of the MSM.

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