‘What’s the value of a dead man’s files anyway?’
JEFFREY Epstein – Jeffrey Edward Epstein was his full name – is described in Wikipedia as an American financier and sex offender who died in his jail cell in New York, on August 10, 2019, allegedly by suicide. Epstein was in jail for a second criminal complaint for sex trafficking of minors, evidence for which was found in his Manhattan townhouse.
He was first investigated in 2005 when the mother of a 14-year-old girl in Palm Beach, Florida, alleged that her daughter had been taken to Epstein’s mansion by an older girl. The police began a year-long investigation into Epstein, but eventually the FBI was called in when accusations were made that Palm Beach authorities were treating him with kid gloves.
Investigations showed that Epstein regularly paid several girls to have sex with him; that he liked girls under 18; that he had cameras hidden throughout his house; and that he had computer drives, books on S&M, and even a high school transcript. All in all, the FBI confirmed 34 minors whose allegations against Epstein were corroborated. And the young girls were from all over the world: Brazil, Europe, even former Soviet-bloc countries.
Epstein was charged in Florida, but copped a plea deal with Alexander Acosta (US Attorney for Southern Florida) that granted him immunity from federal criminal charges. News reports at that time said that Acosta, contrary to the law, agreed to keep the plea deal from the victims.
Under the deal, Epstein pleaded guilty to two prostitution charges, register as a sex offender, pay damages to about 36 victims and serve 18 months in jail. Rather than being sent to state prison, he was housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade. He got special treatment, including “work release,” where he could leave jail for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, for meetings. For this the Palm Beach sheriff’s office received over $120,000 from Epstein’s non-profit company to pay for extra services being provided.
After serving ten months, he was put on probation on house arrest for a year, but was allowed to travel on his corporate jet. He was required to check in with the NYPD every 90 days, but this was never enforced.
In July 2019, he was arrested again on new sex trafficking charges. At that time, former Florida Attorney Alberto Acosta was already a member of the Trump Cabinet, but Acosta resigned as Labor Secretary on July 19. Epstein argued that his plea deal with Acosta made him immune from prosecution; it was while a New York judge was determining whether the deal with Acosta protected him from prosecution that Epstein was found hanging from his cell.
He owned Little St. James, an island in the Virgin Islands on which he had a mansion, one that was completely wired for video. It is believed that powerful people who had come to visit the island were thus captured on video, revealing their sexual tastes and recreational drug use.
Of Epstein, Donald Trump once said that they both liked women but that “Jeffrey likes them young.” It is interesting that while many videos show the two men laughing and partying together in the early 2000s, Trump of late has been swearing to the high heavens that he was “never a fan” and never liked Epstein.
But Epstein apparently saw it differently. According to author Michael Wolff, Epstein in a 2017 interview described himself as Trump’s “closest friend” for ten years, and even claimed that Trump first slept with his now wife Melania on board his (Epstein’s) plane.
A leaked passenger log of Epstein’s planes reveals the names of celebrities, politicians and royalty, including Mick Jagger, Clinton, Blair, Prince Andrew; Trump’s name appears numerous times.
During the presidential campaign, Trump made a lot of noise about the Epstein “files and the need to make them public.”
Recently, however, he angrily lashed out at US media and even MAGA supporters for repeatedly raising the Epstein matter, with even frenemy Elon Musk claiming that Trump is in the so-called “Epstein files.”
But should it matter, given so many “bigger” problems in the United States and the world today?
What’s the value of a dead man’s files anyway?
