Law&Crime Sidebar - Jeffrey Epstein’s Survivors Sue the FBI, Allege a Coverup

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Starting point is 00:00:35 keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A new lawsuit has just been filed against the FBI by a dozen alleged Jeffrey Epstein survivors. They say the FBI received tips and leads into the deceased financiers reported sex trafficking ring and ignored it. We break down this major development with former FBI and CIA agent Tracy Walder. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Starting point is 00:01:14 All right, we have an update for you in the Jeffrey Epstein saga that may not be that much of a surprise if you've been following our coverage here on Sidebar. I'll explain that in a minute. But first, Jeffrey Epstein, of course, is the deceased financier and sex offender. who died from an apparent suicide in his jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He had been accused of procuring minor females for the purposes of sexual assault. He previously pled guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. This happened down in Florida.

Starting point is 00:01:47 This was part of a controversial non-prosecution agreement that saw him avoid more severe charges at the time. Now, his accomplice, Galane Maxwell, she was convicted of her own sex trafficking. related charges in 2021, sentenced to 20 years behind bars. And for weeks here on Sidebar, we covered the release of a trove of documents that were unsealed in a ancillary litigation, a litigation between Elaine Maxwell and Epstein accuser, Virginia Joufrey. This was about a defamation case that was settled. But the court allowed the public release of depositions, photographs, court filings, thousands of pages

Starting point is 00:02:29 it provided more details and insights into the Jeffrey Epstein world, the victim's accounts, associates, connections, and so forth. But you might recall that we kind of knew something like this lawsuit was going to happen. Why do I say that? Because we interviewed Elizabeth Stein, who came forward as a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein, and she was joined by her attorney, Jennifer Freeman. And they indicated in our interview that a lawsuit against the FBI, might be forthcoming.

Starting point is 00:03:01 We have filed what's called a submitted, what's called a notice of claim, which is a statutory prerequisite to bringing a claim against a federal agency like the FBI. And we will be filing a lawsuit in the near future against the FBI to find out why when Maria Farmer, one of the victims, one of our clients, when she reported Epstein and Maxwell and others, in 1996, the FBI did nothing. And then why in 2006, when she reported again, they did nothing? And why was another of our clients trafficked

Starting point is 00:03:40 at the very time that he was supposedly, Epstein was supposedly being investigated in Florida, yet she was trafficked in New York and at his little island? How could this happen under the FBI's nose? And that's what we want to talk about, this lawsuit that has been filed, against the FBI, brought by a dozen alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein.

Starting point is 00:04:04 Now, they're only identified as Jane Does, but they argue that the FBI failed to investigate this purported sex trafficking ring and allowed this abuse and crimes to go on for years. In the complainant states, quote, as a direct and proximate cause of the FBI's negligence, plaintiffs would not have been continued to be sex trafficked, abused, raped, tortured, and threatened. Now, that's legal terminology right there because to prove negligence, you need to show that the defendant, who had a legal duty to use reasonable care, failed in that duty, and that caused harm to the plaintiff. So it caused the harm. Now, to discuss this, let me bring on a former FBI and CIA agent Tracy Walder, author of The Unexpected Spy and National Security contributor at News Nation. Tracy, so good to have you on here.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me, Jesse. So quite a lawsuit. Let me just lay out some of the basics here for everybody. There was one person allegedly came forward to the FBI all the way back in 1996, claiming that Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell, they abused her and that there were others that were being abused. But according to the complaint, the FBI, quote, hung up on her and didn't do anything more.

Starting point is 00:05:19 It goes on to say, between 1996 and 2005, the FBI continued to receive direct report. complaints and tips concerning the illegal sex trafficking of women and underage minors, sex abuse, and human rights violations committed by Jeffrey Epstein and Associates. It goes on to say, in response, the FBI failed to act upon and investigate the complaints and tips and failed to comply with protocol and guidelines, notwithstanding credible reports of solicitation and child prostitution and sex trafficking. And then the allegations continue that the FBI did open an investigation in Epstein in 2006 but it ended in 2008 when he pled guilty in Florida, like I mentioned,

Starting point is 00:06:00 and that the FBI repeatedly ignored tips and leads until he was arrested again in 2019. I'll read one more part of the lawsuit and then get to your perspective on this, Tracy. It says, quote, from 2009 until 2019, the FBI was complicit in permitting the ongoing sex trafficking of minors, rape and sexual abuse of girls and young women, which occurred between New York, Palm Beach, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and many other locations. Your thoughts? I'm not surprised. As you mentioned, Jesse, I felt like this was something that was going to be coming and coming soon. I think the FBI, in my opinion, was negligent, quite frankly, and not following up on these claims. I mean, he abused 14-year-old girls. All of those

Starting point is 00:06:48 should be taken very seriously. And part of me wonders, I'm not a conspiracy theorist in any way shape or form. But part of me wonders if he was offered this non-prosecution deal that you mentioned earlier back in 2008 because I think the FBI may have realized how bad a full-blown investigation at that point in time would have looked on them. And the reality is because of this deal that was taken and deals even before that we may not even know about, girls continued to be abused for the better part of almost two decades. And it's, it's horrific. Talking about such a massive lawsuit against the FBI regarding Jeffrey Epstein, I have to mention attorney Tom associates, one of our great sponsors here on Sidebar. Why do I want to mention them? Because if you're

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Starting point is 00:08:56 Why? And again, this is the idea of not even interviewing these survivors, not even sharing this information with other law enforcement agencies. If the FBI decides to fight this and say, look, you know, this was a situation where there was a plea agreement in place, it kind of prevented. tied our hands in a way. I'm not sure legally that would work. But why would the FBI, if taking these allegations is true, do nothing about it? I mean, that's the part what we're really saying here. If it's okay to be very frank in how I feel about this, because some of this

Starting point is 00:09:31 is my opinion, some of this is my lived experience, quite frankly, at the FBI. The reality is, is whether Epstein or not was prosecuted in that 2008 case with the 14-year-old girl. doesn't absolve the FBI from continuing to investigate other complaints and other allegations that are made. At a bare minimum, as an FBI agent, if someone walks into your field office with a tinfall hat on, you have to take a report. Period. End of story. And so I would be curious, too, to know if things are subpoenaed whether or not the FBI even wrote any of this down and took those reports. I also think to, you know, pre-2005, pre-2006, the FBI itself, in my opinion, had a lot of issues in how they treated sexual assault of their own employees, assault

Starting point is 00:10:24 of their own employees, and harassment of their own employees, women in particular. And part of me wonders if some of this was just brushed aside, if you will, because that was part of the culture. I know that that's a horrific thing to say, but I do wonder how much of a culture comes into play here. I also wonder, too, you have very high profile individuals that we have seen in a lot of these documents that have come out, you know, Bill Richardson, Clinton, you know, and the like that have come out in these documents. And, you know, if the FBI, quite frankly, was scared to move forward with this, it is absolutely not an excuse. It's horrific. These girls deserve far more than what they've had in terms of justice. And the criminal justice system, in my opinion, has failed them every step of the way.

Starting point is 00:11:09 girls and minor individuals and women too i mean we're talking about a whole gamut and and just to give everybody a little bit more context here these plaintiffs are saying that the fbi didn't even look into the background checks of women and girls who epstein's office had tried to obtain travel documents for they say that jp morgan chase who we know reached a separate settlement in this case that they contacted uh federal authorities on numerous occasions they were concerned about geoffrey Epstein's finances, his dealings, these reports of child prostitution. The complaint says, quote, the FBI was aware of the hard cash flowing out of Epstein's accounts and transactions related to human trafficking, yet concealed the reports and did not

Starting point is 00:11:49 investigate the crimes until the recent lawsuit filed by the U.S. Virgin Islands against J.P. Morgan Chase. And, you know, I think about this, and I'm wondering what is going to be the Department of Justice's response to this lawsuit? Gosh, that is a really hard question. answer, Jesse, if you want my honest opinion, I really think that they need to make an example out of the FBI in terms of how violence and sexual assault is handled against girls. And as you mentioned, against women as well, I would hope that the Department of Justice is transparent.

Starting point is 00:12:26 And I would hope, quite frankly, that there is an investigation internally done with the FBI, with full transparency. And quite frankly, I think this needs to go to Congress, if you want me to be honest with And I think congressional hearings need to be held as a result of this because the job of the FBI is to take in every single criminal complaint, whether you believe it or not. And it sounds to me every single step of the way, you know, finances included, one of the things as an FBI agent that I think was easy in terms of proving a case was the money trail, right? That is one of the easiest things that you can use. And if that wasn't even followed up, there's a different. in my opinion between negligence and purposefully doing something and I think we need to parse those hairs if you will and figure out whether this was negligent and if it is there is

Starting point is 00:13:19 some serious house clean that needs to be done at the FBI right and if it's purposeful that's more problematic it's interesting you say that because I was wondering about what a defense could be here now they can say that all these allegations are false this never happened but you mentioned Congress right and here's the thing you go back to December 5th, 2023, there was a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where FBI director Christopher Ray was asked point blank, you know, why didn't the FBI do something more about Jeffrey Epstein and Gleine Maxwell? And he said that he was going to get with his team and figure out if there was more information that can be provided. So it seems to me that there is at least an acknowledgement

Starting point is 00:13:57 by the current director that something might have happened and kind of would, you know, illustrate what their response might be. I agree with you. I also honed in on that statement by Director Ray as well. I don't know if I see it as an acknowledgement or if I see it as a maybe he was caught off guard a bit and needs to look into more regarding the history as he obviously wasn't with the FBI when this occurred. I am glad, however, that Congress sort of put it on open record, if you will, this issue because now they have no choice other than to figure this. out and obviously really look at how they have formed squads and how they have recruited agents in terms of investigating these types of crimes. We'll finalize this conversation talking about what the plaintiffs are seeking. So they're looking for unspecified damages that would be determined at a trial. They're also supporting the release of unredacted FBI documents into this investigation.

Starting point is 00:15:00 Lawsuit says, quote, Jane Doe's 1 through 12 bring this lawsuit to get to the bottom. once and for all of the FBI's role in Epstein's criminal sex trafficking ring. So it's not just about money here. It is something much more here. And do you think that that would be a possibility that these documents could be released? That is a really interesting point in terms of things that they're looking for because I had always assumed that a lot of these documents were redacted either for two reasons. One, ongoing investigations or two, because the victims were.

Starting point is 00:15:34 underage at the time of the crime. Therefore, you need to redact their names. So if they're seeking to have these redacted, that tells me that a lot of these redactions actually had nothing to do necessarily with these girls who were abused and perhaps everything to do with covering up adults that were involved in this crime. And I fully support the redactions being removed from these documents. Tracy Walder, great having you on. Thank you. you so much. I encourage everybody to check out Tracy not only here on sidebar and loan crime, but also News Nation. And you can check out her book, The Unexpected Spy. Always love having your perspective, Tracy. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jesse. And that's all we

Starting point is 00:16:16 have for you here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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Law&Crime Sidebar - Jeffrey Epstein’s Survivors Sue the FBI, Allege a Coverup

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