Media Storm - The Epstein Files: Survivors in their own words

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Care about independent and ethical news? Support Media Storm on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! CONTENT WARNING: Details about sexual violence. Last week, we broke apart the Epstein Files following the US justice department’s dumping of three million documents about a man once described “the most dangerous sexual predator in the world”: Jeffrey Epstein. Survivors have been exposed and re-traumatised, their testimonies have been redacted and buried, and their justice has been continually denied. So today, we put survivors back at the centre of this story. It’s a story we probably wouldn’t even know about, were it not for their persistence and bravery in coming forwards despite terrifying efforts to silence them. So we’re honoured to be joined by two of them: artist and author Rina Oh, and educator and mum Teresa J. Helm. They tell us sides of the story the mainstream media is missing. We also put sexual violence back at the centre of the story, by including a comprehensive outline of the abuse that victims have said was inflicted on them, as well as the names of men they have accused. It may be difficult to listen to, but we believe it is important to detail the sexual violence without burying in politics or euphemistic language — because that is what the legacy media has done for much too long. The episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)  The music is by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you have been affected by sexual violence, you can contact: Rape Crisis (England & Wales) 0808 500 2222 RAINN (USA) 800.656.4673 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, Helena. Hi, Matilda. What were you doing on Saturday morning at like 7 a.m. I'm just going to check my diary because I can't remember anything. Oh, oh, oh, I was sleeping because... You have that in your diary? No, there's no way I had to check my diary for that. I was like 7 a.m. on Saturday. You mean you weren't listening to BBC Radio 4 today program at 7 a.m. on Saturday? Is that what you're telling me? Um, no, I wasn't doing that. Well, I was. And... For the first time that I can remember ever, they were interviewing a Republican. And by that, I mean, they were interviewing someone who was anti-monarchy about an alternative model for the UK than the monarchy we currently have.

Whoa. I mean, they should have been listening to Media Storm like two years ago. Am I right? You are right. But when we did that show, we looked at just how, like, disproportionately little coverage, that opinion, that voice is given in our society. It's like, it's still a taboo even in 21st, news media. And so to me it felt actually genuinely very relevant that I woke up on Saturday

two days after former Prince Andrew was detained by police over the Epstein Files that we had a Republican being interviewed on BBC radio. I am wondering, is this a turning point? It really feels like it. It really does. It's probably not what like the US Department of Justice had in mind as a consequence when they finally released the Epstein Files. But hey, I guess anything to distract from the core issue at hand here, even if it is a revolution in the UK. And just to be really facetious here, Matilda, and put a forced segue into our episode, what is the core issue at hand with the Epstein files? Surely, it's not like, what's that thing in my mind?

Male violence against women? Is that a thing? No, not male violence against women. We surely couldn't talk about that. Media Stormers, welcome back. Last week, we did our best to break open the Epstein files following the DOJ's dumping of 3 million unsorted and overly redacted documents from the FBI's investigation into a man once described as the most dangerous sexual predator in the world. Jeffrey Epstein.

The DOJ, by the way, is the US Justice Department. The whole affair has been overwhelming in information and underwhelming in accountability, and perhaps by design. Our guest last week, American lawyer Daphne Del Vaux, likened the DOJ's chaotic dumping to a malicious legal practice called reptile theory. So it is a theory that is traditionally deployed in trial practice when lawyers like to kind of hijack a juror's brain by flooding them with information that will make them feel scared.

Truly the goal is to put them into fight or flight or freeze, which is collapse, to the point that they just cannot reasonably deliberate in the jury room. And so attorneys intentionally try to manipulate the jury by overwhelming them with a bunch of traumatic information without proper sequencing and containment. Survivors have been exposed, ret traumatized, and at the same time, their stories have been buried and their justice continually denied. So today we want to put survivors back at the centre of the story. It's a story we'd probably still not even know about,

was it not for their persistence and their bravery in coming forwards despite terrifying efforts to silence them, discredit them and intimidate them? We feel not nearly enough of the coverage has centred around the sexual violence at the heart of this scandal. Arguably a deliberate strategy of the DOJ under US Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose selective release of the files can viably be suspected of protecting perpetrators while flooding the public with inane and distracting information.

The DOJ denies this. You can learn more about this issue by listening to Last Weeks episode, where we identified four key takeaways from the release of the files so far. One was about that question of who's pulling the strings in America's DOJ. Another was about the global arms trade. Another was financial intergovernmental corruption. And the final takeaway, which we argue is the most important, is about the unaccountability of sexual violence. If you haven't listened already, scroll back and have a go.

Today's deep dive will focus solely on that latter issue and how it's been covered in the media. For those who maybe don't know and just took a chance on this episode, Media Storm starts with the people who are normally asked last. That means we'll be hearing from two survivors of Epstein's abuse. Rina O. So when you are involved with a narcissist, you kind of get sucked into this void. Like it's all based on deception, manipulation and control and dominance. And they're very repetitive.

They love hearing themselves speak. They love to lie. But it sounds like truth. Like they're such good liars that you sort of like fall for all of it. And then they entrapped you like some kind of predator. They also don't like hearing your thoughts. If you are to speak, you should only repeat what they said to you. You know, they like being flattered to, like, if you ever confront them and say, you did something wrong.

There's this lashing out process. That essentially is who Jeffrey Epstein was. And Teresa Helm. You have just gotten home after a trip to D.C. where you attended the state of the union. How was that? It was interesting and felt really great to be alongside all of these really amazing strong women that were there. For me, what was lacking was any type of acknowledgement or recognition from our president when it came to anything to do with Epstein Maxwell and any of his inner circle or co-conspirators, no mention of investigation, no mention of justice, no mention of accountability. It was just total silence on that.

So, you know, it was not a highlight for me. It was a disappointment. Media Storm is also the podcast that teaches you how to read the news. So we'll be asking Rina and Teresa about any mishaps they've seen in the mainstream media coverage. Of course, there's a lot to commend the media for too for making sense of a deluge of information. It was thanks to journalists sifting through the files that many victims, whose identities have been left in by the Department of Justice or who were shown exposed in unredacted pictures and videos

were flagged and removed. And while this highly sensitive content was erroneously left in, journalists have also identified just how much information was left out, analysis by Channel 4 News, which looked at like footage of raids of Epstein's properties. This suggests that as little as 2% of the Epstein files may have actually been released despite a US law mandating a full release, right, with redactions that only allow for very

specific reasons, namely protecting victims' identities. And as we speak, weeks on journalists are continuing to trawl through the mass of data in search of public interest news. There's also a lot wrong with the coverage, which can be gauged from the conversations coming from it. To be honest, I've had a lot of conversations that have frustrated me to no end. Quite a few of these conversations have been with those from the boomer generation. We love you boomers, but I've had conversations that have just really, really annoy me with people who essentially have been basically outraged by the underage girls, as they should. So girls in the Epstein files who were 13, 14, 15. But when it comes to the women trafficked by Epstein, for example,

who were in their 20s or early 20s, a lot of these conversations, switch and they're brushing them off like, well, they were adults, they should have known better, they went back and they're dismissing the fact that grooming and trafficking is a form of mental abuse and that can happen to anyone at any age. Yeah, but I totally understand why they think that and it makes sense that it's generational because like it is about not just being educated, but actually being uneducated in all of these myths that we've been taught about how coercion and sexual violence and abuse works. Yes. When we went to uni, we had just started learning.

They had just introduced consent education. The word consent had just sort of been formulated. I feel like the reporting is pushing you in that direction, where you are led to sympathise with the children, but with the women, you do start sort of thinking, why do they keep coming back for more? And it's not explained. And so we default to victim blaming unless the media takes on the task

of educating us in these common misconceptions. But you know, I think it's even worse than that, actually, because it's not just a case of like, oh, sympathise with the children, blame them as soon as they turn 18. I've seen, you know, media commentators splitting hairs when it comes to child molestation, you know, distinguishing between teenagers of a certain age and pre-pubescent children. Did you hear this insane clip from US political commentator Megan Kelly, distinguishing between barely legals and children? I didn't hear it and I'm not sure I want to. Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pedophile. This is this person's view who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type.

Like he liked 15-year-old girls. I don't know what's true about him, but we have yet to see anybody come forward and say, I was a, like a, I was under 10. I was under 14 when I first came within his purview. Look, you can say that's a distinction without a difference. No, it's not. I think there is a difference.

There's a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old. Wow. Thank you for making me listen to that. So firstly, she's factually, totally off the mark. The files do include first-hand statements of abuse from the age of 13, witness statements of abuse happening to 11-year-olds. Clearly, she has an agenda besides accuracy. But also, like, legally speaking, there simply isn't,

the difference that she describes between a 15-year-old and a five-year-old, and that is for a reason. Psychologists don't think that we develop full decision-making capacity until years after the legal age of consent. The age of consent is sort of like a safe estimate. They think it's probably not until our mid-to-early 20s that we really have that full capacity. And it is categorically true

that the power balance between an adult male in his 30s, 40s, 50s, and a 15-year-old girl is not in line. This is where language is so important when it comes to sexual violence and especially sexual violence against children. The media is often incapable of calling a spade a spade. I've seen articles peppered with phrases like 17-year-old woman, 13-year-old woman,

underage woman. We have a word for that. It's a girl or a child. Yeah, language is so important. Framing is also really important. I'm getting tired of this whole monsters and millionaires thing. Helena, you first introduced this to me in your first ever media storm investigation about domestic abuse. We always paint perpetrators as monsters rather than ordinary men who exist all around us.

And this Epstein story is playing into that hugely. You know, it's about an elite few who mistreat women and only get away with it because they're so powerful. That's not reality. In reality, nearly three quarters of people reported for child sexual abuse walk away without a conviction. one in six girls are subjected to child sexual abuse before the age of 14. One in four women are raped or sexually abused. Donald Trump, former Prince Andrew, these men accused of rape by Epstein survivors. They are not the 0.1% outside of the law.

The 0.1% outside of the law are rape victims who ever see justice. Exactly. I've got more stats on that. In the US, 1% of reported rapes or attempted rapes lead to a guilty version. In the UK, only 3% of rapes that are reported to the police even lead to a charge, let alone a trial or a conviction. Police drop 97% of cases. This story is not elites above the law. Most rapists are above the law. This framing isn't helpful.

And by the way, even Jeffrey Epstein is not unique. Most child sex trafficking perpetrators are wealthy white men. Like Epstein, and they also, like Epstein, often insulate themselves by having women and girls in their trafficking ring recruit victims for them. And like Epstein, they often plead down their charges, making trafficking prosecutions really, really, really, really low. It's true. We are very bad at drawing out patterns that force us to look at the true problem. There is a lot that's missing from the coverage. But to understand that, first we need to understand what we're actually talking about. when we talk about the Epstein files.

So before we get to our guests and their analysis, we're going to set straight what we actually know about what Epstein and others did to his victims. The next part of this episode will summarize the sexual violence at the centre of this scandal. We'll also lay out how survivors tried to speak out for many years before the media latched on and how others tried to silence them.

Needless to say, this section may be very triggering. So if you'd prefer to say, skip straight to our discussions with Rina and Teresa, just head to the next chapter. But we feel it's important to lay out the details as disturbing as they are without burying them in politics or clouding them in euphemisms, because that is what too much of the media has done for too long. So up next is a story you should have known long ago. I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody.

It's pretty boring stuff. Breaking tonight, the Justice Department releasing more than three million pages of documents. Chairman Jordan, I'm not going to get in the gutter with these people. There are over 1,000 sex trafficking victims, and you have not held a single man accountable. Shame on you. Welcome to Media Storm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Malinson and I'm Helena Wadia. This week's Media Storm.

The Epstein Files. Survivors, in their own words. Is the Department of Justice considering bringing any additional charges here? Well, look, in July, the Department of Justice said that we had reviewed the files, the quote Epstein files, and there was nothing in there that allowed us to prosecute anybody. We then released over 3.5 million pieces of paper, which the entire world can look at now, and see if we got it wrong. The world looked.

America got it wrong. That was U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche saying they didn't expect any criminal charges to come from new evidence in the files. But criminal investigations have been opened across Europe in France, the UK, Norway and beyond. A former prince spent 11 hours in a British jail today. No incident made more waves around the world than the detention of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor last Thursday. Until perhaps on Tuesday when Norway's ex-prime minister, Torbion Yagland was hospitalized over a suicide attempt, having been charged with gross corruption following the files.

But their investigations are into crimes that have nothing to do with sexual violence, even when they involve men, like Andrew, accused by Epstein's survivors of committing it. Which is why the starkest example comes from France, where Paris's prosecutor has opened two investigations from the files, and one of them actually concerns sexual violence. The prosecutor is using the files to revive an old, unfinished investigation into the French modelling agent, Jean-Luc Brunel, who, much like his suspected collaborator, Geoffrey Epstein, was found hanged in his jail cell while awaiting trial

for rape and sex trafficking of minors. The probe was closed upon his death in 2022. Now, the prosecutor is revisiting old evidence, reviewing new evidence from the latest release of the files, and crucially calling for more victims to come forward. Sorry, I can't. My, mind can't not go crazy, remembering that this other trafficker who was seen as a partner of Epstein was also found hanged in his jail cell before trial. It doesn't do much to quell conspiracy theories. Okay, look, authorities in Latvia and Lithuania have also opened investigations into the possible trafficking of young women and girls by Epstein. These are rare but hopeful examples. To date, the only person in prison for Epstein's sex trafficking ring is Galane Maxwell.

Rightly so, but we couldn't blame you if you thought that this was mostly a story of female-on-female violence. But it's not. Here's what we know about the male violence against women, none of which has yet been prosecuted and some of the men allegedly involved. We know that Geoffrey Epstein ran a ring of women and girls who were coerced in some cases enslaved for his sexual gratification and that of his associates. That is sex trafficking. of modern slavery involving the recruitment, harboring or transportation of a person for sexual exploitation using force, fraud or coercion. His victims say Epstein would regularly require them to give him or his friends massages and that he often abused or raped them during these

encounters. He also trafficked them to other men, coerced them to perform sex acts with his associates, some of whom knowingly molested, abused and raped them. Epstein's partner, Gilaen Maxwell, was the chief recruiter of grooming victims and also sometimes participated in the molesting. Many victims were also tasked with recruiting. They were told to target young, financially desperate women and girls. Teen victims who were sent out recruiting would typically be given $200 if they brought a new friend home to Epstein. Politico once reported Epstein was essentially running an enterprise at the Royal Palm Beach High School in Florida, due to the amount of pupils from there who were funneled into his hands. Traffickers like Epstein use violence, emotional manipulation,

blackmail and debt bondage to control their victims. Epstein would often promise victims help furthering their education or careers. He'd also threatened to ruin them if they left. He also violently beat them. He used physical and psychological violence to control his victims. Many of the victims say that they were as young as 13 when this started. One testifies firsthand that she was 11 when Epstein first assaulted her. Others recalled seeing girls as young as 10.

US lawmakers who saw the unredacted Epstein files say that these identify at least one victim as young as nine. There are also accounts of Epstein trafficking girls below the age of 10 from abroad, including from Yugoslavia during the 1990s civil war. war. This is sick. How do we know all this? Over the past 30 years, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring have described what they went through in police reports, legal affidavits, and media interviews. Mostly the information we're giving you comes from documents of the many lawsuits filed against Epstein and other men by female survivors. There were civil lawsuits alleging abuse, but also defamation cases against alleged perpetrators who would then deny

victim's accusations and tried to defame and discredit the victims. So Epstein and other named men made many out-of-court settlements with their accusers or reportedly pressured them to withdraw their cases. Some trials were still pending when Jeffrey Epstein died. One notable lawsuit came in the wake of Epstein's 2008 conviction when he received a 13-month soft sentence in an open jail on two charges of soliciting prostitution, one involving a child. These were significantly watered down charges, and in response, in 2014, two women filed a lawsuit against the United States for violating the Crime Victims' Rights Act.

They said Epstein's sweetheart plea deal was a violation of their rights as victims. And they won. In 2019, the judge ruled that federal prosecutors had violated the law by failing to notify victims before allowing Epstein to negotiate the plea. The verdict did not propose a remedy. Now let's talk about the other men. The men besides Jeffrey Epstein who were accused of violent crimes by his victims. Female plaintiffs in the lawsuits describe a vast enterprise of co-conspirators.

That's a quote. One document filed in court tells us that Epstein lent underage girls to, quote, Prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister and other world leaders. During the 2014 Victims Rights lawsuit, at least one woman accused Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, of sexually abusing a minor provided by Epstein. You may know Dershowitz as the combative lawyer who represented O.J. Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein and President Trump. I'm sure he's a great guy. On repeat occasions over the past two decades, he has worked to discredit victims speaking out. He denies any wrongdoing.

Former Prince Andrew, you probably know. He was accused by Virginia Geoffrey of forcing her to have sexual encounters when she was 17, a minor under US law, and as a victim of trafficking. She said that this happened in London, in New York and on Epstein's private island. Andrew denied the allegations but settled the lawsuit out of court in. in 2022 for an undisclosed amount. Last month, a second woman alleged Epstein sent her to the UK to have sex with Andrew when she was in her 20s.

She said the encounter occurred at the Royal Lodge, his former residence, and then she says she was given a tour of Buckingham Palace. Virginia Geoffrey also named a slew of other men during her defamation case against Gileane Maxwell in 2015, which was settled under seal two years later. Under oath, she named Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modelling agent we mentioned earlier, American hedge fund manager Glenn Dubbin, Harvard mathematician Marvin Minsky, former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, another unnamed prince, an unnamed foreign president,

a well-known prime minister, and more. Now, of those named, Dubin is the only one still alive and he has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Maria Farmer is believed to be the first survivor to have four. formerly accused Epstein of abuse after she filed a report to both the FBI and the NYPD in 1996. In a sworn affidavit in federal court, she later said that among the locations where Epstein assaulted her was the Ohio mansion of Les Wexner, American billionaire businessman who formerly ran Victoria's secret and whose foundation is one of the biggest contributors to pro-Israel causes in America. He denies any knowledge of Epstein's crimes.

Corporations, as well as individuals, have been cited as involved. In 2022, the US government sued J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, alleging it facilitated, sustained and concealed the human trafficking network operated by Jeffrey Epstein. The bank paid out a $290 million settlement to Epstein's victims. Now on to Donald Trump. He needs no introduction. In 2016, a Jane. Dough filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. president in California, alleging Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had sexually assaulted her at a series of parties at Epstein's Manhattan

residence in 1994 when she was just 13 years old. The case was dismissed because the judge said that it didn't raise valid claims under federal law. She attempted to file two more lawsuits, including one demanding a jury trial. Both cases were eventually withdrawn and her lawyer said the woman had received threats. The later two lawsuits she attempted to file included affidavits by two female witnesses who backed up her claims. One said she witnessed her being raped firsthand. The other said the plaintiff had told her about the assaults when they occurred. Now the details are disturbing, trigger warning. As one example, this California woman alleged that Epstein raped her to quote, anally and vaginally, despite her loud pleas to stop,

and that he attempted to strike her about the head with closed fists while angrily screaming that he, Epstein, rather than Trump, should have been the one to take her virginity. At the time, Donald Trump's attorney denied the allegations. Epstein declined to comment. Just how many women and children were victimized by Epstein and his collaborators. The US Justice Department says over a thousand. Just let that sit with you.

you for a moment. Over a thousand women and children abused and not a single man is in jail. Next up, we look at how the media has covered this and hear directly from those who lived it about what they think of that coverage. Welcome back to Media Storm. In this section, we're speaking to Survivors, Rina O and Theresa Helm. Due to time differences, we couldn't get them together, so we each sat down with one of them. I spoke to Theresa Helm, survivor services coordinator at the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation,

a US non-profit that joins the dots between all forms of sexual exploitation and violence. She was among five survivors to accuse Epstein of rape, battery and false imprisonment in 2019. And I spoke to Rina O, an artist and curator

and the managing editor of Art Lantern magazine, an academic art and news. publication. She was a young student when she was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein in 2000. Hi, my name is Rina O. And I am an Epstein survivor. I met Jeffrey Epstein when I was a college aid student. And this was in New York. He offered to pay for art school. I wasn't in school at the time. And there were a lot of financial reasons and immigration reasons. more than anything else, I just couldn't get financial aid or accept scholarships that were offered to me by our foundations. When I met Jeffrey Epstein, I wasn't expecting that much out of him.

I actually went to his house. I brought my art portfolio and I thought I could make it in New York City without an art degree. I was like, I'm going to be just like Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was discovered and he was like 18, 19 years old, hanging out with the, right people, you know. And he made it. If he made it without graduating from an art school, I could do it too. And so by the time I met Jeffrey Epstein, I brought my portfolio with me. And then that turned into, come back to the house. I'm offering you a scholarship because you need to have a bachelor's degree in fine arts in order to get gallery representation and to make it in the art world. He told me that he wanted to mentor me. But at the same time,

he also told me, you don't have to see me ever again. Like, I'm just, this great philanthropist. That's how he presented himself. He told me he sent a lot of young college students, some whom he'd never met. He's like, I'm offering you the same thing. You know, you don't have to see me again. Like, I'm just just like philanthropist. I'll just write checks and pay for four years, you know, of education. And he like dictated, you know, what school he told me to go to. So you didn't just say, I want you to enroll in the school. He's like, you are going to go to the school of Visual arts and you are going to take two summer classes. Go to the school, pick up a catalog, select the classes you want to study, and then the secretary will take care of the rest.

So that's exactly what I did. I left that day. I selected the classes and he kept calling me through the secretary to follow up. I just figured because I had other mentors before who are not creepy, they're not like they're real mentors, that he was somewhat of an academic. you know, but it didn't turn out to be that way because he doesn't even have a college degree, didn't have a master's degree, didn't have like a PhD in education. He'd turn out to be a complete con artist and fraud, and I didn't even know that it was happening so quickly,

that it very quickly just escalated and turned into two years of abuse. How old were you when you first met him? I had just turned 21. feel like a lot of people are absolutely outraged about the teenage girls who Jeffrey Epstein and his associates abused. However, I feel like sometimes when it comes to women who were in their 20s, for example, they're brushing off like, well, they should have known better because they were adults. They were fully formed adults. However, what that is dismissing is the fact that grooming and trafficking is a form of mental abuse that can happen to anybody at any.

age. And I wonder if you feel like the nature of grooming and the nature of trafficking has been well represented in the media, or is the media still victim blaming women who were not underage for their own abuse? Well, I think it began with victim blaming, you know, like a long time ago. And there was this whole like, well, you can't be a victim because you obviously went back And actually those who went back and stayed longer had a lot worse because he did worse things to them. The damage is longer lasting and they're not understanding this. I don't think there's a big difference between a 17 and a half year old and an 18 year old. So are they going to say like, well, the, you know, three months between being 17 and three quarters and you're technically still a minor.

And then once you turn 18, you're an adult. You know, like that that's really dismissing. you know the two years even beyond that after 18 or 20 which is around the age i was like it's like saying well you should have known better because technically you're an adult yeah but i would have been a sophomore in college and i have children who are that age now and i would probably kill someone if they try to do the things that chafree have seen that to me i don't mind going to prison okay um i'm just kidding but this is how much how protective i am of my children because of what have gone through And for others to say, well, you should have known better, you know, at 18, 19, 20 years old, that's wrong.

Your brain does not finish growing, you know, as a young person until you're 25 years old. And from the time you're 1 to 25, especially during adolescence to 25 is when you absorb the most amount of information. That also makes it very vulnerable and trusting. And when you are being manipulated, you actually normalize that. And most people don't understand that because they don't understand psychology. The general public wouldn't understand this. And yeah, I do get a lot of comments from people saying, well, you can't be a victim because you were over 18. I'm like, oh, really?

Okay. And then when I start telling them stories, like now you're forcing me to go there. and explain that I was molested when I was five to six years old. So once they hear that, then I get some sympathy because Jeffrey Epstein was another predator in my life. When I was five or six years old, my predator used candy and told me, we're going to play a little game.

And Jeffrey did exactly the same thing. His candy was a scholarship, and we're going to play a little game. And it was their little secret. I was taken into secret rooms when I was five and six years old. Jeffrey took me into a secret room when I was 21 years old. And this is the pattern of a sex predator.

And for anyone out there that's listening to say it's your fault, I don't think so because this happened to me early on in my life. And this was just a repeated, normalized thing that I just didn't know was wrong. Thank you so much for laying that out because I think that is so important for people to understand so important. I was wondering if you had anything to say about the nature of the way in which the files have been dropped, in particular the redactions. So a lot of survivors have had their names and even their images left in the files, while men have had their identities protected and redacted for unclear reasons often.

I think there are a lot of issues here. I know they had the names of all the victims for years and some for most. months, that should have been a priority for them to go through all of those files first. You know, like they should hire like special attorneys who work with, you know, survivors who know what is sensitive information. They should have had these people on the team. You know, it was just a botched job. They didn't prioritize the survivors, the victims.

And I am embarrassed by their behavior too. Right now, all they're doing is. fighting and blaming each other. It's on every single channel. It's on YouTube and they're literally screaming at each other and nothing is getting done. And then on top of all of that, there's this whole cover up that's going on. They're redacting the names of perpetrators, like people who are bringing or mentioning nine-year-olds and 12-year-olds. We want to know what they're talking about. You know, why are some of their faces redacted? But it's like, who do we go after? Who can these, souls who are now re-traumatized and re-victimized identities revealed when they were shielded,

you know, for decades. Now they're being harassed by, by like media, strangers, like, people are just following them around. They've gone into hiding and, you know, they've ruined their lives. A lot of them have families. They have children, you know, and this may be something that they never told anyone and now all their information has already been downloaded by the netizens get your shit together america something else the media has been guilty of is framing the epstein affair as a political scandal or even like a sex scandal rather than a violent criminal one do you feel like society is having a reckoning finally a reckoning about um structural issues that allow child sex offenders to use their power like this,

or do you feel like it's just become like a farce, like a spectacle? Yeah, this has been going on for a very long time. Jeffrey Epstein is not the first Jeffrey Epstein that has ever existed. I have studied cases, similar cases to Jeffrey Epstein. This is apolitical. 50 years from now, we're not going to identify the victims as being either like with the Republican or,

Democratic parties. It shouldn't be politicized. We shouldn't be used in that sense. You know, predators do not select victims based on their political preference. That's not the way this works. Everyone should be protecting children, you know, women, even adult males get abused. You know, this is a rancid epidemic that has existed for a very long time. It goes all the way back to colonial times. And, you know, we, we have a color system. That's another problem in this country. There's a lot of erasure. You know, you can't be a victim because you're not white. This goes back to slavery. The system already existed for Jeffrey F's thing to walk right into it and then, and then just take that role. And they're saying things like, oh, he only liked white little

girls. That is not true because racism, at the core of racism, is to abuse, you know, colored children by white supremacists. No one's talking about this. I'm sorry, if I sound really outraged, but this is a topic that we need to address. Do you feel that because of your race, you have been silenced even further than you already were? Oh, absolutely. I've been told, like, you can't be an obscene victim because you're not white. You're not. You're not. blonde and you don't have blue eyes. Like this was actually said to me repeatedly so many times, you know, and it's almost like, why do I have to prove to you that he did something to me? Like that, that's just like horrible. And no, like he absolutely had a thing for Asians. He had an

Asian fetish and he had a picture of Sunni and Woody Allen because that was like his dream. His like he idolized that relationship for a reason because he probably wanted a child bride. You know, we're dealing with a sex predator who was into children who probably wanted to raise his own child bride. What would you like to see done in the wake of the files and what would justice look like to you? First of all, in the wake of the files, they need to clean up the botched job that the government did with the release of the files. I want the remainder of the 2.5 million Pam Bondi is refusing to give us, which are very, probably has the darkest material to be released. And then what would justice look like?

Justice will look for the survivors would be, you know, finally getting a sense of relief that that these co-conspirators, these other predators are going to be held accountable. I don't want to just hear, you know, I'm sorry or see a resignation. You know, I made a mistake or I regret having associated with Jeffrey F. No, I want to see the evidence of what they were doing with Jeffrey Epstein. How do they benefit from their relationship they had with Jeffrey Epstein? Because anyone who was around Jeffrey Epstein, they weren't there because he was such a nice guy to hang out with.

They were benefiting from that relationship. They were either making money, you know, gaining extreme wealth, gaining connections. They released all the names of the survivors. I think they need to release all the names of these men. I'm Teresa J. Helm. I work with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation as the Survivor Services Coordinator, and I am a mom. That's important. I was a student full-time in California, and there was another student that approached me one day about a job opportunity. And I was interested in it, what I thought was a legitimate job opportunity. opportunity. I was flown to New York City from Los Angeles to what I thought was interview and

meet with who I was first told as Miss Maxwell. That's how she was described to me. I didn't learn her name, her first name, until after I got there. And from that, I was sent off to Jeffrey's home. So that's how that progressed, being presented with a job opportunity that was actually not a job opportunity at all. It was obviously something much more sinister and I would say evil and I just didn't know that that's what each person, each woman was setting me up for. Is it annoying when journalists like me ask you about your story as if your story is Epstein? I was trying to write a bio for you. And across most media it was a media, it was a always just Epstein survivor, Epstein victim, and it's very hard to find anything really about

you as a person, you as a life. And I wonder if you felt that the media could do a better job, but presenting survivors as entire people, is that something, is that a frustration that you felt? It is. It's a very good point. The fact that you acknowledge that is really quite nice, because it's something that I think about a lot. Survivors are way more, we are way more than just like the Epstein survivor. Because actually we don't really understand the reality of what was happening. If we don't understand that whole people and whole lives were affected by this. And then there's a tendency of victim blaming.

And that's easier to do when we don't really know anything about the victim as a person, like an intelligent being. Yeah. When it comes to victim blaming and the culture that creates victim blaming, often we can pin down quite specific language the media uses that encourages that. For example, journalists often struggle to call sexual violence what it is

and we use terms like underraged women rather than girls or like sex with a child when you can't have sex with a child, that's rape. When Epstein was convicted in 2008, he got a plea deal, right? Which really watered down his crimes. And then the headlines echoed that language. So the New York Times wrote

financier starts sentence in prostitution case. But it wasn't really a prostitution case and the law isn't always the story. What is the effect of the media not naming the crimes accurately? Well, it certainly has downplayed his crimes for so long to your point of the 2008, you know, sweetheart deal as it's known as where he got, you know, child prostitution charges, which is pretty disgusting because obviously it is not child prostitution, it's child sexual abuse or rape, as you said, because you can't have sex with a child. Where the media fails, I would say, the public and how it kind of just like rinse and repeat this victim blaming, it actually, it's like it's an assault on survival.

drivers, really, because people buy into that. It's almost like a propaganda push. They really buy into headlines and stories and you hear it over and over and over again. They're the victim. They must have caused it somehow. They did it to themselves. Or they should have known better. Or they shouldn't have been wearing that or all these things that people like to say to shift the blame on victims. I really would like to see a lot of change in the narrative. Every single person is affected by sexual violence in one way or another, whether it's their own personal experience or their family member or their friend. Everybody knows someone because it's so common. So if everyone can kind of shift out of the, let's see what we can do to make ourselves more

comfortable and leave the discomfort with them and really just kind of come together and just change the whole dynamic on the way we view survivors would be a really wonderful thing in general, I'd say. Something that the general public actually hasn't got a lot of, despite there being three million Epstein files released, is actually survivors' testimonies from those files. Crucially, the released files did not include survivors' statements. to the FBI about who besides Epstein committed crimes of sexual violence. Are survivors' voices being suppressed?

Yes, for sure. Yes. It's one of the things that we've seen throughout this entire process. It's literally breaking the law, number one. So they're violating the law by doing this. Number two, it's clearly protecting people that should not be protected. Of course, they're not supposed to put out survivor information, yet they did. They did it backwards.

they withheld potential perpetrator, co-conspirator, evidence, and then released the names of some survivors in very personal detail. So that was actually horrifying. It was a really horrifying experience for that to have happened. Are you and other survivors able to just say what has been left out? Are you able to reveal what was said about who? who was involved about the crimes that were committed? Or are your hands tied legally? I'm just asking because in September, you know, Lisa Phillips and other survivors said that survivors

are creating their own list. That made me worry about your safety, to be honest. So, yeah, I mean, how much freedom do you have to say what you want to say? Yeah, I don't think a lot, really. I really don't think a lot of freedom to say what we want to say. Because to that exact point, there's a major safety issue and there's also a lot of defamation lawsuit issue. So, you know, if the Department of Justice releases the information, then obviously there's the information is there. You have it and there's no defamation potential. Whereas if any

survivor goes public, then there almost certainly will be some type of defamation lawsuit. And again, significant safety factors. Each one of us already feel safety, we're very, you know, we're cautious. have been for years now and I don't know that it will ever fully go away that kind of hyper vigilance I just imagine it would be magnified tremendously if survivors were out there just you know blasting names so you really need the the Department of Justice we need the department carry that that burden for you absolutely I mean it's their duty to carry that for us it's not our duty to put ourselves out there and risk ourselves and And coincidentally, they know that. They know that it's a huge major risk to safety, and they're using that as leverage. It's like an intimidation. They're using it as leverage is really how it feels.

Do you see justice on the road ahead? And also, what would justice look like in your eyes? I'm still in the mindset that I expect there to be justice. I don't know when that's going to come. I think it's potentially a longer road ahead. I mean, it's already been a long road, but if they were truly honestly investigated thoroughly, I believe it would guarantee the path to conviction. And so I would feel justified that these co-conspirators had to face the rule of law. That would be, you know, some justice.

Convictions. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, you know, for them to have their freedom taken away, I think that that is very symbolic to a lot of what we have experienced much of our freedoms being taken psychologically or some physically. Our freedoms were taken in various ways. So they should probably experience that as well for their actions and behaviors. And now just before I let you go, is there anything that you would like? like to say that I haven't given you the opportunity to say or that other journalists haven't given

you the chance to say. Well, you know, I kind of like what you touched on at the beginning. And so I'll go back to that because it's a really wonderful thing to consider what each of us survivors are outside of our being an Epstein-Maxwell survivor. You know, a lot of us are moms and have careers and, you know, we like to play soccer or you would call it football. You know, my faith is very important to me. Something that I would like, I think everyone to really understand about survivors is the resilience. There's so much resilience that I see in these women. You know, it can almost bring me to tears sometimes.

And also, I think another really important thing to note is for every one of us women standing there on behalf of ourselves and one another, we really represent millions of other women and men too because men are victims as well at times, men and boys, even if it's not as prevalent, it does happen. I mean, we could say we're a world of survivors, you know. There's millions of us. And just like I can sit here and say, well, I'm so much more, we all are, and that's millions of us.

We're all so much more. If you've been affected by any of the issues we've spoken about today, you can talk to rape crisis in England and Wales. Call free on 0808-500-22222-2. And if you're in the US, you can contact Rain on their hotline [phone]. Anywhere else, just search rape crisis. They've got a whole list of helplines. Thank you for listening.

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