RedHanded - Episode 281 - Jeffrey Epstein: Along Came a Spider - Part 1

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

The story of Jeffrey Epstein – the billionaire financier with an industrial-scale web of child abuse implicating some of the most powerful people in the world – sounds like some half-baked conspiracy theory. But it’s all true. And to answer the question of how he went from humble origins to sex-trafficking minors over to his private island, we have to start at the very beginning.  So, who exactly was Jeffrey Epstein? How did socialite and media heiress Ghislaine Maxwell accelerate his ambitions? And how the hell did they keep getting away with it? 2023 North American Tour Tickets: redhandedpodcast.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And we sound tired, even though it is actually 2023 now. As you listen to this, we are still in the past yes we're getting ahead of the game happy new year though happy new year yeah i hope your new years were pressure free and fun as they never are but it is january 2023 for all of you for us it's still december and we are scheming to get out of the office and into pyjamas with wine and fire. That is my entire plan. But that's not the reason for the season when you're listening.

It's January. Maybe you're a little bit hungover still. Who knows? But we're here to perk you up. Exactly. Today we are telling the story of a billionaire financier who sat atop an international pyramid scheme of child exploitation. It took place over decades, involved hundreds of victims, and implicated some of the most powerful people in the world, from business moguls to US presidents and British royalty. It sounds like some half-baked sensationalist conspiracy theory being furiously typed up on a black website in neon green font

by some tinfoil hat maniac screaming, PEDOPHILE ISLAND! And it would sound insane if it wasn't all true. How did Jeffrey Epstein go from humble beginnings to mega-pedo numero uno? Just how extensive was his web of abuse? And how did he evade justice time and time again?

And what happened in that jail cell in 2019? He's not dead. To answer those questions, we have to start in Coney Island, New York, in 1953. Seymour and Pauline Epstein had been married for just over a year when they welcomed Geoffrey Edward Epstein into the world. When Seymour returned from fighting in the Second World War, the family moved into an apartment in Seagate, a fenced-off residential district on Coney Island.

For the uninitiated, Coney Island is an area of New York City, in the south-west of Brooklyn. It's where New Yorkers go for beaches, amusement rides and walks on the pier. Yeah, it's like in Uptown Girl, where... Is it Dakota Fanning and Brittany Murphy in Uptown Girl and they go to Coney Island, they eat a corn dog, someone's sick? Something? No idea.

But Seagate, on the west of Coney Island, was originally built to house summer retreats for some of New York's wealthiest families. And although the money mostly vanished from Seagate in the Great Depression, the 12-foot gates and sense of separation remained. In the early 60s, real estate developer Fred Trump, father of, of course, none other than Donald, turned huge stretches of Coney Island's beachfront into high-rise apartment buildings, which he called, rather unimaginatively, Trump Village. Which doesn't sound like a place that anyone would want to live.

No, in Britain, Trump means fart. It does. And this development only served to isolate Seagate even further. And as the money fell, the standards of living did too. Seymour and Pauline were both second-generation immigrants whose parents had fled Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century. Young Geoffrey adored his mother, but his relationship with his father was a lot more detached. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

I don't know why this made me think of it, but the name Seymour feels very old and timey to me. Jane Seymour. And so does the name Eugene. And I've been listening to a podcast series about eugenics. And the reason the names Eugenia and Eugene became so popular in the 20s and 30s is because everyone fucking loved eugenics. The name Eugene means well-bred. Look it up.

I'm serious. What's the princess's name? Eugenie. Eugenie. It's even worse. It's even worse. Yeah. It's good, though. I think it's just called The Story of Eugenics. Iugenie. It's even worse. It's even worse. Yeah. It's good though.

I think it's just called The Story of Eugenie. I'll send it to you. I think you'll like it. Excellent. That's what I will be listening to as I sit by the fire. Yeah, The Story of Eugenie. And everyone else will be creeped out by me. But that's exactly what I want to do.

So yes, do please send it to me. It's really well done. So let's leave the Eugenes and the Princess Eugenies where they are and move on with another old and timey name, Seymour. Seymour believed in the value of hard work, plucky determination and making things happen for yourself. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, American, etc. The family would play games over the dinner table, like repeatedly matching pairs of overturned cards designed to sharpen Jeffrey's memory and mental agility. Like when Lisa goes to that other smart girl's house and they just play word games at the table.

That's what it makes me think of. And just in case anybody doesn't understand, it's a Simpsons reference. Yeah, and they're like, why don't you play with this ball? An associate of Epstein's, Stephen Hoffenberg, has said that Jeff made it clear that he felt confined by his poverty. He was furious at his lot in life. And Hoffenberg's quoted in The Spider, Barry Levine's great book on Jeff Epstein's web.

And here's what he says. Hoffman says, He grew up as a nobody, and he couldn't take that. This is the world that Jeffrey Epstein was born into, surrounded by the ghosts of money and privilege, but feeling confined to an unremarkable life. And from his family's high standards, he thought he could only escape by carving a path all of his own. Geoffrey was a chubby kid, unathletic and into maths and science from a young age. But despite seeming like a ripe target for bullies,

the young Geoffrey Epstein was charming from the start. Making people like him came very easily. He grew tall early and was said to have stubble at age 12. Gross! No, no, that's weird. Don't like that. And possibly because of this prepubescent stubble, Jeffrey Epstein's nickname throughout those early years was Bear. He was definitely highly intelligent, but easily bored. Uh-oh.

And that intellectual restlessness saw Jeffrey Epstein skip the third grade and then the eighth. In 1969, he graduated high school two years early at the age of 16. And then he enrolled at the prestigious private college, Cooper Union, in Lower Manhattan. Tuition was free. He was excelling in his studies. Everything was going smoothly. But inexplicably, after two years, Jeffrey Epstein dropped out. Then he enrolled at New York University, again acing his subjects for three years, before dropping out again

without graduating. And this same pattern would repeat throughout his young adult life, flitting from challenge to challenge whenever he got bored. And obviously everybody already knows the name Jeffrey Epstein, there's not much we can spoiler here, but he really from a very young age shows what could either be just like tenacity in his very young age, but then as he gets a bit older you start to see some of the symptoms of possibly more psychopathic tendencies the fact that he can't see things through the fact that he's quite easily bored and distracted and you know he's like so close to graduating three years he's acing his subjects and he's like no

I can't be bothered I'm gonna go do something else yeah it's like who said it when they were like hannibal yeah they said in that that hannibal is like such an unrealistic depiction of a psychopath of that level because he never would have completed and seen through medical school and obviously we do know that there are people with psychopathic tendencies who go on to become politicians incredibly successful ceos lawyers doctors but people who have that Machiavellianism as well typically tend not to because, or I guess maybe more of the dark triad. But it's complicated. It's complicated. They don't like being told what to do by people they think are less intelligent than them, which is everyone. After all this, and still without a degree, Geoffrey somehow

managed to get hired as a physics and calculus professor at the Dalton School. Dalton is an intensely selective private academy and tuition nowadays is over $50,000 a year. It's constantly ranked amongst the best schools in North America. Needless to say, its standards for teaching are extremely high.

Lucky for Epstein, the school had just been taken over by Donald Barr, an eccentric ex-military disciplinarian. Barr was impressed by Epstein's problem-solving abilities. And not for the last time, Jeffrey Epstein managed to talk his way into a position way above his qualifications and experience. And here's the first of many fun facts for you this

series. The year before Epstein joined Dalton, Donald Barr, the head teacher of a prestigious prep school, published a sci-fi novel called Space Relations. And Space Relations is the story of intergalactic sexual slavery. So I'm sure Donald Barr and Jeffrey Epstein had quite a lot to talk about in the staff room. Yeah, obviously publishing a novel that has themes of intergalactic sexual slavery could just be a colourful imagination, an interesting story. But it's hard to ignore when it's in relation to Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah. So the parents of Dalton's school kids were all Wall Street fat cats, Hollywood actors and other members of New York's cultural elite.

And this was Epstein's first introduction into that world. These kids were full-on mini-Made in Chelsea. They'd fly off to Paris for a long weekend, they'd spend their winters on skiing holidays in Switzerland. They had it all. And it was everything that Geoff was after. So he wasted no time in trying to ingratiate himself. Dalton students from the time remember parties

they held in their Manhattan apartments while their parents were away. They'd be sat around around drinking and smoking weed. And then suddenly their physics teacher would turn up trying to hang out with them. This is the thing. I think sometimes when you're going through this, you forget that he's not a student there. He is a teacher. He's a physics teacher there. And these kids are like, he just keeps trying to hang out with us.

It's very, how do you do, fellow kids? Like, it's cringe. It's so cringe. So, so cringe. That's like seeing your teacher in the supermarket times 100 per jillion. Yeah, because he's at your fucking party while you're high and drunk. It's so gross. And the thing is, like, it's not just that he turns up there as if that wouldn't be bad enough.

Teacher Jeffrey Epstein was also incredibly leery and inappropriately close with female students, especially those that were smaller than their classmates. And this whole time, he also stood out for his dress sense, because he never tried to fit in with Dalton's preppy formal style. Instead, Professor Jeffrey Epstein was known for his huge floor-length fur coat and 70s style shirts exposing a thick bush of black chest hair. I mean, it's odd because you're like, in one way you think he's trying to fit in with these ultra elite.

But then the way he so peacocks himself and so goes for this like almost pimp like 70s look. I guess he's trying to stand out. I don't know. Does he think it makes him look cool to the kids? Because that's obviously who he's interested in, particularly the petite girls among them. I don't know. All I know is that I'm upset. Yeah, I mean, you should be. It's upsetting. And it's going to get worse. So get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader.

Bonnie who? I just sent you a profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy.

Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. You don't believe in ghosts?'t get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't.

I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada,

as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. 1976 was to be Epstein's last year at Dalton. The official reason he was let go was because his educational style was not meshing with that of the school. Probably because he didn't have a fucking degree or any qualification to be doing what he was doing

and he's a pedo. But Jeffrey Epstein saw an opportunity to get a foot in the door and he wasn't about to let that slip by. In the spring term of his last year, he met a man called Alan Ace Greenberg at a parents' evening. Greenberg was the CEO of Wall Street trading house Bear Stearns. And Epstein taught his daughter, Lynn. Epstein impressed Ace Greenberg. He confided that he didn't really want to be a teacher and he had ambitions in the world of finance. Greenberg himself had started as a clerk at Bear Stearns

and risen through the ranks to CEO. So he saw a bit of himself in Epstein, in his energy and his drive. Epstein went in for an interview, tapped up a fraudulent CV with made-up college degrees, and talked the talk. Which in the 70s is kind of all you need to do. Oh yeah, I mean, the thing with Jeffrey Epstein is,

until all the child molestation starts, right, I'm not pro that is until all the child molestation starts, right? I'm not pro that. Until all the child molestation starts, you do have what we similarly have with a lot of cult leaders that we've talked about or some of these more like go-getter types that you've come across. The early story of where he's just able to be like, right, this is what I want. I'm going to lose this job teaching a Dalton. I'm going to go to a fucking parent's evening and see which parent is going to give me my next opportunity.

And on one hand, you're like, say what you will. He's obviously incredibly manipulative. He's lying all the time. He's shallow. He's glib. He's clearly got psychopathic tendencies. On the other hand, he gets the job and he gets shit done. And I'm not, again, not defending him, not here for the child molestation.

But it is remarkable what he's able to achieve. That's for sure. And just like that, Epstein was given a job, developing and marketing quantitative analysis for options. That is crazy because that is what my dad does for a living. And I am like, he is a mega genius, my father. And I'm like, if Epstein was able to get that job at Bear Stearns, fake CV or not, he must have been doing it. Otherwise they would have been like,

you're not doing the job you were hired to do. So... I mean, I think he was good at it. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like, he lies his way into these places, but he delivers. Epstein's starting salary is $200,000, and before the age of 25, he bought himself an apartment on the Upper East Side. By all accounts Epstein was incredibly gifted in financial affairs.

He was sharp, discreet and quick-witted and could easily deal with unexpected developments. And by the time the top brass at Bear Stearns caught wind of his bogus CV, it was too late. Epstein was already an integral cog in the machine. Still, paired with rumours of insider trading and other bubbling scandals, they were forced to let him go, with a nice little hundred grand bonus to soften the blow. So once again, Jeffrey Epstein was on his own. But it would not be like Jeff to give up there. So with an impressive roster of contacts, he started his own solo investment firm out of his apartment. He gave it the fancy-pants sounding name Intercontinental Assets Group which consultio consultius it's exactly

consultio consultius it's it's like I'm a hotel but also you can take your kids sailing for the weekend like it's but it says assets in there and we're a group I'm not just one man in my apartment and basically what Intercontinental Assets Group was setting out to do was manage the fortunes of the ultra-rich. And business started well. But it was a bit slower than he wanted. So, Epstein started managing the finances of arms dealers, too.

They all get there eventually. And I'm also like... Including the royal family. Yeah. And I'm also like, so do all of the fucking banks. And the Vatican. Everyone's at it.

Because they got loads of money. And Epstein had an uncanny ability to convince people he could be a value to them. I think that's like one of the key things that Epstein is able to do from a very young age. Is make himself invaluable to whoever or whatever situation he's in. And combined with a skill for manipulation and a haywire moral compass, to put it mildly, it brought him incredible wealth and success. I mean, that's all you need.

Smarts, manipulation and a lacking moral compass and you can rule the world. 48 laws of power. But those skills would also make Jeffrey Epstein an insistent and manipulative sexual abuser. In fact, wherever he went, from high school to the world of finance, Epstein had developed a reputation as a ladies' man, which rarely comes without sinister undertones.

And it was around this time, as he's making his forays into the world of finance, that the first accusations of assault date back to. In the summer of 1984, Epstein was on holiday on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The owner's 13-year-old daughter often worked as a babysitter for the wealthy vacationing couples. And as a babysitter, she remembered her surprise at being called up to Epstein's beach house to discover that he had no children. Still, she was welcomed by the 30-year-old guest and offered drugs and alcohol. And later that evening, he assaulted her for the first time. It continued over the next few years and any time he returned to Hilton Head.

Epstein also started to take secret nude photographs of her while she was asleep or under the influence and he would shout at her if she suggested that he give them back. This girl has reported that he even flew her to New York and offered her as, quote, fresh meat to his friends. So just so there's no confusion and we're actually all clear on what we're talking about, Jeffrey Epstein transported a teenager across state lines

at least three times to perform sexual favours for him and other powerful adults. And that is what? Trafficking. Yeah. By his early 30s, Epstein had learnt how to use his power and influence to take advantage of young girls and to make sure they kept quiet about it. Meanwhile, his network, aspirations and bank balance were only getting bigger, and shadier by the second.

Through an arms dealer pal, Epstein met Stephen Hoffenberg, the man we heard from earlier. He was the CEO of Towers Financial Corporation, yet another consultio consultius in their story. And Towers Financial Corporation was a shady debt-buying financial firm. And once again, Epstein schmoozed his way in. And as Hoffenberg remembers, he had an extraordinary ability to bond. Epstein's supernatural ability was to discern what the other person was looking for. And we've said this before, this kind of person,

this kind of sort of predatory, psychopathic person, narcissistic tendencies, they are the very best profilers out there. Their absolute golden key into every situation is to look at another person, understand what they are missing, understand what they want from you, and then give it to them in the most shallow way possible. So Epstein grew the business's revenue from $20 million to over a billion in just one year. That is some year-on-year growth. Anyone's going to be very pleased with that. And when the company pivoted to being a full-on Ponzi scheme, Epstein was all in on the fraud. He was integral to how the scam operated, how they illegally manipulated stock prices and created fake assets, earning themselves millions of dollars in the process. But when the law finally caught up with Towers Corp,

it was Hoffman who took the hit. Again, classic. You're either useful or you're in the way. And when Hoffman was no longer useful to Epstein, he was the perfect patsy to throw under the bus. And Hoffman was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. No wonder he's fucking running his mouth all over that book. Yeah. And somehow, through shifting the blame and pleading ignorance, Jeffrey Epstein walked away scot-free.

So to answer the question of how Big Jeff made his millions, the answer is a fake CV, shady investments for arms dealers, and large-scale fraud. And Epstein continued his run of success throughout the 80s, with more and more powerful people trusting him with their money. He continued to have an inexplicable influence on these ultra-rich people. For example, the billionaire Les Wexner, the owner of Victoria's Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch, built Epstein a 10,000 square foot guest house on his estate.

Hmm. Hmm. Sure. Why does he need that? What's really going on in there? Hmm. I think we all know. Yes.

Wexner also let Jeffrey Epstein use his yacht, which at the time was the largest yacht in the United States of America. And Epstein also had free run over Wexner's private plane. Wexner also, in the 90s, signed over his New York apartment to Epstein for a grand total of zero dollars. Epstein's ability to get what he wanted is often put entirely down to his charisma. He was incredibly good at sitting down with powerful people and impressing them so much that they gave him a chance but the more you find out about epstein the more you realize that it's not so much a boy from wrong side of tracks does good by being good at stuff it's actually much

more to do with manipulation yeah and also like the people he's manipulating, or the people he's working with, like say a Les Wexner, right? He's not a stupid man, Les Wexner. He didn't become incredibly wealthy and go on to own the biggest yacht at the time in the US by being stupid and simple and giving away all of his money and assets and building houses for people for free. No, he did it by making money off eating disorders. Absolutely. So I'm like, what's in it for him? It's not just Les Wexner being manipulated by superstar manipulator Jeffrey Epstein. This is where you see that web start to build of not just influential people, but people he's pulling into his orbit who probably have unsavoury shared interests.

Sure, you might, might let a trusted business associate use your apartment now and again. It's like, oh, come up to the cabin, do you know what I mean? But give them the whole thing for free? I don't know. Rich people don't stay rich by giving shit away for free. No. But we're going to come back to Epstein's manipulation tactics next week. So for now, we're going to move on. Unsurprisingly, Epstein saw an opportunity in his friendship with Les Wexner for sexual manipulation too. Epstein often pretended to young women that he was a talent scout for Victoria's Secret

before exposing himself and masturbating. So as the 80s drew to a close, Jeffrey Epstein clearly had a system that worked. He certainly had the money and connections in the world of finance to get what he wanted. And he'd used that to build himself a private empire. Thanks to Wexner, he had one of New York's largest townhouses that, remember, he got for free. And in 1990, Jeffrey Epstein bought himself a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, the super-exclusive neighbourhood for the super-duper wealthy. He was flying around in private jets and would hold fancy parties,

always with very young girls in attendance. Jeffrey Epstein had many of the hallmarks of the lifestyle he'd always strived for. But what Jeffrey Epstein didn't have, what he couldn't manipulate, what he couldn't pretend to have, was class. He was new money. His bullish charisma that had worked so well in business didn't translate to the socials and mixes of the old money elite. And that's actually very reminiscent of like, say, Donald Trump. I think that was one of his biggest bugbears or is one of his biggest bugbears is that, you know, he's like loud and brash and does his like construction business and all of that kind of stuff and clearly had a lot of money that his father made but one of his biggest gripes was always that the upper echelons of new york society never wanted him to be a part of their inner circle because they were like he's got no class look at him his fucking building looks like

gaddafi made it like covered in gold like and i think jeffrey epstein because of his background because he didn't have that Eugenie breeding, they looked down on him. And Jeffrey Epstein was also reclusive and hated large groups of people. To get the lifestyle he wanted, to manipulate and abuse and get away with it on an industrial scale, he needed a partner in crime. Someone that was already a part of that world and effortlessly mixed

in those circles. And it was around this time that he first met Ghislaine Maxwell. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led

to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Which means it is time to stick a bookmark in the Epstein saga for now and time walk back to the 1920s and zoom off to a small village in the Czechoslovakian mountains. Jan Ludvig Hyman Binyaminhok was born in 1923 to a family of Ashkenazi Jews. Life wasn't glamorous. He didn't own a pair of shoes until he was seven. But things got a whole lot worse when German forces marched into Prague when he was just 15.

He managed to make his way to England and joined the British army and went on to participate in the D-Day landings. The rest of his family were exterminated in the Holocaust. So he decided to reinvent himself for a new life as an English gentleman and gave himself the name that would shake the world, Robert Maxwell. If you want to learn more about Robert Maxwell, there is a podcast series called Power the Maxwells. And it is incredible. Astonishingly well told story. So go and have a look at that if you want to understand more about Robert Maxwell. He was fluent in seven languages. In Power the Maxwell, they say that he learned English in three weeks. And he spoke it with not a hint of an accent,

sounded completely English. He joined the British Foreign Office in Berlin and after a brief stint as an MP, he founded a publishing company which started its life making scientific textbooks. And with that company, Robert Maxwell made an absolutely bonkers fortune in news media. Where Rupert Murdoch had the sun, Robert Maxwell had the Daily Mirror.

Maxwell got married in Paris, and he and his wife settled down in their 53-room mansion near Oxford, called Headington Hill Hall. When they had children, he was adamant that they would not know the poverty he had grown up with. So they wanted for nothing. Their youngest, Ghislaine, was born in France on Christmas Day 1961.

She grew up surrounded by money and luxury, but also power. Robert Maxwell would host all sorts of dignitaries, titans of business, and high-ranking politicians at Headington. And since Ghislaine was his favourite, he kept her in the room from a very young age. Ghislaine had a deep, unconditional love for her father, even calling him the captain, and he always treated her as special, even among their rarefied world. Robert Maxwell even named his 180-foot yacht Lady Ghislaine.

His expectations of all of his children were incredibly high. Much like the Epsteins, the Maxwells gave their children tests in mental agility at home. At the dinner table, they would be quizzed on geopolitics and asked to report to him what they hoped to achieve in the future. If their answers were not satisfactory, they'd be whipped with a belt and made to write a letter of apology to their father. And that's the Barler method. He stole it.

Patent pending, patent pending, patent pending. And Robert Maxwell was extremely protective. When Ghislaine went to study at Oxford because of course she did her father banned her from bringing any men home or being seen with any potential partners he was convinced that any man dating Ghislaine would just be after his fortune he wanted to be the only man in her life and I think it's hard to ignore the parallels between Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein and the whole coming from nothing, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, the working your way up to the top of any industry that you're going to be in.

And also you'll go on to see the dynamics between Ghislaine and Jeffrey and Ghislaine and her father. That sort of controlling, obsessive, you're just an extension of me mentality. But despite the rules that her father set down for her, Ghislaine was a big hit on the party circuit if you've seen any pictures of her at this time of her life she is but she's beautiful and she very much does look like I might get in trouble for this but I always think she looks like a dark-haired Diana yeah I can see that she has very like uh what they share is that bird-like features petite bird-like features that's what i'll say um so yeah i can see and big eyes yeah and big fans of off the shoulder bardo cut dresses yes quite diana's better though obviously

looking can you imagine i was just feeling well actually fuck diana i'm just can't get enough of galislaine Maxwell. Nah, Diana's hotter than Ghislaine Maxwell. Was. R.I.P. Friends of Ghislaine at the time remember how comfortable she was working a room. She seemed to know everyone. I mean, she probably did. And no level of wealth or influence intimidated her.

She rubbed shiny shoulders with members of the British royal family. Bet you can guess who. Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, was a family friend that Ghislaine had made through her father's business connections. But we're going to circle back to Doble's Pizza Boy in part two. I really hope they've got a plaque in that Pizza Express in Woking. I really, really hope so.

Ghislaine was an outrageous flirt, always ready with a dirty joke or inappropriate comment. And always ready to give unsolicited advice on sexual practices. In the new Netflix documentary about her life, one friend remembered Ghislaine coming downstairs with a handful of scarves. And she blindfolded the men and then asked the women to take their tops off and made the men guess who was who, based on the breasts that they were fondling. She also used to do things like open the front door in her underwear and then like invite people around for tea, but just be in her underwear the whole time. And like women, not men. Again, power the Maxwells.

Just listen to it. She's very much an exhibitionist, is Ghislaine Maxwell. And she is in many ways very similar to jeffrey epstein but in many ways his polar opposite where he lacked that sort of um he's good one-on-one jeffrey epstein i think that's what you find when you look at his story but in large groups at parties he is not that person whereas galane is that person she can work a room she can charm groups of people and i think also importantly you can see here that her sexual proclivities her sexual filter if you will are lower than maybe the the norm because i think often what happens and we'll

obviously discuss this later over the the course of two episodes, people are like, oh, you know, does she just get sort of perverted by Jeffrey Epstein? No, she's got it in her. She's got it. It's there. It's because she's rich and posh. They're all like that. Oh, I believe it. So in November 1991, news broke that Robert Maxwell was missing at sea.

The captain. He'd fallen off the side of the Lady Galane while out sailing from the Canary Islands. And his body was found later that day. Many suspected foul play. His business empire was deep in debt and he was facing a repayment of £75 million in loans to the Bank of England. I mean, that tells you how rich he is, that he's £75 million in debt to the Bank of England. I mean, that tells you how rich he is,

that he's £75 million in debt to the Bank of England. It was also revealed that he had embezzled over £500 million from his employees' pension plans. Yeah, again, Power the Maxwells will explain this in great detail. The theory is, well, what we're expected to believe is that he went on to the top deck to have a piss in the middle of the night and he fell off. Sure. Sure.

But whatever the cause of Maxwell's death, Ghislaine was devastated. And not least because his will only allowed her $100,000 a year trust fund. It wasn't nearly enough to maintain the lifestyle that she was accustomed to. In her newly bought Manhattan apartment, Ghislaine complained that she was now poor. Yes, she had the connections, the social ability and the high society clout. Plus she knew how to use people, how to work on their discomfort for her own enjoyment and benefit. But she had lost her father figure, the man for whom her whole life seemed to be in service. And more immediately, she'd lost his money.

And with it, the ability to fuel her no-expense-spared lifestyle. Within a year of losing her father, Ghislaine Maxwell started dating Jeffrey Epstein. And together, with her social clout and high society ways and her name, and with his money, they would be the perfect storm. Jeff and Gilly had lost their fathers just a month apart. So not only were they both members of the Dead Dad Club, they both had strict, high-expectation upbringings. More than that, they both wanted the same things from life. Geoffrey hosted the parties,

Ghislaine brought high society in and worked the room. And as we all know, they were a match made in abusive hell. Of course, we can be pretty confident that Jeffrey Epstein would have abused and manipulated young girls and women even if he'd never met Ghislaine. But it's also safe to say that it may never have become such a wide-ranging and powerful industry of abuse without the involvement of Ghislaine Maxwell. And next week we're going to tell you all about the extent of her involvements. But for now, let's just say she was all in. Geoffrey's grifting abilities had

brought him to the highest echelons of society. And with Ghislaine by his side, he could indulge in his wildest fantasies. If billionaires, arms dealers and politicians were taken in, what chance could teenage girls have had against the manipulative power of Jeffrey Epstein? They didn't stand a chance. And I think also his ambitions with this kind of, like you said, industry of abuse that he crafts himself, or this pyramid scheme of abuse that he crafts himself or this pyramid scheme of abuse that he crafts himself is again indicative of like his ambition and I don't mean that obviously in a positive way I'm saying like when he's young you see he's like bored with his lot in life like even a normal job a normal family never would have been enough for him and I think even for Epstein with

the abuse a normal level quote unquote of, would never have been sufficient for him. It had to be the top of whatever he was going to do. And it was always going to be, if I'm going to be an abuser, how can I be the most successful, the most expansive, the most far-reaching one that I can be? So Maria Farmer was a young painter who in 1995 was graduating from the New York Academy of Art. She specialised in nudes and focused on themes of adolescence. She'd often paint from photographs of her own younger sisters. At her graduation show, she was thrilled when her triptych was snapped up almost instantly.

It was a real-world vote of confidence for her art She was thrilled when her triptych was snapped up almost instantly. It was a real-world vote of confidence for her art. And at a total of £38,000, it was a serious financial windfall as well. But not long after it sold, she was approached by the Dean of Students, Eileen Guggenheim. What a poor person name. I bet Eileen's got absolutely not a pot to piss in. Barely two pennies to rub together is Eileen. And Eileen told Maria to forget the sale because there were two very important benefactors to the school who were going to buy it instead. But they were going to buy it for half the price. So Maria was introduced to the couple, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,

who said that the price cut would be more than worth her while. Epstein called Maria soon afterwards with a job offer. He wanted her to buy art on his behalf and manage the entrance to his townhouse, so she would greet Epstein's connections as they came in. Once, Donald Trump came through that very door with Jeffrey Epstein, and Epstein turned to Donald Trump and said, she's not for you, referring to Maria. Among the visitors to the house were a string of young girls who, Ghislaine said, were all auditioning to model for Victoria's Secret. Ghislaine would occasionally dart out of the door saying, I've got to go and get girls for Geoffrey. She described these girls that she'd go and scrape up from somewhere as nubiles and would have a chauffeur drive her around until she saw a suitable candidate. Like the child catcher.

Yeah, that's the only way to describe her. And when Ghislaine saw a young girl that she liked the look of, she'd shout at the driver to stop. And then she'd get out and speak to the girl. Maxwell would say that Epstein had been told by the best doctors in the world that he needed three orgasms a day. So Ghislaine said that she found three girls a day for Epstein because I can't keep up with his needs.

Jeff and Ghislaine had started as a couple but soon they became something else. They would always be seen out together and were totally dependent on each other but the physical side of their relationship cooled down significantly

and whatever it was they had became a lot more like a business arrangement. While working at Epstein's house, Maria Farmer spoke to him about her family, in particular her sister Annie, who was the subject of many of her paintings. Epstein wanted to meet Annie. He offered to help her go to college and flew her from her home in Arizona to New York so they could meet. They discussed her plans over champagne. Then they went to see a movie. As they watched the film, Epstein started rubbing Annie's hand and then her leg. Epstein said that he would send Annie to Thailand for an educational trip

and even invited her to his ranch in New Mexico. Annie and her parents had assumed that she would be going with a group of other students or participating in the same programme. But, of course, when Annie arrived in New Mexico, it was just her, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, on a 10,000-acre ranch in the middle of the desert. During that weekend, the 16-year-old was asked by Ghislaine to give Epstein a foot massage. And she was given pointers, as she did.

Ghislaine repeatedly asked Annie if she wanted a massage herself. And eventually, Annie gave in and said yes. She took off her clothes and her bra and lay under a sheet on a massage table. Soon Ghislaine pulled down the sheet to massage her chest. The doors had all been left open and Annie was sure that Epstein was watching. The next morning, Epstein came into Annie's bedroom

saying that he wanted to cuddle. It's just so predatory. She's 16 and she's trapped on this fucking giant ranch with these two crazies in the middle of nowhere. Just imagine being 16 and this fully grown man comes into your room and says he wants to cuddle. Oh, I feel sick. I know this is only the tip of the iceberg, but it's so, like, visceral because you just can imagine how she cannot escape.

There's nothing she can do. There's nothing she can do. There's nothing she can do. Epstein crawled into bed with her. And Annie, terrified, made an excuse and locked herself in the bathroom, which is quite literally the only thing she can do. A similar thing happened to Maria Farmer at Epstein's Ohio house. And when it did, she phoned her sister to see if anything had happened at the ranch. Which, of course, it had.

Maria also noticed that several of her photos that she used to paint from, featuring her teenage sisters, half-naked, were missing. She called the NYPD to report the assaults. They said that since the crimes had happened in New Mexico and Ohio, it wasn't their jurisdiction and there was nothing she could do. So Maria called the FBI, but she never heard back. It started with a string of abuses like this, and those we've mentioned aren't even the half of it. But in 2000, in Palm Beach, Florida, it became an industrial-scale web of sexual assault.

By the time Virginia Roberts was 16, she had run away from an abusive home after a family friend molested her, and she ended up living on the streets. So when she got a summer job as a locker room attendant in a spa, Virginia felt like she was on the track to make something of herself at last. And this spa was part of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. He really does just keep popping up in this story, doesn't he? He is quite difficult to ignore in this narrative, yes. Can't wait for 2024. No. Trump 2024. Outstanding. Kanye Trump 2024.

So one day in 1999, Virginia was reading a book about massage therapy and remembers being approached by a charismatic, worldly British woman. Ghislaine Maxwell introduced herself and the two got talking about Virginia's hopes of becoming a licensed massage therapist. Ghislaine said she was friends with a billionaire financier with a jet set lifestyle who just so happened to be looking for a masseuse to travel with him. And this jet set billionaire financier wants a girl who doesn't know anything about massage apart from a book that she's currently reading. Yeah. Yeah.

That's how the world works, for sure. She's honestly, you know when you're like, she's like the child catcher. Even the way she kind of looks, she reminds me of a witch from The Witches. Yeah. You know when they just turn up and like like there's one scene where it's like the kid's up a tree or he's in the garden and he sees this woman he runs up a tree and she just stands at the bottom with a snake that is galene maxwell at mar-a-lago stalking virginia roberts but remember virginia is 16 and desperate to make something of her life.

So she jumped at the opportunity. And she accepted an invitation to this billionaire financier's home, just a mile away from Trump's on Palm Beach. And I just want to be super clear. I know we're ridiculing it. We're saying like, this doesn't happen in the real world. I want to make it super, super clear that I'm not saying that in any way, 16 year old Virginia Roberts should have known that and that she shouldn't have gone. Why wouldn't she?

She's working in this incredibly expensive resort. And this woman turns up. She's got all the airs and graces of somebody who looks to be legit in that world. And when she turns up at the house, it's in Palm Beach. Of course she's going to believe it. Who wouldn't? Especially a 16-year-old. And they know that.

Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. The Town of Palm Beach is located on a barrier island separated from mainland Florida by a short road bridge. For decades, it's been known as an enclave for the hyper-rich and famous. Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, and Jimmy Buffett have houses on its famous billionaire's row.

How Jimmy Buffett is a billionaire is completely beyond me. And as we said, Donald Trump's Winter White House, the 126-room Mar-a-Lago resort, is in Palm Beach too. So when Virginia Roberts crossed that road bridge, she knew that she was crossing over into another world. Ghislaine met her at the door and led her through the house to a room with a massage bed, and on that massage bed was a naked man. Ghislaine started to massage the man, demonstrating the 16-year-old Virginia. Soon, both Ghislaine and the man on the bed were touching Virginia. And in an instant, things escalated even further.

Not knowing what would happen to her if she said no, Virginia gave in to their increasing demands. She was forced to perform oral sex on Epstein, and then he raped her. Afterwards, they both told her that the interview had gone very well, and they wanted to see her again the next day. Over the following months, Virginia did whatever they asked, from sexual favours at any time to putting Epstein socks on before bed.

Who sleeps in socks? And Virginia Roberts wrote, Over the next few weeks, they trained me to do what they wanted, including sexual activities and the use of sexual toys. It was basically every day, and it was like going to school. I also had to have sex with Epstein many times. And Virginia Roberts during this entire time was often reminded how lucky she was to be there. And soon, she would travel the world, meet amazing people and get her massage therapist's license. And she was also told in no uncertain terms that there was no way out.

And like going into motivations for why Virginia Roberts kept going back every day. On one hand she stayed because she was incredibly young. She was 16 years old and she was frightened. If you remember, she's already run away from an abusive home and is all on her own. And this opportunity, as horrific as it would have been for her, may have seemed like the only way she was going to propel herself out of poverty. But on the other hand, Epstein would also constantly remind her just how powerful he was. He said he owned the police department, and that there were people out there, dangerous people, who owed him favours.

Virginia's story is among the earliest reports of abuse of underage girls from within the walls of Epstein's Palm Beach mansion. But Virginia's story is far from rare. Just across the bridge from the island is West Palm Beach, a neighbourhood that's firmly back in the real world. It's hardly run down, but like all places that aren't reserved for the 1%, it has areas of poverty and pockets of desperation. And Jeffrey Epstein, through Ghislaine Maxwell,

used West Palm Beach as a hunting ground. There are many, many victims' accounts from the years after Virginia Roberts first met Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and they all tell a similar story. A girl would be approached by another girl that she knew from the neighbourhood. They'd say that there was a man over on Palm Beach who would pay $200 if you gave him a massage. The friend would drive them over there, pick up $200 and leave them in the massage room.

There, the man would sexually assault the girl. The girl would be given $200 and pressured into silence. A vast majority of these girls were underage, and many of them were as young as 14. It's a pyramid scheme. Mm, exactly. Because at first, Ghislaine goes out, she's out in the car with the chauffeur pointing out girls. But then all she does is she starts giving the girls they've already indoctrinated money to go get other girls to bring them. So she doesn't

even have to go out anymore. No, exactly. And they created some sort of weird, perverse incentive scheme even within this system, because some of the girls would be offered more money to go out and find more girls. It's like commission. Epstein was obsessed with constantly seeing new faces and he carried on his sick pyramid scheme of intimidation and recruitment for years. He and Ghislaine purposefully targeted girls from hard up areas, those that would need the money. They'd also identify those with trauma in their past, especially sexual trauma, as they found that they were often easier to manipulate.

They could both identify what it was that someone needed and exploit that need. Epstein brought them there with the promise of money or a way into a new life. But he'd keep them coming back, with threats of his power, and the idea that he was above the law, as well as, of course, the emotional abuse. Many of the girls stayed and kept coming back

because they couldn't see life getting better elsewhere. He was, after all, in some cases, flying them all around the world, buying them expensive gifts, and taking them to the movies. Many times he would promise to fund their education in the future or to introduce them to important people. Most of these girls were in their early teens and not equipped to process that kind of power dynamic.

His victims are thought to be in the hundreds. In 2005, 14-year-old Michelle Licata was found at school with $300 in her bag. Her mother pressed her on where she got the cash. Michelle revealed that just before Christmas, a friend had passed her a note in class. It had asked her if she wanted to make a bit of extra money for Christmas by massaging old guys in Palm Beach. That sounded like easy money to Michelle, so she headed off to Epstein's massage mansion and when she got there, he was facing down on the table. He gestured to the oils and told her to start on his legs. After some time, he flipped over and started complimenting her.

To the braces-wearing 14-year-old, this was quite disarming. She'd never considered herself to be pretty before. And then Epstein told her to get down to her underwear. Then he started masturbating. Then he assaulted her. Michelle's mother was, of course, horrified. And she went right to the police. Michelle was questioned and gave a statement,

which was found to be credible, and an investigation was launched. Because Epstein was so powerful and well-connected, it was referred immediately to the Special Investigations Unit. So far, so good. The lead investigator dug deeper, and he found other girls and heard the same story over and over again.

Many victims, between 14 and 18 years old, said to the police that they had been pressured into sex with Jeffrey Epstein. But most victims were scared of him, and didn't want to press charges. Likewise, his employees mostly stayed silent out of fear of being sued. So the investigation team kept his house under constant surveillance and even tracked his flights. And after going through Epstein's rubbish, investigators found a school report card from one alleged victim and a receipt for flowers that he had sent to a school to be handed to another young girl when she finished a drama performance. Seven months into the investigation, in October 2005, authorities managed to execute

a search warrant. Epstein's house was filled with paintings, statues and photographs of naked and half-naked figures, including many of children. And we've all seen that portrait of Bill Clinton. But in several locations around the house, police found desks with loose wires where computers had clearly been hurriedly taken away. It was obvious that Epstein had been tipped off. Still, victims' descriptions matched the house exactly, proving that they had been there. And memo pads exposed that Epstein had been contacting a series of minors. By this point, over 40 teenage victims had accused Jeffrey

Epstein, and once the police had five willing to go on record, they applied for arrest warrants. When state attorney Barry Krischer received the application for the warrant, he was immediately confident that Epstein would be put away for the rest of his life. But, of course, it wouldn't be that easy. Because Epstein lawyered up. There were eight of them in total,

including Clinton impeachment lawyer Kenneth Starr and the absolute poster boy of sleazy lawyers, including Clinton impeachment lawyer Kenneth Starr and the absolute poster boy of sleazy lawyers, Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz had made a whole career out of getting reduced sentences for high profile, very guilty people. He even represented OJ Simpson. Of course. I mean, to be honest, if I were Epstein, which I'm very glad I'm not, I'd go for the dream team. Are you kidding? Of course, of course. Where's Kardashian? Sign me up.

And unsurprisingly, the eight strong lawyer squad were savage in their questioning of those brave few teenage girls who had come forward to testify. Going all in on defamation of character and accusations of lying. Dershowitz said that their credibility was in doubt because of their backgrounds. One was asked if it was true she'd had three abortions. And then, when she said yes, she was asked what's worse, having three abortions or giving sexual massages to Jeffrey Epstein. In July 2006, Jeffrey Epstein was charged with a single felony count of solicitation of prostitution.

He posted Bond a few hours after he was arrested and went home. After the verdict, Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Rater personally wrote to all of the victims. He said that justice had not been served and therefore he was referring the case to the FBI. And then the FBI opened a federal investigation called Operation Leap Year. They tracked down the Farmer Sisters, even though they had a tough time doing it. After Maria's initial reporting of her assault in the 90s, Ghislaine Maxwell had hounded her with intimidating phone calls and threats of violence. Ghislaine said she'd burn all of Maria's art and destroy her career.

So she better watch her back. And let's face it, Ghislaine Maxwell is completely capable of doing that. Oh yeah. Eventually, the FBI found Maria Farmer living under an alias in the mountains of North Carolina. Finally, for the victims of Epstein and Maxwell, it seemed as though there might be hope for justice. In 2008, Jeffrey Epstein was on his 75-acre private island in the Virgin Islands when he got a call from Alan Dershowitz telling him to return to Florida. Dershowitz said he was facing 18 months in prison on two state charges, solicitation of prostitution and procuring a minor for engaging in prostitution. FBI Special Agent Nesbitt Kirkendall put together a case so comprehensive

that Epstein would be jailed for life even if he was convicted for a single count. And there were almost 40 victims ready to testify. Plus, they had flight logs that showed they were transported across state lines in private planes, which, of course, is sex trafficking. A 53-page indictment was prepared. But the hearing was called at the last minute, without the victim's knowledge.

The whole thing had been kept under wraps. Once inside the courtroom, Epstein's lawyers approached the judge and had a conversation that the rest of the court couldn't hear. They then led Epstein over to the bailiff, where he was fingerprinted and gave a DNA sample, only to be then led out of the courtroom. All of this happened without the knowledge of the Miami police

or any of the victims. And the plea deal that resulted was absolutely extraordinary. In exchange for pleading guilty, Epstein was granted total immunity from any other state charges and all federal charges. The deal also granted immunity to any of his co-conspirators and those named in the documents were Ghislaine, obviously,

but also Nadia Marcinkova, Michelle Tagliani and Sarah Kellan. Those three women were all known associates of Epstein's and thought to have been at the very top of the pyramid scheme of sex trafficking recruitment. Even more than that, the plea deal also included immunity for any unnamed conspirators, which is just astonishing that that's legal. The deal was unprecedented and no one was given any explanation at all. I'll give you the explanation. When you're a billionaire, you can basically do what you want. Epstein was sentenced to 18 months, which he was allowed to serve in

a private wing of the Palm Beach County Jail. Captain Mark Chamberlain wrote, I'm authorising that his cell door be left unlocked and that he will be given liberal access to the attorney room where a TV will be installed. And that's not all. Jeffrey Epstein was granted work release, which for a sex offender serving out his sentence is utterly ludicrous. Honestly, all of these people need to be investigated immediately because this isn't just about him being rich.

Of course he's incredibly rich this is also like when you look at historic sex abuse cases and you're like we will look at them now and we're like how was this allowed to happen how did the police turn a blind eye how did politicians not do anything it's because they were all fucking in on it like Savile exactly they were all fucking there this is probably a reason why Epstein wanted his abuse industry to be as big and wide-spanning as it was he would have known he's not stupid that that would have increased the risk but it also draws in more people involved in that shit if you do more high-profile people involved in that shit then when you eventually get caught they'll go into back for you because

you've got collateral on everyone it's fucking outrageous outrageous. Outrageous. And this is the thing. We talk about historic abuses. This is a modern day example of exactly how the same thing happened. So the work that Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to go and do took place at the high-rise offices of the Florida Science Foundation, a non-profit organisation started by Epstein himself just months before pleading guilty. He paid more than $128,000 to the sheriff's office so he could be supervised by an off-duty deputy. And throughout his sentence, Epstein would fly girls, presumably into the Florida Science Foundation offices,

to engage in sexual acts with them. My God. And of his 18-month sentence, he served just 13 months. So if none of this is making sense, then don't worry, we're all in the same boat. The FBI's investigation had provided enough testimonies and evidence to put Jeffrey Epstein in jail for the rest of his life. But enter US Attorney Alex Acosta. It turns out that Epstein had made another plea deal in secret with Acosta. And if you recognise that name, Alex Acosta, it's probably because he went on to become the Labour Secretary under Mr Donald Trump. Or should I say President

Donald Trump? Emails were obtained by Julie K. Brown at the Miami Herald, who, by the way, did some absolutely astonishing journalism on this case over the years. And those emails that Julie managed to get hands on suggested that over months of negotiations between Epstein's attorneys and Acosta's office, Acosta continually conceded to Epstein's demands. It was Acosta who, much to the fear of the FBI agents working on the case, all but shut the investigation down. Epstein and his lawyers were also known to have been meeting in private with Acosta,

and the deal had been hashed out, signed and sealed in private, deliberately hiding the scope of Epstein's crimes. And so, as Jeffrey Epstein had said to Maria Farmer all those years ago, he knew people and they owed him favours. Evidently. Whenever we talk about these sort of like sealed room negotiations, all I can think about is how awful I would feel, like just unable to concentrate, terrified I would do anything. And then I'm like, oh, but like the reason he's got himself into that situation is because he doesn't work on the same software as you. No.

No. And after all this, after these closed-room negotiations had been hashed out, the victims were, by law, powerless to pursue any further justice. I mean, the level of corruption here, the shadiness, the backdoor dealings, the fact that all of this happened completely not in the public eye and it just shot down anything the victims could do is astonishing. But Jeffrey Epstein's survivors were not going to give up without a fight. And that is where we are going to leave it,

with a glimmer of hope far, far, far in the distance. Join us next week to hear how dozens of victims, through brave testimonies, fought the 10-year battle against the highest establishments in the world. When you come back next week, what we're going to do is we'll delve deeper into the much misunderstood role of Ghislaine Maxwell and answer the question, what was in all of this for her?

We're also going to investigate how Epstein was able to manipulate the most powerful people on earth and explain how one totally sweat-free, pizza-loving prince got swept up in the scandal of the century. So join us next week to see how Epstein's house of cards finally came tumbling down and take a closer look at what happened to Epstein in that jail cell in 2019. Happy New Year. Yeah, I know. What a fun case to start with. But there you go, guys.

We hope you enjoyed. Like I said, be back next week for part two. And yeah. Yeah. We'll see you then. Get your tour tickets if there are already. guys. We hope you enjoyed. Like I said, be back next week for part two. And yeah. Yeah. We'll see you then. Get your tour tickets if there are any. Yeah. And be good.

The world is poison, but there's not much we can do about it. So positivity. There you go. Goodbye. Bye. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone.

Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what you said. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses.

I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich,

be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry.

But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.