RedHanded - Episode 282 - Jeffrey Epstein: Foul Play - Part 2

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

In 2009, having served just 13 months of the cushiest jail sentence this side of Scandinavia, Jeffrey Epstein was free – and legally protected from any future punishment. But there were hundreds of people that knew what he really was: a dangerous, influential and insatiable child rapist with a sophisticated network of fixers. They knew he had to be stopped. In this second episode of our two-parter, H&S look at the tireless legal and journalistic efforts to bring him down; go deeper into the involvement of Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew; and find out what kind of justice – if any – was served. Plus: what happened in that jail cell in 2019? 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 Sruti. And welcome to part two of our Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Peter Pyle Island, Sweaty Nance series. Last week was pretty rough. There is some roughness this week. There is indeed. But some justice and resolution also. And some opportunities for tinfoil hat apparel. So yeah, let's get into it. It's a big one.

Obviously it goes without saying, if you haven't listened to part one, go do that before you listen to this. And if you haven't also got your hands on red-handed tour tickets, then also go do that. But for now, let's take a journey back through time and space all the way to 2008, where I think I was in year 11. 2008 was the year I joined university. Okay, so I would have been sixth form. Yeah. Just, you know, listening to 50 Cent, doing sixth form stuff. Living life.

I was sat in my first lecture of economics and they were like, so you've decided to do this during the biggest global recession we've had ever. So congratulations. Come on in. Maybe in four years time, you'll all get jobs in my degree they were like no one becomes an anthropologist you're wasting your time anyway in 2008 Jeffrey Epstein had been handed an 18-month sentence and his victims were devastated when he only served 13 months they knew that something had to be done. The victims knew exactly what Epstein really was. A dangerous, influential and predatory child

rapist. One with a vast network of fixes, tasked with bringing him at least three girls every single day. And he'd been at it for years. But the plea deal that Epstein had signed, rushed through by pathetic little goblin man Alex Acosta, granted Epstein full legal immunity from any other punishment. As far as the courts were concerned, Epstein had served his time and the case was closed. For lawyer Brad Edwards and the 65 victims he would go on to

represent, this just was not good enough. Epstein had to be stopped. In June 2008, Brad Edwards had just started his own law firm dedicated to helping victims with civil cases. And it was then that a fellow victims' rights lawyer had passed him a case from the FBI. It was the account of 20-year-old Courtney Wilde, who said that she had been sexually assaulted over on Palm Beach six years previously, when she was just 14 years old. In his book Relentless Pursuit, Brad details Courtney's story. As a young girl, Courtney had always been a straight A student.

But her mother's struggles with addiction made Courtney's high-achieving life harder and harder to manage. She would often come home to find her mother and her friends using, hardly a safe, stable environment for a child. So Courtney started to sleep at friends' houses. But in the summer, before she joined high school, a friend told Courtney about a way to make some quick money. There was an old guy over on Palm Beach who'd give you $200 for a massage.

At 14, Courtney had of course never massaged anyone before. She didn't even really know what a massage was. But she did know what $200 was, and that was no joke. So she went to the house. She was led into a stark room with a long table. Then a man with grey hair entered in just a towel. He was friendly and set Courtney's mind at rest. He talked her through the massage and asked her about her life.

In return, he told her that he was a brain surgeon, but that he had started out poor. He introduced himself as Jeffrey Epstein and said that he could help her become whatever she wanted to be. Then he turned over and removed his towel. The man assured the no-doubt terrified 14-year-old Courtney that this was perfectly normal. She didn't have to do anything she didn't want to do.

And then quite quickly after that, he told her to pinch his nipples and then again told her to do it harder and then he started to touch himself. After he'd finished, he gave Courtney $200 as promised and she left. It was more money than she had ever had. On the way out, Courtney saw a painting of a little girl, about four years old, looking over her shoulder and pulling down her underwear. And there were more. The house was covered in them. I think that's the thing with the whole Epstein story,

is that he's not like abducting girls and taking them to a bunker and doing that. That's a lot of very obvious, like he uses his power and his money and his wealth to be able to do this. But I think it's the fact of in this Palm Beach house, he also just has paintings and pictures everywhere of naked children. And Bill Clinton. And as we'll go on to find out, many an influential person. But I think that's the thing, isn't it? It's the arrogance.

It's the hiding very much in plain sight, if you want to even call it hiding. He has no fear of anybody coming over and being like, why have you got a painting of a four-year-old child pulling down their underwear? Isn't that a bit weird? Because he knows anyone he invites over there

is not going to say anything. Who's painting those? That's what I want to know. So there are lots of paintings of young children, but there's one older woman who appeared in a number of photographs, mostly naked. And there's another picture, the woman has clothes on, and she's pictured with Epstein and the Pope.

That's a photograph, not a painting. Yeah. And I think that actually really cements the mentality of the person in this house, because next to pictures of naked, sexually provocative pictures of children, he has pictures that show his immense influence and his immense power. I mean, here's a painting of a naked child. Oh, are you troubled by that? Well, here's a picture of me with the Pope. So what are you going to do about it? I think it's that juxtaposition of look at what I can do and get away with

and no one's going to say anything to me and look at why. Before Courtney left, she was asked for her phone number. Epstein had liked her and wanted to see her again. In the cab home, she asked her friend about the experience, to which her friend said, who, by the way, was even younger than Courtney, This is what rich people do. They're only trying to help a bunch of poor trailer park kids like us who need a break in life. Courtney was told that she could make even more money any time she wanted to. She could pocket $200 by just bringing more girls to the house.

She didn't have to touch any nipples or anything. And so, over the next few years, Courtney brought over 40 girls to Jeffrey Epstein. The money she made was paying her bills, and she felt so lucky to have met him. But more and more, Courtney knew it wasn't right and when she read the police reports of the girls she had taken to see this man she knew she had to speak up and I think like you have to give Courtney Wilde so much credit for doing that because obviously we all would look at her absolutely as a victim she was doing what she had to to survive and not even fully understanding the ramifications of what she was doing but for her to come forward in 2008 when these police

reports are made public and say i was a part of this and i wasn't just a victim but i was also the person that brought these girls to him i think that takes so much courage for her to do it's incredibly brave, incredibly brave, especially because she's seen all these pictures of the fucking Pope. Yeah, absolutely. And the fact that they saw even after all this had come out that Jeffrey Epstein only served 13 months. So when Courtney was put in touch with lawyer Brad Edwards,

she gave him all of the names that she could remember. And he started getting in touch with all of them. That way he heard more names and he started to map out the web. The scale of this network of abuse blew him away. And he knew that he couldn't do this on his own. So he called a private investigator in, Mike Fiston. Fiston started asking around West Palm Beach for more information. And it became clear that those who had heard of Epstein

and were in some way implicated with him were all absolutely terrified. In 2008, shortly after Epstein's bullshit plea deal, Brad Edwards filed a lawsuit on behalf of the victims. The suit, Jane Doe v. The United States of America, accused the U.S. Justice Department of violating the Crime Victims' Rights Act in the case against Epstein. It stated, since the victims were unaware of the trial,

because remember, it had all just basically been done in secret and very, very hush-hush, the victims had been unfairly denied the opportunity to challenge the plea deal. While the victims' lawyers worked to gather evidence and build their case, Epstein was serving time. But, as we said last week, it was just about the cushiest sentence ever served this side of Scandinavia. Preferential treatment was afforded to Epstein because, quote, Epstein is a first-time offender who will be serving a long sentence at this facility, and that is a very rare occurrence. He is poorly versed in jail routine and society,

and his adjustment to incarceration will most likely be atypical. That is the most horrific thing I've ever heard. Yeah, I mean, it's just prison talk for, like, he's got loads of money, so we're going to be nice to him. I mean, Jesus Christ. The idea that, oh, he's a first-time off offender but he's serving a long jail sentence at this facility which is very rare so what you've just not caught him before what's that got to do with anything the very fact that he's serving a long jail sentence is proof that he is a criminal he's been convicted and the idea that

somehow well you know this poor little man has no idea about anything to do with prison because he's never been here before. What? What are you even talking about? They're acting like he's some sort of minor who's been, you know, through some miscarriage of justice, been sentenced to time in like big man prison. Yeah. Shut the fuck up. And since when is 18 months a really long sentence? Exactly. Oh, my God. So we went over this last week, but let's just have a little reminder.

Epstein was granted work release at his own business whilst he was supposedly serving his sentence. He spent 12 hours a day, six days a week at his own office in West Palm Beach. His lawyers even argued that he didn't need the requisite counselling offered to other sex offenders because he had a private therapist and the judge was like, yeah, no problem, approved. And after just 13 months, Jeffrey Epstein was released on probation. The conditions stated were that he were to stay on house arrest for a year with any movements subject to the approval of his probation officer. But Epstein, never one to follow the rules, would break parole daily, for a year, with any movements subject to the approval of his probation officer. But

Epstein, never one to follow the rules, would break parole daily, going around his many houses and out to the shops. Presumably, although his probation officer and the police were none the wiser, Mike Fiston was keeping tabs. I can't imagine being Jeffrey Epstein's parole officer being the easiest job in the world. No, but it also doesn't sound like it was a job that this person was making many attempts at being very good at. No, it sounds like that person is actually loads of rats wearing a trench coat. And I think the whole case with Jeffrey Epstein is that it is the perfect conspiracy-minded

person's wet dream, like we said last week, because all of the things that are the worst of society that you maybe don't want to believe the idea that given enough money and power and influence that even somebody who commits the most heinous crimes like child rape would be able to secure themselves a much easier ride and he proves it every step of the way he gets away with everything that he's done in the face of an extraordinary amount of evidence and testimony from victims. And yeah, it's just, it's quite frankly mind-boggling. And the fact that this didn't happen 50 years ago. This happened in 2008, this particular part of the story.

And it just gets worse because another condition of Epstein's probation was that he was prohibited from having any guests at his office. But Fiston documented at least two accounts of 18-year-old girls being taken to Epstein's office to meet with him. According to them, he had been naked apart from his GPS ankle monitor and the meetings had, of course, turned sexual. Mike Fiston repeatedly forwarded these records to Jeffrey Epstein's parole officer

and every time he heard the same thing. What would you like us to do? He's a celebrity. Soon Brad Edwards and Mike Fiston found themselves being followed. Edwards remembers cars being parked outside his family home shining their full beam headlights through the window. And then, whoever was doing this started doing the same

thing to the victims. All the while, Epstein was living his life exactly as he had done before he was convicted. He was even allowed to fly! And in the first three months of 2010, he went to New York and his private island, Little St. James, nine times each. And the island wasn't just a tropical paradise. But for years, it had been providing Jeffrey Epstein with the most valuable asset that a billionaire child rapist could ask for. Total undisturbed privacy. The island of Little St. James is part of the US Virgin Islands, a territory in the Caribbean to the west of Puerto Rico. Epstein bought it in 1998 for 7.95 million.

He called it Little St. Jeff's. God, he's such a fucking dickhead. To locals and everyone else in the world, this island is now known as a paedophile island. A team of 70 staff worked for Jeffrey Epstein on Paedophile Island, from masseuses to electricians, and they stayed in the extensive staff quarters. Epstein also built various cabanas and beach houses all over the island. All the food was strictly vegan, and he had a huge shower installed, with ten shower heads to accommodate groups.

God. I mean, what do you even do with this island and all that shit now? I mean, I wonder if it's still there, or just some other billionaire paedophile has bought it. Yeah, Clinton lives there now. And as if the ten-headed shower wasn't sinister enough, Epstein insisted that his residence on Little St. James, like all his prophecies, was kept at an icy 12 degrees Celsius, which is 54 Fahrenheit. Most aircon units don't go below 16. Twelve degrees.

So, away from prying eyes, surrounded by the calm Caribbean sea, Jeffrey Epstein could live out every fantasy he'd ever had. Throughout the 2000s, as well as his scheme of recruitment in Palm Beach, Epstein would also regularly fly underage girls to his island. Airport personnel and island staff remember seeing girls as young as 11 or 12. They would often arrive in university hoodies, in an apparent attempt to make them look older. And one of the many, many girls who had been brought to Little St James over the years was Sarah Ransom. She was befriended in Sydney by a young woman her age and told about Epstein. Before long,

promises of fun and employment on a paradise Caribbean island found Sarah on a private plane to Little St. James. A private plane that I believe is also nicknamed the Lolita Express. Yes, I believe you're right. But of course the dream was over before Sarah even arrived on paedophile island. When in full view of many others on the plane, Epstein started having vigorous sex with a young woman. Sarah Ransom closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. You are never more trapped than when you're in the air on a fucking plane. I mean, the fear that would be trickling through you when you realise if this man is willing to do that in front of a plane full of people,

what will he do behind closed doors? So Sarah spent weeks being treated, in her own words, as a sex toy and was desperate to leave the island. One time she even escaped and ran to the coast, readying herself to swim if she had to. But within minutes, to her horror, jeeps pulled up to the coast. It was clear that the whole island was under surveillance and there was no escape until Epstein said so. Also seen on the island by staff was Virginia Roberts. You might remember her from last week. She was

picked up at 16 by Ghislaine Maxwell from the spa at Mar-a-Lago. Virginia had been lured in with promises of masseuse training. Soon she was regularly being flown around at Epstein's behest between New York, Palm Beach and the Caribbean. So he could abuse her and so could his powerful friends at 17 years old she was seen on Little St James by the pool she was wearing only her bikini bottoms and kissing and fooling around with a much older man

and this wasn't just any man he was British royalty Prince Andrew the Duke of York, the Queen's favourite son, had a reputation in the British media. Tabloids couldn't get enough

of the man they called the Playboy Prince or, when they had a page to fill, Randy Andy and his web of arm candy. I just, the idea of calling Prince Andrew a Playboy,

if you are a rapist of children are you a playboy I feel like playboy is a is almost a positive term because it's like you can get women yeah he's just a fucking nonce I mean playboy prince I mean Jesus Christ that's a compliment yeah and as well as being a celebrated sex pest Prince Andrew was also known for being I mean, Playboy Prince, I mean, Jesus Christ, that's a compliment to me. And as well as being a celebrated sex pest, Prince Andrew was also known for being particularly shitty to anyone he deemed below him, which is probably everyone, but especially his staff. The waitstaff, security personnel, maids and footmen at Buckingham Palace all remember Andrew flying off the handle at them for any minor infraction. One maid remembers him asking her to come up four flights of stairs to open his curtains, which were right next to him.

But, perhaps most disturbingly of all, in his bedroom at Buckingham Palace, this sweaty nonce has 72 teddy bears. And there is a laminated card in the side drawer with photos of the bears arranged on his bed. The maids would have to put each of the 72 teddies back exactly where they had been or risk being screamed at by the prince. He is a father. Don't remind me. The fact that this man exists in this time and era and space is just so, so sad. Yeah, but don't worry about Harry and Meghan though. Do you know what I mean? Look over there. Look over there. Don't look over here at these 72 teddies.

They're like, look at me, look at me. And we're like, oh, okay then. What about the fucking nonce? Just get rid of all of them. Fuck off. Fuck the fuck off. My God. Suriti Bala brings down the monkey. Honestly. I actually thought it would be quite funny to watch the first.

I thought the Meghan and Harry documentary was one episode. I thought it was one documentary. Oh, no, no, no, no. And I realized to my absolute horror that it is about six hours of fucking nonsense and I did actually watch the first two episodes yesterday because I thought it would be funny and it was funny but then it also was just quite fucking horrendous to listen to these narcissists just go on about themselves. But now I can say I've watched a third of it and now I'm allowed to have an opinion that it is absolute dog shit.

Cringeworthy to my very core. And let's not forget, Prince Andrew is a child rapist. Yep. And a sweaty nonce. And he is particularly entitled even for the royal family. And that is... Saying something. Yes, that is... Saying something. Yes, it is saying quite something.

Because the whole time I was watching anything to do with the royal family, but particularly this documentary, was never have I listened to somebody complain about so fucking little, so fucking much. Like, oh, I had the smallest bedroom. That's because you're the youngest. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ. It's awful.

Anyway, anyway, moving on. This is not a review of that terrible documentary. 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. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very

personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding.

And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. On the 9th of March, 2001, Ghislaine took Virginia shopping in London to prepare her for a visit from none other than the Duke of York, Prince Andrew. Around 6pm, Andrew and his bodyguards arrived at Ghislaine Maxwell's townhouse. She poured a pot of tea and introduced Virginia. Then she played her favourite game with her paedophile friends.

She asked the prince to guess the girl's age. Seventeen, he guessed. Epstein and Maxwell smiled. And Ghislaine said, Yes, she'll be too old soon. These people, just death, death. Then the four of them went out to a Chinese restaurant before going on to Club Tramp,

an exclusive members club in central London. I honestly can't think of anything more that would just make me want to fucking die on the spot than going to a Chinese restaurant with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein and the fucking sweaty nonce Prince Andrew. What did they even talk about? And Virginia's just sat there. My God, it is just so sick. It's sick. And this way, don't call him a playboy prince. He had to have a 17 year old fixed for him that he could rape afterwards.

No, exactly. And friends, Roman's countrymen, if you ever visit London and anybody tells you to go to a nightclub in Mayfair, you turn the other way and you run. Yes, do, because this place, Club Tramp, inside the air was apparently thick with Cuban cigar smoke and waiters brought out tray after tray of beluga caviar. Eventually, Andrew asked the girl to dance with him, although Virginia wrote that it was less dancing

and more, quote, pelvic smashing. Oh, he's some disgusting. And she went on to say, and this is just the perfect description that I 100% don't need to see with my own eyes, but wholeheartedly believe, quote, he was the most incredibly hideous dancer I had ever seen and I couldn't help but laugh. He was dripping with sweat and became extremely sexually forward to the 17-year-old, who was at this point 23 years his junior. After this, they were driven back to the townhouse, with the prince's security detail following close behind.

When they arrived, Epstein grabbed a yellow Kodak camera and took a photo of the 41-year-old prince with his arm around the 17-year-old Virginia. Then Maxwell and Epstein made it abundantly clear what was going to happen next. They kissed Virginia goodnight and went upstairs. Virginia wrote about what followed. It was sexual intercourse and everything in between. It was disgusting.

Yuck. It was sexual intercourse and everything in between. It was disgusting. Yuck. And all of this is paid for by the taxpayer. That fucking security detail by the UK taxpayer, because that security detail that's following him from Club Tramp back to a townhouse where he sexually assaults a 17-year-old, that's our money. Cool. Yeah, not being used to pay nurses.

Anyway, afterwards, Virginia had a bath and Prince Andrew came in and kissed her toes. When they all got back to New York, Epstein paid Virginia $15,000 for the trip. She had sex with Prince Andrew three times over the years, including one orgy. And it wasn't just him. Virginia was expected to have sex with more of Epstein's associates,

including academics, politicians and lawyers. One of whom was Alan Dershowitz, who you might remember as Epstein's scumbag lawyer from last week. None of them ever, ever, ever wore a condom. No, because she's not a real person. She's just a fucking walking sex toy. Early on in that time, Virginia suffered

a miscarriage. She had absolutely no idea whose it had been. In the Netflix documentary Filthy Money, Virginia says, you're screaming on her life, Virginia was taking eight Xanax a day, which she called her escape drug. But it wouldn't be long until she escaped the web for real. In 2002, just before her 19th birthday, But it wouldn't be long until she escaped the web for real. In 2002, just before her 19th birthday, the gruesome twosome, Maxwell and Epstein, came to Virginia with their biggest, sickest request yet.

And this is so, like, fucking Ian Watkins shit, because they told Virginia that they wanted a baby. I don't even want us to go into why these two wanted a baby. I'll leave that to everybody's horrible, horrible imaginations. And they wanted Virginia to have this baby for them. Afraid to say no, Virginia said that she at least wanted to get her long-promised massage certificate first. The following week, she was bought tickets to Thailand to get her qualifications. Once there, Virginia met Robert Giuffre. They fell in love and married weeks later in a Buddhist temple in the mountains near Chiang Mai. Afterwards, Virginia phoned Jeffrey to tell him that she

wasn't coming back. He said, have a nice life and hung up. And I presume that he let her go quite so easily because she was aging out at this point anyway. And Virginia changed her name from Virginia Roberts to Virginia Dufresne. She had a new life and she never ever wanted to be under the control of Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell ever again. Ghislaine is interesting. Quite a lot of the time she's painted as living in Epstein's shadow, a kind of assistant that at best tolerated and at worst facilitated his abuse. Sometimes it's even suggested that Ghislaine was just as much of a victim as any of the girls. But how much of a role did she actually play? And if she was just relentlessly providing

Epstein with girls to assault, why was she doing it? What was in it for her? Well, it is complicated. We spoke about her upbringing last week, especially her relationship with her father, press tycoon Robert Maxwell. And yes, it's very likely that part of what drew her to Jeffrey Epstein was that she'd found another commanding father figure. There's no doubt that Ghislaine Maxwell was attracted to extreme personalities, especially those that tended to be narcissistic, impulsive and restless, like her father. And she liked them even more if those personalities came complete with a gigantic bank balance.

But it's not that simple. There is a bit more going on. As we said last time, if there was no Ghislaine, then Epstein would still have abused. So what about the reverse? Would Ghislaine have been involved in any kind of sexual impropriety if she never met Jeffrey Epstein? Well, we know that she was always an overtly sexual person in social settings. At parties, she would hold court about how to give the perfect blowjob. She would set people up and educate them about how to give the perfect blowjob. She would set people up and educate them on how to be sexual with each other. And she would encourage young

girls at parties to flirt with men and to do whatever they asked for sexually. Now, obviously, being loudly horny at parties is not an indicator of future abuse. But the common thread from all of these stories is not just Ghislaine's confident sexuality it's a tendency to use sexual confidence to manipulate people yeah and I think like there's one thing being sexually confident or whatever if that's consistently your personality at all of the parties and you're just doing that all the time with people it does show a person that is very unfiltered and lacking in any sort of boundaries with other people which again doesn't make you what Ghislaine Maxwell is but it probably doesn't indicate the most a-okay person yeah and coming back to her father Robert

Maxwell like we briefly touched on last week he had a deeply sexist view of the world. He wanted his sons to be titans of business and his daughters to be desirable trophies. I think, you know, what you see in Robert Maxwell is kind of the typical narcissistic parent, right? His children are merely extensions of himself. They are not individual people with their own thoughts and feelings. So if his sons are successful in business, it's because he was a great father. And if his daughters are hot and desirable, then again, it's because he is a alpha dog. And it was no secret that given this kind of thinking and his general personality overall, Robert Maxwell often cheated on his wife,

something that she quietly tolerated. Maxwell firmly believed that women were there for men's convenience only. And this rubbed off on his favourite daughter, Ghislaine. Maybe she saw other women and girls as simply tools to use, much like her father had done, but she saw them as tools in order to help her move up in the powerful world of men. So what are the parallels between all of this and her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? Well Epstein once said that once a relationship is over the girlfriend moves up not down to friendship status. God. And there is just so much to unpack there but once their

short-lived relationship because remember Ghislaine and Jeffrey Epstein had been romantically involved at the start. But once this cooled, Ghislaine was then elevated in the eyes of Epstein to trusted advisor status. I think, you know, the thing here is obviously it's like if it's a woman he's having sex with, she is beneath, she's below, she's somebody he's dominating. Probably some sort of, I don't even think Madonna whore complex, because I don't think he looked at Ghislaine Maxwell like a Madonna. But I think he saw her for the influential missing piece that he needed to infiltrate this world. And I think he kind of had to stop sleeping with her to be able to have her for what he actually wanted and needed. And once Ghislaine elevated to this advisor status, she not only helped Epstein get what he wanted,

but crucially, as we have been banging on about, she also took part. Ghislaine features in many of the victims' accounts as not only sourcing them, but also being present and participating in the actual abuse itself. And this is the crucial thing. Many women who are in prison for things like what were referred to as sexual offences, typically they're not there having committed the sexual offence themselves.

Typically they are there, like we saw with the Ian Watkins case, of making their children available to men who are predatory or like in this case doing something that facilitates the the procurement quote-unquote of victims but the difference with Ghislaine Maxwell which makes her much more akin to somebody like a Rose West and I'm not saying it's the same level because Rose West we know was sexually sadistic with Ghislaine it is harder to know exactly what her motivations were for being a part of the abuse, but she was absolutely there. The victim said that she would take off her clothes, touch them inappropriately, or massage them. So, very much, quite literally, hands-on.

And so if you look at it that way, the only main difference between Ghislaine and Epstein was maybe the power that they had. Ghislaine is often quoted as saying the victims were nothing and, quote, worthless. Just like Sweaty Non's Prince Andrew, she had a very real disregard for human beings that weren't of a certain class. You could say that Ghislaine had a sexual inclination and ambition even to carry out abuse. But she needed Epstein, a threatening, charismatic man. She needed him for the power dynamic to work. She was an expert at drawing the victims in. Many of the girls remember thinking that because Ghislaine was this beautiful, charming and confident woman, they felt more at ease trusting that everything was fine. Normal, even even it's like you're much more

likely to get into a car with a woman in it oh 100 and i think also the the class plays a massive role in this because she presents herself as what she was for the whole part like a cultured intelligent well-spoken affluent woman so if she's coming up to you in a spa in Mar-a-Lago like she did with Virginia Roberts and tells you that she's going to change your life, why wouldn't you believe her? The girls they went after specifically were incredibly vulnerable, often incredibly poor, disenfranchised. So someone like Ghislaine Maxwell would have seemed so legitimate, so trustworthy, that why would they have questioned it? And after all, female sexual abusers are incredibly rare. They make up just 5% of cases that are reported.

So there's no denying that with her taking on a hands-on role with the abuse, that she must have got something from the actual abuse. And so I don't think it was just that she was supplying the victims, finding these girls, building this web or building this network just to keep Jeffrey Epstein happy or to like keep him on side or something like that, or even to just show him how useful she is. I certainly don't think she's some manipulated victim who was sort of just like a pawn in Epstein's game. Ghislaine Maxwell knew exactly what she was doing and she enjoyed it. She enjoyed the power, she enjoyed the control and possibly she enjoyed the sexual thrill.

Ghislaine Maxwell's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein lasted for decades. But after his little holiday in minimum security prison, she did put some distance between them. Later, her lawyers would try and argue that she'd cut ties completely, but that's not quite true. Between 2007 and 2011, Epstein transferred more than $20 million from his offshore accounts to Ghislaine Maxwell, and they were in regular correspondence. In 2015, he sent her an email that said, You have done nothing wrong and I would urge you to start acting like it. Go outside, head high, not as an escaping convict. Go to parties, deal with it.

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. Both Epstein and Maxwell wouldn't face their reckoning for years. But now let's get back to the campaign that did actually bring them to justice. After numerous parole violations and sophisticated legal wrangling on behalf of the victims,

more than 20 women came forward seeking damages. Since they had seen no justice in the criminal courts, many victims looked to make Epstein pay for his crimes against them in civil courts instead. And Epstein was required to attend depositions for each of these victims and be interrogated by the victim's lawyer. In 2010, Epstein faced seven depositions for one case alone. When lawyer Brad Edwards finally came face-to-face with Epstein, representing Courtney Wilde,

he didn't fuck around. He knew that Epstein had a habit of Fifth Amendment-ing his way out of any questions, and Brad knew that the only way to get a rise out of a narcissist like this was to get under his skin. So Brad asked him directly, How long have you been attracted to underage minor females? When Epstein grimaced, Brad followed up with,

I'm not divulging any secrets here, right? And a similar tactic was employed by lawyer Spencer Coven, who was representing three victims, and decided to ask Jeffrey Epstein about his weird dick. Could you please give us your name? Jeffrey Epstein. Is it true, sir, that you have what's been described as an egg-shaped penis? Form, vague and definite.

And I'm going to give you the first warning, Mr. Cuban, that these types of questions are not only argumentative but directed in a manner to embarrass Mr. Epstein. If you continue with this type of question, I will adjourn the deposition immediately. Sir, according to the police department's probable cause affidavit, one witness described your penis as oval-shaped and claimed when erect it was thick towards the bottom, but was thin and small towards the head portion and called it egg-shaped those are not my words I apologize but as mr. now adjourned as mr. Critton has stated that this is a egg shape I don't think I've ever seen one that's an egg shape.

And I've seen some really weird ones. Oh, my God. I mean, it's just perfect. It's just perfect. I don't think the audio clip does it justice. We'll leave the link to the video, which is very easily findable on YouTube. And it's worth watching just to watch his little toady face as he's responding to it. Because absolutely, the lawyer, Spencer Coven,

who asked that question is absolutely right to have done so. And same with Brad Edwards. To get to someone like Jeffrey Epstein, to shake him up, you have to ask those kind of questions because he's so used to everybody else playing by the rules, being decent, being moral, and he just gets to do whatever the fuck he wants. So sometimes you do have to stoop to that level. And sure, it's fun to shame Epstein and very satisfying to watch his toad-faced squirm. But more than that, even though the deposition was over in less than 100 seconds,

which is extraordinary, it was also just the result the lawyers were after. Firstly, Spencer Coven has said that it turned the tables. The victims had been bombarded with inappropriate, intimate questions throughout the investigation about their sexual experiences, despite the fact that they were all under 18 at the time. And secondly, when someone clams up and shuts down, rattling them is the best you can hope for. Edwards and Coven both wanted the victims' accounts to be as public as humanly possible.

So they made jabs at Epstein's fragile ego. Epstein didn't have the right to terminate the interview, but he walked out anyway. So Coven filed a motion for sanctions, filing a copy of the transcript and video with the court. And in doing so, he had made Epstein's egg-like penis a public record. When it hit the news, Epstein was humiliated and shortly after all three of Cuban's cases were resolved. It's a very sneaky tactic, but for Epstein and his lawyers, it was a well-overdue taste of their own medicine.

In The Spider, Barry Levine estimates that Epstein paid more than $20 million to the victims in at least 39 out-of-court settlements. And just three victims were paid $5.5 million between them. But through all this, Jeffrey Epstein's reputation was miraculously undamaged. For decades, he had been able to court elite figures from politics and academia. Technology moguls including Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos all met with him in the years after his first imprisonment. And we also know that Prince Andrew also kept hanging out with him after his first imprisonment.

And Jeffrey Epstein also kept an extremely high and influential profile in the world of academia. His foundation donated millions of dollars to scientific research and organised global conferences with some of the most prominent scientists in the world. Stephen Hawking even visited Epstein's island for a conference called Confronting Gravity. By now, of course, everyone even remotely associated with Epstein has tried to distance themselves from him. But back then, that very much wasn't the case. Epstein would entertain all sorts of powerful people at his properties in New York and Paris and, of course, on Little St. James. And many would also join in for orgies and to abuse young girls. It's hard to say which if any of the people that went to Little St. James were involved in sexual impropriety because this is the thing it can't

just be that everyone who went to this island was some sort of child rapist. He knew which ones were going to be open to that and which ones wanted that. And he would have known, well, if I want X, Y, Z because they're influential in this space, I'll give them whatever it is that they want. He is a man who is a very good profiler of people, understands what they want, and then gives them that so that he can get something in return. And while I say, you know, we can't be sure about which ones were involved in sexual impropriety, particularly with underage girls, It is fun to guess. So let's have a little game, shall we?

Guess the nonce slash not nonce. Guess the pedo. We play this all the time. Guess the pedo. So, Woody Allen. Yes. Bill Gates. I really hope not.

Clinton. Yes. Bezos. Yes. Yes, yes. Prince Andrew. Duh. Yes, yes. Prince Andrew. Duh. Stephen Hawking.

I mean, he was a bit of a shagger in his time. He was, but I would be very surprised if that had continued on to the island. And finally, Elon Musk. 100%. The man's got nine children. And while we're perusing Epstein's scientific connections, there's one more pretty pertinent thing that we should mention. It's just, it's almost too perfect. Jeffrey Epstein was obsessed with eugenics and wanted to seed the human race with his own DNA. Of course he did.

He rose to infiltrate the scientific community at the most elite level. He had plans to manipulate all of his connections to fuel his grand plan. And this is what it was. He wanted to use his New Mexico ranch as a base where women would be inseminated with his sperm and then give birth to his babies. His ideal scenario was to have 20 women pregnant at the same time in his sex ranch. And this plan was not a secret.

Epstein announced the idea at a conference and regularly brought it up at dinner parties. Again, whether you want to think the child molestation is like a hidden secret or not, this man is saying some batshit crazy things in public and people are still looking the other way. He was desperate for everyone to hear his ideas on perfecting the human genome,

obviously in his own image. He got the idea from the repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank that aimed to only collect donations from recipients of the Nobel Prize. My God. By the way, neither idea is illegal and transhumanist foundations that aim to genetically improve human beings are very much still active but that is a story for another time but I bet it will be in your nightmares. In 2009, Virginia Dufresne filed a lawsuit accusing both

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell of sexually trafficking her while she was a minor. She initially stayed anonymous, but when, in 2010, she gave birth to her baby daughter, Virginia made the decision to go public. The mentions of British royalty soon caught the attention of reporters in the UK, and in early 2011, the Mail on Sunday ran a story on its front page. It printed the photograph of Andrew with his arm around the teenage Virginia and detailed her direct accusation that she was pressured into sex with the prince. This made headlines all over the world accompanied

by the photo that Epstein had taken all those years before. One that I'm sure everyone listening has definitely seen. Like we said, it features Prince Andrew with his arm around the 17-year-old and she looks so young. She's like wearing like a crop top and jeans or something and he just looks so old and fucking gross next to her. And, you know, obviously a lot of people criticise that and they'll be like, well, look, she's smiling. And I'm like, what is he doing with his arm around a 17 year old anyway whether she's

fucking smiling or not there's camera pointing at her what do you think she's going to be doing crying like the the blowback that virginia dufray got from people was unsurprising but also just ridiculous to consider the power dynamics between a 17 year old girl who was essentially on her own in the world compared to the Duke of York. Fucking hell. Are you thick if you think that that is a direct comparison? So anyway, the British royal family eventually made the statement as follows. Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue. Do you think they say that because the age of consent in the UK is 16 and she was 17? I mean, if there were ever irrefutable evidence like a tape or like photographs of the actual

stuff happening, which I'm not convinced doesn't exist, then i think that that's what they would lean back on but i also just think playing semantics like that wouldn't fly if i mean the majority of people who are aware of this case already think he's a sweaty nonce i think there are very few people out there now who defend him i think there are a lot of people who turn a blind eye and aren't demanding nearly as much be done to this man as i would like to see which is basically basically, in my opinion, he should be hauled off to the US and be made to stand trial there, because Scotland Yard is fucking firmly in the pocket of the royal family here. They will never do anything against them, as are MI5, as are MI6.

But the FBI, law enforcement in the US, not the same situation. So it does make me incredibly sad that there isn't enough force or enough energy put behind sort of dragging that man across the Atlantic to face justice for what he's done. But I think if it did come out and they were like, well, we did say that they weren't underage, I think that technicality wouldn't cover their arses in any sort of way. I think they're just doing what they usually do, which is say nothing. And when you're pushed to say something, make one statement that it's just not true. But as if they don't fucking know that it is. It's disgusting.

And the fact that he has two daughters who were like, oh, it just makes me sick. He's such a freak. But of course, Randy Andy, the Playboy Prince, denied absolutely everything. He said very loudly that he had no memory of the evening and he had returned to Buckingham Palace that night after going to a pizza express in Woking with his daughter for a birthday party. He said much later, in the now infamous Newsnight interview, that the account just couldn't be true because... One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts, has made allegations against you. She was very specific about that night.

She described dancing with you and you profusely sweating and that she went on to have bath, possibly... There's a slight problem with the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don't sweat, or I didn't sweat at the time. And that was... Oh, actually, yes. I didn't sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at.

And I simply, it was almost impossible for me to sweat. On that particular day that we now understand is the date, which is the 10th of March, I was at home. I was with the children. I'd taken Beatrice to a pizza express in Woking. Why would you remember that so specifically? Why would you remember a pizza express birthday and being at home? Because going to pizza express in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do. A very unusual thing for me to do I've never been I've only been through Woking a couple of times um and I remember it weirdly distinctly but as soon as somebody reminded me of it I went oh yes I remember that who let him do that interview I mean I'm glad it

happened because he's an asshole but like who I mean this is a man who screams at people for not putting their teddy bears back in the right place this isn't a man who screams at people for not putting their teddy bears back in the right place this isn't a man who is used to or inclined to follow instructions would be my guess on that matter i'm sure he as the fucking child rapist narcissist that he probably is very much thought that he could handle it very much thought that everyone else is very stupid i will go on there i've got the perfect story he's probably googled conditions in which people are not able to sweat and of course he has to throw in his falklands fighting experience because he's he's a man of the military blah blah blah it's like i'm a hero fucking shut up it's honestly that interview the whole thing around this is just

we'd be here forever if we talked about how horrendous the entire situation was but i think when you watch it you watch his body language you watch him it tells everything it's all the giveaways of a liar right the fact that he doesn't just focus on the fact that i am not a man who pressured young girls into having sex with me instead he goes into this era of saying that he can't sweat. Only people that are lying feel the need to fixate on seemingly unimportant parts of the story, like whether he was... Like to say that it couldn't possibly have been him because he can't sweat,

and Virginia Dufresne described a man who was sweaty. That's not a defence. No. That's a defence of a man who has nothing else to say. It's just, it's farcical, honestly. So not being able to sweat, as I'm sure Prince Andrew Googled, is called anhydrosis. And it can happen for a few reasons. It can be congenital. It can be due to excessive dehydration. So your body just literally does not have the fluids to be

able to produce sweat. Or it can happen after a serious bodily injury. None of those things are what Prince Andrew just said. So in case, just in case, you are in the 0.01% of people who were convinced by his story, we are telling you now, no, you cannot be so scared that you stop sweating for good. 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 Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Virginia's story was a sensation. And since everyone was talking about Prince Andrew,

everyone was once again talking about Jeffrey Epstein. Virginia had said that she'd been recruited by Epstein as a sex slave and groomed from the age of 15. Epstein's connections to powerful people undoubtedly helped him to avoid accountability over the years. But when the tide started to turn against him, it was his connections that brought him out into the public eye where he had absolutely nowhere to hide,

especially when one of his friends, an island frequenter, decided to run for President of the United States. When Donald Trump announced his candidacy, he alluded to a falling out a few years earlier between him and Jeffrey Epstein. But he certainly couldn't deny their long history of friendship. They had flown regularly together between New York and Palm Beach and could be seen in picture after picture after picture together at parties. Despite that, and despite everything, Donald Trump was sworn in on the 20th of January 2017. Later that year, the Weinstein and Cosby scandals came to a head, and the MeToo

movement swept social media. Women everywhere were inspired to know that there was strength in numbers, and citizens and media outlets alike had the momentum to keep uncovering large-scale abusers, especially those in the public eye. The global mood was, if you were a powerful man with a history of sexual impropriety, your days of freedom were numbered. In April 2017, Alex Acosta was sworn in as Trump's Labour secretary. As with any new political hire, he was straight under the microscope and his closet was rifled through four skeletons. Investigative journalist

Julie K. Brown at the Miami Herald remembered Acosta's involvement in the Epstein case. So she dug deeper into the inexplicably generous plea deal that Acosta had hashed out for Epstein all those years before. And over years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, she put together a series of articles collectively titled Perversion of Justice, in which she detailed Epstein's systematic child abuse in the most public way yet, identifying more than 80 of his victims. And she brought the 2008 injustice to the national stage for everyone to see. Victims went public with photographs of them as young teenagers on his island, in his helicopter, at his parties. Taking down Jeffrey Epstein became a national concern. Both sides of the political divide called for the plea deal to be re-examined. Senator Ben Sasse wrote to the Justice Department, quote,

The fact that federal prosecutors appear to have crafted a secret sweetheart deal for this child rapist should enrage mums and dads everywhere. There was finally nowhere for Jeffrey Epstein to hide. Early in 2019, a federal judge ruled the prosecutors had violated federal law by not telling victims about the plea deal. He said that under the direction of Alex Acosta, they had not only failed to inform victims, but actively misled them. An investigation into Acosta's professional conduct was opened. The FBI spent hours talking to victims. And a new hearing was called, where Epstein would have to appear in front of a federal judge in New York,

and victims would be invited to speak. On Saturday the 6th of July 2019, Jeffrey Epstein left Paris in his private jet, and when he landed at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey he was met on the runway by federal agents and arrested. Within hours of his arrest 20 officers burst into his 21,000 square foot New York townhouse. Inside they found thousands of nude photographs of women and girls and in a locked safe they found child abuse images and cds containing pictures of young girls how was this not already found the man had been arrested and served 13 months of an 18 month sentence why had they not already searched his fucking townhouse in new york and found all of this stuff it's not like they found it in a fucking storage locker that they had never been privy to. This is mind-boggling.

Also in that same safe was $70,000 in cash, 48 diamonds and a fraudulent Austrian passport with Epstein's picture and a false name. Two days later, prosecutors charged him with two federal charges, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and the sex trafficking of underage girls. The court papers detailed a pattern and practice of human trafficking, sexual abuse and forced labour of young women. The 66-year-old Epstein pleaded not guilty to all charges and his lawyers started offering

hundreds of millions of dollars in bond money to get him out. But, thank God, bail was denied on the basis that he presented a danger to the community and was an extreme flight risk. Four days after the Epstein arrest, Alex Acosta called a press conference and said that he was glad that the charges had been brought. He said that Epstein was a sex offender and charging him was the right thing to do. Shut the fuck up, Alex Acosta. You should be in jail right alongside him. Yes. Unfortunately, he doesn't go to jail, but he was forced to resign two days later. Ugh, sick. Jeffrey Epstein was taken to the Metropolitan Correctional Centre on the 6th of July 2019 to await trial. On his second day there, he was transferred to the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, known as The Hole, which was reserved for at-risk inmates, including informants,

police officers, and, of course, paedophiles. There, Jeffrey Epstein was confined to his cell for most of the day and evening, and only allowed to shower three times a week. A few days later, he was put on suicide watch, and moved to even worse conditions. In this sort of like new suicide or anti-suicide wing, Jeffrey Epstein's clothing was reduced to a gown with Velcro straps. Beds have no sheets and lights are never turned off. And on top of this, inmates are kept under 24-hour surveillance by both guards and prison staff. Details about their behaviour being recorded every 15 minutes. Or at least, this is what should be happening. But the prison at the time

was not in a good way. The Metropolitan Correctional Centre, or MCC as it's known, is a 12-storey prison in Lower Manhattan, across the street from the NYPD headquarters. The prison was designed to hold 480 inmates. But by the time Epstein arrived, it housed more than 750, and that's on the prison industrial complex. It was freezing in winter, stifling in summer. Rats and cockroaches were absolutely everywhere. In 2011, Amnesty International wrote to the Attorney General with concerns about cruel and inhumane treatment. A fellow inmate, William Mercy, who also worked

as Epstein's counsellor, said they would not move him from the shoe to suicide watch unless he indicated to a prison psychologist or someone else that he felt a desire to kill himself. Two days after arriving in prison, Epstein underwent a psychological evaluation. According to Bureau of Prisons documents, Epstein told the jail psychologist that he had a wonderful life. He referred to himself as a coward and said that he didn't like pain, plus he referred to the fact that suicide was forbidden in his Jewish faith.

He said, quote, I would not do that to myself. It would be crazy to take my own life. And the psychologist noted that Epstein was future orientated. Still, maybe he overestimated his ability to get back to his former life. On July the 18th, a judge denied a renewed bail request and Epstein's hope for freedom began to shrink. Five days after that, Jeffrey Epstein was found semi-unconscious on the floor of his cell, lying in the fetal position. He was discovered by his cellmate, who told guards that he had found Epstein with a bed sheet tied around his neck. Epstein was sent to hospital,

where he was successfully revived and discharged. Initially, the jail reported that its cameras had accidentally recorded another area of the prison, and so the footage that they needed to see what happened in the lead-up to Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide attempt did not exist. One fellow prisoner says, however, that when he Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide attempt did not exist. One fellow prisoner says, however, that when he asked Epstein what had happened, Epstein made a strangling

gesture with his hands. And when the prisoner asked if someone else had tried to strangle him, apparently Jeffrey Epstein had nodded. Epstein told prison officials that he had just blacked out and had no memory of what had happened. So he was put back on suicide watch for seven days, then returned to the shoe. On the 9th of August, so just a few weeks later, the FBI announced that more than 2,000 pages of previously confidential judicial documents would be unsealed. These documents related to Virginia Dufresne's defamation lawsuit

and were filled with details of the inner workings of Epstein's sex trafficking ring. Epstein had run out of options. He spent the afternoon talking to his lawyers in a cramped upstairs conference room. That evening, Epstein told officials that he wanted to phone his mum. But Pauline Epstein had died in 2004. He really wanted to speak to his 30-year-old Belarusian girlfriend, Kachina Shuljak. We can't know why or what he said, but perhaps she was the person he was closest to in those final years. Maybe she was the only person that he could call.

He spoke to her for 15 minutes and then went back to his cell. That evening, his cellmate was transferred out, with no replacement. Just after 6.30am the next morning, a prison employee doing the breakfast rounds discovered Jeffrey Epstein hanging from his iron bed frame. His orange bedsheets were tied around his neck. An ambulance was called and EMTs tried to revive him for at least seven minutes. He was taken to hospital, where his time of death was declared as 7.36am,

one hour after he was found. The US Attorney General at the time blamed this on a perfect storm of screw-ups for the serious irregularities at the prison that night. The jail was underfunded and protocols were often missed. The inmate in the cell next to Epstein said that he heard the sheet being ripped and maintained that, quote, Jeffrey Epstein definitely killed himself. Any conspiracy theories to the contrary are ridiculous. is not filming, the fact that there's no guards that see anything. And yeah, the prison is underfunded and like a total mess. But when there were also double the number of people in that prison than should have been, it's also quite surprising that they moved a prisoner out and then didn't replace him with anybody else. And this happens in that exact time. Yeah, I think it's a very convenient excuse to be like, oh, well, the prison system's fucked. So

obviously, you know, he couldn't be surveilled as he should have been. That's a very convenient excuse to be like, oh, well, the prison system's fucked. So obviously, you know, he couldn't be surveilled as he should have been. That's a very... Two things can be true at once. The prison system can be fucked and Jeffrey Epstein could have been killed. And like, we're not typically ones for like running with conspiracy theories. Obviously, they're interesting to talk about. And we should always talk about them because nothing is ever black and white. But I think in this case, when there are so many things

that lie in that realm of conspiracy theory, but turned out to be 100% true, I wouldn't be able to confidently or safely say that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't killed. I'm not even really convinced he's dead. I mean, there's also that. So obviously the whole thing was undoubtedly strange. And even the fact that the cellmate next door being like oh he definitely definitely killed himself like who knows what that person's been threatened with or promised or whatever. It does seem like a very

definitive statement doesn't it for someone who is in the cell next door. And it's like if you're in the cell next door you can't see into Jeffrey Epstein's cell like I don't know I don't know I don't think we have all of the answers not even near to all of the answers about what really happened. So of course, the whole thing was strange. And of course, given how unbelievable so much of this story was, when Jeffrey Epstein's death was announced, the conspiracy theory started swirling immediately. After all, what are the chances that an at-risk prisoner who had already attempted suicide would be left unattended again. And yes, the prison might be underfunded, all of these things, but this was a very high-profile case

and he was a very high-profile prisoner. I find it again hard to believe that he was just left completely with no eyes on him. And I guess the question is, why would anybody think he was killed rather than the fact that he did just kill himself. Well, how convenient was it for all of his very incredibly powerful friends, all of those who had been implicated in Epstein's web of abuse, for him to suddenly just drop dead? I also think, and this is pure speculation, but it's our show and we can say what we want. He just spent the whole day in meetings with his lawyers.

If he was planning on killing himself, why wouldn't he be like, smuggle me something in that would be an easier, less painful way to go than hanging yourself from your bunk bed? though why would Jeffrey Epstein kill himself because one part of me says that a man like that wouldn't because he would think there's always I still have all that money there is still every chance like I did before that I will be able to find a way to fix this for myself I find it hard to believe that he would have given up yes things were looking more and more bleak he was in a bleak prison by this point wasn't working he wasn't getting bail but like a man this not delusional because in the past he's been right about what he's been able to achieve but a man that powerful for him to think that he couldn't find a way out of this even if his lawyers had said that day you're fucked there's no way out of this I still don't think he would have believed that um but then you could also argue that maybe he did believe it and he figured well I'll play this as I've played my whole life

on my own terms and I'm going. I don't know I can argue it both ways. Coming back to the strangeness of his death the convenience of the fact that he's dropped dead and now all these very powerful people who he knew secrets about were seemingly safer because it was known that Epstein had video cameras everywhere on his island in all the rooms in his townhouse etc etc and presumably these video cameras had countless hours of footage of powerful people doing things that they shouldn't be and that sounds like prime blackmail material to me the kind of information that's definitely worth killing for. Epstein's brother Mark suspected foul play from the off and even hired the

pathologist Dr Michael Baden to check the autopsy report and those results were pretty damning. They showed no evidence at all to suggest that Jeffrey Epstein had jumped from the bunk and his injuries were not, as Barton said, reflective of suicidal hanging. To clarify, he said that the breaks that Jeffrey Epstein had in his neck are, quote, extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation. For Epstein's victims, this was one last insult, a coward's way out of his approaching justice. Two days before his death, Epstein signed papers that put his entire $577 million fortune into a trust in the Virgin Islands.

And that made it much more difficult for victims to get the restitution they deserved. But what they did get was their day in court. Despite a proposed motion to dismiss the case after Epstein's death, the judge ruled that the victims should still have their voices heard. And one after another, they stood to give their testimonies, describing firsthand on the world stage what Jeffrey Epstein did to them. But the story didn't end there. There was one long-estranged co-conspirator who still had not faced justice. When the dust settled on the news of Epstein's death, people started to turn to his one-time girlfriend, full-time assistant, Ghislaine Maxwell.

She had been a prominent character in all of the evidence against Epstein and stood accused of procuring abuse victims for years. But the more immediate question was, where was she? For 11 months, authorities hunted for Ghislaine across the world and found no trace. Until on the 2nd of July she was found, deep in the mountains of New Hampshire, on a 156-acre retreat called Tucked Away. The 58-year-old had been hiding there,

wrapping her phone in tinfoil to hide her location. Does that work? That seems mental that that works. Don't know. Just use a burner phone. What's she talking about? So FBI, when they found her, raided the property and arrested Ghislaine. They found a copy of Brad Edwards' book, Relentless Pursuit, on her nightstand. Just some, you know, light fucking night reading about all of the children you had sexually abused. And Ghislaine Maxwell was charged with four counts related to procuring and transporting minors for illegal sex acts

and two counts of perjury. I find it very distressing here that she is not charged with any sexual crimes because, once again, they are falling into the trap of simply arresting her and charging her with the procurement of these victims rather than the fact that she actively took part in the abuse as the victim said she did. But the victim's lawyers were raring to go. Brad Edwards had a hundred boxes of incriminating material on Ghislaine Maxwell including police reports, flight records and photographs, all showing proof of interaction with the victims. During Maxwell's time awaiting trial in jail, she maintained her innocence and requested bail six times. But every time she was denied.

Her family also rallied behind her and started a campaign for her freedom on the website realgallaine.com. On the 29th of November 2021, victims came face to face with Gallaine in court. The defence predictably tried to minimise her involvement and tried to push a perverse feminist angle. She argued that it was wrong for a woman to be taking the rap for a man's crimes. She even brought out cowboy boots bought by Epstein for Annie Farmer, the young girl that we spoke about last week who was trapped at his ranch. The defence argued that since Annie had kept the boots, her experience can't have been that damaging at all. Ghislaine's defence even went into detail about the breast fondling accusations,

claiming that Maxwell hadn't touched the girl's nipples, just the rest of her breasts, so that's completely fine. When you consider the fact that Annie was 16 at the time, this really is not a great defence. They don't have tons to work with, but they could have done a bit better. Deliberations began on the 20th of December and carried on over Christmas Day 2021, which is Ghislaine's 60th birthday. On the 29th of December, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted by the jury and found guilty on five counts. One of sex trafficking a minor, one of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and three conspiracy to commit co-ate felonies. Co-ate just means that the crimes that she conspired to commit actually happened.

Sex trafficking a minor was the most serious charge and carried a 40-year sentence on its own. It was declared once and for all that Ghislaine Maxwell was an active part of the system of abuse, not just a cog in the machine. She was not just following orders. And altogether, she faced 65 years in prison. She was sentenced to just 20. Now, we haven't been able to go into much detail on the victims themselves in this week's episode. But suffice to say, they were incredible throughout. Prince Andrew actually reached a settlement with Virginia Dufresne for £12 million. He was stripped of his royal title by Queen Elizabeth and forced to step down from all 230 of his patronages. He had lost his official police protection,

although the king still pays more than £3 million a year for Andrew's private security guards. Andrew no longer has an office at Buckingham Palace, but we have no word on where his teddy bears currently reside. In Geoffrey Epstein's declining final years, as his house of cards fell down around him, he told his publicist, I don't want billionaire pervert to be the last line of my obituary. And while billionaire child rapist might be more on the money,

he will never be remembered as the successful billionaire philanthropist that he painted himself as. Nor is he remembered as a visionary transhumanist who populated the earth with his genius progeny. His body lies in a cemetery in Florida, in an unmarked, unremarkable grave next to his parents. The exact fate he was so desperate to escape. There you have it. Jeffrey Epstein Ghislaine Maxwell, that's what happened. You can make your own mind up if he's dead or not.

I'm not convinced. I think either he's not or he was killed. I think, I'm not saying he didn't kill himself, but it just seems very, very, very convenient that this man who could expose a lot of people for a lot of things, and also increasingly a man who looked back into a corner where would he be willing to cut some sort of plea deal where he is going to throw a lot of very influential people under the bus, complete with evidence in order for him to not be, A, for him to not be the sole child rapist out there, but also B, to maybe get himself a lesser sentence. Totally. And I also think I'm not saying for an instant that Ghislaine Maxwell didn't deserve what happened to her because she absolutely did. But I think because she is now in prison, everyone's like, okay, case closed. We can all move on now. Which is not the case. As

Rue said, Andrew should be fucking extradited. Like it's, this is not over. It shouldn't be over. But because Ghislaine is in prison, we seem to think it is. Yeah. Because that could be the question that some people ask of, well, why didn't whoever killed Jeffrey Epstein, if you're saying that it's a conspiracy theory and he was actually killed, also killed Ghislaine Maxwell. But I think they had to keep her alive to become, and I know sounding very conspiratorial here, but you can't sit through this case and not go a little bit there and I think the reason that Ghislaine Maxwell wasn't taken out of the picture if that's what we think happened to Epstein is because they needed someone to be the face of justice quote-unquote having been done they needed someone to be and I'm not saying she's a patsy I'm not saying she's a fool guy she fucking deserves everything that she got and more but they needed someone to make everybody shut up I completely agree someone to make it seem like justice was done to be the face of that to be the scapegoat.

But she was 60. She's going to be 80 if she ever gets out. Hopefully, if she doesn't get parole any sooner. And obviously, someone like Prince Andrew is never going to get thrown under the bus. No. But may we all continue to demand it. Though, in a horrifying about turn, people were, of course, being arrested for shouting at andrew and calling him a sweaty nonce yeah we should be in this country allowed to yell at prince andrew and call him a sweaty nonce without being arrested by the police and this is why i will forever bang on about the

importance of free speech so there you go that's it guys that is the end of the horrible horrible two-parter that was go have a shower go make yourself a cup of tea. But that's it, guys. Enjoy. And we will be back next week with Rasputin. Rasputin. You are right. A full hand, full house, red handed. Royal flush. On Mr. Rasputin.

So we'll see you then. Hooray. Goodbye. 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 Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party.

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 and 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.

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 favorite podcasts.