The MeidasTouch Podcast - Lawyer For Eleven Epstein Survivors Discusses Next Steps

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas speaks with Arick Fudali who represents eleven Epstein survivors about his response and the survivors response to Trump’s cover up of the files. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast⁠ Legal AF: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af⁠ MissTrial: ⁠https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial⁠ The PoliticsGirl Podcast: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast⁠ Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan⁠ Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen⁠ The Weekend Show: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show⁠ Burn the Boats: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats⁠ Majority 54: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54⁠ Political Beatdown: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown⁠ On Democracy with FP Wellman: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman⁠ Uncovered: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's not what the people were looking for. I mean, even the official DOJ spokesperson account says the initial deadline is being met as we work diligently to protect the victims. They weaponize the victims, survivors, to say that's why this was just an initial deadline. It wasn't. The Epstein Transparency Act clearly stated that all files were to be produced in a searchable format, subject to appropriate legal redactions, which must be justified and everything was supposed to be searchable. Well, the search function and whatever the hell they released on

Friday wasn't working at all if you put in Maxwell's name, Epstein's name, Trump's name. It shows no results. It's weird. You had to like wait in a line to even access these, these, whatever, the photographs. There's some photographs of like Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson with Epstein. There's no context to the way that these photos were even produced. And we know that there are terabytes of data that the FBI and DOJ has. We know that back in March, they spent what, a total of literally tens of thousands of hours with thousands of DOJ and FBI officials going back through it in March. Then we learned from an exclusive CNN report over the past 48 hours or so

that there was another thousand national security lawyers and agents who somehow got pulled into this. Apparently, some DOJ lawyers didn't even want to be involved in this at all. So, I mean, what we're talking about? Like, 100,000, 150,000 man hours have been or person hours, you know, put into this thing for them to turn over this. Like, do they think that we are stupid? I mean, it's so offensive and I could only want to try to think about more than anything right now, what the survivors are going through who I think at every step of this way has been

disrespected by this DOJ, have not been consulted by this DOJ when they saw what this DOJ did, moving Gilane Maxwell from a maximum security facility in Tallahassee where she belonged to rot for the rest of her life or being one of the people in this leading this child sex trafficking ring, moving her to a minimum security facility. So I want to hear from one of the representatives right now, the lawyer for the survivors, Eric Fudali. Eric represented 11 survivors recently filed a lawsuit against the FBI on behalf of eight of these survivors

based on their negligent handling of this investigation decades ago. But I want to speak to you first, though, about what's your reaction to all of this, what the survivors have been going through, what they are going through now, with this, you know, it's their story. They want this stuff out there. They want the transparency and their names are invoked in a way to shut down transparency and to protect these rich and powerful men who were the ones perpetrating the sex trafficking ring.

It's very well said. You know, unfortunately, this is nothing new for the survivors. The survivors and I have been banging my hands, banging my head on the table for years about this. The Survivors have been wronged by administration after administration, Justice Department after Justice Department for decades and decades. This is nothing new for them. You know, I hate to say that, you know, they're used to it by now. They're used to being used. They're used to being exploited.

You know, they were exploited by Jeffrey Epstein. And then they were exploited by the politicians, you know, who surrounding themselves with Jeffrey Epstein. So they just continue to be wronged. You know, in the 90s, the FBI learned of credible allegations against Jeffrey Epstein and nothing was done about it. In 2008, Alex Acosta caught Jeffrey Epstein dead in his tracks, did nothing about it, slap on the wrist. You know, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and, you know, and finally, in federal custody and was able to kill himself.

As you said, Gleine Maxwell was finally the only person ever. Only person in all of this, decades and decades of investigations into the most prolific predator of our time. She's the only one who's been convicted and what happens, you know, just recently. A, she's given a platform by the Department of Justice to just. make things up and you know spout nonsense and then she's rewarded for spouting nonsense we after giving that platform by moving to a minimum security resort style prison so while i hate to be so negative about this and put in these terms but this is literally nothing new for these survivors they continue to be wrong they continue to be exploited and despite that what's so inspiring

is they continue to stand up they continue to fight they continue to be empowered and they continue to not take no for an answer. And the survivors are the only reason right now that we've gotten anything, that this law was passed, that we've seen any documents and hopefully we'll continue to see documents. So I just, you know, I want to make the point. It's so remarkable that despite decades of being exploited and being wronged, they continue to be strong and they continue to make progress and cause change. You know, before, again, I don't want to say the release of the Epstein files, because this ain't it. Whatever that, whatever that was, whatever that was on, on, on, Friday, but the Trump regime tried to make the fall people, these federal judges, and tried to,

I think, trick the public into believing this grand jury testimony was the kind of holy grail of info. And these three federal judges, one in Florida and two in the Southern District of New York, said, look, we'll release the grand jury testimony, but this is not additive to anything. You all, the DOJ, you have this info. You have the troves, which could be defined as terabytes or whatever the number is of what we expect there to be. It's a massive amount, not even in the hundreds of thousands. You and I was a civil litigator. We're talking about enough documents and videos and all to fill up skyscrapers, you know,

with data. And so these judges, you know, and I think you saw Judge Engelmeyer do this and Berman do this, say, tell us what you've got. We want to know a list of like what documents exist. If you want us to show you the grand jury testimony as a federal judge's, what do you got? And so I want you to talk about that, but I wonder, what's your next step now? If this is what the DOJ is doing, if they're using the victim's names for lack of transparency, if there's a law on the books, the Epstein Transparency Act, could there be now intervening in some of those

cases going to Judge Engelmeyer, going to Judge Berman, going to the judge in Florida, and saying, hey you already have jurisdiction over these matters order them to produce it let's have a discovery referee like let's do this the right way what do we do now how do we enforce this law that's a really great question i mean the first thing has been trying to get through these documents and you said it well yourself you know it almost felt like i was trying to buy concert tickets you know trying to get on first even there was like a waiting room as if there was some sort of raffle or lottery to be able to have the privilege of seeing these documents at the doj you know you know you know, so kind of them, right, to, you know, to make this website for us to review.

And there is zero context. There was nothing. Right now, as a Friday, there was 8,000, I think, you know, just files with no names. It's all EFTA and then a number. This is, you know, what we call in the civil litigation rule a document dump, right, where you just sort of hide things in plain sight by just throwing everything you can think of a bunch of documents with zero context, no order, no, you know, no rhyme or reason, and then force the people who actually want to get information to go.

through it. So that's already frustrating. But, you know, it's true. The laws are the laws, and I'm so sick of this administration and, you know, and frankly, you know, past administrations of, you know, continuing to just bend laws and continue to disregard laws. Like, A, release of the Epstein files didn't need a law. Trump could have just done it. The DOJ just could have done it. That's how things are supposed to be done. You know, if they really wanted to do what was best for the survivors, they wouldn't have made a couple, you know, a months and almost years-long charade of trying to hide these documents. The, the first thing, the first request, they would have said, you know what the survivors want this, let's give them

what they deserve. But they didn't do that. They forced Congress to make laws and flip-flop and go back and forth in their efforts to conceal efforts to change minds, delays and swearing in Congress people. So, I mean, you're absolutely right. You know, it's just such an exploitation and then using, you know, pretending like they're doing what's right for the survivors is such a slap in the face and it's so re-victimizing. So to answer the ultimate question, you know, my plan is to make sure, you know, see what's been released. And if there hasn't been enough release, start looking into lawsuits. You know, I am certainly not afraid to file lawsuits against this administration.

I just filed, as you said, a lawsuit against the FBI today this morning or Friday. And, you know, I'll continue to do that to make sure we finally get transparency, finally get accountability, because really the one thing these survivors want is closure. And this is, you know, today should have been the end. Today seems to be like the beginning of a very long journey. And now, you know, today should have been a day of closure. and instead, you know, it's a day of frustration. And I think a day of psychological torture

for people who have already experienced the worst type of PTSD imaginable. It's why I want to shed light on their story. For me, I approach the release of these Epstein files, frankly, through a non-political lens at all because it shouldn't be political. If there are Democrats on this, release the thing. And if that destroys their career, who cares?

If they're Republicans, the same thing. These monsters need to be held accountable. This is about supporting the victims, these survivors. Let's talk about, you know, as I mentioned at the outset, you've represented 11 of these survivors in your career, and one of them, most of them have been Jane Doe. One of them is named Rosa. And Rosa's story stood out to me as being demonstrative.

They're all horrific like this. But talked us about the story of Rosa, who was trafficked from Uzbekistan by a guy named Jean-Luc Brunel, who was part of this club of the Epstein's and this whole model, I put it in quotes, these model agency people who use that as a pretext to be predators of these young girls and they would go overseas. They'd find them and they'd traffic them back here in the United States. And Jean-Luc Brunel is someone who also died under mysterious or interesting circumstances

in a prison in France while he was going through his proceedings. 2017 or 2018 or sometime in that period as well. Tell us about Rosa. Yeah, absolutely. And just to echo what you said before, this is not a political issue for the survivors. It's not a political issue for me. I think every single person that had suspicious associations with Jeffrey,

I don't care what side of the aisle they're on. I don't care what color ties they wear. They need to be investigated and prosecuted if there's evidence of misdoing it. This is not a political issue. It's become one, but it absolutely, for the survivors and myself, this has nothing to do with politics. It's about justice. So yeah, so Rosa is a really fascinating story and I'm going to start it by saying that one thing that I believe is underreported about Jeffrey Epstein and I say this in the least complimentary complimentary way possible is

Jeffrey Epstein was a master manipulator. He was a brilliant predator to put it in the worst possible way I can say it. He knew how to control people and he was a he was really good at identifying the weakness of each one of his victims and he would use that weakness over them. And it's so heartbreaking and is devastating to hear these stories because the other thing that's underreported is I would say, and this might be going a little, maybe going a little too far, but I would say the majority of the survivors that I've represented have spoke to. Well, of course, the sexual abuse and the sexual predation of them has been ultimately so damaging and is PTSD. But I would say in some circumstances and perhaps

many of the circumstances, the fear and intimidation he instilled and the threats were even more damaging for some of these survivors. So that I think people don't realize is how I have many, I've spoke to many people as recently as this past week who continue to live in fear of Jeffrey Epstein, continue to see his face outside their window at night, continue to not, you know, lock their doors and have three alarms in their homes because they're still so afraid of Jeffrey Epstein and his circle. So, and that leads me to Rosa's story. Rosa was trafficked, like you said, by John Luke Brunel from Uzbekistan. She was a young woman.

She was over age of majority, but she was a very young woman who obviously dreamed of becoming a model and dreamed of coming to United States. Jeffrey Epstein had a trafficking scheme where he brought in women just like Rosa through Jean-Luc Brunel and others into the United States. He brought her and she was one of the first people she was introduced to when she got to the United States. He was wearing an ankle bracelet the day she met him, the very ankle bracelet that he was. was forced to be wearing by Alex Acosta, who gave him the sweetheart deal. So had Alex Acosta actually done what he should have done and fully prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein and not ignored victims and not told his other prosecutors to ignore victim or to not tell the victims about, you know, the plea deal, he'd done what he was supposed to do.

Rosa would have never met Jeffrey Epstein because he would have been behind bars. But no, he was, you know, had the slap on the wrist. He's wearing an ankle bracelet. And Jeffrey Epstein then continued to begin abusing and sexually abusing and sexually exploiting and manipulating Rosa while using her visa over her head. I mean, imagine being a young woman in the United States alone, no friends, no family. The only person there who can help you is the person who's also abusing you and at the same time also holding the power he has over you.

I mean, it's such a haunting and heartbreaking story. And the fact that Rosa has been able to stand up very recently and speak out and she appeared with me at the rally in D.C. and said next to me on the stage. really just says a lot about her and what she's had to go through. And these are the type of stories that I think get lost in sort of the memeification, if you will, of Jeffrey Epstein and the jokes and the political fodder and the back and forth, is Trump in the files, is Clinton in the files? These are true devastating stories of young women whose lives were upended by an actual monster.

I don't know how much you can share about Rosa's specific story beyond that, though. When she's here and there's this psychological torture that's taking place, and Brunel, who is a proxy of Epstein, who's doing the same types of things, and again, the fact that they both died in prison allegedly under the, you know, unusual circumstances, we'll leave that there for others smarter than me to whatever, figure out. But what did it mean, though, when a victim arrives here, they hold the visa over their head? I mean, would there be, was it like ritualistic? Did they bring in other wealthy men into these homes and say, here's what you need to do.

Here's a famous guy. You have to be raped by him. Like, I know you have to protect some aspect of this story, but at a high level, can you share, like, whether it's Rosa's story or a combined version of that. Yeah. What did it mean to be in that orbit? I can generally say not specific to Rosa about what the stories are, the type of stories I've heard from my clients and others who have been, you know, been public about it is again I keep saying this but another thing I also believe is underreported is how much of a predator Jeffrey Epstein was you know I get this question all the time at family

dinners and when I'm out with friends you know who who was Jeffrey Epstein trafficking to who was he trafficking to trafficking to and the answer primarily is himself and I know that's not the answer that you know the politicized nation wants to hear they want to hear the big names while there were certainly outliers there are certainly other individuals who would I say co-abuse with Jeffrey Epstein. There are certainly stories of Jeffrey Epstein, as you say, serving his victims up to other men, things that took place on the island with other powerful men, you know, having one of his masseuses give massages to other men. There are certainly those stories. But primarily Jeffrey Epstein was victimizing, according to my research, an investigation

and what I've heard of you, up to three women a day for decades. And I use the word women, and loosely, a lot of them were underage girls. But three a day. So a lot of the stories, and most of what I've heard, is how substantial the abuse by Jeffrey Epstein was, but then how he would use his connections to intimidate. He would show them pictures of him in world leaders and billionaires and wealthy people.

And he did not mince words. He would say, if you ever say anything about or ever tell anyone what we do here, you and your family will be sorry. He would say, you know, your visa will be gone. You will be back in Eastern Europe. I will withhold money from you and you will be back on the streets. He knew what triggers to use with each victim and he would without hesitation and very unambiguously

use those triggers to control his victims. Where do we go from here? I mean, obviously you have to further digest what this is. But we all know and, you know, as a former litigator, when I've looked at this, I go, I don't know, we've all had the experience in litigation where we were expecting a document production. to be a certain size. Yeah. And it wasn't.

And we didn't expect it to be the size it was supposed to be because we sometimes knew the litigate who was on the other side of the argument. And so when I looked at this, you could in literally, in my, from my past experience, look at this, a guy, really. They, we're going down this and down this path. And look, in litigation, motion to request,

motion to compel, do we need to get a referee? Do we do an electronic, you know, an E.S. audit and do we have a judge hire you know somebody i mean look you go back to these uh you know it's just past his prelude right you go back to these trump cases in new york where he wasn't producing the information and you know the the judge had to produce had to hire referees to get in to force the document productions within the organization so there's like that aspect of so where do we go from here what happens next and and it's a clear violation of the law But what do you do when the violators are the people who are supposed to enforce it?

That's a great question. And I actually said today earlier, you know, no one is above the law, especially law enforcement, which is what's so frustrating about this, is that it's so brazen. It almost reminds me of, you know, how brazen Jeffrey Epstein was with these women and how brazen Jeffrey Epstein was about his abuse and how him and his friends would write weird things in books. Like they joked about it in emails and talked about it and would write weird, like Lelita. like passages on these women I mean just such bizarre brazen behavior and it reminds me of how this is all being handled right oh we'll give you some

documents that we know it's the law but you know here's 8,320 documents good luck figuring out what any of them are because you literally have to click each one individually with zero context zero search function that's actually helpful you have no idea where the picture is taken what it means so you know good luck and by the way as time goes by we're gonna release some more maybe today, maybe not today, maybe tomorrow, you know, we're not really going to tell you. So this is so almost re-victimizing for the victims because it's such a mirroring of how this entire Jeffrey Epstein saga has gone on since the 90s.

Next steps, you know, demand, continue what we do. Continue to fight, continue to demand full accountability, full disclosure. If, you know, the victims need to get together, the survivors need to do more and more rallies and call their congresspeople and call their representatives, sure, if we need to get together and put us all our heads together with all the attorneys representing the Epstein survivors and file lawsuits and file class action lawsuits, then we'll do that. You know, the short answer is to fight and to continue to fight because I believe this administration and really any administration involving Jeffrey Epstein will continue to avoid

full accountability, full exposure, full justice until, you know, until we stop fighting. I think they're going to, I think they're just hoping that we'll get exhausted and the survivors will call it a day and we'll just stop fighting but I can I can almost guarantee you that we're not going to stop fighting and whatever it takes to get full accountability full exposure and ultimately full closure for these survivors is what we're going to do I remember when I was a litigator when someone thought that that would work I'll go you know what you just pissed me off you know maybe maybe before I was you know but now now you made me more focused because you're clearly hiding something

at least in civil litigation that you can go to the judge right you can say judge look at this. This is not how discovery works. You're not just supposed to dump documents like this. You can't just ignore deadlines. This is such a frustrating, you know, aspect because like, who do we go to? Do we have to file a new lawsuit? Like, there's not, like, who do you go to when law enforcement is the one that disobeying the law? I wonder, you know, and look, I'm not practicing anymore, but I've been thinking, I've been thinking this through. I truly wonder, though, those judges who had jurisdiction over the past cases based on the Trump regime, steps of going to those judges in the context of this law. You know, you could argue before the law

was passed, did these judges have jurisdiction over the law? But if the DOJ went to Engelmeyer and Berman and this other judge, and Engelmeyer made a very specific reference in the order to the victims and the victim's rights being trampled on, these are all kind of first impression issues because we never dealt with it before. But I do wonder if, someone like an Engelmeyer has the jurisdiction to you know to if if a victim intervened or a survivor intervened and said hey they've listed all of this in your filing we now need a referee and they've they've accepted your jurisdiction who knows listen I love the idea I'm certainly going to be exploring that over the next few days because again we're going again like I keep you know

we're going to keep fighting we're not going to stop if filing a lawsuit of asking you know judge Engelberg who's a fantastic judge I've argued in front of them before uh Engelmeyer, excuse me, you know, we're going to that, we're going to pursue that. And I think all options are on the table, and it's going to continue until every document has been released, every person has been held accountable, and every entity or human being who enabled, facilitated or participated in Jeffrey, Jeffrey Upton's abuse has been brought to justice. Eric Fudali, lawyer managing partner, the Bloom firm. Great work over there.

Appreciate the work you're all doing. Thank you. Appreciate you having me on. Everybody hit subscribe. let's get to 6 million subscribers want to stay plugged in become a subscriber to our substack at midasplus.com you'll get daily recaps from ron philipkowski add free episodes of our podcasts and more exclusive content only available at midasplus.com