Epstein accusers say financier flaunted his depravity — and VIP visitors had to be aware

In the end, whether they participated in illicit acts or not, anyone who visited the homes of Jeffrey Epstein, hung out at his pool or spent time in his presence would have to be blind not to spot what he was up to, according to two victims of the late sex trafficker.

Virginia Giuffre and Sarah Ransome made their observations in anguished sworn testimony in the course of litigation that swirled around Epstein in his final years, before his suicide in prison. Years earlier, he had pleaded guilty in a Palm Beach court to to sex with an underage girl. After he got out of jail, Epstein was welcomed back by business leaders, politicians and celebrities. It was as if it never happened.

The women, in their testimony unsealed Tuesday, said he flaunted his attraction to young women and girls, some of them underage.

The allegation is significant because so many famous people — from Donald Trump to Bill Clinton — were attracted to Epstein’s orbit, flying on his plane, as in the case of Clinton; or, as in Trump’s case, partying with him at Mar-a-Lago, a scene captured on video.

Clinton has denied anything improper happened while he was with Epstein and a spokesman for Trump told Newsweek any allegations of wrongdoing “are simply false and have no merit.”

The documents released Tuesday are from a formerly sealed defamation case litigated years ago. As is often the case with Epstein, they included salacious but largely unproven allegations by women who have lived traumatic lives, made more difficult by their involvement with Epstein. Allegations have circulated for years about famous people having sex with women or girls procured by Epstein or his staff. The allegations have universally been denied. With the exception of a photo of Giuffre standing with Prince Andrew, scant telltale evidence has been presented..

Among the latest court documentation:

▪ Giuffre, in a sworn deposition, insisted that both Bill Clinton and Les Wexner, who associated with the multimillionaire, knew that Jeffrey Epstein was having sex with underage girls. Of Wexner, the billionaire owner of Victoria’s Secret, Giuffre said “he did things that were wrong ... he participated in sex with minors.” A spokesman for Wexner denied he has ever met Giuffre and said Wexner was never involved in “any of the abhorrent behavior engaged in by Epstein.”

▪ In the same deposition, Giuffre claimed she was forced to have sex more than once with former Sen. George Mitchell and Bill Richardson, a former governor of New Mexico. Both denied that, and Richardson is now deceased.

▪ Giuffre swore she was trafficked to a “well-known prime minister” whom she refused to name because she feared it would put her life in danger.

Giuffre also testified about a number of women who were involved in having sex with her and others for Epstein’s entertainment.

The documents are from a 2015 defamation lawsuit brought by Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime lover and recruiter of girls and young women such as Giuffre when she first met the pair as a teen. The case was resolved out of court in 2017, with Maxwell paying Giuffre a multimillion-dollar settlement. Most of the documents, however, were sealed at that time. The Miami Herald, whose series Perversion of Justice led to Epstein’s rearrest in 2019, which was followed by his death behind bars, sued successfully to unseal the case, and the documents have been released on a rolling basis over the past five days.

The never-before-released Giuffre deposition was actually part of an unrelated legal fight between famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who represented Epstein and was a house guest at his Palm Beach estate, and two attorneys who represented Epstein victims. Dershowitz and the lawyers, Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell, filed dueling lawsuits in 2015 over Giuffre’s allegations against Dershowitz.

Giuffre accused Dershowitz in an affidavit of having sex with her. Dershowitz denied all of Giuffre’s accusations, which she later partially recanted, and her sworn affidavit was removed from the court record.

The Miami Herald’s original “Perversion of Justice” series:

• How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime

• Cops worked to put serial sex abuser in prison. Prosecutors worked to cut him a break

• Even from jail, sex abuser manipulated the system. His victims were kept in the dark

• Sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein was surrounded by powerful people. Here’s a sampling

• For years, Jeffrey Epstein abused teen girls, police say. A timeline of his case

The lawsuits were later settled out of court, but some of the court documents were incorporated into the Giuffre-Maxwell defamation case, which began when Maxwell called Giuffre a liar.

Also unsealed Tuesday was Sarah Ransome’s deposition.

Among other things, Ransome’s Feb. 17. 2017, sworn testimony provides a graphic description of a sexual encounter she said she had with Dershowitz and another Epstein victim, Nadia Marcinko, in Epstein’s New York mansion, as well as what she said was a detailed description of Dershowitz’s physical characteristics.

Dershowitz said that he had never met Ransome.

“Nothing she says should be believed,” Dershowitz told the Herald.

Dershowitz had repeatedly called for all of the documents from the case to be unsealed, saying that they would vindicate him. He said he is “very happy with the totality of these disclosures.”

Dershowitz and Epstein were friends for years. The emeritus Harvard law professor said he now regrets ever meeting Epstein and that their friendship ended when he took him on as a client.

Giuffre and Dershowitz filed lawsuits against each other, and they were settled in 2022. At that time, Giuffre admitted that she may have been mistaken when she cited Dershowitz as someone who sexually abused her.

Tom Davies, a spokesman for Wexner, pointed to a 2020 court document in which his client issued a statement denying. Giuffre’s allegations: “Mr. Wexner was unaware of, and was never a participant in any of the abhorrent behavior engaged in by Epstein against Epstein’s victims, that Mr. Wexner had never met Ms. Giuffre and that any claims to the contrary were not true.”

Giuffre also described dinner parties attended by academics and luminaries, including Bill Clinton, and Al and Tipper Gore. She said she was particularly moved by seeing how Gore doted over his wife during the dinner, noting “I thought he was a wonderful guy who loved his wife... He’s just somebody that loves his wife that much.”

They later divorced.

A spokesman for Gore said the former vice president has “no recollection” of ever meeting Epstein.

Clinton has denied he knew Epstein was sexually abusing anyone and also says he was never on Epstein’s island.

Her most detailed answers were to questions about Dershowitz, whom she claimed she was forced to have sex with six times. After being directed to describe one of the encounters in detail, she excused herself and vomited outside the room, according to the deposition.

She emphasized that almost anyone who visited Epstein’s homes should have known what he was doing.

“I would say the first time they came to that property there is nude pictures everywhere,” Giuffre said. “These are salacious acts of girls, young girls doing things to each other that would be considered child pornography. If you walked foot into Jeffrey Epstein’s house and you went in there and you continued to be an acquaintance of his, then you would have to know what was going on there.

“You can call it an assumption, but like I said you’d have to be blind to not know what’s going on.”

For all that is illuminated in the documents unsealed over the past week, many secrets remain.

The documents include the full transcript of Epstein’s Sept. 9, 2016 deposition, in which he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 1,000 times, refusing to respond.

Three names are redacted from a series of questions in which Epstein is asked whether he sent Giuffre to have sex with his powerful friends.

At least one man’s name remained redacted in emails released Monday.

Ransome referenced “an email which was exchanged between [NAME REDACTED] using his code name [REDACTED] via Sugar Daddie.com. I have other correspondence which I had with him in my storage box in England.”

In the same batch of emails, the name of someone Ransome said tried to rape her “with his friend when we were at anchor on his boat in Miami” remained redacted

In documents released on Jan. 3, the names of two of three people subpoenaed for deposition were revealed — they were police officers — but a third name remained redacted.

In a witness list released on Jan. 4, redactions also covered nine names of people who “may have,” or do have “information about Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual trafficking conduct.”

One person who was “present on flights with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Virginia Guiffre” and may have knowledge of the trafficking also was kept secret in the Jan. 4 release.

And in an excerpt of a different Giuffre deposition released last week, she is asked “when did Ghislaine Maxwell direct you to go have sex with”...followed by a name that was [redacted].