Woman says Trump had sex with women in Jeffrey Epstein's N.Y. mansion, then retracts

In the latest batch of Jeffrey Epstein documents, a woman claims that Donald Trump had sex with "many women" in Epstein's New York mansion. It's one of several bombshell allegations made by Epstein victim Sarah Ransome — some of which she later retracted out of concern for her family's wellbeing.

The allegations appear in a trove of documents a federal judge has steadily released since Jan. 3, which detail the breadth and depth of a the sex trafficking ring Epstein operated from his Palm Beach mansion and beyond.

The latest batch of documents includes a sampling of emails Ransome sent to a New York Post reporter in 2016 linking former presidents Trump and Bill Clinton to Epstein's "seedy inner circle." Ransome claimed that Epstein recorded sex tapes of Clinton, Prince Andrew and other prominent men to keep as blackmail, though no such footage has ever been publicly uncovered.

Ransome also said that an unnamed friend who allegedly had sex on separate occasions with Clinton and the Duke of York "was made to feel like a dirty whore and a liar" when she reported it to police in 2008.

According to Ransome, her friend was approached months later "by Special Agents Forces Men sent directly by Hilary (sic) Clinton herself, in order to protect her presidential campaign in 2008."

Victim retracts claims, cites concerns for family

The same batch of documents contains another email in which Ransome retracted her claims, telling the reporter she feared for her family's safety and wanted "to walk away from this." She told Bazaar in 2021 that Epstein threatened to murder her family if she spoke publicly.

"It's not worth coming forward," she wrote. "I will never be heard anyhow."

In a 2019 New Yorker article, Ransome added that she "had invented the tapes to draw attention to Epstein’s behavior, and to make him believe that she had ‘evidence that would come out if he harmed me.’”

Ransome said she met Epstein in 2006 and was raped and starved in the year she spent in his circle of women and underage girls. In a deposition, Ransome said she wanted to expose Epstein to stop him from hurting others.

"Seeing as I’m going to be a parent myself, I can’t really live with myself knowing that there’s a pedophile with my kids on the planet," she said. "So as a responsible human being, I thought that I would come forward."

Attorneys representing Alan Dershowitz — who Ransome has also accused of sexual abuse — submitted her emails to the court in an attempt to undermine her credibility.

Monday's documents are among the last expected to be unsealed in victim Virginia Giuffre's defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre, who in 2001 worked as a teenaged spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, said Epstein forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew and other prominent men after Maxwell lured her into his circle.

Maxwell called the accusations lies, prompting Giuffre to sue in 2015. Though the case was settled and sealed two years later, the Miami Herald successfully fought to have the names and documents associated with it made public.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence at a Tallahassee prison — where she teaches etiquette to fellow inmates — for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution-related charges in 2008 and served 13 months in a work-release program at the Palm Beach County Jail.

Federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein with sex trafficking in July 2019. He was found hanged in his jail cell less than a month after his arrest.

Hannah Phillips covers criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Sex tapes of Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew among latest Epstein allegations