Unsealed Jeffrey Epstein grand jury transcripts reveal how pedophile financier groomed juvenile victims for sex trafficking in Palm Beach, Florida.
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Jeffrey Epstein, the sex-trafficking financier who died in federal custody while awaiting trial, had a network of groomed girls in Palm Beach, Florida, recruiting victims for him as far back as 2005, according to newly unsealed grand jury transcripts from a child trafficking case that he largely escaped with a slap on the wrist nearly 20 years ago.
The 176-page document contains new details about Epstein’s crimes, including specifics about cash payouts to teens who recruited one another for Epstein’s misdeeds, firsthand accounts from child sex-assault victims, and allegations of rape.
Palm Beach police initially opened the case after a fight between girls at a local high school, according to the transcript. One, just 16, had been accused of prostitution by a classmate, and a school official later found $300 in her purse, which originally came from Epstein, according to the documents.
She testified that she had been instructed to concoct a fake life story and pretend to be 18 to get $200 to give Epstein a massage before the first time she met him. Then she revealed she was asked to strip down to her underwear and had a graphic sexual encounter with him.
In a court order authorizing the release of the documents, Circuit Judge Luis Delgado warned that the contents were disturbing.
“It is widely accepted that Epstein is a notorious and serial pedophile”, the order reads. “The testimony taken by the Grand Jury concerns activity ranging from grossly unacceptable to rape – all of the conduct at issue is sexually deviant, disgusting, and criminal. The details in the record will be outrageous to decent people.”
Joseph Abruzzo, who serves as Palm Beach County’s court clerk and comptroller, announced the release of the documents shortly before 3 p.m. on Monday, hours after a new Florida law took effect legalizing the release of grand jury materials in certain cases.
