- Astrid Meland
Commentator in VG. Writes about everything from Norwegian politics to gender.
SURROUNDING HIMSELF WITH YOUNG GIRLS: Jeffrey Epstein and his friend/girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. Several of the victims have testified that she pressured and recruited them to have sex with Epstein. And that older girls were used for recruitment. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence. He took his own life in 2019. Photo: HANDOUT / AFP / NTB
The new documents in the case show how the serial rapist Jeffrey Epstein surrounded himself with celebrities while the rape factory was on the assembly line.
Published:
Less than 10 minutes ago
This is a comment. The comment expresses the writer’s position
This is claimed in the newly released documents in the case of the American financier who took his own life in 2019. The latest documents arrived on Friday. New ones are expected this week.
– There were so many, sir, I don’t remember, testified Epstein’s house manager, who said the girls were called masseuses and worked in the spa. They accompanied him on the private plane, on the vacation island, on the ranch, in New York and in Palm Beach.
He said that Trump also came to visit. He didn’t use the spa. Because he had his own.
TALKED UNDER OATH: Johanna Sjoberg (left) was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell while she was in college. According to testimony, Maxwell said that it was good for her that Epstein had several girlfriends, since she herself could not fulfill his needs. The photo shows Sjoberg at a fundraising dinner in Palm Beach in 2015 with her friend Maria Valim. Photo: Patrick McMullan / Patrick McMullan
Several victims have testified about “orgies” in the sense of sex with several people under duress and abuse with vibrators.
Other witnesses who worked for Epstein back that up.
An employee testified about a laundry basket full of sex toys in Ghislaine Maxwell’s bedroom. His task was to regularly clean this. He put on gloves, he testified, and put them in the sink.
When police searched the house in Palm Beach, they found penis- and vagina-shaped soaps and sex toys, the documents show. In a cupboard they found the dildo “Twin Torpedoes”.
The most outrageous testimonies have been given by employees who told about very young girls, as young as 12 years old.
Chef Rinaldo Rizzo testified about a terrified 15-year-old Swedish girl who said she had come straight from Epstein’s island and had been stripped of her passport.
– She was shaking, literally shaking, said Rizzo, who described it as very uncomfortable. Others who were present have rejected the testimony.
WAS VISIT: Sarah Ferguson was married to Prince Andrew and, according to the witnesses, also visited Epstein in Palm Beach. She was only visiting briefly, according to testimony released in the documents. Photo: CHRIS RADBURN / Reuters / NTB
Many celebrities were visiting, without necessarily being linked to anything criminal.
– It was Prince Andrew. It was Princess Sarah. There were several misses. Miss Germany. Miss Yugoslavia. Trump. Robert Kennedy Jr, said the butler, who mentions Nobel laureates whose names he does not remember and that Bill Clinton took Epstein’s plane.
According to the witness, the prince was at Epstein’s home for weeks, slept in the blue main guest room and received a massage, while his wife at the time, Sarah, only visited in New York.
COME IN: American magician David Copperfield was a friend of Epstein, according to released testimony. Photo: PATRICK B. KRAEMER / AP / NTB
At home, according to a witness, Epstein had a lot of pictures of himself and the prince.
He used celebrities deliberately.
Even our own Crown Princess Mette-Marit met the billionaire on the holiday island, at Epstein’s home and at an unknown location in Oslo. The castle has since apologized.
It happened after he had been convicted of assault the first time.
That’s how Epstein gained credibility.
He had a large network that he bragged about. In the new documents, we can see how the girls heard him name-dropping.
According to a witness, Michael Jackson visited Epstein in Palm Beach. The magician David Copperfield also came.
HAD HIS OWN ISLAND: Many of Epstein’s victims were flown in his private plane “Lolita express” to his private island in the Caribbean. Photo: Gianfranco Gaglione / AP / NTB
When the girls got too old, i.e. over 17, they were discarded.
But then they had gained a lot. Because the girls had been important props at Epstein’s parties. He even offered friends to sleep with them.
Then a victim began to speak.
The collection of documents contains emails that show how Epstein and his ex-girlfriend tried to drop the charges, both with offers of money and attacks on the victims’ credibility.
NAMED PEDO ISLAND: Little St. James, which is part of the Virgin Islands, regarded Epstein as one of his many homes. Photo: MARCO BELLO / Reuters / NTB
Many have asked themselves why A-list celebrities managed to associate with the abuser who was convicted for the first time in 2008.
The Norwegian diplomat and politician Terje Rød-Larsen even received money from Epstein for his foundation, as we have seen from Dagens Næringsliv’s previous coverage.
BORROWED THE PLANE: Bill Clinton, who is a former US president, is mentioned a number of times in the released documents as an Epstein acquaintance. Sjoberg said that she had heard that he liked younger girls. In the documents, he appears as a friend of Epstein. Photo: Evan Agostini / AP / NTB
Now no one will admit to having known him at all.
Fox News talks about how the new documents blacken Clinton. Democratic politicians are preoccupied with Trump, while conspiracy theorists believe Epstein is not dead.
Epstein has become part of the American culture war where the left is fighting the right.
ACCUSATORS: Prince Andrew, who has stepped down after allegations of abuse, denies the allegations himself. Johanna Sjogren says in her testimony that he touched her breasts. Photo: TOBY MELVILLE / Reuters / NTB
But Epstein had friends on both the right and the left. Amazingly, in retrospect.
Perhaps it was the money that made him popular. Because he managed to rebuild himself after the first prison sentence.
Not that people didn’t know about it. In Norway, he was also referred to early in the media as a “pedophile billionaire”.
So people should know better. But in the glare of his celebrity friends, some unaware – others looked away, he continued his abuse factory.
The horrible thing he did was no one else’s fault. He and his co-conspirators were behind it.
But without his money and powerful friends, he would hardly have gotten girls on the assembly line. Year after year. Without anyone speaking up.
THE MOST FAMOUS VICTIM: Virginia Roberts Giuffre is Epstein’s most talked about victim. She is also the one who reconciled with Prince Andrew. The documents that have come to light now stem from her lawsuit against Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, who claimed she lied. Photo: Bebeto Matthews / AP / NTBPublished:
Published: 07.01.24 at 05:23
2024-01-07 04:23:55
#Comment #Cruel #allowed #hold #long
