01x01 - Hunting Grounds

[bunniefuu]

[WOMAN] Raise your hand, please.

Do you swear the testimony you're

about to give in this matter

shall be the truth, whole truth,

- and nothing but the truth?

- Yes, ma'am.

[LAWYER 1] Would you

please state your full name?

It's Jeffrey Edward Epstein,

and my residence address

is 6100 Red Hook Boulevard

in Virgin Islands.

[LAWYER 1] Do you maintain

any other residences presently?

I have vacation homes in New Mexico

uh Palm Beach, New York and Paris.

[LAWYER 1] Have you ever

been convicted of a crime?

Yes.

[LAWYER 1] What was the crime

of which you were convicted?

[STAMMERING] Uh Two, uh,

counts. One soliciting prostitution,

and procuring a minor for prostitution.

[LAWYER 1] Did you in

fact commit those acts?

I'm going to invoke my

Fifth Amendment right.

[LAWYER 1] How many

times have you solicited

- a minor for prostitution?

- Same answer.

[LAWYER 1] How many times have you

solicited a minor for prostitution

- in the State of Florida?

- Same answer.

[LAWYER 1] Have you

ever solicited a minor

for prostitution in the Virgin Islands?

Same answer.

[LAWYER 1] That is that you are

invoking your Fifth Amendment

- Yes. Yes, Mr. [INAUDIBLE].

- right?

[LAWYER 1] Have you ever solicited

for prostitution in New York?

Same answer.

[LAWYER 1] Have you ever solicited

for prostitution in New Mexico?

- Same answer.

- [LAWYER 1] Have you ever solicited for prostitution in Paris?

- Same answer.

- [LAWYER 1] Have you ever solicited a minor

for prostitution anywhere at any time?

Again, I'm going to assert my right.

[LAWYER 2] Let's take a

break. We'll go off the record.

[LAWYER 1] So you are terminating

the deposition at this time?

[LAWYER 2] We are

recessing the deposition.

[UNINTELLIGIBLE DIALOGUE]

[POLICE SIREN WAILING]

I'm Vicky Ward.

I'm an investigative journalist.

I wrote a story about Jeffrey

Epstein for Vanity Fair back in 2003.

I heard about Jeffrey Epstein, actually,

long before I was

asked to write about him

because he was known

as this sort of Gatsby-like

figure of mystery in New York.

He was this single guy,

very wealthy, very good-looking,

and people knew that he

had made a lot of money,

but they didn't know how.

He claimed to be the money

manager for the uber-rich.

People knew that he hung out

with a lot of famous people:

Prince Andrew,

Bill Clinton,

a lot of famous academics,

the lawyer Alan Dershowitz,

and that he was always

surrounded by very beautiful,

often very young, women.

I knew Ghislaine Maxwell,

his then supposed girlfriend.

She was Oxford educated,

very witty, very funny.

She was a great connector for Jeffrey.

Graydon Carter, who was then the

editor of Vanity Fair, said to me,

"I've been hearing about

this guy, Jeffrey Epstein,

for years, but no one

knows anything about him."

And so he gave me the story.

It was a society piece.

It wasn't supposed to be

anything more than that.

But right away

there was a red flag.

One of my sources said,

"I know a woman who had a

very unpleasant experience

working with Jeffrey.

And even worse,

her younger sister was abused

by him when she was underage.

Maybe they will talk to you."

And, obviously, this took

what had primarily been

a business investigation

in a whole

different direction.

[WOMAN] I began painting

my senior year of college.

I just dedicated myself

to painting constantly.

I looked at it like I

was an Olympic athlete,

and I was just working all

the time, you know, training.

And then I was just giving myself

the fresh mind every time to the canvas.

This is my graduate school,

the New York Academy of Art.

I graduated in 1995,

and the night of our graduation,

actually, you usually have an art show,

and Eileen Guggenheim used

to be the Dean of Students,

and she would run it.

At this show, I decided

to enter a triptych.

So that's three paintings, and it

was the Alice in Wonderland series.

The show is phenomenal for me.

All three of my

paintings sold right away.

The first painting I sold for $14,000,

and then the other

two for $12,000 apiece.

And I was really, obviously, excited,

but Eileen then walked over to me,

and Eileen's literally

like twisting my arm,

and she says, "This couple right here is

who is going to buy your

art. Do you hear me?"

And I said, "Well,

I've already sold it."

And she said, "That's too bad.

You're gonna tell them

that it's not sold,

and you're selling to this couple.

They're very important

benefactors of the Academy."

And Eileen says, "This

is Jeffrey Epstein

and Ghislaine Maxwell,

my dearest friends.

And they're just completely delighted,

and you will be selling to them,

and they will get a discount."

And so I got 6,000 instead

of 12,000 that night.

And Jeffrey Epstein said, "Don't

worry. We'll make it worth your while.

Don't worry."

I didn't see or hear from

Jeffrey for a couple of months.

And one day the phone rang, and he

said, "I have a great job for you."

Jeffrey had just acquired

this mansion on 71st Street.

He told me, "This is your new job.

You're going to be managing the door,

and you're going to be managing

the people coming and going,

the decorators, the visitors."

One day Jeffrey Epstein

said, "I would like to know

how many siblings you have."

And I described that I had two sisters,

and I told him that my sister

Annie was very intelligent

and has hopes and dreams for a

career, probably in Ivy League.

[ANNIE FARMER] I was 16 years old,

and it was my junior

year in high school.

Maria was living in Manhattan

and had told us that she'd

gotten a job, a great job,

working for this man, Jeffrey Epstein,

and that he might be interested

in helping me in some way.

He had proposed it

would be helpful for me

to go on some kind of international trip

to Thailand and Vietnam in

order to build up my résumé

and to be more appealing

for a competitive school.

He agreed that he

would pay for that trip.

At the time, it was very

[LAUGHING] It seemed very

expensive, you know, so

um I was just feeling

really grateful for that.

The trip was supposed to

be that summer in July,

and so he suggested that I come out

to meet him and Ghislaine Maxwell

at their ranch in New Mexico.

My mom's understanding of

what that trip would be was

a chance for me to

meet some other students

who would also be

going on similar trips.

But when I got there,

I realized I was the only

one there staying with them.

They showed me around the property.

It was part of building up this

sense of, like, look at who I am,

look at all that I

have, be impressed by me.

Ghislaine was very interested in whether

I had ever had a massage before,

like a professional

massage, and I had not.

It was really presented as, like,

you're so lucky that you get to do this,

to, you know, get this massage.

She told me to undress,

and there was a table

there with a sheet on it.

You know, a portion of it

was just pretty typical, um

but there was a time when

she had me lay on my back,

and she, you know, pulled the sheet down

so that my breasts were exposed.

Because of the layout of the

house and the doors that were open,

I knew that Epstein could see me.

I think the way that she

rubbed my chest in, you know,

in the massage also was inappropriate.

The scariest moment of the weekend was

when he came into my

bedroom in the morning

and said that he would like to cuddle.

He crawled into bed with me.

And, um you know, was touching me,

and I don't remember

how long that lasted

because I was sort

of checking out a bit.

But I remember making an excuse

like I needed to go to the bathroom.

Got out of bed, and, like,

went into the bathroom,

and kind of shut the door, and was

you know, very scared

of what was going on.

And afterwards, I just avoided it.

I didn't tell my closest friends,

and I didn't tell Maria and my family,

and I just thought,

"I'm going to focus on

this trip this summer."

And I went to Thailand and Vietnam.

[MARIA FARMER] Annie was

on this program in Thailand,

and I received a call

from Jeffrey saying

that we want to help

you with your career.

So I was asked to go do

an artist-in-residency.

I was to go to Ohio,

and I would be living in

this 26,000 square foot home

behind Les Wexner's house.

When I asked Jeffrey who Les Wexner was,

he said, "He is my client

and my very good friend,

who happens to be a billionaire,

and he would do anything for me."

So I drove a Penske truck to Ohio

because I took all of my art supplies.

I set up shop,

and I started painting.

These paintings were

paintings about puberty,

girls partially nude,

voyeuristic kind of private moments,

but not sexual.

My process is that I take

photographs, and I work from them.

And I was using my two

sisters as the models.

So, Jeffrey and Ghislaine

came to visit one day.

[INSECTS BUZZING]

[MARIA] That night, Ghislaine

came and got me and said,

"Jeffrey would like to

have his feet rubbed."

And my stomach sank.

I felt like, "Gosh, I don't want

them to think I'm not grateful,

but this is so inappropriate," you know?

And so I [GROANS] rubbed

his feet for a little while

and he said, "Come up here."

Then he patted over here

for me to sit next to him.

Then Ghislaine sat down

on the other side of me.

Jeffrey immediately was doing this.

Like, it was really

mechanical and bizarre,

and Ghislaine then was doing this on me.

And then they were touching me

in different ways on my chest.

It didn't feel right at

all, and I didn't like it.

I kind of had like,

you know, some tears,

and she goes, "Shh, it's gonna be okay."

And she was like really

with her other hand, like,

rubbing on my hand

and telling me that it

was going to be okay.

I had escaped my body at that point.

I wasn't really in that moment at all.

And at some point,

I was able to like catapult

my body out of that bed.

I went to my room, and

I barricaded my door.

I put a piece of furniture against it.

Just kind of huddled up in that room

until Jeffrey and

Ghislaine left that morning.

When I woke up, I

went and checked to see

if my photographs of

my sisters were there,

and realized three

photographs had been stolen.

And I was freaking out.

So, I called Annie.

[ANNIE] My sister confronted me

about whether anything

had happened to me

when I was at the ranch.

I told her things that had made me

really uncomfortable had happened,

but I really don't

want to talk about it.

[MARIA] I said, "Listen,

you're never going to have

to deal with them again.

Do not worry.

I am so sorry you were exposed to this."

It was just a very uncomfortable feeling

to know that he had these photos of us,

and

in particular of my younger sister

because she was just 12

when those photos were taken.

And

it was just so

um

It was just upsetting to

know that he had those photos,

and to never know what happened

to them or how he was using them.

He could be using them to

sexually please himself.

[MARIA] So the next

day, Jeffrey called me,

and he tried to pretend like

it was a really fun time

he'd had the night before,

and he tried to kind of

play it off like that.

And I said, "That wasn't fun for me."

And then he offered to give

me basically what I wanted

to not make a stink about

everything, just, "What do you want?"

Like, "How much money do you

want? What can I do for you?"

Um

And I s I didn't say

anything. I hung up on him.

When I got back to New York City,

I told the NYPD everything

that had happened.

I told them I'd been

assaulted. And they said,

"It's just not in our jurisdiction.

Like, we have nothing to do with this.

These things happened

in Ohio, New Mexico.

You're gonna have to call the FBI."

When I called the FBI, I

laid it out very specifically.

I said, "I'm reporting these people:

Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell."

I told them everything, and I

could tell that he believed me.

So, I really had believed that

he was going to take care of this.

And then we just actually

did not hear back.

[VICKY WARD] Because these sisters

had been ignored for so long,

they were very, very frightened

of going on the record,

speaking up about what

Jeffrey would do to them.

Part of them, understandably,

just thought they could never

fight against a man of his power.

We proceed, very reluctantly

after a family decision,

um that we're going to do this thing.

We're going to talk about this.

[WARD] I spoke to the younger sister,

who was molested by him

and lived in fear.

[ANNIE] So, after we had

presented our story to Vicky,

then Vanity Fair had to

take this account to Epstein

to essentially fact-check it

and get his perspective

and his side of things.

And when they did that, he

came back with his own story,

which was we were in fact women

that were infatuated with him.

And that's what this was

coming out of. It was,

you know, revenge for

that being unrequited.

[WARD] He would say, "Well,

Vicky, if I don't like this piece,

it's going to be bad

for you and your family."

And I was newly pregnant with twins.

He said, "Where are you giving birth?"

He followed that up with,

"I know all the doctors

in all the hospitals,

so it doesn't matter. If you

don't tell me, I'll find out.

If I don't like this piece,

I'm going to have a witch doctor

place a curse on your unborn children."

He was beginning to spook me out,

and these are just conversations.

So I could only imagine

how the women must have felt.

I got a phone call from Graydon.

He was pretty spooked

because he'd found a severed

cat head in his garden.

He also found a b*llet on his doorstep.

And then suddenly, I

was told by my editor

that the girls were being

taken out of the story.

I was horrified. I said,

"Why? They've been so brave.

They've laid so much on the line. Why?"

And the message came back,

"Well, he's obviously sensitive

about the girls. That's a sore point."

I'll never forget Graydon

Carter saying to me,

"I believe Jeffrey Epstein."

[ANNIE] I remember buying

the copy of Vanity Fair

and seeing the spread, you

know, "The Talented Mr. Epstein."

And it said nothing about

any of his interest in girls.

I think that Vanity Fair basically

got bought off by Jeffrey.

The excuse was, "Well,

it's a business story."

It was a business story,

but, just like life,

the story was more complicated,

far more complicated.

I cried in public. [LAUGHS]

Um

You know,

so much work,

so much bravery,

and for what?

[ANNIE] It seemed it was more evidence

of the fact that he was powerful,

and he could fix whatever thing came up.

[WARD] Jeffrey Epstein

is the ultimate story

of the abuse of power and money.

But, of course, what none of us knew

was that the girls who I'd spoken to

were only the tip

of the iceberg.

And it actually got

even worse in Florida.

[SINISTER MUSIC]

[MAN 1] Jeffrey Epstein bought

his Palm Beach mansion in 1990.

Epstein was new money.

He didn't have generations

of growing up there,

sailing in the Intracoastal Waterway

but he had tons of new money.

And if you have enough money, you

can buy your way in to any society.

There are things that have been true

about Palm Beach since I was a kid.

Some of the protectiveness,

some of the clannishness

It's definitely a very insular world.

There is almost a

hermetic seal around it.

It's not just an

extremely wealthy zip code.

It's an island.

And I think that

it almost has a psychological effect

on the very wealthy

people who move there,

or who have grown up there,

or whose fathers or grandfathers

bought estates there,

because there's a sense of

security, and safety, and privacy,

and they like it that way.

[MAN 2] Epstein and I

essentially were neighbors.

And why would Jeffrey

Epstein come here?

You know, here it is.

I mean, you're on the ocean.

It's quiet and secluded.

I came down here in 2007,

and back then, there was very

little known about Jeffrey Epstein.

What people knew about him was

that he was stunningly rich.

The guy was living a life

that most people dream about.

He had a 15 to 20 million

dollar house here in Palm Beach.

He had one of the largest

townhouses in New York City,

a massive apartment in Paris,

his own private island in the Caribbean,

a sprawling ranch in New Mexico,

a helicopter,

two airplanes, one a 727.

[AIRPLANE ENGINE ROARING]

That's the commercial

side of the airport

there where all the JetBlue

and everyone else lands.

But the west side of the airport

is where all the private jets are.

And that's where

Jeffrey parked his jets.

I was a reporter here for 25 years.

I also lived over in Palm Beach.

Covered the Epstein case extensively.

This guy was a bit of a ghost down here.

Nobody really saw him. Nobody knew him.

In the '80s, he hit

it out of the ballpark.

A lot of powerful men liked him

and trusted him to handle his money.

Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump,

they were both wealthy

guys from New York,

and they both ended

up living a mile apart

along billionaire's row in Palm Beach.

They knew each other. Epstein

frequented Mar-a-Lago for a time.

There's now a widely circulated

quote from Donald Trump,

which he probably would

like to reel back in,

"I've known Jeff for

15 years. Terrific guy.

It is even said that he likes

beautiful women as much as I do,

and many of them are

on the younger side."

[CARL HIAASEN] Palm Beach

is a very small town.

It's almost impossible

to conceive living there

and moving in that world

and not hearing rumors about Epstein

or not being aware of something

odd going on at Jeff's place.

[ENGINE STARTING]

I'm Michael Reiter.

I've been here 38 years,

on the Palm Beach

Police Department for 28,

and I was Police Chief in Palm

Beach from 2001 through 2009.

I first met Jeffrey Epstein

somewhere around 2001.

Epstein visited me in my office

to talk about making a donation of

equipment to the police department,

which was nearly $100,000.

It was a brief visit. It was

just a little bit of chit-chat.

My impression was that he was

just a wealthy, very private guy.

Nearly two years later,

we received reports from his neighbors

that there was a large

number of young women

going to and from his residence.

We thought, "That's suspicious."

We sent personnel to stop them

and interview them.

They were all adults, the

three or four that we talked to,

and they said that they were simply

doing office work for Mr. Epstein.

Since they were all adults,

there didn't seem to be

any further police interest.

Then in 2005,

the parent of a young girl

called the police station.

- [DIAL TONE]

- [DIALING NUMBERS]

[TELEPHONE RINGING]

- [PAGAN] Hello?

- [STEPMOTHER] Hi, how are you?

[PAGAN] I'm good. I'm

returning your call,

I apologize. I don't know what for.

[STEPMOTHER] It's okay. It

was an incident that occurred

maybe three and a half weeks

ago with one of my stepdaughters.

One day at school, she got into a

fight, and she had over $300 on her.

So after asking her and

asking her what was going on,

I found out that it ended up being that

they went to Palm Beach

to a gentleman's house.

And they start off by giving

this gentleman a massage.

And he pays them.

If he likes them and thinks

that they're pretty enough,

- he keeps them around to do other things.

- [PAGAN] Okay.

[STEPMOTHER] So I wasn't quite

sure if there was an investigation

or if you guys had any word

[PAGAN] Well, this is the

first I'm hearing of it.

- [STEPMOTHER] Okay.

- [PAGAN] I'll need some more information.

Would your stepdaughter

be willing to come in

to provide me with a statement?

[MICHAEL REITER] When a juvenile reports

that they have been a victim of a

sex crime to the police department,

we immediately take that very seriously.

The parent was asked to bring the

victim into the police station.

A detective conducted an interview.

Immediately upon, uh

that victim's report to us,

which we found very credible,

we launched an investigation.

The very first victim was

about 14 years old at that time.

We were able, from the interview,

to figure out exactly

where the house was.

From the description

the victim provided,

it was clear that it was Mr. Epstein.

The case was assigned to our

special investigations unit

partly because of the

nature of the crime,

and partly because Mr. Epstein

was a powerful, influential person.

Joe Recarey was the lead

investigator of the case.

Unfortunately, Joe Recarey

passed away a few years ago,

but at the time, he believed

there were other victims.

So he began contacting them

and listening to their stories.

[RECAREY] I appreciate you

coming down to talk to me.

- You're not in any trouble.

- [STEPHANIE] Okay.

[RECAREY] I want to put

that out there right now.

- How did you meet Mr. Epstein?

- [STEPHANIE] Through a friend.

[JOYCE] It was like two years ago or so.

[RECAREY] About two years ago?

That's when you first met him?

[JOYCE] Yeah. Yeah.

- [RECAREY] You were 17 then?

- [SHARON] Mm-hmm.

[RECAREY] What is it that you

were told you would have to do?

- [SHARON] Give him a massage.

- [RECAREY] Okay.

[RECAREY] During the

massage, did he um

ask you to remove your pants or

[HEATHER] Yes.

[REITER] Every victim told

essentially the same story.

They thought that they

would give him a massage.

That's what most of them were told.

That's what lured them there

for a small amount of money.

[RECAREY] What else happened when

you were providing the massage?

[SUSAN] He took the towel off,

and he started pleasing himself,

which I was very uncomfortable with.

- I wanted to leave right when I got there.

- [RECAREY] Okay.

[REITER] Our biggest concern

was that the victimization

not to continue.

That's why we started

surveillance right away.

We surveilled the airport

[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]

[REITER] the house.

[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]

[REITER] As we found additional victims,

one victim would tell us about others,

those others would tell us about others,

and it began to multiply geometrically.

[RECAREY] Okay. First of all, I

know this is hard on you, okay?

Just take a deep breath.

[HEATHER SIGHS] I'm trying. It's just

I wasn't aware that I

was going to be alone

with him for that ten minutes.

And I thought I was gonna die.

[RECAREY] Did you have

intercourse with him?

- [SUSAN QUIETLY] Yes.

- [RECAREY] Okay.

[REITER] After two or three months,

we feared that this involved a

really large number of victims.

[RECAREY] Can you raise your right hand?

Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth, and

nothing but the truth,

- so help you God?

- [MICHELLE LICATA] I do.

- [RECAREY] State your name for the record.

- Michelle Licata.

I found the calendar

from December 2004

the month that I met Jeffrey Epstein.

I wrote down my first

party that I'd ever been to,

talked to a boy 'til three

o'clock in the morning.

And then right before Christmas,

that's the weekend

that everything changed

in my entire life.

[RECAREY] All right. In your own words,

tell me exactly how you were

introduced to this gentleman

by the name of Jeffrey

in, uh Palm Beach.

[LICATA] Um My friend

told me in class that

she could find a way of

making money for Christmas.

I didn't really know what

she was talking about,

but I was like, "Okay."

[LICATA] I was a good kid.

I always thought that my

life was just ordinary.

I had seven kids in my family.

- [MALE TEACHER] Michelle Licata.

- [APPLAUSE]

[LICATA] I was really good in school.

I had a lot of friends.

[CHEERING]

[LICATA] In cheerleading,

I got the Spirit Award.

[CROWD CHEERING]

[LICATA] Just a normal teenage girl.

[WOMAN] And what are we gonna do?

We're gonna shop!

[WOMAN LAUGHING]

[LICATA] One day, this girl wrote

me a note in class that said,

"Do you want to make some

extra money massaging old guys?"

And I was like, "Okay,

that seems weird. But okay."

[LICATA] She said to just

go to this old guy's house

and just massage him for 45

minutes, and you'll get like $200.

- [RECAREY] Okay. How old were you?

- [LICATA] Sixteen.

[RECAREY] Okay.

[LICATA] We're driving probably

like a good 45-minute ride.

We pulled into a big,

expensive-looking mansion.

Before we got out of the car, she said,

"Okay, so if anybody asks,

uh, you're over the age of 18,

but I don't think anybody is

going to ask, just if they do."

I was only there for like

maybe a minute or two,

and then he walked in.

He laid down on his stomach.

He said, "Okay, there's

some lotions over there

if you wanted to start

massaging my feet and my legs."

He flipped over, and

he was talking to me

about, uh, the way that I looked.

He was telling me how beautiful I was.

I never thought I was the

pretty girl in high school.

I had braces,

and for somebody to be

pointing the spotlight at me,

it was like, "Okay, he's

giving me compliments.

I never thought of myself that way."

And then he kind of was like

grabbing my hip and kind

of like maneuvering it

so that he could look at me.

He was telling me to take

off my shirt and pants.

He's like, "You can get

down into your underwear."

You know, you start

thinking, "Okay. So

if I try to leave or be like,

'Uh, no, we're not going

to do this, ' you know

how would you leave?

Like, is there a g*n hidden somewhere,

like, he was going to pull out?"

As a young girl, you just do

Because he's an adult, you just

do what someone asks you to do.

[LICATA] And then he sort of

grabbed my thighs, and he was

jacking himself off at the same time.

He just tried, like,

rubbing me down there.

[RECAREY] Okay.

[INHALES DEEPLY] And

[STAMMERING] th that was where

I started freaking out completely.

I was like [SIGHING] "Okay, okay

Can we just get this over with?

This is just so unreal.

This is not happening."

He just looked like a scary sicko

in my mind, like

He just looked like [STAMMERS]

[STAMMERING] I just still

have the vision of his face.

[LICATA] I backed away, and I said,

"Well, I don't know

if I should do that."

And I freaked.

I was very hesitant and so scared.

[RECAREY] As I told you before

and I explained to your mom,

what he did was wrong, okay?

- [LICATA] Okay.

- [RECAREY] Um

[RECAREY] I want to

reassure you on that, okay?

[LICATA] When he was done,

he wrapped himself up in a towel,

and he said, "There's 200 for you.

I would really like to see you again."

And I was like [INHALES DEEPLY]

"Okay, okay." In the back

of my mind, I was like,

"I am not ever coming

back here ever again."

And I just went downstairs,

and I felt so used.

I felt so used, like it was

I was just like this dirty person.

Before Epstein, I was

[EXHALES SHAKILY]

[VOICE BREAKING] I was

I was

[SOBBING] something else.

The way I saw myself

[INHALES SHARPLY]

a long time ago

[SOBBING] I was, like

like this flower.

A flower that was, like, opening up.

And afterwards, it was

[INHALES SHARPLY]

like somebody just

picked up that flower [SNIFFLES]

plucked it from its roots,

and stomped on it and smashed it.

[SNIFFLES]

[RECAREY] I know this

is difficult for you,

and I know it was difficult

for you to talk to me today.

Is there anything else you'd

like to add to this statement?

[LICATA] No.

[RECAREY] Okay. Then I

conclude this statement.

The time on my watch is 5:25 p.m.

[TAPE PLAYER CLICKS]

[SINISTER MUSIC]

[HIAASEN] Many of the girls

were brought across the bridge

from the mainland,

which is West Palm Beach.

And it's a whole different

world when you cross the bridges.

Parts of West Palm Beach are like

a lot of other communities

along the Gold Coast

where it's working class.

It's not necessarily high end at all.

It's a real world.

To think what it must have been

like to come from modest means,

and in some cases broken

homes, troubled homes.

Palm Beach is like Oz.

[CHUCKLING] If you live in West Palm,

that's just not a world you experience.

My name is Shawna Rivera. This

is the house that I grew up in.

This is where usually

we would sit out here.

We had a big hammock on the patio.

This room was my room.

The time that I first met Jeff, my

girlfriend came over here to, um

to take me with her to Jeff's, right?

Like right after this street here

there's a trailer park, there's a canal

and then there's a trailer park,

and so she walked over here

and convinced me to go with her.

I didn't have a good childhood.

I was a runaway for two years.

My mom used drugs pretty

heavily most of my life.

My dad went to prison when I was three.

And when I was ten, my

dad got out of prison.

At some point, my dad

had a girlfriend

who had some kids,

and the kids had clearly

been abused prior to this.

And I would say it was like a

week or so after my 12th birthday,

my dad and his girlfriend beat her son,

her eight-year-old son, to death

[INHALES DEEPLY] Um

In front of me.

And so I, um

[CLEARS THROAT] ran away from home.

I lived in, like, shelter homes.

Finally, my grandma was

able to get custody of me.

I was 14 years old when

I met Jeffrey Epstein.

My girlfriend, she's like, "Shawna,

I'm going to this guy's house.

I can't go by myself.

I just can't do it.

I just need you to come with me."

I was just like, "All right. Fine."

I didn't know what was going to

happen. I just went along with it.

Once you get over the bridge

into Palm Beach, you see yachts

and all these huge mansions.

This is like

not something I'm familiar with.

We walk into the back,

and there's this girl.

She's young

with an accent. I don't know her.

She's familiar with my

friend. "Hi. Hi. Hi."

We walk into this room,

and this dude walked in.

I remember thinking he was kind of rude.

He says, "Oh, hey. Hi."

He's, like, on the phone,

and he, like, lays down.

So then my girlfriend tells me,

"We're just going to

give him a massage."

And she said, "Oh, well, we

have to take our clothes off."

And I'm like

"I have to take my clothes off?"

And she says, "Yeah,

we have We both

We both have to take our

clothes off. All of them."

So you have me and my

14-year-old girlfriend

totally naked, and I'm

giving this old man a massage.

But then my girlfriend says,

"Well, I'm going to go."

And I'm like, "What

the f*ck are you doing

leaving me here?" Like, "Why?"

I couldn't believe she

was walking out of there.

Then this guy, he asked

me how old I was

and I remember telling him

that I was 15 years old,

and I was actually 14 years old.

That didn't scare him.

[INHALES DEEPLY] It was kind of,

like, "Oh, okay. You're 15. Okay."

Then he turned over [SNIFFLES]

and he wanted me to rub the lotion

that we were using, like,

all over his chest. [SNIFFLES]

And he told me to just grab his n*pples

and squeeze and pinch

as hard as I could.

[SNIFFLES] And I just, like,

I just remember standing

there and just being, like

"What is going on? This is so weird."

I just couldn't wrap my head around it.

I was like, "What the f*ck is this?"

I'm 14 years old.

I'm a virgin.

It just went on like that

for a couple of minutes,

and he finished

and there was money sitting there.

He told me to go ahead

and pick up the money.

So I just got dressed,

and I walked out and left.

I was so embarrassed.

I didn't know how to say, like,

"No, I don't I

don't want to do that."

I don't know how long it was

after the first time

I had gone over there

but I one day, I got

a phone call at my house.

They called me a cab

to take me to Jeff's.

There was no explanation. There

was just, "Take the cab to Jeff's."

I assumed if I went back

I would get more money.

I mean, I didn't have any money.

I didn't have a family like that.

I just

didn't know how to handle it, you know.

So, I think I kind of went

into this kind of like

pilot mode kind of

situation, where I just

[INHALES DEEPLY]

tried to, like, get

through it and just go home.

I couldn't say, "This isn't right."

I couldn't say, "This isn't normal."

I couldn't say, like,

"This is a sick man."

And it was probably for

like three or four years

I continued to go.

[WOMAN] I'm an educational psychologist

and mental health counselor.

I've worked with many

victims of sexual trauma.

And the first thought that I had

when reading about the

Jeffrey Epstein case

is that he targeted girls

that were so vulnerable.

Um, and this is something

that most sexual predators do.

The first step in the grooming process

is spotting a vulnerable victim,

someone who is financially disadvantaged

or that already have some

sexual trauma in their past.

Sexual predators like Jeffrey Epstein

have an eye for picking out someone

who is in need of something,

and they identify that need,

and then they exploit it.

When you're pairing a teenage girl

with a brilliant,

narcissistic billionaire,

their adolescent brain was not equipped

to understand or react

to what was happening.

[REITER] We were frustrated that,

while some people were cooperative,

most of the victims

did not want to prosecute

for fear of Jeffrey Epstein.

They knew that Mr. Epstein was

a powerful, influential,

very wealthy person.

So they were very reluctant.

And so we decided to talk

to some of his employees.

[TELEPHONE RINGING]

- [RECAREY] Good morning, Mr. Alessi?

- Yes, speaking.

Hi. This is Detective Joe

Recarey with Palm Beach Police.

I'm investigating a case against,

uh, a former employer of yours,

Jeffrey Epstein.

[ALESSI] This is something

that I really would

not like to be involved,

- if I'm not involved with it.

- [RECAREY] I understand that,

but you may hold some information

which would assist me in this case.

[ALESSI] But I don't want

to get in trouble or

I don't want to get sued by

Mr. Epstein or by his company.

[TELEPHONE RINGING]

[RECAREY] You are Alfredo

Rodriguez, correct?

- [RODRIGUEZ] Yes, that's me.

- [RECAREY] Okay.

I just wanted to touch base with

a case that I'm investigating

involving Mr. Epstein.

[RODRIGUEZ] Okay.

[RECAREY] My main concern, obviously, is

the girls that come

over to work for him.

[RODRIGUEZ] Okay.

[RECAREY] What can

you tell me about that?

[RODRIGUEZ] He has a lot of masseuses.

He has a list of favorite,

uh female personnel

to give him massage, you know.

So he gets massage in the

morning, massage in the afternoon.

They were very private, sir, you know.

So I didn't know what went

on behind closed doors.

It was my job to keep

everything discreet.

So

[RECAREY] Would you say

these girls were young?

[RODRIGUEZ] Um

Oof, you put me on the spot, sir.

[REITER] Every part of this

case was an uphill battle.

His employees didn't want to cooperate,

so we went through

the trash at his home.

In one case, we found

a school report card

for one of the victims.

And in another case, we

learned that he sent a messenger

to the school to provide

flowers to the victim

who had been part of

a performance there.

[JAMES PATTERSON] West Palm

Beach has dozens of high schools

and middle schools.

Thousands and thousands of kids.

Some private schools out there.

All these schools became a

hunting ground for this predator.

[WOMAN] I think at 16, 17,

when you're in high school,

I think we're all vulnerable.

This is Royal Palm Beach High School.

This is where we went to high school.

Not the happiest moment in my life.

My name is Haley Robson, and I

was 16 when I met Jeffrey Epstein.

Growing up in West Palm Beach, I

had a big family, lots of cousins.

I have two sisters.

My dad was a police officer.

My mom worked in banking.

I love horses.

I started riding when I was 11.

Couple years later, I got competitive.

This was probably the

most happy time of my life.

But I had gone through

a traumatic experience

before I met Jeffrey Epstein.

The summer before I

turned 16, I was r*ped.

[CLEARS THROAT] It was my

first experience with a man.

He was 21.

I just closed up.

Um I started using drugs. I was

drinking all the time, smoking weed.

I just kind of wanted to

just vanish, just disappear.

The girl that introduced

me to Jeffrey Epstein

went to High School with me.

She said, "I know this guy

and he would give me $200

just to give him a massage."

And my first immediate reaction

or thought that came to my mind was

"This is my ticket out of

West Palm. This is my way out."

We drove to Palm Beach island

and we actually walked in

It wasn't the front door.

It was almost like this side

door that led into the kitchen.

I remember we walked up a flight

of stairs that kind of curved.

And the first thing that I noticed,

because it was so distracting,

was the wall art.

A lot of nudity.

Naked statues, naked pictures.

It made me feel uncomfortable

and then I saw, like,

a photograph of kids.

It wasn't normal.

The massage began as a massage,

then he turned over.

He was naked on the table.

And I just remember

feeling really scared.

It just brought up a lot of bad

emotions.

[RECAREY] Did he touch you?

[HALEY ROBSON] Yeah,

in inappropriate places.

[RECAREY] Does he use his hands?

[ROBSON] He uses his hand, and

I guess it's like a vibrator.

But, um

I refused to do that.

He tried to touch me below the belt.

I declined.

Um, I told him I

didn't feel comfortable.

"No, it's not going to happen."

At that moment, he was offering me,

"Okay. Well, this isn't

going to happen, so

just if you have any friends,

if you bring them to

me, I'll give you $200."

- [RECAREY] Just to bring a girl?

- [ROBSON] Yeah.

[RECAREY] The girl that was going

knew she would have to massage him.

[ROBSON] She knew everything.

[RECAREY] How long have

you been working for him?

[ROBSON] I probably

worked for him for a year.

I probably recruited

maybe 24 girls.

[ROBSON] Those girls

brought other girls, too.

- [RECAREY] Okay.

- [ROBSON] So, it's like a train.

[RECAREY] Who else was underage?

[ROBSON] Under 18?

- All of them.

- [RECAREY] All of them?

[ROBSON] All of them.

[ROBSON] I would recruit

girls that were friends.

I would just casually bring it up.

And we would drive

together to his house.

I would take them to the room.

And then I would walk out.

Sometimes I would wait out by the pool.

When the girls would leave, Jeffrey

would come outside to pay me.

He would say, you know, "How are you?

How is everything? How's your family?"

He wanted you to think he was

a friend and that he cared.

[RECAREY] All right, I talked

to my boss for a little bit.

- [FRICK] Which is why I'm here.

- [ROBSON] Okay.

[FRICK] Um [SNIFFLES]

[GROANS]

At this point, you've clearly

implicated yourself in a crime.

Okay? You've taken

girls to somebody's house

for the purpose of prostitution.

More importantly, and

more significantly,

one of those girls was 14 at the time.

Okay? Now that's a pretty

significant second-degree felony.

I remember them being

really tough on me,

and I think at one

point I started crying.

And I remember feeling really scared.

And they treated me like

I was his right-hand man.

But what about the

girl that recruited me?

What happened to her?

What about the girl that recruited

the girl that recruited me?

I feel like I've been putting

the blame on myself for so long,

bashing myself, and just

being hard on myself,

but I shouldn't feel guilty

about it because I was 16

and he's the adult,

and he should not

make me feel

guilty.

[SOBBING] I've never said

Never ever come forward like this.

It just, like, brings up,

like, so many emotions.

[DR. KATHRYN STAMOULIS] The girls

that are recruiting the other girls

are definitely victims

of Jeffrey Epstein.

They were manipulated in a unique way.

They were made to feel special,

and they were also offered opportunities

that could get them out of

their life circumstances.

And the added bonus that they

didn't have to do anything sexual

with this middle-aged man.

This is how Jeffrey Epstein

created a sexual pyramid scheme.

[REITER] After months

of our investigation,

we realized that this was a

way of life for Mr. Epstein,

and I believe he felt that

he would never be caught.

And so it was very important for us

to get inside of Mr. Epstein's home,

because we wanted to see if

there was additional evidence

and to validate the information

given to us by the victims.

But we had to be very careful.

We did not want to reveal to Mr.

Epstein that he was being investigated

until we had an airtight case.

Finally, seven months into the case,

we felt as though that was the

time to execute the search warrant.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

[RECAREY] This is a complete description

of the residence desired to be searched,

including the curtilage

attached thereof.

I will leave a list of

what items we're taking.

[REITER] We were extremely surprised

at what we found inside Epstein's house.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]