Epstein Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE AUTHORS

  DYLAN HOWARD

  “The king of Hollywood scoops . . . his work straddles celebrity voyeurism and keen journalism.”

  —Michael Ware, former Time & CNN war correspondent

  “When Dylan Howard focuses his attention to investigating a case, you can be sure he will uncover sensational new information that we, as readers, viewers or listeners, will find astonishing.”

  —Dr. Drew Pinsky, New York Times bestselling author and TV and radio personality

  “Dylan Howard is the rare combination of cutting-edge journalist, true crime commentator, and relentless investigator. Howard passionately brings comprehensive and groundbreaking analysis to the most compelling mysteries of our time.”

  —Dr. Phil McGraw, host of TV’s #1 daytime talk show, Dr. Phil

  “Dylan Howard follows every intricate angle of a story and exposes the truth. As a former detective, I know firsthand the skills that make an exceptional investigator and Dylan has them in spades.”

  —Bo Dietl, former NYPD homicide detective

  MELISSA CRONIN

  “Melissa is one of the most talented, hardworking journalists I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with.”

  —Richard Johnson, Page Six, New York Post

  “Best investigative reporting on the Kardashian imperium.”

  —James Wolcott, Vanity Fair

  “Melissa Cronin is one of the most talented investigative reporters in history. Her relentless pursuit of the truth has helped crack the most confounding mysteries of our time. She’s a star—her work is just awe-inspiring.”

  —Dibs Baer, former Executive Editor, In Touch magazine

  JAMES ROBERSTON

  “James Robertson has spent the last three years fighting the FBI in court to release their Epstein files. His lawsuit may be the best hope for the public to find out what actually happened, and I am honored to represent him.”

  —Dan Novack, First Amendment attorney

  “James Robertson’s meteoric rise in tabloid and investigative journalism has been nothing short of spectacular. His refusal to give up on a story—no matter how impossible it may seem to crack—is why he’s one of the best and someone you can trust.”

  —Dan Wootton, Executive Editor of The Sun

  “James Robertson is in a league of his own.”

  —Matt Zimmerman, former Senior V.P., News & Entertainment Bookings at NBC News

  PRAISE FOR THE PODCAST EPSTEIN: DEVIL IN THE DARKNESS

  “Epstein: Devil in the Darkness takes a deep dive into Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes . . . not to be missed.”

  —Daily Mail TV

  “Devil in the Darkness touts exclusive interviews with Epstein’s cellmate—who witnessed his first suicide attempt—and, his former chauffeur.”

  —Vanity Fair

  “The twelve-part Epstein: Devil in the Darkness has certainly assembled some interesting contributors. . . . There is interesting insight into Epstein’s inferiority complex, apparently caused by his failure to finish two separate degree courses, and his relationship with the heiress Ghislaine Maxwell.”

  —Financial Times

  Other books by Dylan Howard

  Diana: Case Solved (2019)

  Aaron Hernandez’s Killing Fields (2019)

  The Last Charles Manson Tapes: Evil Lives Beyond the Grave (2019)

  Other Podcasts by the Authors

  Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood

  Fatal Voyage: Diana, Case Solved

  The Killing of Marilyn Monroe

  Copyright © 2019 by Dylan Howard, Melissa Cronin, James Robertson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by 5mediadesign

  Cover photo credit: The Mega Agency

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-5792-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-5107-5823-0

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Authors’ Note

  CHAPTER 1: Autopsy of a Scandal

  CHAPTER 2: The Birth of a Monster

  CHAPTER 3: Follow the Money

  CHAPTER 4: Lady Ghislaine

  CHAPTER 5: The Little Black Book and the Lolita Express

  CHAPTER 6: Randy Andy

  CHAPTER 7: Diary of a Sex Slave

  CHAPTER 8: Donald Trump and the Palm Beach Pedophile

  Plates 1

  Plates 2

  CHAPTER 9: Epstein: In the Victims’ Own Words

  CHAPTER 10: “He’s Intelligence”

  CHAPTER 11: The Hunt for Justice

  CHAPTER 12: The Smartest Men in the World

  CHAPTER 13: Caught

  CHAPTER 14: Dead or Gone

  CHAPTER 15: Once Upon a Time in Russia

  CHAPTER 16: The Coconspirators

  Epilogue

  “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. A lot of fun to be with. He’s even said to love beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

  —Donald Trump, 2002

  “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”

  —Alex Acosta, former US Attorney in Miami

  AUTHORS’ NOTE

  For investigative reporters, all too often the search for truth stops short before any satisfying conclusion. Leads turn cold and paths of inquiry hit dead ends. In the case of Jeffrey Epstein, even in death, the rabbit hole spirals ever downward, proving to be infinitesimally profound and complex.

  Disturbing questions about the convicted pedophile first surfaced on a national scale back in 2008, when Epstein received a sentence of just eighteen months in prison—and that, with work release—following the Palm Beach Police Department’s discovery of more than thirty of his teen sex abuse victims.

  Former US Labor Secretary Alex Acosta had helped prosecute Epstein at the time, and in the face of critiques, Acosta steadfastly insisted he had simply secured the best deal possible. But when pressed as to whether Epstein had scored a lighter sentence because he was a member of international intelligence, Acosta offered a non-denial denial—in classic politician form.

  “This was a case that was brought by our office, it was brought based on the facts and I look at the reporting and others, I can’t address it directly because of our guidelines, but I can tell you that a lot of reporting is going down rabbit holes,” said Acosta.

  Now, through the looking glass of a dogged and extraordinary investigation, we have discovered that the rabbit hole goes deeper than anyone ever could have expected. The world has known only half of the sordid saga that is the life and death of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

  Until now.

  Dead men like Epstein tell no tales, but we can. In this book, we’ll tell a tale of sex victims, dead bodies, spies, death threats, and an international conspiracy the likes of which we have never seen before.

  Everyone
knows that Epstein used his mathematical genius and ruthless ambition to slither into high society, where he posed as a billionaire investor and charming philanthropist.

  His mysterious riches, gaudy private jet, and impenetrable mansion fortresses allowed him to unleash his insatiable appetite for underage girls with impunity for decades. That is beyond dispute.

  Now for the first time, however, this unprecedented examination sheds light on an even shadier side of Epstein’s dark and twisted life, a story that traverses the globe from the White House, to Manhattan, through New Mexico, Palm Beach, Paris, the US Virgin Islands, and the Israeli Mossad, ending at the Kremlin in Russia.

  Epstein, at least on the surface, was once the epitome of a jet-setting bachelor. The secretive self-made man who rose from blue-collar Brooklyn to the heights of luxury was a close confidant of presidents, prime ministers, A-list movie stars, and even British royalty.

  But for years, there were disturbing whispers that the enigmatic billionaire was secretly running an underground sex-trafficking ring—pimping out the young girls under his control to the richest and most influential men in the world.

  Epstein and his powerful pals didn’t do much to hide their perversions.

  Whether on his private jet, dubbed the “Lolita Express,” at his mansions around the world, or on his own private island, Epstein traveled with a roster of young women by his side. For those men invited to join him, it was a global pedophile playground.

  Yet these weren’t periodic seedy sexcapades. The horrors orchestrated by Epstein were carried out on a daily basis.

  A massive police investigation in Florida ended with a whimper in 2007. After just a few months in jail, Epstein was back at it again, flaunting his freedom and his debauchery around the world for more than a decade.

  In the summer of 2019, though, the possibility of justice at last seemed real as federal agents officially charged Epstein with organizing the most extensive child sex ring in history.

  Some of his brave victims—now adult women—came forward to break their silence and confront their abuser. It seemed his sickest misdeeds would finally be revealed, and those who took part in the corrupt conspiracy would be thrust into the spotlight.

  The public was poised to finally learn the awful truth, and to hold all those involved accountable.

  But hopes for long-overdue justice were shattered on August 10 when Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.

  The verdict: suicide.

  The timing: convenient, to say the least.

  The man at the center of the monstrous scheme, the devil who might have finally confessed to save what was left of his soul, was forever silenced.

  With no one else charged in the indictment, the criminal case against Epstein himself was dropped. There would be no public trial and no further firsthand evidence unleashed. It seemed that Epstein had ultimately escaped criminal punishment and had silenced his victims yet again.

  But that story is not over.

  For the past eight years, this team of investigators has followed the trail of Epstein’s darkest secrets, wherever they led. We conducted dozens of hours of interviews with those who knew Epstein best, secured previously unreleased documents under Freedom of Information Act laws, uncovered and questioned new victims and witnesses—including his onetime chauffeur and his New Mexico “massage therapist” recruiter—obtained recordings of a defiant Epstein himself protesting his innocence, and uncovered photos inside his sex dens of sin and onboard his private jet, the Lolita Express.

  At times, we faced pushback.

  At times, the facts stopped adding up.

  That was when we knew we had to dig deeper into Epstein’s dark world.

  Luckily, in this case the law would aid our efforts to expose him. Many of our previous investigations into the life of Jeffrey Epstein were hamstrung by the simple fact that he was still alive.

  When an individual is still living, it can be virtually impossible to obtain police files, deposition audio, sealed court documents, or any evidence related to their case. But when a person dies, this information can finally be made public with little restriction.

  This reality is what allowed us to deliver Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales, an unprecedented probe into his life and death aimed at uncovering the real truth.

  The death of inmate 76318–054 allowed us more access into his personal life than ever before. Here, for the first time ever, we have compiled the shocking information that ultimately led to credible leads and disturbing new evidence. We have pieced together the scattered puzzle he left behind.

  Through it all, we fought tirelessly with law enforcement officials to unseal documents and obtain clues that might otherwise have been overlooked. We traveled to New York, Florida, Paris, Russia, and New Mexico in search of the truth, leaving no stone unturned as we uncovered an epic drama of crime, wealth, betrayal, and international intrigue.

  We did it all for years with one goal in mind.

  We sought an answer to the question the whole world has been asking: How—and why—did the man that President Donald Trump once called a “terrific guy” become one of the world’s most evil criminals? And why was he able to evade true justice for so long?

  The story of Jeffrey Epstein—as the world knows it—is shocking, and tragic. The full and real story—as revealed here for the first time—is so scandalous that it raises pressing questions that implicate the world’s elite.

  How much did Epstein pals President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and President Donald Trump know about Epstein’s perversions—and did they take part?

  How might they have helped him to continue his abuse, and to escape justice for it?

  What responsibility might they have for his sudden, shocking death?

  And will we ever know the truth of the sprawling tale of espionage and blackmail at the heart of this scandal?

  The answers to these questions—and more—will be revealed through this compelling investigation sitting in your hands.

  Be warned, however: Our reporting is, at times, graphic, disturbing, and distressing, as his victims expose the brutal details of living their worst nightmare.

  Be prepared: Our findings also will send shock waves through the establishment and the highest levels of the world’s watching, waiting glitterati.

  Be assured that you will finally learn the definitive facts about how it all came to a brutal end in a grim Manhattan jail cell.

  Was Epstein’s death suicide—or murder?

  If murder, who was behind it?

  And most importantly: who could be next?

  —DYLAN HOWARD, MELISSA CRONIN & JAMES ROBERTSON

  CHAPTER 1

  AUTOPSY OF A SCANDAL

  Far from the hectic pace of central Manhattan, the cab horns and clamor die down as you enter the leafy streets of the Upper East Side.

  There, the stately and historic homes stand proud and quiet, decades of history behind their stony gray facades. One seems to hold even more stories than the others. Four buildings combined, it stretches across an entire block, consuming all the streetfront. Gargoyles crouch on the cornices. A thirty-foot wooden door stands impassive and foreboding at the center. Bill Cosby and Woody Allen are among the neighbors. Inside, there is a massive study, one like Sherlock Holmes would inhabit. A towering bookcase lines the back wall, an oil painting—perhaps an Old Master—in the center. Behind that painting, a safe. Inside that safe, hundreds of CDs and DVDs. On those, thousands of files. Photos and videos. Sexual. Showing young girls. Some, with old men.

  FBI agents stumbled upon this hidden trove of evil during a massive raid on the $56 million, 21,000-square-foot property, the home of billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, on July 6, 2019. Hours before, Epstein had been arrested in New Jersey on charges of sex trafficking.

  The files and their disturbing contents were the final legacy of a man who died trying to keep the secrets of a life filled with depravity; wh
at he left behind, testaments to his sins.

  That New York fortress was a town house turned torture chamber, filled with oddities such as a painting of former president Bill Clinton in a blue dress and high heels, and a life-sized female doll hanging from a chandelier.

  In the rooms that once hosted Manhattan’s elite—from Mort Zuckerman to Google cofounder Sergey Brin, magician David Blaine, Donald Trump, Chelsea Handler, Harvey Weinstein, former Clinton presidential aide George Stephanopoulos, Charlie Rose, and journalist Katie Couric—security cameras peered out from every nook and cranny.

  Tucked deep inside the house, a dark room was stacked with monitors recording every moment. Close at hand was a printer.

  In another hidden room among the seven stories, a massive professional-grade printer loomed in the shadows. On the walls in that hideaway were blown-up photographs of female bodies—their heads and faces cropped out of the frame. Deep in one dark hallway hung a giant blown-up photo of a grinning Epstein carrying a blonde four- or five-year-old girl on his shoulders. He had no children or nieces.

  The same day as the New York raid, hundreds of miles away, agents swarmed Epstein’s Caribbean island, Little St. James—Little St. Jeff, to locals—and found more chilling relics. Through the window, we saw dozens of orange evidence bags stacked and ready for analysis. More photos of topless girls covered the walls. His mysterious temple—painted in the colors of the Israeli flag—at last, was breached. (Oddly, investigators found buckets of paint, ladders, and scaffolding inside, as if it had been recently renovated.) Still more files were recovered; dozens of secret cameras, discovered.

  As fossilized bones sketch the outlines of prehistoric beasts, so too do these remnants of one man’s life spin out into fearsome forms upon contemplation.

  What purpose would it serve Jeffrey Epstein—a man who had everything—to record and curate the most private moments of others?

  The evidence points overwhelmingly to one possibility: blackmail.