Henry Turberfield, '26
On January 20, 1953, Jeffery Epstein was born. He was the oldest in his family of Jewish immigrants and lived in Brooklyn while growing up. He was very smart in mathematics and played piano, going on to graduate two grades early. Epstein then went to college at Cooper Union and New York University but never graduated from either. He then took a job at a private school teaching physics. It was reported that he behaved inappropriately towards some of the female students, even appearing at a high school party but was never actually accused of sexual-assault. He was later dismissed from his teaching role due to his poor teaching skills.
A few years later, Epstein started his own business “J. Epstein & Company'' which was a consulting firm for billionaires. As he began to gain mass wealth, he moved his company to St. Thomas, an island in the U.S Virgin Islands, which served as a tax haven. As his business expanded, he purchased multiple small islands and properties. Epstein allegedly had cameras at his Manhattan property to blackmail wealthy associates performing sex acts. He also kept logs of who flew on his jet to the islands. The plane was called the “Lolita Express”, lolita meaning a young girl who is precociously seductive and referencing the 1955 novel Lolita. Over time, Epstein spoke with roughly 30 women about them doing massage work at his island. Moreso, he continuously offered money to get these girls’ friends involved. The majority of them were minors, and only two of the many women had massage experience.
Epstein was first accused of sexual assault in 2005 after a parent reported to the police her 14-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted. The FBI started investigations on Epstein and found out about 36 other girls, some as young as 14, had a similar experience. U.S attorney Alexander Acosta put a criminal case against Epstein about the sexual assault against over 40 minors. Epstein made a plea deal (admitting guilt to get out of some punishments) in 2008, only serving 13 months in prison with provisions allowing him to work in his Palm Beach office six days a week. This punishment was so lineint, because intelligence officials of Acosta’s told him to back off due to Epstein being important to another federal case.
Many cases were filed after the plea deal against Epstein, including sexual assault, human trafficking of a minor, prostituting, and many other. Ten years later in 2018, the case against Jeffrey Epstein was renewed. In 2019, a second criminal case against him was brought to the attention of authorities, and he was arrested again in New Jersey.
In prison he had injuries from trying to hang himself, so the prison officials put him on suicide watch. He was on suicide watch for less than a week. Coincidentally, his cellmate was taken out, but a new cellmate was never put back in. Epstein was left unsupervised for three hours and the cameras malfunctioned. This is where Epstein was overly shared on social media with people making t-shirts about how he didn’t kill himself. It became a massive meme and everyone with a phone knew his name. With all these conincidences happening all at the same time, it is no surprise as to why Epstein’s death is speculated to a murder instead of a suicide. Ultimately, the court ruled it a suicide in the end.
Significance of the list
Just recently in early January, a list of people who had been to Epstein’s island was released to the public. Some of these people include Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew. Everyone mentioned were also acknowledged in court documents in the case against Epstein's accomplice Ghisliane Maxwell. Hardly anyone on the list was convicted of any wrongdoing, since most of the victims weren’t claiming to be sexually assaulted by the celebrities. And since neither Jeffrey Epstein nor Ghisliane Maxwell revealed anything about what the celebrities actually did on the island, no court cases have been filed. That being said, there’s certainly been an abundance of online claims of accusers saying Epstein had referred to Clinton as “liking them young” and Stephen Hawking partaking in an underage orgy. Again, no concrete evidence has surfaced. As of today, there continues to be no evidence citing anyone on the flight logs; Epstein is dead, and Maxwell is in jail. It seems all too convenient to end here, especially for the victims, but it certainly seems like we’ve come to an end.
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