2024-01-08 18:39:00
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Jeffrey Epstein is the protagonist of one of the biggest scandals in child sex trafficking of the last times. Now, the case has taken on great relevance in public opinion since on Wednesday, January 3, 2024, a United States federal court lifted the summary secrecy on hundreds of documents related to a lawsuit by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of the accusations in the criminal proceedings against this financial magnate and his ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Stephen Hawking’s unexpected link to the Epstein scandal
In the days before the papers were published, they were expected to show a list with people associated with the scandal. But the truth is that, rather, the pages include records of emails, witness statements and, as assumed, the names of more than 200 people who would have had some type of relationship with Epstein. Among them, those of the well-known Stephen Hawking, Bill Clinton o Prince Andrew of York.
However, the reason for its presence in the documents, although still controversial, does not necessarily imply participation in the crimes of which the billionaire was accused. And, pending the publication of more pages that shed light on the scandal, it is a case that still leaves various details unresolved. This is what is known to date.
Who is Jeffrey Epstein?
Jeffrey Epstein entered the American elite in 1976, when he entered the Bear Stearns investment bank and rose to become a partner in the firm. Before that, however, he had worked as a professor of physics and mathematics at Dalton High School, one of the most prestigious and elite schools in the Big Apple.
Cordon Press
Jeffrey Epstein began rubbing shoulders with the American elite by founding his own investment company, J. Epstein and Co.
Such was his success in this first contact with the financial sector that in 1982 he founded your own investment company, J. Epstein and Co., which led him to generate a great fortune. Since then, he has earned a place among celebritiesthe artists and politicians of the moment, such as Donald Trump or former President Bill Clinton, and became known in that environment for their parties celebrated in luxurious houses or on your private island.
It was not until 2005 that Epstein’s reputation was cut short when he was accused of pay a minor under 14 years of age to have sex; a crime for which he was arrested a year later and from which multiple similar testimonies emerged: among them, that of Virginia Giuffre, who sued the millionaire’s ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, for having helped Epstein recruit minors and who testified having been a victim of sexual abuse by some of the men close to the magnate.
Giuffre’s lawsuit against Maxwell was settled in 2017 in favor of the prosecution. And in the year 2019, Jeffrey Epstein took his own life in prison awaiting trial, according to a statement from the Manhattan Bureau of Prisons. Ghislaine Maxwell, however, was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. for sex trafficking crimes.
What are the allegations in the case?
As mentioned above, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2006 over accusations that he had hired several teenage girls to give him sexualized massages at his home in Palm Beach, Florida. However, two years later prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty of one count of sexual abuse related to a single victim, for which he served 13 months of sentence in a semi-release program.
Cordon Press
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein on their private jet.
About a decade later, Epsein found himself in front of Justice again when, in a lawsuit against the tycoon’s ex-girlfriend, Virginia Giuffre gave the names and surnames of those allegedly involved in a sex trafficking ring and accused the billionaire of having pressured her to have sexual relations with them. With this, federal prosecutors in New York resumed the investigation and They arrested him for an alleged crime of sex trafficking in 2019, although he was never tried because he committed suicide just a month after entering prison.
For her part, Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the British press magnate Robert Maxwell, was arrested and convicted of facilitate illicit sexual encounters organized by Epstein. In addition, a parallel criminal process arose from the lawsuit: Giuffre filed another defamation complaint because Maxwell publicly called the young woman a “liar,” although the charge was resolved before the 2017 trial.
Where is Epstein Island and what was happening there?
With just over 32 hectares, the small island of Little St. James has made headlines around the world. This territory, located in the paradisiacal Caribbean Sea, has become one of the darkest scenes of the Epstein scandal: the place where minors were apparently transported to be sexually abused.
AP
Jeffrey Epstein’s island, popularly known as “Sin Island”, is located in the territory of the United States Virgin Islands.
Jeffrey Epstein I would have bought it in 1998 for around 8 million dollars, according to a demand filed by the attorney general of the United States Virgin Islands in 2020 in which the tycoon is accused of using the private island for “sex trafficking” and “child exploitation.”
The prosecutor’s accusation was contradicted by the claim of Epstein’s lawyers, who stated that the defendant had exemplary behavior since 2008 pleaded guilty to charges related to sexual abuse in Florida.
In 2023, four years after Epstein’s prison suicide, Little St. James and Great St. James – this second island, acquired by the tycoon in 2016 for $16 million – have been sold to the founder of a private equity firm , Stephen Deckofffor $60 million, according to the Associated Press.
Stephen Hawking and other well-known figures: why do they appear in the documents?
Before the declassification of the new batch of documents related to the Epstein scandal, public opinion expected a detailed and orderly list with the names of those involved in the case and the crime they had committed. However, the 943 pages published on January 3 They are not so easy to decipher and open the door to numerous doubts about everything that happened in Jeffrey Epstein’s environment between the 1990s and 2019.
Cordon Press
Prince Andrew of York has been involved in the Epstein case since 2022.
What is striking is, however, the presence of well-known names such as Stephen Hawking, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson or Prince Andrew of York: what is their role in the scandal and what does it mean for them to appear in the documents?
Stephen Hawking: there is a single reference to the physical, a email that Epstein sent to Maxwell on January 12, 2015, which suggested they could reward anyone who “proved” the allegations were false and asked his ex-girlfriend to “deny” Hawking’s involvement in an orgy with underage girls. Furthermore, they have recovered images of Stephen Hawking on Epstein’s private island in 2006, to which would have attended an academic event. But it has not yet been resolved whether Hawking’s visit was limited only to the conference or why Epstein sought to contradict the accusation in which the scientist was mentioned.Donald Trump: It is in the statements of witness Johanna Sjoberg, another of Epstein’s alleged victims, where the name of the former president of the United States appears on 4 occasions, although no illegality is attributed, nor is his participation in any of Epstein’s parties suggested. In the testimony, Sjoberg only explains that he went with Giuffre, Epstein and Maxwell to one of Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City (New Jersey).Bill Clinton: The one who was president of the United States between 1993 and 2001, on the other hand, appears about 70 times in this batch of documents from the Epstein case. One of the most notable mentions is found again in the statements of Johanna Sjoberg, who said that Epstein would have suggested that “Clinton liked young people, referring to girls”. Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton would have maintained a close relationship for years, which materialized publicly in a trip to Africa for philanthropic reasonsbut the politician would have distanced himself from the magnate’s entourage after the 2008 accusation. Thus, judging by the evidence available to date, the former president would not be related to any criminal act.Michael Jackson: As for the late king of pop, who continues to be surrounded by accusations of child abuse more than 10 years after his death, he only appears once in the documents, when Sjoberg declares that she met him at Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. However, the witness answers no when she is asked if she had to “give him a massage.” With this, she is not accused of committing any crime either.Andrew of York: The youngest son of former Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom has been involved in the Epstein case since 2022, when Virginia Roberts Giuffre filed a lawsuit in which she alleged that “Jeffrey Epstein and others trafficked her for Prince Andrew, who took advantage of the situation to sexually abuse her when she was under 18.” The duke, however, reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre to settle the criminal process, as reported by the Manhattan court. On the other hand, regarding the recently revealed documents, the witness Johanna Sjoberg explains in her statement that during a visit to New York they took a photography together in which he appears touching his chest.
Although the statements of Giuffre, Sjoberg and other alleged victims help build the story of how the minor sex trafficking network orchestrated by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, at the moment the declassified information does not offer enough evidence to incriminate those possibly involved. However, it is still expected that some 250 documents further in reference to the lawsuits made against Epstein be published in the future.
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