Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein “sexually exploited and abused” dozens of underage girls as young as 14 at his homes in New Yor♔k and Florida in the early 2000s, Manhattan federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment unsealed Monday.
The multimillionaire financier was charged with sex trafficking and a related conspiracy count for allegedly creating “a vast network of underage victims” for him to exploit across multiple states from 2002 to 2005, Manhattan federal court documents say.
Aided by three unidentified employees, Epstein, 66, allegedly paid the girls hundreds of dollars in cash to come to his residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach to give him nude “massages” that would become “increasingly sexual in nature,” prosecutors allege.
“During the encounter, Epstein would escalate the nature and scope of physical contact with his victim to include, among other things, sex acts such as groping and direct and indirect contact with the victim’s genitals,” the indictment alleges.
“Epstein typically would also masturbate during these sexualized encounters, ask victims to touch him while he masturbated, and touch victims’ genitals with his hands or with sex toys.”
To keep “a steady stream of minor victims,” he then “incentivized his victims to become recruiters” by paying them to bring in other girls for him to abuse, prosecutors charge.
Epstein “intentionally sought out” girls under 18 — and knew the girls were underage because some told him how old they were, they allege.
“The alleged behavior shocks the conscience and while the charged conduct is from a number of years ago, it is still profoundly important to the alleged victims,” Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a news conference announcing the charges.
“They deserve their day in court and we are proud to be standing up for them by bringing this indictment.”
The indictment shows the feds want to seize Epstein’s lavish townhouse on East 71st Street — a seven-story, 21,000-square-foot Upper East Side pad that is one of Manhattan’s largest townhouses and was allegedly one of the venues for his sick sexual pyramid scheme.
Authorities “seized evidence including nude photographs of what appear to be underage girls,” Berman said.
Epstein’s indictment follows a controversial deal he struck in 2008 with prosecutors in Palm Beach, Florida, after cutting a non-prosecution agreement with the Miami US Attorney’s Office, as detailed last year in an expose by the Miami Herald.
Epstein was facing up to 🐲life behind bars, but got a sentence of just 13 months.
The Miami US attorney at the time was Alex Acosta, who is now President Trump’s secretary of labor, and the Justice Department launched an investigation of that agreement in February following a request from Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska).
Berman said Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement “only binds the Southern District of Florida.”
“The Southern District of New York is not bound and is not a signatory,” he said.
Prosecutors will seek to have Epstein held without bail when he appears in cou🌊rt later Monday, Berman said.
Berman called Epstein a “significant flight risk” due to his “enormous wealth” and the fact that the charges against him carry a maximum 45 years in prison, which Berman called “basically a life sentence” for someone of Epstein’s age.
Berman also noted that Epstein — whose famous former friends include Trump, President Bill Clinton, attorney Alan Dershowitz and Great Britain’s Prince Andrew — owns two private planes and lives “much of the year abroad.”
Epstein’s exact net worth is unknown, . His lawyers have said his net worth “is in excess of nine figures,” but an attorney who has represented three of his alleged victims told the outlet he never provided any proof of that.
The unmarried man’s primary residence is an island off the coast of St. Thomas called Little St. James, which has been dubbed in the press the “Island of Sin.” He last year purchased a larger island, Great St. James, .
He was arrested around 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, where he arrived in a private plane from Parꦇis, officials said.