With the greatest caution, with all tweezers and hot towels and with a lot of perspective. So you need to read the 17 new declassified court documents — which arrive after nearly 200 more — that Judge Loretta A. Preska unearthed on Jan. 8, relating to the abuse network built by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in the early and mid-1990s 2000s. This Monday, legal petitions, email exchanges, photos and some statements from victims have come to light that contain – always with great caution, also because of their origin – explosive allegations with unconfirmed indirect testimonies of some of the characters who are in Epstein's moving in circles.
Some of these documents involve former US Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as well as businessman Richard Branson and the ubiquitous Prince Andrew of England, third son of the late Elizabeth II and brother of King Charles III.
Of the 17 documents, two are the most important and have different reasons but have one person in common: Sarah Ransome, a woman who claims to have been a victim of the conspiracy and to have several friends who were also victims. However, she retracted her statements years ago. Hence the special care in these texts, which sharply accuse key figures.
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In document number 7, the first of these and 29 pages long, Ransome gives his testimony and provides documents and photographs about his experiences. The images on the 29 pages show Ghislaine Maxwell (both alone and with French modeling agent Jean Luc Brunel, who committed suicide in prison in Paris while awaiting trial), Epstein on a quad bike, or with friends and alleged victims , very young woman. They are all presumably on Little Saint James, the tycoon's island, in 2006.
Ransome talks here about how there were many very young girls who took turns giving massages (the code term for non-consensual sexual relations) to Epstein and his colleagues at Maxwell's request. According to the complainant, both she and her friends tried to escape and hide on the island (and even swim away from it) to avoid the call.
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Jeffrey Epstein on Little St. James Island in 2006. United States District Court
Ransome explains (and has repeated this in many interviews over the last decade) that he joined the network because he was studying in Edinburgh and, unable to pay the tuition fees, he went to New York with his last savings Gone to try to socialize. and The opportunity to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), a prestigious fashion school in the city, and that is where she actually met Maxwell and Epstein. They wanted to help her get in and make payments until she became one of their sex slaves.
According to her version, the couple always “recruited girls from very disadvantaged families, they gave them shelter, food, money for transportation, private planes…” And they also paid for their studies, which is why they stayed: “So if I didn’t maintain relations with Jeffrey, I would live on the streets and starve in New York, and my dream of training in one of the best fashion centers in the world would disappear.” She claims to testify before the judge so that her story can be known and this abuse will end. However, the defendants always accused Ransome of fabricating her story for financial reasons.
The most sensitive topic can be found in the penultimate document, the 16th. It contains Ransome's most explosive statement, in which he accuses Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and businessman Richard Branson of being part of Epstein's client network and of practicing sex with minors. But these very statements, taken from Ransome's emails, are brought to light by Epstein's lawyer, Professor Alan Dershowitz, and shown as an example of lies and the victim's doubts.
“The blocking of the emails is requested to challenge Ms Ransome's false and defamatory claims that, among other things, she had sexual relations with the intervener when she was 23 years old. The accusations are simply false. Professor Dershowitz never met her or had any contact with her, was not her attorney, and certainly never had a sexual encounter with her. Before this action I had never heard of Ms. Ransome. His statement was taken out of thin air. “Ransome's statement also contains a number of other inflammatory claims about the sexual proclivities of Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and other prominent figures,” it said.
In fact, the following statements are inflammatory. Sarah Ransome claims that her email has been hacked, that she has spoken to Russian media, that she has pictures and, above all, videos: “I will make sure that the entire planet sees these photos and recordings and I will publish them on Wikileaks. “! “I will take down Epstein and his shitty cronies all by myself!” “Clinton and Trump must pay for what they did to us, as do the rest of the men involved in this dirty inner circle.”
Jean Luc Brunel with Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2006. United States District Court
When discussing possible abuses by this group of powerful men, the complainant does not speak in the first person, but rather refers to “a friend” who told her her version, which is therefore not first-hand. “My friend had sexual relations with Clinton, Prince Andrew [de Inglaterra] and Richard Branson, the sex videos were actually filmed separately each time… Eventually I managed to persuade her to send me some of the video images she had kept implicating the three men… I made backup copies of them Recordings stored on multiple USB sticks and securely sent to various locations in Europe.”
However, in a long piece in The New Yorker from 2019, journalist Connie Bruck claims that Ransome himself confided to her that these quotes did not exist. “Ransome told me that he fabricated the existence of these recordings to draw attention to Epstein's behavior and make him believe he had 'evidence of what would happen if he hurt me,'” Bruck said.
Another of Ransome's allegations – which, let us not forget, was used against him in the trial and perceived as an exaggeration – sharply attacks former President Donald Trump: “[Otra] Girlfriend… One of the many girls who had sexual relations with Donald Trump… She confided in me about her casual friendship with Donald. Trump seemed to have feelings for her and told me he kept talking about how much he liked her nipples. Donald Trump loved to touch her nipples and suck on them until they were sore. One evening when we were showering together she showed me her nipples. They seemed to hurt like hell, they were red and swollen and I remember grimacing as I looked at them. “I also know that she regularly had sex with Trump at Jeffrey's New York mansion because I once met Jen for coffee shortly before she was about to meet Trump and Epstein together at his mansion.”
As stated in this court brief, this comes from an email from Sarah Ransome, which said to this group of lawyers: “Ransome's credibility is fatally compromised.” “For this reason, the transcripts of the testimony alone leave a mark “Incomplete impression and therefore give false impressions of Ransome and his outrageous claims.”
Currently, none of those involved have commented on the matter, apart from Branson's reps, who refer to what the victim already said in the New Yorker in 2019: “Ransome admitted that he fabricated the existence of the tapes. . We confirm that their claims are without merit and without any basis.”
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