HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011930.jpg

It’s true that some underage girls may have lied about their age, and some came to the house voluntarily several times—although, according to Florida statutes, none of that has any bearing on the criminality of the contact, particularly if the girl was 16 or younger. But what is particularly disturbing about this case—judging by arrangements at the Palm Beach house—is that Epstein, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, organized his life around this sexual compulsion in an open and methodical way that suggests he felt he was beyond the law. * Conchita Sarnoff: Epstein Faces Sex Traffic Probe * Billionaire Pedophile Goes Free According to police who executed a search warrant, the house was decorated with large, framed photos of nude young girls, and similar images were found stashed in an armoire and on the computers seized at the house (although police found only bare cables where other computers had been). Some bathrooms were stocked with soap in the shape of sex organs, and various sex toys, such as a “twin torpedo” vibrator and creams and lubricants available at erotic specialty shops, were stowed near the massage tables set up in several rooms upstairs. Epstein also enlisted his staff in the predatory activity, and four—Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, and Marcinkova—figured in the FBI investigation. The Non Prosecution Agreement stipulated that they would not be charged. According to police reports and swom statements in the civil suits, all four women, among their other duties, worked to ensure that an appointment book for twice- or thrice-daily “massages” was stocked with fresh recruits. Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late Czechoslovakian-born press baron Robert Maxwell, who was for many years Epstein’s live-in partner, also recruited young girls. Since his 13-month sentence for soliciting prostitution with a minor, Epstein has settled more than a dozen lawsuits brought by underage girls. Seven victims reached a last-minute deal last week, days before a scheduled trial; each received well over $1 million—an amount that will hardly dent Epstein’s $2 billion net worth. The victims told police they waited in the kitchen to be called upstairs for a massage, and the house chef often gave them a bite to eat. House manager Alfredo Rodriguez said in his sworn statement that a maid named Lupita, who was a devout Catholic, wept when she complained to him about cleaning up after the massage sessions, picking up soiled towels and putting away the sex toys. And she was upset that a photo of Epstein with the pope hung next to one of him with a young girl. Ironically, Rodriguez, who ran the house on El Brillo Way in 2004 and 2005, ended up being sentenced to more jail time than his boss as a result of the complex investigation into Epstein’s activities. He was fired, he says, for inadvertently drawing police attention to one of the girls when she arrived at the house unannounced to collect money. He saw an unfamiliar “beater” in the driveway one evening and called 911. When he left Epstein’s employ, Rodriguez took away some notes and emails about massage appointments as “protection” against his own prosecution, and failed to produce them during the Palm Beach Police Department’s initial investigation. Unable to get work as a house manager elsewhere in South Florida, he says, Rodriguez later tried to sell this “golden nugget”—his term—for $50,000, to be used in the victims’ civil suits. 19 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011930