Filthy Rich

CHAPTER 1

Mary: February 2005

It’s a typically slow South Florida Sunday, and Mary’s staring into the mirror, trying to wipe the morning cobwebs away from her dark, sleepy eyes.

She’s a pretty girl, tiny-just five feet three inches tall-but tanned and athletic, with curly black henna-streaked hair.* Her bedroom’s a playland of pinks and pastels, stuffed animals, and boy-band posters. But Mary’s a teenager now. Fourteen years old. She even has a boyfriend. He’s cute and popular. Joe^† is the heartthrob of her school, and Mary’s feelings for him are new to her, powerful, hard to untangle. She’s thinking of Joe as she presses the Play button on her iPod.

The MP3 player’s on shuffle. There’s no telling what song will come up, and Mary’s head drops dramatically in anticipation. Then a loud, sexy throb spills out of the earbuds: Britney Spears. The bass line takes over, and she starts to dance, moving her hips as she lip-synchs the lyrics:

With a taste of a poison paradise…

Mary’s swept away by the song. She’s twirling around and around, flinging her arms out to grab the clothes hanging up in her closet-it’s like embracing ten thousand fans! Then she stops and pulls out the earbuds. Suddenly she’s become fourteen again. Just a girl, jittery, nervous.

What she’s thinking about now is what she will wear to the big fancy house.

Mary desperately wants to make an impression. This will be her first trip to the house. She does not want to look like a child on this outing.

She picks out a pair of skinny white jeans, puts on a freshly washed halter top that leaves her flat stomach bare. The cross that Joe gave her last Christmas hangs from her neck.

Think of the money, she thinks.

For Mary, it’s incredible money. Several weeks’ wages at Mickey D’s. And just for giving some old man a massage? She twists the earbuds back in, dives into the closet, sings along with Britney Spears:

Don’t you know that you’re toxic?

The tight white jeans fit Mary perfectly. She turns to check herself out in the mirror, cropping the scene with her fingers to block out the Barbies behind her. Over on the Gold Coast, girls in big, high-ceilinged bedrooms have American Girl dolls. Dolls with natural smiles, perfectly vacant moon faces. American Girl dolls are beautiful. They’re expensive. But you have to have one if Mom and Dad are willing to pay. Over on the Coast, most mothers and fathers are. But out in the sticks, where Mary lives, you get Barbies-passed down from mother to daughter, from sister to sister. They’re rail-thin, missile-breasted. There’s a touch of knowingness to the curl of their otherwise innocent mouths. American Girl dolls are girlie, but Barbie’s like Britney Spears. Barbie’s dangling her long legs over the line that separates girls from women.

Be like Barbie, Mary thinks.

She can’t be nervous. Not now. Not today.

What she tells herself, over and over again, is: It’s not that big a deal.

But, of course, it is a big deal. Before long, Mary’s visit to the big fancy house will become part of a months-long Palm Beach police investigation-an affidavit for probable cause, filed by the Palm Beach PD-and, finally, the arrest and conviction of the home’s owner, Jeffrey Epstein.

CHAPTER 2

Jeffrey Epstein: February 2005

Jeffrey’s morning routine is precise and unvarying. First he spends twenty-five minutes in silence, visualizing the day ahead as he digests the guava, banana, and Müeslix that his chef prepares for him-the same way every day-at six in the morning. Then Jeffrey walks a third of a mile up to South County Road, pausing once in a while to take deep, restorative breaths.

It’s a slight slope that leads toward the ocean. Jeffrey’s home on the Intracoastal Waterway is behind him now. The morning’s not windy. The Atlantic is calm and glittery, and fishing trawlers bob gently on distant waves.

Jeffrey’s partial to monogrammed sweatpants, monogrammed fleece pullovers, and hoodies. Casual attire offset by embroidered Stubbs & Wootton slippers-the kind that sell for hundreds of dollars a pair. His hair, which is thick, has turned silver. But Jeffrey Epstein does not have a paunch. For a fifty-two-year-old man, he’s extremely fit. Six feet tall, 180 pounds, brown eyes, a strong jawline.

He’s never been a drinker. He doesn’t smoke or take drugs, and he takes care good care of his body as well as his mind.

It’s a magnificent mind. His gift is for numbers: complex calculations, abstract formulas. Even as a child, Jeffrey could untangle math problems that would stump most smart adults. Numbers just fall into place for him, forming in ranks he can bend, twist, manipulate-and multiply. He could have been a scientist or a mathematician. As a young man, he taught calculus and physics. Then he became an investor-a very rich man. Then he became a philanthropist, like Bill Gates. His love for science has inspired him to give millions to academics and institutions committed to studying mysteries of the brain and the arcana of physics. He’s given millions to Harvard. And he’s given money to politicians: Governor Eliot Spitzer, of New York, and Governor Bill Richardson, of New Mexico, where Epstein owns the largest home in the state.

Epstein’s flown Bill Clinton to Africa on a private jet-not the Gulfstream he owns but his Boeing 727, customized with its own trading floor-so that the former president could promote his various and worthy causes.

Just for fun, Chris Tucker, the comedian, and Clinton’s pal Kevin Spacey had tagged along for the ride.

“Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science,” Clinton would say through a spokesperson. “I especially appreciated his insights and generosity during the recent trip to Africa to work on democratization, empowering the poor, citizen service, and combating HIV/AIDS.”

But is Jeffrey thinking about that trip now?

His first guest is due that morning at nine, and that leaves him enough time for a shower, a lunch, and a few phone calls before the second girl arrives.

Sarah has scheduled that girl for one.

For Jeffrey, it’s just part of the daily routine.

But on this day, there’s a delicious twist.

One of the girls is a first-timer.

CHAPTER 3

Mary: February 2005

Downstairs, the doorbell is ringing. Mary’s father shouts, gruffly:

“Ella está aquí. Su amiga con el camión.”

“She’s here. Your friend with the truck.”

Mary runs down the stairs. It’s game day, and Dad’s already got the TV on. Her stepmom’s out running errands. Mary’s twin sister has gone out, too, Rollerblading with a few of her friends.

“Going shopping,” she yells, and she pops a piece of Dubble Bubble into her mouth.

“¿Dice quién?”

“Says who?”

Mary’s already halfway out the door. Her father calls out again, but on Sundays there’s no getting him out of his chair. Besides, Mary knows he’ll be happy when he sees the money she’s made. Real money, like Joe’s cousin Wendy Dobbs, is making.* And it’s not like she’s running off to do something crazy. After all, Wendy’s assured her already that there’s nothing to worry about.

Mary’s father is Cuban-an immigrant-a self-made man who runs a contracting business. He’s wise to the ways of the world and highly protective of his two daughters. They’re good girls, he knows. Almost angels. As far as he knows, they don’t drink. They’ve never tried drugs. They love clothes and, especially, music-Britney Spears, Nelly Furtado, Maroon 5, the boy band with that dreamy lead singer. Mary loves California, which she’s never seen but daydreams about. She just knows she’ll live there someday-a plan that’s okay with her father as long as Mary keeps up with her homework and chores.

What he worries about, in the meantime, is the crowd that Mary runs with.

Joe is a fine boy. More responsible than most American boys his age. But Joe’s cousin, Wendy, is another story. Mary’s father doesn’t like Wendy at all and would have liked her even less had he known about Wendy’s intentions.

In just one hour, Wendy’s told Mary, she can make more money than her father makes in a day: “This guy in Palm Beach. He’s rich. Very rich. He has an airplane. He owns an island, you know?”

Like a lot of kids who live inland, away from the Florida coast, Mary’s dreams reach way beyond the dull, scrubby flatlands and strip malls she’s grown up around. There’s so much that she wants to do and see. But for her the Gold Coast, twenty miles away, might as well be another country.

“Yes,” she had said, without even thinking about it.

Then there was Joe to contend with.

“Who is this guy?” Joe had said, shaking his head. “You don’t know a thing about him.”

“Hundreds of dollars,” Mary had whispered. She couldn’t quite look at Joe, but she was firm: “I can make that in one hour.”

Joe seemed to think they were actually talking about it. A conversation-some back-and-forth. But the thought of not going hadn’t even crossed Mary’s mind. If anything, she hoped that it would become a regular thing.

“To rub his feet? Are you kidding? If you’re not worried about it, why haven’t you told your dad?”

“It’s your cousin, Joe! Some girls go three times a week.”

“The guy’s feet must be killing him.”

“Shut up!”

“Tell your father.”

“You know how Dad is. You don’t tell your parents everything.”

“I’m not going to some freak’s mansion to rub his feet.”

“That’s right. I am.”

“And if I told your father? Or mine?”

“You’d never see me again.”

Mary felt bad as she said it. She felt bad for lying.

She knew that it would be more than a foot rub.

Wendy had told her that much, at least.

CHAPTER 4

Jeffrey Epstein: February 2005

John Kluge, the media magnate, has bought up several lots around here, torn down the mansions, and built a grand, sprawling estate. But Epstein’s neighbors have blocked his own efforts to buy more land and increase his holdings.

Epstein’s address in Palm Beach is 358 El Brillo Way. Built in the fifties by a totally run-of-the-mill architect, the house has none of the elegance of his neighbors’ homes. It’s big, with a big swimming pool-that’s the most you can say for it. It’s totally bland. But it’s the last house on a dead-end block, the last block of the street, and this makes it very secluded.

Tonight, one of Epstein’s black Escalades will whisk him away, taking him to the private terminal at Palm Beach International Airport. Then a short flight down to Little Saint James-or, as he likes to call it, Little Saint Jeff’s-the seventy-eight-acre island he owns in the Virgin Islands. But for the moment, there are still things to attend to in Florida. Business and pleasure-although, in Epstein’s experience, the two have always fit together nicely.

He strolls through the gate, past the guard, up to the side door that leads to the kitchen. Inside, he ignores the maid doing dishes and climbs a wide, winding staircase to the second floor. He walks down a hallway, one that’s lined with photographs of naked women. Then, in his bedroom, he opens a closet. Inside, there are many more photographs. Erotic photos, tacked to the wall, of girls who have come to the house.

Familiar faces, familiar bodies. That’s what makes the first-timers so special.

Epstein checks his watch before closing the door.

The Virgin Islands can wait.

CHAPTER 5

Mary: February 2005

The Dubble Bubble’s lost all its flavor, but Mary’s still chewing the gum as she shifts, nervously, in the backseat of Wendy’s big pickup truck. The girl sitting up front next to Wendy is a stranger to Mary. She’s chain-smoking menthols. The music is blaring; the seat is filthy and gross. Worried that her white jeans will get grody, Mary sits on her hands. Then, through the window, she sees a gigantic resort called the Breakers. It is resplendent, sun-drenched, not quite real-like something you’d see in the movies.

It makes for an interesting contrast.

“We’ll wait for her,” Wendy says to the girl in the passenger seat. “Then we can all go to the mall.”

“Which one?”

“The Gardens.”

It’s like she’s not there. Mary wants to say something about it, but she doesn’t know if the other girls would even respond. Wendy’s always seemed so much cooler than kids Mary’s age. This other girl’s just a mystery. And when Wendy does turn around to speak to Mary, her stare seems to slice right through the younger girl.

“Remember,” Wendy says, according to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Palm Beach police. “When he asks how old you are, say eighteen.”

The light changes, and Wendy turns back around but keeps looking at Mary in the rearview mirror.

“Got it?”

Mary nods.

“I mean it,” says Wendy.

Who would believe her? Anyone can see that Mary is younger than that.

“Okay,” she says. “I got it. Eighteen.”

Mary takes out her flip phone and sends Joe a text: “Your cousin is a BAMF.”

A badass motherfucker.

There’s no reply.

“Or maybe she’s just a bitch,” Mary texts.

Still no reply.

Joe must still be in church, Mary thinks.

They pass El Bravo Way and turn onto El Brillo Way.

Wendy’s driving slowly now, right at the speed limit. Once more, she says: “When the man asks your age, say eighteen.”

Mary nods again and smiles, slightly. She wants Wendy to see her smiling. To know that she’s got it all under control. But Wendy’s eyes are on the front gate now. It opens, she parks, and they walk past a guard.

“We’re here to see Jeff,” says Wendy.

The guard nods-of course you are-and leads them to the side door.

They’re in the kitchen now. Mary, Wendy, some middle-aged man. The man has a long face, bushy eyebrows, and thick silver hair-and he’s fit. As fit as the jocks that Mary goes to school with. Not attractive, exactly. He’s way too old for that. But confident, in a way that makes an impression.

Standing behind the man there’s a woman. She’s blond, very pretty, much taller than Wendy.

What a strange scene, Mary thinks. She can’t shake the feeling that the man is studying her. Then he nods, and he and Wendy walk out of the kitchen. A little while later, they’re back.

“Sarah,” the man says to the tall woman. “You can take Mary upstairs.”

Sarah takes Mary up a wide winding staircase carpeted in pink. Together they walk down a hall that’s got photographs on the wall-naked women. Long curtains cover windows and don’t let in much light. In the air, there’s a strong lavender fragrance.

Then they come to a room containing a green-and-pink sofa. There’s a large bathroom off to one side and doors on either side of the sofa. There’s a wooden armoire with sex toys on it. There’s a massage table, too, and a mural of a naked woman.

“Wait here,” says Sarah. “Jeff will be up in a moment.”

Mary’s too freaked out to do anything else. Fidgeting with her belt loops, she sits on the sofa, jumps up again.

Then she sees the picture.

All the girls in the photos are young. But the girl in this one’s just a baby.

Much younger than Mary herself.

The girl’s smiling, but the smile’s mixed with something else-some sort of anxiety that’s out of place on such a small face. And what she’s doing is shocking: pulling her underwear off to the side. Flashing one of her tiny apple-round butt cheeks toward the camera.

Mary gasps. She turns around. And there’s Epstein standing in front of her, wearing nothing but a towel.

CHAPTER 6

Michael Reiter: March 2005

Chief Reiter looks more like a bank president than a cop. He’s well built, with an air of formality and discretion. But he’s got twenty-four years on the job. Decades earlier, he was a campus police officer in Pittsburgh. Then he rose, steadily, through the ranks in Palm Beach, moving up from patrol officer to detective, working vice, narcotics, and organized crime, then becoming a sergeant, captain, major, and assistant chief-a job he held for three years-before becoming chief of police. Reiter is what you’d call seasoned, although chief of police in Palm Beach is a job that calls upon his political skills as much as his street smarts.

Then again, from time to time, things do happen.

Once in a blue moon there are murders-though these are so rare that they tend to be remembered for decades.

Sometimes there are hurricanes to contend with, and, when the sea calms, human cargo washes up on the shore. Sometimes traffickers aim the bows of their boats at the glow of the Breakers resort, order their passengers to go overboard, then tell them to swim.

Most of the passengers are Haitian-men, women, and children who stake all they have on a chance at a life in America. From time to time, Palm Beach cops have to retrieve their bodies from the surf.

Things get busier during the wintertime, or, as the locals call it, the season. It’s when the very rich come to town, throw parties and balls, shop, and tangle traffic at the intersections around Worth Avenue. The population booms, and the men and women who work under Chief Reiter deal with fender benders, shoplifters, and snotty skateboarding teenagers. There are DUIs. Domestic disturbances. Choking victims and heart attacks. It’s routine stuff, but there’s always lots of it. Enough to keep the men and women who work for Reiter busy.

Chief Reiter’s proud of the team he has built. And, the team knows, they’re lucky to have him. Reiter’s extremely well qualified for the job. If anything, he’s overqualified, with a certificate from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and antiterrorist training at Quantico, courtesy of the FBI. It’s not brought up often at cocktail parties in Palm Beach, but several of the 9/11 hijackers lived in Palm Beach County. They took flight lessons at local airstrips. A few, including the mastermind, Mohamed Atta, had been regulars at 251 Sunrise, a chic nightclub in Palm Beach. There they had regaled any woman who would listen with made-up stories about their adventures as pilots.

But 251 Sunrise is shuttered now. The joint was shut down in 2004, after an avalanche of noise complaints. For the moment, Palm Beach is as quiet and calm as any place Reiter has dreamed about.

For the moment.

CHAPTER 7

Mary: March 2005

If there’s no traffic, Mary’s hometown is less than thirty minutes away from the island of Palm Beach. But in economic terms it’s a world away. Her high school is run by the county. Most of Mary’s classmates are black. Thirty percent are Hispanic, as she is. The rest are white. The school has a C rating, and lots of students receive free or discounted lunches. Mary is one of those students. But inch by inch, she’s working her way out of the crab barrel. A good kid, her teachers think. A kid with a future in front of her.

Weeks have gone by since her meeting with Epstein. She hasn’t told anyone about the visit. Still, other kids at the high school have noticed a change.

“Yo, Mary,” a friend says. “What’s up with you anyway?”

This is a kid who veers from nice to mean, depending on who else is around.

Still, a friend.

“Nothing,” says Mary.

“You got your period?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Mary whispers.

There have been rumors going around, she knows that. Rumors started by a girl who has eyes for Joe.

“Whore,” her rival shouts in the hallway one day.

“You’re the whore,” Mary shouts back.

Mary rushes the girl, who shoves back, grabbing at Mary’s hair, twisting and tugging. Someone yells, “Catfight!” By the time the bell rings for next period, Mary’s sitting in the principal’s office.

She shakes her head in reply to the questions, stays silent, feeling humiliated.

Then, in her wallet, they find the three hundred dollars.

Mary’s too young and too small to be stripping. Besides, the bills are all twenties, not singles or fives. When they call Mary’s parents, her teachers suggest a more obvious explanation: Does Mary do drugs or deal them?

Mary’s father knows better than that. “No,” he insists. A psychologist is called in. And then, Mary does start talking.

Once she does, she can’t stop.

It’s a wild story. Highly disturbing. A mansion in Palm Beach. A powerful man. This is all far from the principal’s wheelhouse. It’s definitely a matter for the police. In the meantime, the school’s recommending a transfer, purely temporarily, to a facility for troubled kids-ones with “issues.”

Mary’s a good girl, it’s true. But further confrontations at the high school will not be tolerated.

CHAPTER 8

Michele Pagan: March 2005

On March 15, Palm Beach police officer Michele Pagan takes the first call from Mary’s stepmother.

“Ma’am,” she says, “I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station.”

“I don’t want to say anything more until I speak with my husband.”

“Ma’am, I appreciate that. But I’d urge you to come in. Let us find out what happened. Please.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

“Please, ma’am. I’m here for the rest of the day. We’re on South County Road.”

At the station, Mary’s father does most of the talking.

“There was an incident,” he says. “At school. A fight between Mary and another girl. But please understand, our Mary’s not like that.”

Officer Pagan’s starting to feel as though she’s swimming in uncharted waters. She’s young, and the cases she’s worked before this have been minor. Robberies, that sort of thing. Pagan’s not used to the Gold Coast. She was educated in New York City, and, to her, the less affluent towns further in from the Coast might as well be somewhere in Georgia. Then again, she knows enough to know that in the back of the station, detectives are already whispering.

What’s a guy with that kind of money need with some girl from out west? The women around here could make a man cry.

Extortion?

The kid’s fourteen. What would she know from extortion?

Have you seen the shows these kids watch? They know about things we’ve never dreamed about.

No, Pagan thinks. This is her case.

She’s the one who’s going to work it.

CHAPTER 9

Mary: March 2005

Mary’s father and stepmother believe their girl. Officer Pagan believes Mary’s parents. Ergo, Mary must be telling the truth. The girl’s got a sweet, high, halting voice. Pagan interviews her twice, and both times, she speaks with her chin buried deep in her chest.

“Tell me, honey,” says Pagan. “What happened?”

In her notepad, Michele Pagan writes: While speaking to me, Mary became upset and started to cry.

“This white-haired guy came into the room,” Mary says. “Wearing only a towel around his waist. He took off the towel. And then he was all naked, and he lay down on a massage table.

“He was a really built guy. But his wee-wee was very tiny.”

Mary tells Pagan that Epstein spoke only to give her instructions, which he did in a stern voice. She tells Pagan that she was alone and didn’t know what to do.

She removed her pants, leaving her thong panties on, Pagan writes in her incident report.

She straddled his back, whereby her exposed buttocks were touching Epstein’s exposed buttocks.

Epstein then turned to his side and started to rub his penis in an up-and-down motion. Epstein pulled out a purple vibrator and began to massage Mary’s vaginal area.

Mary’s sure that Epstein ejaculated. “He used a towel to wipe himself down as he got off the table,” she says.

That week, Pagan’s assigned to the case, along with six detectives. Five men, two women. “A predator case,” one of them will say. “This is different from someone who is stealing. This predator is a smart person, and that’s his desire. He can’t stop.”

Within days, another victim comes into the station. She’s got a similar story.

It’s a tricky case, according to a source closely involved with the investigation, because the girls involved are far too young to use as bait in an attempt to catch Epstein committing another crime-even if they were willing to play along. Still, there are other strings that Chief Reiter’s team can start pulling.

Two weeks later, on March 31, Officer Pagan has Mary make a controlled call to Wendy Dobbs.

The first attempt goes straight to voice mail.

The next time Mary calls, Wendy picks up.

On the recordings made by Officer Pagan, Mary’s voice is tiny and tentative, while Wendy sounds mature, gruff, fully grown, like the femme fatale in some old black-and-white movie.

“Hey, what’s up?” she says impatiently.

“Nothing,” says Mary.

“I talked to Jeffrey, and I’m going to his house tomorrow morning,” says Wendy. “I’m going to set something up for you.”

“Cool. Like, what do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to talk to him tomorrow morning when I go to his house about it.”

“Um, how much would I get paid?”

“Talk to him. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, and then I’ll bring you in the next day. You can talk to him about it.”

So far, so good, thinks Officer Pagan. But she needs more. She looks at Mary expectantly, but not too expectantly, she hopes. She can imagine how hard it must be for the girl. Or maybe she can’t imagine it at all. But either way, Mary seems to have gotten the message. Straightening up in her chair, she begins to press Wendy.

“I don’t know,” Wendy says in response. “I don’t know. You’re going to have to talk to him about it. I mean, I don’t really work for him like that. I just bring girls to him and they work for him…You can ask him, like, ‘What can I do to make more money?’”

Mary keeps pressing.

“The more you do, the more you get paid,” Wendy says finally.

“Want me to bring my sister for you? So that we can get paid more or something?”

“Well, yeah. That’s what I’m saying. I’m working tomorrow, and me and him are going to put a schedule together for you and your sister. So I’ll call you tomorrow when I leave Jeffrey with a schedule.”

“Okay, well, I don’t have a phone. So if you guys call me, I’d have to know what time so I could get the phone.”

“Okay. I’ll leave you a message. That’s fine. I’ll leave you a message.”

CHAPTER 10

Noel St. Pierre: March 2005

Noel St. Pierre* thinks of the kids he grew up with in Haiti. His old neighborhood was pressed up against the jungle border that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, and some of the kids he knew would slip over. Those kids would stay in the DR for a few days, sometimes weeks. Some of them never returned. But the ones who did come back wouldn’t say too much about it.

Most of them didn’t talk much at all.

By the time he was ten, Noel had learned the truth about those kids. He’d learned that they’d ended up working as prostitutes.

This was how Noel St. Pierre had learned about evil. There really were devils out in the world. Flesh-and-blood devils, and they were nothing like the demons he’d heard about in church. Noel had never forgotten the way those kids looked. The way they’d turned into old men and old women. They were like zombies trapped in children’s bodies. And now, in America, Noel’s been given a chance to help other kids.

That’s what the police have told him, at least.

Noel is a sanitation worker. Still strong at fifty, and lucky enough to have found his way to Palm Beach, he gets in to work before anyone else and keeps his white compactor truck clean, almost glistening. His pickup route runs hot and cold with the seasons. But even in the summer, with much less to do, he’s on the job early, braced for a six-hour shift that would break a lesser man’s back. In the winter, the job gets even harder. The Estate Section gets especially busy. Some of the parties have hundreds of guests. They leave behind mountains of refuse. That garbage gets picked up daily, or twice a day when requested. It’s carried by workers who slip, silently, under the porte cocheres. Then it gets whisked twenty miles away to a landfill that the garbagemen call Mount Trashmore.

Noel’s stretch of the Estate Section runs from the Everglades Club to the southernmost tip of the island. It encompasses Banyan Road, Jungle Road, El Bravo Way, and El Brillo Way. His performance record is spotless. As far as the Palm Beach PD is concerned, he’s the perfect man for the job.

Chief Reiter’s authorized a “trash pull”-a legal way to collect discarded evidence. In this case, evidence culled from Jeffrey Epstein’s garbage. But when the police call him, Noel St. Pierre simply assumes that another refugee boat has run aground on the beach. A sad thing, but something that does happen from time to time. His homeland, Haiti, is desperately poor. Run by despots who line their pockets while everyday people suffer.

Many of the refugees are illiterate.

Most of them speak only Creole.

“Eske ou ka ede nou, souple,” they ask.

“Can you help us, please?”

The cops always need a translator, and Noel’s been asked to help out before. But this time the police officer’s voice is raspy, impatient.

“This time is different,” the officer says. “Something very special. You don’t have to accept. But if you do, you’ll have to keep things to yourself, completely.”

When he hears what the story is, Noel accepts.

“I’ll do it,” he says immediately.

The address he’s been given is 358 El Brillo Way. On his first morning, St. Pierre moves swiftly, sneaking a glance through the kitchen window at the four silhouettes standing inside. Three women, one of them quite short, with pigtails.

The fourth silhouette is that of a tall man.

The police have given him clear instructions. The work is unsavory, but so is the work Noel does every day. What the detectives want from him now are slips of paper with phone numbers, along with toothbrushes, condoms, discarded underwear. Anything that could provide DNA. He’s been told to use a special truck on the El Brillo run. Whatever he finds he’s to put aside in small trash bags he’ll deliver directly to the station at the end of every shift.

Jeffrey Epstein’s garbage will never arrive at Mount Trashmore.

As he drives to the police station, St. Pierre thinks about Epstein and what he’s been told. It’s a wonder to him that American kids would do what the police say these kids have done. American kids are rich, after all. Some of them just don’t know it, he guesses.

Americans always want more than they have.

Then again, children do stupid things. They don’t know any better. And St. Pierre’s trips to the house make one thing clear. These girls are young. Really young.

“I hope you can stop this man,” St. Pierre tells the cop.

The detective shoots him a sharp look, and St. Pierre nods.

“Please,” he says, more softly this time.

“Can we count on seeing you here tomorrow?”

The detective looks antsy, impatient again. In his hand he’s holding a scrap of paper that Noel St. Pierre has pulled from Epstein’s trash. Wendy Dobbs’s name is on it. Mary’s name is on it as well.

The detective can’t wait to get it to Chief Reiter’s office.

“As long as it takes, sir,” St. Pierre tells him. “Tomorrow, the next day. Whenever you need me.”

CHAPTER 11

Michael Reiter: September 2005

There’s a sense in which the Palm Beach PD functions as a foundation. From time to time, one of the town’s wealthy residents will walk in with a check followed by an inquiry. How much more would the police force need to make this remarkably safe community feel even safer?

A tax write-off? Sure. But why not? Coming from most, it’s a genuine gesture. One of appreciation for all they have and for all the department’s efforts to guard it. Donations are accepted graciously, gratefully. In 2004, the department had taken one from Jeffrey Epstein-the second donation he’d made to the Palm Beach PD-for ninety thousand dollars. Generous, even by the generous standards of Palm Beach. The donation, which Epstein delivered personally, was earmarked for a firearms training simulator. But that day Michael Reiter had thought something seemed off about Epstein.

Something an old cop would notice.

Reiter’s officers had told him about complaints they’d gotten a few months earlier-young women hanging around at the end of the block or coming and going at all hours from Epstein’s house. “There was some follow-up to that,” Reiter said in a deposition for B.B. vs. Epstein, a civil suit, brought by a victim, that Jeffrey eventually settled. “I think we may have encountered one or two of them. [We] may have done a little bit of surveillance or talked to neighbors as to whether or not they had seen that. I think we were of the general understanding that, yes, there were very attractive young women coming and going from Mr. Epstein’s residence.

“We did some level of further inquiry, and we were of the belief that they were all adults. And [we] were also of the belief that there was a possibility that there could be prostitution. But I mean that’s just not something that we heavily pursued-prostitution in private residences; it’s common everywhere in America. We didn’t believe that they were underage at that point, and so we had no further interest in it.”

Reiter had recalled those complaints on the day Epstein had shown up with his $90,000 donation. And when Reiter had walked Epstein downstairs, he couldn’t help but notice the tall, beautiful woman whom Epstein had brought with him to the station.

It struck him as strange that she was standing so stiffly, eyes cast downward, as though she were afraid to speak. Not a kid. But not a woman, either. Epstein did not introduce or even acknowledge her. To Reiter, this, too, seemed odd.

Indeed, the statuesque woman was Nadia Marcinkova, a nineteen-year-old beauty who lived at Epstein’s home and was described, by another girl, in a recorded interview with Detective Recarey, as one of Epstein’s “like, slaves.”

In September, several months into the investigation, Epstein calls Reiter directly and asks: Has Palm Beach bought the firearms simulator yet?

Cautiously, Reiter tells him that they’re still doing research.

If the department needs more funds, Epstein says, he’ll be happy to provide them.

Reiter thanks him graciously and hangs up. But he’s certain now that Epstein knows about the investigation. Thinking about Epstein’s crimes in Palm Beach makes him shudder. And, Reiter knows, if the charges are true, things are going to get ugly and public.

Cops like Reiter are family men, fathers. Some see so much that they’re no longer surprised by the ways of the world. Still, it helps to hold on to a natural capacity for outrage. Thefts are easy to understand: you see something you need, so you take it. Even murders make a kind of sense once you understand the motivation. There’s great satisfaction in catching a murderer. But what Epstein’s been up to is hard to explain.

Who is this guy?

Reiter’s detectives will have to get into Epstein’s head. To nail him, they’ll have to know him. And to do that, they’ll have to get to know the people around him. The police already know about Wendy. That’s one procurer, but out of how many?

What kind of person would bring children to a child molester?

And-Reiter can’t shake the idea-other victims had to be out there. That lined up with what Epstein’s neighbor reported: there were many girls. He needed to find them as quickly as possible. It was a race against time.

As long as Epstein was free in Palm Beach, more girls were sure to arrive at the side of the house on El Brillo Way.

CHAPTER 12

Alison: September 11, 2005

It might start with the Palm Beach Daily News, which usually covers charity balls, equestrian events, and gallery openings. Reporters there would kill to sink their teeth into something so juicy. On top of that, Chief Reiter knows, Palm Beach is full of freelance paparazzi and seasoned semiretired journalists.

They’d kill for the story, too. For them, it’d be a real-life Body Heat.

Over at WPTV, the local NBC affiliate, the phone rings one day.

It’s a tip from a kid, sounding nervous. Something about girls from a local high school.

There’s a prostitution ring out in Palm Beach, says the boy.

The tip gets brought up in a midmorning meeting at which the producers divvy up ideas among the various reporters and newscasts.

“Where, exactly?” a producer asks.

“He didn’t say, exactly,” an intern replies. “He said that a very rich man was involved.”

“Who?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Did he leave a call-back number?”

“No. The kid sounded really young. Fourteen, fifteen years old.”

The producer thinks for a moment, makes a few scratches in his dog-eared notepad.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m not sure what we can do with that for the moment.”

At some point, some enterprising journalist will put enough pieces together to get a sense of the picture. Sooner or later, someone will talk. Maybe a parent. Maybe a cop’s girlfriend gets giddy at lunch. The girlfriend’s girlfriend mentions it to her husband, who says something to a golfing buddy in turn. Maybe the golfing buddy knows a reporter.

Or maybe some lawyer goes off the rez, blitzed off those martinis they serve at the Palm Beach Grill.

Sooner or later, there’s always talk. At that point, Chief Reiter’s job will get much, much harder-with Epstein on one side, the press on the other, and the chief taking flak from all sides. But right now, two months into Reiter’s investigation, the press is still speaking in whispers.

Right now, Reiter wants to keep it that way.

And, in the meantime, new pieces of the puzzle keep falling into place.

On September 11, a young woman named Alison gets pulled over by the police.* She’s carrying a small amount of marijuana. The patrol officer handcuffs her and puts her in the back of his vehicle. But Alison’s been in the back of a police car before, and she’s cocky and canny enough to pivot the conversation away from the dime bag she’s been busted with. She tells the officer a remarkable story about an older man engaging in sexual activities with high school girls. Alison knows about it firsthand, she says. She’s been going to the house on El Brillo Way since she was sixteen.

At first the cop’s skeptical. He hasn’t heard about the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s affairs. And, after all, Alison is a burnout. But back at the station, he finds out that Alison has not been bullshitting him.

The investigation is real.

Alison’s name and cell phone number match up with messages that have been pulled from Epstein’s trash. Instead of copping to a misdemeanor, she becomes another Jane Doe in the case that Chief Reiter’s colleague, Detective Joe Recarey, is building against Jeffrey Epstein.

The story Alison ends up telling is extremely disturbing.

Like Mary, she says, she was recruited in high school. She tells cops that Epstein would call her his “number one girl”-although, she suspects, there were many others.

Recarey takes her statement. In the excerpts that follow (transcribed from a tape recording made by the Palm Beach police), D stands for “Detective Recarey,” and V stands for “victim.”

D:Well, ah, start from, like, how you met him, and then I’ll-I’ll take you through.

V:Okay. Um, we [Alison and a female friend] worked at Hollister together in the Wellington Green mall, and I was mentioning to her how I wanted extra money to go to Maine…I wanted to go camping for the summer, and I couldn’t afford a plane ticket. And-she goes, “Oh, well, you can get a plane ticket in two hours.” I said, “What are you talking about?” Like, what are you-that didn’t make any sense to me, a plane ticket in two hours; what are you talking about? And she goes, “Oh, we can go give this guy a massage, and, um, he’ll pay two hundred dollars for, like, forty-five minutes or an hour.” And that’s all she told me-no details, no nothing.

…

She said that he wanted cute girls, so I looked cute, did my best. I didn’t-I didn’t think that it was what it was. I wasn’t naive enough to think that he was gonna pay me two hundred dollars just for nothing-I, I don’t know, like, I don’t know what was going through my head. I absolutely don’t know. And I-the back of my mind was thinking, oh, well, it could be legitimate, but I was also thinking, you know, at the same time, is she fucking crazy? Like, this guy’s not gonna pay you money for not doing anything, not letting him cop a feel or nothing. You know? So I didn’t know what to think, I was like, “Oh…if he does something that I have a problem with, then I’ll leave.”

…

D:Who were you introduced to?

V:One of his girlfriends. One of his, like, slaves that he has live with him. And when I say “slaves,” like, one of the girls that he bought to, like, have sex with him. Um, I was introduced to one of them probably, like…Sarah. I was introduced to Sarah. Um, that’s his assistant, I think. I think they have sex, but I don’t know. Um, I was introduced to his assistant Sarah, and she’s the one who told me that he would be ready in a second. And from there I met various other girls. I don’t really-I didn’t pay attention to who they were, though…So…we were waiting on the couch in the bathroom, and, um, Jeffrey comes up, and he’s like, “Hey, I’m-I’m Jeffrey.” He just introduced himself, and he hands-I remember this ’cause I was pissed off that she got paid to bring me. Like, I was pissed off. He hands her a wad of hundred-dollar bills and says, “Thank you,” and she says, “I’ll wait for you downstairs,” and I was like, “All right, I’ll see you in a little while.” And that’s how I was brought to Jeffrey.

…

Um. Hold on-I’m remembering. I’m, like, picturing in my head. I wore a skirt. I remember specifically what I wore: I wore a skirt and just a regular T-shirt. And I was massaging his legs, and he asked me to take off my skirt. And I said-I think I said no at first. And he’s like, “Come on, you’re not showing”-he talked me into it, basically. He’s like, “Oh, you’re not showing anything,” or [he] did something; I don’t even know. So I ended up taking off my skirt, and then he goes-well, I think he just started touching, you know, the top of me. So-and then he asked me.

D:When you’re saying “the top of you,” you mean your breasts?

V:Yeah. And then he asked me to take off my shirt. So I took off my shirt, but I kept my underwear on. And I wouldn’t take my underwear off: I told him no. And he still paid me the same amount. And that was that. I went home.

…

D:So, in other words, he-

V:Finished with himself and that was it. Yeah, he ejaculated. Specifically.

D:That was the first time you went there?

V:Mm-hmm.

D: And-I know, take a deep breath, I know, I can see it in your eyes already. From then on, you went there multiple times?

V:I had problems with it. [With] what happened the first time. But three hundred dollars for forty minutes-that was a lot for a sixteen-year-old girl making six bucks an hour.

D:So you’re saying you’re sure you were sixteen now?

V:Um, I don’t want to say I’m sure of my age. I was under seventeen, one hundred percent.

…

D:Okay. Um, when you-the first time you went, when he masturbated, did you see?

V:[giggles]

D:His member?

V:Oh, I thought you were going to ask me if I saw, like, his come.

D:No.

V:I saw all of the above.

D:You saw him naked, fully naked? Fully naked?

V:Yeah, a hundred percent naked. He had a towel on for some of it, but that doesn’t mean anything. Like, he was naked.

D:He took off the towel?

V:I saw everything, yeah.

…

I mean, I’m sorry, he is circumcised, my bad. He’s circumcised, a hundred and ten percent sure. A matter of fact, he has some sort of birth defect. On his thing. I don’t know what it is [giggles]; I’ve never really looked at it, because I’ve never done anything where I had to touch it. I’ve never touched it-out of the whole time I worked for him, I never touched his penis. Like, he-I’m pretty sure he rubbed it against me, but I’ve never ever been, like, “Okay, I’m letting you do this” or “I’m gonna do this to you.” Um, it’s really weirdly shaped. I don’t know-do you want me to, like, tell you this?

…

I’m just really embarrassed. Um, it’s like a teardrop, like a drop of water. It’s really fat at the bottom and skinny at the top, where it’s attached. And he never gets fully hard, ever. Like, I just could tell by looking at it-like, by looking you can obviously tell if you’re hard or not, and I could tell that he wasn’t.

…

D:The next time you went, or as you continued to go, did it escalate more?

V.Mm-hmm. I actually-I don’t remember how long it took for me to start working for him regularly, from the first time I went there. But I started working every day. Every single day he was in the country I would be there…And, um, I told him that I wouldn’t let him put anything inside of me; that was my rule. Nothing inside of me-no fingers, no, no nothing, absolutely nothing inside of me. He increased my pay to three or four hundred dollars as long as he could touch me. Um, I still never-I, I swear I never touched him, the whole entire time I never, ever touched him. Um, but he, he-

D:How many times would you say you went?

V:Hundreds. Hundreds. I was-he used to tell me I was his favorite. He bought me a car. He bought me-

D:This Jeep that you’re driving?

V:No. I had a brand-new Dodge Neon. I got a plane-I got a plane ticket to New York; I got spending money whenever I wanted. Like, I was in there deep. I was-he asked my parents to emancipate me so I could live with him. Or he didn’t ask my parents, he asked me to ask my parents, I’m sorry. He actually wanted me to come live with him.

D:As, like, a girlfriend?

V:Sex slave, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Um, but it escalated-he, he just increased my pay, as long as he could touch me. I wouldn’t let him put anything inside of me. And then one day he just did, one day he just put his hand, like, his fingers-and, um…

D:How long, would you say, from the very first time you went?

V:Months. Honestly, I never kept track, like, of, of what happened when. I just can tell you in which order things progressed.

…

It was-it was, like, towards the middle and end of my school year. But I remember that for the last, like, six or eight weeks of high school, I didn’t have a car ’cause I gave it back to him. Because he-he asked me to have sex with him and, like, like suck him and stuff [giggles], and I was just like, no. Definitely not. I was like, “I’ll let you touch me, but I’m not gonna do that.”

…

Yeah, the car was a Dodge Neon 2005. He got it for me before the New Year, because I remember I got it-it was an edition that was a year before they were supposed to come out. So if I got it, I obviously didn’t get a 2006, ’cause that’s this year. I got a 2005 Neon in 2004. Seven miles on it when I got it. The car was awesome [giggles].

…

I gave it back before I graduated. It got too-it got too sticky for me. He wanted more than I was willing to give. I didn’t wanna-I didn’t want to, um, suck his dick. I didn’t want to have sex with him. I never did that, and I wanted to be able to walk away from this saying that I-saying that I never did that. And I’m glad that I did.

…

But I lied to him when I gave it back. I didn’t want to burn my bridges, because he was a spectacular connection to have. Spectacular. Even if I didn’t-even when I didn’t work for him. Until this day, he is so aw-he is so-I haven’t talked to him in, like, a couple months, but if I called him today he would give me as much money as I asked him for. He doesn’t know that I hate him the way I do. I kept that connection. I figured he used me, I’d be able to use him. Um, I hate to say that, but I figured if I wanted to use him I could.

D:Okay. Let me bring you back a little bit.

V:Sure.

D:When did things start to escalate as far as things happening when the massages were given?

V:They escalated whenever he wanted. I don’t clearly understand the question.

D:Okay. The first time you went, you were naked-

V:Are you asking for a date?

D:Oh, no, no, no-

V:…and the little steps that things progressed?

D:Right.

V:Well, I went and I wouldn’t take off my panties at first. And then he got me to get naked. Then he got me to let him rub me. Then he got me to let him stick his fingers in me. Then he got me to let him go down on me. Then, um-that was pretty much the gist of it, except this one time, where he bent me over the table and put himself in me. Without my permission. And I flipped out. I’m sorry, I didn’t ask you, but I don’t count that as me having sex with him… ’Cause I just told you that I never had sex with him. I never did. Even though, I don’t know what you’d consider that. But he then-I go, “What are you doing?” He goes, “Oh, I just wanted [redacted] to see this.”

D:Okay. Let me back you up. When you were completely naked, the same things happened? You went in, you massaged him?

V:Sometimes I didn’t even do that. Sometimes he just asked me to take off my clothes and-he’d have to do work, he’d be sitting at his desk or something, and I’d just be naked there, watching television or reading a book, but I’d be naked. Or, um, sometimes he wanted to just watch TV or read, and he’d lay in his bed and ask me to take my clothes off and lay with him. And that’s it. Not touch him or anything…Sometimes he’d just invite me over for breakfast, for dinner, or just to use the swimming pool, and I’d get paid for that, too. I’d get paid just to hang out with him. That’s it. And if the money wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have ever been in that house.

D:Okay. When he started to touch you-

V:I have a question. Before I say anything else. Um, is there a possibility that I’m gonna have to go to court or anything? Like, that’s a possibility, right?

D:Well, here’s the thing: When this is all said and done, we’re going to sit down, we’re going to discuss this. I mean, what he did to you is a crime. I’m not gonna lie to you.

V:Would you consider it rape? Like, would you consider that to be rape, what he did?

D:If he put himself inside you, without permission-

V:I didn’t say that, or anything. I was standing up and the table is about, like, my hip length-he just put me down-

D:That, that is a crime. That is a crime.

V:I don’t want my family to find out about this. My family doesn’t know any of this. My mom thinks I was his secretary, for two years, or however long-a year and a half. My mom thinks I made phone calls for him and that’s how I was making my [unintelligible] money. That’s it. I don’t want her to know anything.

D:Well, you’re an adult. You’re an adult now…When we’re done with this interview, we’ll discuss this further and we’ll decide the best course.

V:’Cause Jeffrey’s gonna get me. You guys realize that, right? He’s gonna find-he’s gonna figure this out. And he’s gonna-I’m not safe now. You understand that, right? I’m not safe.

D:He is not this person that he is portraying himself to be-

V: Well-

D:Why do you say you’re not safe? Has he said he’s hurt people before?

V:Well, I’ve heard him make threats to people on the telephone, yeah. Of course.

D:You’re gonna die? You’re gonna break your legs? Or-

V:All the above! But that’s not the point.

D:Who’s he talking to?

V:I don’t know. I don’t know, I heard those conversations, I mean, I’ve been in the room when he was on the phone and [unintelligible] threatened. Like, I witnessed lots of things. I just don’t know what, specifically, you all [want to know].

D:Everything.

V:I used to go there every day, like I w-I don’t, I don’t know how many other girls he was saying, “You’re my favorite, and I want you to live with me” to, but I was in about as deep as you can get.

D:He had quite a few girls he would say that to.

…

D:Do you have any formal massage training?

V:[Giggles.] Hell, no.

D:All right, I was just asking.

…

V:He would kiss me and stuff, too. I remember that. And when he kissed me, if he was jerking off he would, like, rub himself on my breasts. And I…I was extremely uncomfortable. I would maneuver myself away from that activity. I’d get up and I’d move somewhere else, or I’d-I don’t even remember. I would stop whatever was going on without saying, “Can you get the fuck off me?” I would stop it without saying stuff like that.

D:Okay.

…

V:I wouldn’t let him put anything in me until one day he did just out of nowhere. And I said, “Wait a second: my boyfriend, you know, we had this thing, you can’t do that. You know, I’m-I’m allowed to work here as long as you don’t do that.” And he said “okay.” Well, a couple months later I guess he assumed me and my boyfriend had broken up, and he just did it one day; he just did it without asking or anything. And then I said, “What are you doing?” I said, “You know that’s not cool,” and he goes, “Oh, I thought we did that last time.” And I said, “No, we did not do that last time.” And then he goes-uh, and then he just offered me more money. He’s like, “Well, why don’t I just give you something extra, and we can try this out?” And I was like [sigh], “All right.” Very hard guy to say no to. I don’t know if any of you guys ever talked to him…

…

Oh, yeah. Well, if you talk to him, I mean, he straight up tries to control the situation. Every-every word that comes out of your mouth, it seems like, he knows what you are going to say. Like, that’s his job; that’s how he made his money is knowing what people are gonna say and what people are gonna do.

D:What did he tell you he does for a living?

V:Well, there’s a couple of things. Things that I found for myself, things I looked up on the Internet. What he specifically told me when I asked him the first time was, “Oh, I’m a brain scientist.” And I said, “What the fuck is a brain scientist?” I was like, “That’s not a real job-tell me the truth.” But anyway…his explanation was, “It’s my job to know how people’s brains work.” And I said, “Whatever the fuck that means. Whatever. You’re like some old guy who [unintelligible…]” You know what he promised me? Here’s the reason I held on so long is, he promised me that I would get into NYU. That I would get into NYU and he would pay for it. And I waited, and I waited, and I scored great on my SATs, I would get 4.0-like, I did great in school. I filled out my application and he told me that it wasn’t good enough. So I filled it out again, and it was like three times. So I’m pretty sure he wasn’t checking into it, he was just telling me that he was. But I think that had a lot to do with the reason I stayed there so long, ’cause my dream was right in front of me, you know? And it’s so far…

D:Aside from having been with [redacted], was there anybody else that you brought to the house?

V:I brought a few people…Because it got out that I did this. Like, everyone at school knew. You know, everyone talks-

D:It was a circle, and-

V:It was a little circle, yeah…Not that I would want anybody to get involved…I brought girls I didn’t like and, frankly, did not give a shit about. Girls that I knew were skanks. That would do anything. Girls that would just, like, suck dick in the bathroom at school. Like, not even people I was friends with. I’d just hear a rumor about a girl and be like, “Hey, I know a way you can make two hundred dollars. How about…” I would tell them flat out, like, “This is what you’ve got to do. Are you cool with this? ’Cause I’m not gonna take you if you’re not.” So I told them. They all know that I got paid to bring them. It was actually [redacted]. She took off her shirt. She was a little overweight, so he didn’t want anything to do [with her]. She was my best friend. But, you know, she was another story. I did care about her. But, um, she lost her house and stuff and really needed money. She had-she was homeless, she had nowhere to go. So she did it out of desperation.

…

D:Did he ever hurt you?

V:Sometimes he got violent, yeah.

D:Violent as in what? As in-

V:He pulled my hair a lot harder than it should have been pulled. Like, he-okay, I can understand having sex, and you’re all, like, not-not that we were having sex, but I mean, like, if you’re all into it and you pull hair a little bit, like, my ponytails-just like a little bit, whatever. But he would pull it to where it would rip my hair out. It would rip my hair, and then sometimes he would pick me up and, like, throw me whichever way he wanted me, and then he would just like use a toy or, like, his hand or whatever. Never his penis, though, ever. I never had sex with him. But um-I’m little, so he could pick me up. Like, if you pick me up and throw, obviously it’s gonna hurt…

…

I mean, there’s been nights that I walked out of there barely able to walk, um, from him being so rough. But nothing really-nothing specific that he really got violent with. Like, I can’t really recall.

…

Nothing that I went to the doctor for, no. I mean, I remember getting tore up a few times, but it was nothing that-

…

D:This is getting real personal, but were you active before him?

V:What, like, had I had sex? Yeah [laughs].

D:Okay.

V:Um. But honest, I mean, I’m not-I’m not a ho. I’ve had only three steady boyfriends, and those are the only three that I’ve ever done anything with. And they were all with me for over a year. So it’s not like I just go and hook up at parties.

…

Like, I’ve gotten thousands of dollars’ worth of shit. Man, the underwear I’m wearing right now he gave me. Like, I’d-I’d go over there and there’d be a bag of Victoria’s Secret underwear, like, waiting for me, like, talking, like, fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of stuff. I got a plane ticket from him once. I got a car, I got Christmas bonuses, I got movie tickets. Like, he’d buy me movie tickets-like, he’d say, “Hey, have you gone to the movies lately?” I’d be like, “I dunno, oh-not really,” [and] he goes, “Do you want to go?” He’d give me, like, eight movie tickets. I got show tickets; I went and saw, like, David Copperfield. I had, like, VIP tickets or something like that.

…

I need to show you, like, what I’m talking about, like, the positioning that we were-it was like, okay, here’s the thing: there’s the, like, little flower thing, then here’s the massage table. I was right here, he was right here, [and] she was here. Um. And I was standing up, and he just pushed me over the table, and he did his thing with me.

D:Okay. Were you facing the table? Were you?

V:I was. I was facedown on the table. Like, facedown, hands, like, on my head, holding-I don’t, I don’t mean-I wasn’t fighting, really. So I don’t know if he was holding me down to kinda stop me from fighting or what he was doing. He’s just a really weird-he’s into really weird stuff. Like, I was just bent over, and my face was on the table. I was facedown on the table. And then he did his thing. So. But anyway, [redacted] was right here, and I’m pretty sure she was naked, and the couch is, like, right behind, but, um, that’s how it happened…He was only in me for, like, a minute or two. I don’t even know if you could say that long. He put it in, did a couple of pumps, or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, and I was like, “What are you doing?” [giggles] I go, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “Oh, I just wanted [redacted] to see this.” Then that was that.

CHAPTER 13

Wendy Dobbs: October 3, 2005

Every chance he gets-and he gets lots of chances-Chief Reiter drills the same thing into his investigators’ heads: they need to be careful. Patient. Methodical. Strategic. Or Epstein’s lawyers will eat them for lunch.

Inch by inch, they move their case toward the goalpost. But in October, Detective Recarey and his coworkers catch a break that moves the ball several yards down the field.

On the first Monday of that month, they pick Wendy up at her house and, down at the police station, she starts to sing-like a bird.

The detectives can hardly believe it or get it all down fast enough. Later on, in a probable-cause affidavit, Detective Recarey will write:

Approximately two years ago, just after she turned 17 years of age, [Wendy] was approached by a friend named Molly at the Canopy Beach Resort in Riviera Beach. [Dobbs] was asked if she wanted to make money. She was told she would have to provide a massage and should make $200. [Dobbs] thought about the offer and agreed to meet with Jeffrey.

Molly (Unknown last name) and Tony (Unknown last name) picked [Dobbs] up and she was taken to Epstein’s house. Upon her arrival to the house she was introduced to Epstein in the kitchen of the house. She was also introduced to a white female known to her as Sarah. She was led upstairs to the main bedroom known to her as Jeff Epstein’s bedroom.

Sarah arranged the massage table and covered the table with a sheet. She brought out the massage oils and laid them next to the massage bed. Sarah then left the room and informed [Dobbs] Jeff would be in, in a minute. Jeff entered the bedroom wearing only a towel.

He removed the towel and laid nude on the massage table. He laid on the table onto his stomach and picked a massage oil for [Dobbs] to rub on him.

“He tried to touch me, and I stopped him,” says Dobbs.

I asked how he tried to touch her. [Dobbs] stated that Epstein grabbed her buttocks and she felt uncomfortable.

“I’ll massage you,” Dobbs had told Epstein. “But I don’t want to be touched.”

[Dobbs] stated she performed the massage naked. At the conclusion of the massage, Epstein paid [Dobbs] $200.

After the massage Epstein stated to [Dobbs] that he understood she was not comfortable, but he would pay her if she brought over some girls. He told her the younger the better. [Dobbs] stated she once tried to bring a 23-year-old female and Epstein stated that the female was too old. [Dobbs] stated that in total she only remembers six girls that she brought to see Epstein. Each time she was paid $200. [Dobbs] said at the time she brought these girls to Epstein’s house they were all 14 through 16 [years] of age.

Wendy Dobbs keeps talking. What she says about Mary’s visit lines up neatly with what Mary’s already told the police. Wendy’s own experience with Epstein syncs up, too. But Wendy’s not a victim, as Mary is. After all, she’s been playing on Epstein’s team. Team predator.

A police sergeant enters the room. What he wants to know is, does Wendy realize that she’s implicated herself in Epstein’s crimes?

Beads of sweat form on Wendy’s forehead, and now the police know they’ve really got her. She gives them phone numbers to go with the young girls she’s named. She provides addresses. But no, Wendy doesn’t quite get it. On the way home, in a police car, she brags in the backseat:

“I’m like a Heidi Fleiss,” she tells the escorting officers.

CHAPTER 14

Wendy Dobbs, interview with Detective Recarey and Sergeant Frick, October 3, 2005, transcribed from video (excerpts)

RECAREY: Okay. Your Pepsi’s coming, my Pepsi’s coming. First of all, I know you’re freaking out. Don’t freak out, just relax. Okay? I want to thank you for coming. All right? Though the door’s closed, you’re free to go at any time. You’re not here-you know, it’s only closed for our privacy.

DOBBS: That’s fine.

RECAREY: I understand that you may have information on a case that we’re looking into, okay? That’s the reason why I brought you here today. All right? And again, you’re here voluntarily. You agreed to come back with us and talk to us. But I do want to talk you about Jeff Epstein, and the whole…thing.

DOBBS: And I don’t need a lawyer, right?

RECAREY: It’s up to you. If you wanted one, you can have one. I can’t tell you yes or no on that. That’s totally [up] to you, I’m only-

DOBBS: I’m not gonna get in trouble for anything I say, right?

RECAREY: Right now, you’re just a witness. I’m talking to you as a witness…That’s totally up to you. You wanna talk to me?

DOBBS: I have no problem telling you everything I know. I’m a very cooperative person.

RECAREY: Okay. How did you first meet, um-

DOBBS: I first met Jeffrey-I was at a beach resort on Singer Island, and I was approached by this girl I went to school with. Her name was [redacted]. And she was asking me, you know, “Oh, you need extra money, I know this guy…” I thought about it and I finally gave her a call, and her and her friend [redacted] met up with me. I actually picked them up and we drove down to Jeffrey’s house. She introduced me, whatever.

RECAREY: Okay. Now, what [do] you mean by making money, how do you make money with Jeffrey?

DOBBS: Um, there’s two ways. There’s two ways you can make money. He’ll, all right-

RECAREY: That’s all right. Talk to me. Talk to me like, like nothin’.

DOBBS: How do I say-this is going to sound really sleazy, but-

RECAREY: No. Go ahead. Talk to me.

DOBBS: Every girl that meets Jeffrey starts off with giving him a massage. The more you do with him, the more you make. Basically, if you take off your clothes, you’re gonna make more. If you let him do things to you, you’re gonna make more.

RECAREY: Like “do things” you mean, touch you?

DOBBS: Yeah. Touch you in inappropriate places.

RECAREY: Okay. Does he use his hand? Does he-

DOBBS: He uses his hands and, I really wouldn’t call it a vibrator-I guess it’s like a massager? But um-I was one of the girls that refused to do that. I did it basically my-I did it naked, but I wouldn’t let him touch me or anything like that. So after that he’s like, “You know what?” He’s like, “Listen, I’ll pay you $200 for every girl that you bring to me.” He’s like, “I don’t want you to massage me anymore, you know, just bring girls to me…” So that’s the other way you can make money. For every girl that you bring to the table-so, for every girl that I brought to Jeffrey-I would make $200. Flat. Just right there.

RECAREY: Just to bring a girl.

DOBBS: Yeah. Just to bring a girl.

RECAREY: Okay. And the girl that was going knew that she would have to massage him.

DOBBS: She knew everything. She knew everything. That was one of Jeffrey’s rules. He had a problem with girls coming to the house that didn’t know what they were getting into. He would tell me, you know, “Make sure these girls know what I expect, make sure they know what they want, because when I get in that room I don’t want them to-you know-they need to know.” And, as far as [redacted]’s case, she knew everything she was getting herself into. It was all volunteer.

RECAREY: Okay. What did you tell her that she was gonna do?

DOBBS: I told her the same thing. I told her, you know, this guy Jeffrey-she came to me saying she needed money, da da da. I basically told her about it. She was like, um, you know, “What do you have to do?” I told her. I was like, “The more you do, the more you make. That’s it. In order to make money, you’re gonna have to go up there. You’re gonna take your clothes off. But the more you do, is the more you make.” She walked out of there with $300. So she obviously and evidently let him do a little more. Plus, on our way home, she kinda told me what she did.

RECAREY: Which was? Give the massage…

DOBBS: She gave the massage, and she basically let him, like, touch her, down there. Basically.

RECAREY: Did he touch her with his hands?

DOBBS: All with his hands. And then he brought out the massager. From what she told me.

…

RECAREY: How old were you when you were approached to see Jeffrey?

DOBBS: Um, I think I was seventeen?

RECAREY: Seventeen.

DOBBS: Sixteen or seventeen.

RECAREY: Okay. When was the last time you talked to him?

DOBBS: It’s been a while. I can honestly say it’s probably been about close to a year. About a year. I actually stopped working for him.

RECAREY: Who was the last girl you brought over?

DOBBS: The last girl I brought over was [redacted]…

RECAREY: Okay. You got paid two hundred bucks for taking her over?

DOBBS: Yes.

RECAREY: Okay. [Redacted] knew…

DOBBS: She knew everything.

RECAREY: That she’d have to massage him, and the more she did-

DOBBS: The more she’d make.

RECAREY: The more she got paid.

DOBBS: Yeah.

RECAREY: So, she had intercourse with him.

DOBBS: Um, I don’t know about the intercourse. I heard different stories on that. I’ve never asked him “Oh, you know…” But when I was first introduced to him, my friend [redacted] who introduced me to him, told me that she knew a girl who slept with him and made $1,000. But from what his intern-or secretary-told me, is that he doesn’t do that. He just plays around with them. So I heard two different stories.

…

RECAREY: So, when you went and you massaged him, nothing happened between you two.

DOBBS: Nothing. I wouldn’t let him.

RECAREY: Okay. Did he become forceful? Did he get upset?

DOBBS: I wouldn’t say he became upset. I think he was a little disappointed. But I’m not-I didn’t care. I knew I was getting paid. I let him-I let him look, but I never let him touch. It was out of the question for him. And I think that’s pretty much why he just, kind of down-promoted me? He was just kind of like, “You can bring girls.” But as far as working, you know-

RECAREY: Okay. How many girls have you brought to him, aside from [redacted]?

DOBBS: Oh. Um. A lot.

RECAREY: A lot?

DOBBS: Um, let’s see, there’s [several redacted names]…

RECAREY: And all these girls knew what they had to do?

DOBBS: Every one of them.

…

RECAREY: How long have you been working for him?

DOBBS: Um…I probably worked for him for a year.

RECAREY: Okay. And out of all these girls…

DOBBS: Those were all the girls I brought. But you have to remember, those girls brought other girls, too.

RECAREY: Oh, okay.

DOBBS: So it’s like-it’s like a train. It’s like, I introduced him to all my friends, and then…it goes on and on, like that.

…

RECAREY: Okay…[Redacted] being fourteen or fifteen at the time-I think [redacted] was fourteen when this happened-who else was underage? Out of all these?

DOBBS: Underage, what do you mean?

RECAREY: Under eighteen.

DOBBS: Under eighteen? All of ’em.

RECAREY: All of them?

DOBBS: All of them…

RECAREY: Okay. Did Jeff know anybody’s real true age? Or he didn’t care.

DOBBS: I don’t think he cared. He told me the younger the better.

RECAREY: The younger the better. All right.

DOBBS: Pretty much. That’s how it worked. He didn’t-let me just put it this way: I tried to bring him a woman who was twenty-three, and he didn’t really like it.

RECAREY: Didn’t go for it.

DOBBS: It’s not that he didn’t go for it. He just didn’t care for it. And he likes the girls that [are] between the ages of, like, eighteen and twenty…But some of them, I think, lie about their age. I know that when I started off young, I think he knew better [than] to believe me. I think he knew that I was younger-like, seventeen-but I told him I was, like, eighteen. Most of those girls lie when they go in there.

…

RECAREY: Let’s talk about [Mary] for a minute.

DOBBS: Okay.

RECAREY: [Mary] at the time was dating your cousin, right?

DOBBS: Mm-hmm.

RECAREY: Okay. She told you she needed to make money. Did she know you worked for Jeffrey?

DOBBS: I told her.

RECAREY: You had told her you worked for Jeffrey.

DOBBS: Mm-hmm.

RECAREY: Did you tell her what it entailed? So she knew that?

DOBBS: She knew everything before she even agreed to it.

RECAREY: Okay. So she knew that there was going to have to be some kind of-

DOBBS: Contact. Pretty much. Yeah. I told her. I told her exactly what his expectations were. I told her what goes on with the girls that go up there. I told her-it was like, “It’s your call.” I was like, “If you want to do this, fine. If not, fine. But when you go in that room, I don’t want to hear you say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know he was going to do all that.’ Because I’m telling you right now, he’s expecting it.”

RECAREY: Basically, this is touching-

DOBBS: Fondling-

RECAREY: Fondling-

DOBBS: Or whatever. And I told her when she went on her own. Just like, “Just remember, the more you do, the more you make. But that’s-that’s up to you.” And she asked me, and I brought up, told her I wouldn’t do more.

RECAREY: Okay. You made that clear, you wouldn’t do more.

DOBBS: No. Screw that!

RECAREY: But as far as [Mary] is concerned. What did she tell you that happened in that room?

DOBBS: Exact words? If I can recall, when she came downstairs from-when she came downstairs, me and her and [redacted], we all walked out. We got into the car. And I was like, “How much did you make?” She’s like, “Three hundred dollars.” And I looked at [Mary] and I just knew right then she did more.

RECAREY: Than just a massage, right?

DOBBS: Yeah. And I asked her. I was like, “Well, what’d you do?” She’s like, “Well, I started giving a massage, and then my clothes came off and, you know, he put his fingers inside me. And then he brought out the massager.” And that’s basically what she said.

…

RECAREY: It’s all right. You can talk to me. It’s all right.

DOBBS: It’s kind of incredible talking about it, now that I-I can’t believe I worked for him.

RECAREY: But it’s okay. You know what, we all go through things in life, you know what I mean? It’s an experience. And you can put this experience behind you.

…

Do girls that-people that you brought over-how did you approach them? That they were going to have to do this…Like, if they wanted to work, how did you approach them? Say, “Listen, I got this guy in Palm Beach?”

DOBBS: Um…Two of them were my friends. The others were, like, my acquaintances. It was a little more easier talking to them about it, ’cause, like, I knew them.

RECAREY: Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. ’Cause I can see you’re working up again. You’re working up the tears, I can see it, and I don’t want to get you like that.

DOBBS: I, um, pretty much I just would ask them-

RECAREY: Straight up?

DOBBS: “If you’re looking for extra money, let me know; this guy down in Palm Beach, he’s really, really, really wealthy. You have to give him a massage.” That’s all I would tell them. Then, if they were interested or told me, “Yes, I want to do it,” I’d go into detail with them before they’d actually agree. If they told me, “Yeah, that sounds good, I’m interested,” then I’d tell them, “Okay, well I’m gonna let you know, this is what you have to do, this is what’s gonna go on.”

RECAREY: Did you tell them that you were going to make money from bringing them over? Or-

DOBBS: Most part? I believe they knew…Most of the girls, we were open about that. We didn’t-they pretty much knew I was making money under the table. So…

RECAREY: Okay. Gimme two seconds. Let me get the soda…Gimme two seconds.

…

All right, I talked to my boss a little bit-

FRICK:-Which is why I’m here.

DOBBS: Okay.

FRICK: Obviously I was listening to what you were saying. And at this point you clearly implicated yourself on a crime, okay? You’ve taken girls to somebody’s house for the purpose of prostitution. More importantly, more significantly, one of those girls was fourteen at the time, okay? Now that’s a pretty significant second-degree felony, okay? I’m not going to kid you, that is-it’s a significant thing, okay? Now, you came in, you cooperated with us. The question we have for you now is, do you want to continue cooperating with us and try and help us make a case against Jeff?

DOBBS: I don’t think that’s really going to help me in the long run, though. I’ve already admitted to a second-degree felony, right?

FRICK: Yeah, you have.

DOBBS: Okay, so there you go. What’s going to keep me out of trouble? It’s not going to keep me out of trouble. I’ve already admitted committing a crime.

FRICK: I’m not going to argue with that…

DOBBS: So basically I just fucked myself. I can go two ways. I can agree not to cooperate, which is going to put me at-well-now you can use the second-degree felony against me. Or you can help and work with it and maybe get myself some slack…

FRICK: We’re still talkin’ here. What would the odds be of you contacting Jeff at this point? Have you had any contact with him at all?

DOBBS: I have not had any contact-

FRICK: How about with-

DOBBS: No, none of ’em. None of ’em…I had a phone call about four or five months ago, and I told my parents. Look, I swear to you I’m not anywhere-like, no connection with him at all. That’s why I pretty much got my number changed. I have not made any communication with him. It stopped.

FRICK: Okay. Well, I mean, that’s good. That’s good that you stopped…

…

This is what we’d like to do: We would like to reach out to some of your ex-friends and [unintelligible] talk to them. Now, the question is, do we think that they are currently still working for Jeff, in which case they would make a phone call to Jeff? Or can we just kinda show up and, you know, have you make a call as we’re standing outside and say: “Hey, you know, these guys wanna talk to you, and I’ve already told ’em everything?” Our goal is to make a better case against Jeff, all right?

RECAREY: With your cooperation.

FRICK: Let me, let me get back to-past-the cooperation thing, okay? There are lesser charges that can easily be filed: leading to the delinquency of a minor, as compared to a second-degree felony. You know what I mean? That’s a misdemeanor…First of all, I’ll tell you straight up, okay, we’re not going to take you to jail today…

DOBBS: Not today.

FRICK: Well, you’re-And here’s the other thing: If you cooperate and if we can-If you cooperate, whether we pull it off or not-that’s not up to you, that’s up to us, okay? So what we would do is if we ended up charging you with like a misdemeanor, we’d give you a call, we’d say: “Hey, you gotta come in, you know.”

RECAREY: You sign it…

FRICK: That’s our preference. You come in, you’ve been very forthright with us, you’ve been very up front-

RECAREY: Very truthful.

…

FRICK: Do you want us to call your parents, or do you want to deal with it, or do you-As far as we’re concerned you’re an adult, okay? You’re nineteen. You do what you do. You know, we can drop you off at the end of the block if you’d like. Or we can cushion the blow beyond what-but again, you’re helping us at this point. We’ve been pretty forthright with you on what is going on, our options for your future. And what we’d like you to do obviously is make a couple of calls with us this evening to talk to a couple of your, you know, these other girls.

DOBBS: I’m not really on a…Me and my parents really don’t get along right now…

FRICK: So you’d prefer that-

DOBBS: If they found out that I was-If they found out that I was into some other stuff…I’m actually stripping now…So they’re not exactly happy with me at the moment, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to piss ’em off even furthermore.

CHAPTER 15

Michael Reiter: October 3, 2005

Chief Reiter sifts through the evidence: information about underage girls-six of them-whom Wendy Dobbs procured for Epstein. Phone numbers pulled from the trash on El Brillo. An arrest report for Alison, the girl who’d been caught with a dime bag of weed.

She’d told Detective Recarey about an encounter that sounded very much like a rape.

Soon Reiter will ask a judge for a warrant. But not yet. There’s more footwork to do, and Reiter calls Detective Joe Recarey into his office.

Later that day, Detective Recarey and Sergeant George Frick arrive at the home of a girl named Jenny.* An older woman greets them at the front door and invites them inside. She introduces them to her husband and daughter. Jenny is sixteen years old. Sitting down at the dining room table, they see that she’s nervous. In between biting her lip and fidgeting, she tells them that yes, she’s been to Jeffrey Epstein’s house.

Wendy took her there once. But nothing much happened. She met Epstein’s chef and spent some time in the kitchen is all. Then she left.

“I get what you’re asking,” she says. “But really, I just want to put the whole thing behind me.”

“Okay,” the officers tell her. “You have our numbers. But Jenny, if you remember anything else, you’ll find that we’re very good listeners.”

One down. Five to go.

Detective Recarey and Detective Michael Dawson have better luck the next day with Francine, a girl who tells them that a year earlier, Wendy Dobbs-someone she knew from high school-

drove her to the house on El Brillo Way.

Francine would have been seventeen at the time.

Now she’s willing to make a sworn statement. The officers noted:

She was told she could make money working for Jeff. She was told she would have to provide a massage for Jeff…She was brought to the kitchen area by [Dobbs]. They met with the house chef who was already in the Kitchen area. Francine stated [Wendy] would wait for her in the kitchen.

Just as she did with Mary, a woman named Sarah had taken Francine upstairs and into a bedroom. Then Epstein had entered the room, wearing only a towel.

She kept her clothes on during the massage. She advised sometime during the massage, Epstein grabbed her buttocks and pulled her close to him. Francine said she was [made] uncomfortable by the incident involving Jeff. At the conclusion of the massage she was paid $200.00 for the massage.

“Do you have any formal training in massages?” the officers ask.

“No,” says Francine.

But she does have one more thing to tell them.

Sarah’s been calling Francine’s cell phone.

It could mean any number of things. The police know already that Epstein’s caught wind of their investigation. Now it appears he’s doing something about it, or at least he’s delegating the responsibility. This troubles the cops. But then, on that same day, they get one more break: Jenny calls and says that without her parents around she’s willing to make a sworn statement.

It turns out that Jenny’s visited with Epstein several times.

And, it turns out, she’d done much more than sit in the kitchen. Without her parents around, she’s much more willing to talk about it.

The first time she’d gone to the house on El Brillo Way, she says, Epstein had tried to take off her shirt. She’d become upset, and this had led to a fight-a “verbal disagreement”-with Epstein.

She’d left without getting paid. Gone down to the kitchen and told Wendy, “Let’s go!”

“If you’re uncomfortable,” Wendy had told her, “tell him to stop, and he will.”

On the other hand, Wendy had also told her, “The more you do, the more you get paid.”

A few weeks later, she agreed to return to the house on El Brillo.

Once again Sarah had taken Jenny upstairs and into the master bedroom. Sarah had set up the massage table, laid out the oils that Jenny would use.

Then Epstein had entered the room wearing only a towel.

Jenny had been wearing tight jeans. She had a tight belt on. She kept the jeans on, though Epstein still made a grab for her buttocks. Then he rolled onto his back and grabbed for her breasts. Jenny became upset yet again. But this time, she was paid two hundred dollars before leaving. She never did go back to the house. But, like Francine, she has one more thing to tell the detectives.

Another girl from her high school had been there on the day of her second visit with Epstein. Kristina. And later, Kristina told Jenny that she also had “a problem” with Epstein.

Girls seemed to be turning up all the time. And the detectives were just getting started.

One girl leads Chief Reiter’s team to another. And every time, they hear the same story. The girls are approached by Wendy Dobbs. They drive over to Epstein’s house. After a short wait in the kitchen-maybe some milk and cereal, if they feel hungry-they’re walked upstairs. Epstein’s there, waiting, wearing his towel. Sometimes with a vibrator. Sometimes the girls recommend their friends, and for this they receive a commission.

None of the girls comes from money. And none of them has been trained as a masseuse. Then again, how could they be? To become a licensed massage apprentice in Florida, you need to be eighteen years old, at least, and have a high school diploma or GED.

CHAPTER 16

Cynthia: October 6, 2005

Three days after meeting with Francine, the police drive to Boca Raton. They’re there to see Cynthia Selleck, who’s eighteen years old.* But according to the probable-cause affidavit that the Palm Beach PD is preparing in order to obtain an arrest warrant for Epstein, Cynthia was sixteen when Wendy Dobbs first took her to meet him.

During a sworn taped statement, she tells the police that she’d met Wendy at her high school. She says that Wendy had recruited her and prepped her for her first visit to Epstein’s house. And she says she’d ended up going to the house “a lot of times to provide massages over the past two years.” The affidavit states:

She considered Epstein a pervert, and he kept pushing to go further and further until [Cynthia] explained she would keep telling him she had a boyfriend.

Only recently, Cynthia says, did she begin to remove her clothes in the course of giving Epstein massages.

“Jeff would try to get away with more and more on each massage,” she tells the cops.

Still, Sarah had Cynthia’s cell phone number, and Sarah would call whenever Epstein was in Palm Beach to make an appointment for “work.”

Each time she went, Sarah would meet her at the kitchen door area. She would bring her upstairs and prepare the massage table. [Cynthia] advised Epstein would ask her questions about herself. Epstein knew she was a soccer player and would be attending [a nearby] university.

The cops want to know: Did Epstein know her real age?

[Cynthia] stated Epstein did and didn’t care. The most recent massage she provided was on October 1, 2005.

October 1.

That’s less than a week ago.

What the cops know now is that Epstein’s still at it.

What they’re about to learn seals Epstein’s fate.

CHAPTER 17

Alison: October 11, 2005

After speaking with Cynthia, Detectives Recarey and Dawson meet up, once again, with Alison. It’s been exactly one month since her arrest, and once again, she’s willing to talk. They have no trouble obtaining her sworn taped statement.

Alison is eighteen, but she’s been going to Epstein’s house since 2002. Things got off to a slow start, she says. She received two hundred dollars for her first session, during which she had her bra off but her underwear on. Still, at the end of the session, Epstein had asked for her number.

Then the sessions got heavier. Much heavier, as Detective Recarey already knew. [Alison] stated that during her many visits a routine was established between her and Epstein, he wrote in his report.

She would enter the house and get naked in the bedroom. She would then start with a back massage. Epstein would roll on to his back and allow her to massage his chest area. [Alison] stated Epstein would then begin to masturbate himself and at the same time would insert his fingers in her vagina and masturbate her with his fingers.

[Alison] explained Epstein would continue this process until he ejaculated. He would then utilize a vibrator/massager on her vagina until [Alison] climaxed. [Alison] advised that during her frequent visits, Epstein asked for her real age, [and Alison] stated she was sixteen. Epstein advised her not to tell anyone her real age. [Alison] advised that things escalated within the home as Epstein would instruct and pay [Alison] to have intercourse with his female friend, Nada Marcinkova [sic]. [Alison] explained the intercourse included using strap on dildos, large rubber penis’[sic] and other devices that Epstein had at his disposal. Epstein would watch them have intercourse and masturbate himself. Occasionally, Epstein would then join in during the female on female intercourse and provide oral sex to both [Alison] and Marcinkova. This occurred during the time [Alison] was sixteen years of age.

[Alison] advised this continued to escalate during two years. The routine became familiar to [Alison]. Epstein’s assistant Sarah would telephone her every time Epstein was in the Town of Palm Beach and would place appointments for her to visit and work for Epstein. Each time something new was introduced, additional monies were produced and offered for [Alison] to allow the acts to happen. [Alison] consented to perform all these acts but was adamant that there was an understanding with Epstein that no vaginal penetration would occur with his penis. [Alison] explained that Epstein’s penis was deformed. [She] explained that his penis was oval shaped. [She] claimed when Epstein’s penis was erect, it was thick toward the bottom but was thin and small toward the head portion. [She] called Epstein’s penis “egg-shaped.” [She] stated Epstein would photograph Marcinkova and her naked and having sex and proudly display the photographs within the home. [Alison] stated during one visit to Epstein’s house in which she provided a massage to Epstein, his female friend, Nada [sic] Marcinkova, was also present. [Alison] provided the massage in which Marcinkova and her would fondle each other’s breasts and kiss for Epstein to enjoy. Towards the end of this massage, Epstein grabbed [Alison] and turned her over onto her stomach on the massage table and forcibly inserted his penis into her vagina: [Alison] stated Epstein began to pump his penis in her vagina. [She] became upset over this. She said her head was being held against the table forcibly, as he continued to pump inside her. She screamed “No!” and Epstein stopped. She told him that she did not want to have his penis inside of her. Epstein did not ejaculate inside of her and apologized for his actions and subsequently paid her a thousand dollars for that visit. [Alison] stated she knows he still displays her photographs through out the house.

What happened to Mary had been bad enough. But what happened to Alison was on a whole other level. She’d been caught with some pot, sure. But that was hardly a felony offense. It didn’t make her a liar. And, in important respects, Alison’s statement had aligned with Mary’s and with statements they’d been given by other girls, including Wendy Dobbs. Could Wendy be trusted? Probably not. Almost certainly not. But again, what she said was also in line with what the police had heard from other girls.

Detective Recarey and his team had done exceptional work on the investigation that Officer Pagan had started.

It was enough, Reiter decided, to cause a judge to issue a search warrant.

CHAPTER 18

Michael Reiter: October 2005

On October 20, Palm Beach police officers execute a search warrant, signed by Judge Laura Johnson, at Jeffrey Epstein’s home on El Brillo Way. Inside the house, an employee is on the phone with Epstein. They ask him, politely, to hang up. Then, guns drawn, they walk up the winding stairs to the home’s second story.

Detective Recarey remains outside and reads the warrant, out loud, to Epstein’s houseman while another officer videotapes them.

“This is your copy,” Recarey says as he hands over the warrant. “When we are concluded, I will leave a list of what items we’ve taken, okay? I would ask that you don’t answer your telephone. I know that the gentleman was having a conversation with Mr. Epstein at the time. So I’m sure he’s trying to call and find out what’s going on. He will be told what was going on as soon as we’re done. Okay?”

Inside the house, detectives see the pink-and-green couch that Mary and other girls had described. They see photos of naked young girls-in some cases, girls they’ve spoken to about Epstein. They also find message pads on which are written first names, dates, and numbers for the girls.

Sometimes there are notes to go with the names and numbers: “I have girls for him.” Or “I have 2 girls for him.”

These notes are signed by one Sarah Kellen.

Epstein’s house has a strangely antiseptic quality. Some of the bedrooms look almost like doctors’ offices. In the bathroom off Epstein’s bedroom, there’s a massage table as well as stands holding strange machines, which looked like something you’d find in a dermatologist’s office.

In a wood-colored armoire beside Epstein’s bed, they see a bottle of peach-flavored Joy Jelly. In the bathroom, there are soaps shaped like penises and vaginas, bottles of Mango Mist, more Joy Jelly, and boxes of tampons.

The officers find stacks of UFC videos and DVDs of Rock Star and other B-list movies.

They also find receipts for books bought on Amazon, such as SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude.

On the first floor, detectives are drawn to two secret cameras hidden in clocks. On the computer hard drive, they see several photographs of Wendy and other girls. These images appear to come from the camera inside the clock behind Epstein’s desk.

The officers know where the cameras are because they helped install them-in 2004, when Epstein complained that someone had stolen a gun and $2,700 from him. Detective Recarey had investigated that case. But before he could arrest Epstein’s handyman, Juan Alessi, for the theft, Epstein contacted a captain in the Palm Beach PD and prevailed upon him to have the investigation called off.

Epstein had met Alessi at a luncheonette, he explained, and Alessi had agreed to pay back the money. At the time, it made no sense to prosecute: Epstein was a busy man. He was going to get his money. But he did invite the police into his home to install the cameras. This was a service that the Palm Beach PD provided (though Epstein would be the only one with access to the footage). But while they were there, the police had noticed a group of attractive young women who seemed to be camped out at the house.

The group included Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marcinkova.

None of the girls was a relative of Epstein-that fact had caught the cops’ attention.

And now, as the search continues, the cops see photographs of the very same girls.

On Epstein’s desk, the officers find Alison’s high school transcript.

The thing is, the detectives can’t shake the feeling that the Epstein house has been tidied up for their arrival. Shelves look as though they’ve been emptied, and several photographs appear to have been removed from the walls.

“[Judging] by the condition of the place to be searched,” Chief Reiter will say in his deposition for B.B. vs. Epstein, “someone probably had cleaned it up a bit.”

Maybe there’s nothing too surprising about this. After all, Reiter’s team knows that Epstein’s gotten wind of their investigation. What is surprising is that for a house that’s been scrubbed, there’s so much left lying around.

In fact, the oddest thing about the search is that someone appears to have gone through the house, gotten rid of incriminating materials, but left many clues behind.

It was as if the things the police were seeing didn’t even register as wrong.

There’s another feeling the cops can’t shake: the nagging sense that they themselves are being investigated and tailed.

First Reiter hears through the grapevine that Epstein’s lawyers have hired private investigators to perform background checks.

A public-records demand has been filed in an effort to obtain Reiter’s own records.

Detective Recarey tells Reiter that he, too, is being surveilled and that his trash has been picked through.

In his entire career as a police officer, this is the first time that Reiter’s seen or heard of such a thing: a suspect investigating his investigators. But for the moment, he puts it aside. Recarey’s doing great work on the investigation. He’s deeply invested, and for good reason: the detective’s got four kids of his own. Right now, more victims are coming out of the woodwork. And now that the warrant’s been executed, there’s no downside to interviewing Epstein’s servants.

CHAPTER 19

Detective Recarey, Probable-Cause Affidavit: May 2006

On November 21, 2005 I interviewed Jose [sic] Alessi, a former houseman for Jeffrey Epstein. Alessi stated he was employed for eleven years with Mr. Epstein, from approximately 1993 through 2004. Alessi stated he was the house manager, driver and house maintenance person. It was his responsibility to prepare the house for Epstein’s arrival. When asked about cooks or assistants, Alessi stated they traveled with Epstein on his private plane. I asked Mr. Alessi about the massages that have occurred at Epstein’s home. Alessi stated Epstein receives three massages a day. Each masseuse that visited the house was different. Alessi stated that towards the end of his employment, the masseuses were younger and younger. When asked how young, Mr. Alessi stated they appeared to be sixteen or seventeen years of age at the most. The massages would occur in Epstein’s bedroom or bathroom. He knew this because he often set up the massage tables. I asked if there were things going on other than a massage. Alessi stated that there were times towards the end of his employment that he would have to wash off a massager/vibrator and a long rubber penis, which were in the sink after the massage. Additionally, he stated the bed would almost always have to be made after the massage.

On January 4, 2006 I interviewed another former houseman, Mr. Alfredo Rodriguez. During a sworn taped statement, Mr. Rodriguez stated he was employed by Jeffrey Epstein for approximately six months, from November 2004 through May of 2005. His responsibilities as house manager included being the butler, chauffeur, chef, houseman [and to] run errands for Epstein and provide for Epstein’s guests. I asked Rodriguez about masseuses coming to the house. Rodriguez stated Epstein would have two massages a day. Epstein would have one massage in the morning and one massage in the afternoon everyday he was in residence. Rodriguez stated he would be informed to expect someone and make them comfortable until either Sarah Kellen or Epstein would meet with them. Rodriguez stated once the masseuses would arrive, he would allow them entry into the kitchen area and offer them something to drink or eat. They would then be encountered by either Sarah Kellen or Epstein. They would be taken upstairs to provide the massage. I asked Rodriguez if any of the masseuses appeared young in age. Rodriguez stated the girls that would come appeared to be too young to be masseuses. He stated one time under Epstein’s direction, he delivered a dozen roses to [Mary’s high school] for one of the girls that came to provide a massage. He knew the girls were still in high school and were of high school age. I asked Rodriguez about the massages. He felt there was a lot more going on than just massages.

He would often clean Mr. Epstein’s bedroom after the alleged massages and would discover massagers/vibrators and sex toys scattered on the floor. He also said he would wipe down the vibrators and sex toys and put them away in an armoire. He described the armoire as a small wood armoire which was on the wall close to Epstein’s bed. On one occasion Epstein ordered Rodriguez to go to the Dollar rent a car and rent a car for the same girl he brought the roses to, so that she could drive her self to Epstein’s house without incident. Rodriguez said the girl always needed rides to and from the house.

Rodriguez produced a green folder which contained documents, and a note with Mr. Epstein’s stationery with direction to deliver a bucket of roses to [Mary’s] High School after [a] high school drama performance…

During the course of the investigation, subpoenas were obtained for cell phone and home phone records from several victims and witnesses along with the cell phone records of Sarah Kellen. An analysis of these records was conducted which found numerous telephone calls were made between Sarah Kellen and the victims. These records indicate the dates the calls were made are consistent with the dates and times the victims/witnesses stated they were contacted. Specifically, the phone records showed Kellen called [Wendy Dobbs] during the exact times and dates when [name redacted] advised the incident occurred. Kellen also coordinated the encounters with [name redacted] during the time frame the girls stated they occurred.

Pursuant to a lawful subpoena I obtained Epstein’s private plane records for 2005 from Jet Aviation. The plane records show arrival and departure of Epstein’s plane at Palm Beach International airport. These records were compared to the cell phone records of Sarah Kellen. This comparison found that all the phone calls Kellen made to [Dobbs] and the victims were made in the days just prior to their arrival or during the time Epstein was in Palm Beach.

Therefore, as Jeffrey Epstein, who at the time of these incidents was fifty one years of age, did have vaginal intercourse either with his penis or digitally with [names redacted], who were minors at the time this occurred, there is sufficient probable cause to charge Jeffrey Epstein with four counts of Unlawful Sexual Activity with a Minor, in violation of Florida State Statute 794.05(1), a second degree felony. As Epstein, who at the time of the incident was fifty two years of age, did use a vibrator on the external vaginal area of [name redacted], a fourteen year old minor, there is sufficient probable cause to charge him with Lewd and Lascivious Molestation, in violation of Florida State Statute 800.04 (5), a second degree felony.