Unsealed documents detail alleged Epstein victim?s recruitment at Mar-a-Lago

By JOSH GERSTEIN08/09/2019 10:25 PM EDTA trove of court documents unsealed Friday detail allegations by an alleged victim of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein that while working as a teenage locker room attendant at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort nearly two decades ago she was recruited to give Epstein massages that often involved sexual activity.The roughly 2,000 pages of records released by the Manhattan-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals also show the same woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, appears to have claimed she had sex with a series of prominent men — including former politicians — at Epstein’s direction while working as a staff masseuse for the investment adviser, who eventually came under investigation in 2006 for sex trafficking over his involvement with teenage girls.Story Continued BelowThat probe wound up in a controversial plea deal where federal prosecutors in Florida agreed not to file charges against Epstein in exchange for him pleading guilty in 2008 to two state prostitution-related felonies. That ruling, and a fresh indictment of Epstein in federal court in New York City last month, set in motion the resignation of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was the chief federal prosecutor in south Florida and signed off on the Epstein deal.In deposition excerpts made public Friday, Giuffre said she was working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000 when she was approached by Epstein’s longtime friend Ghislaine Maxwell about giving massages to the wealthy investor, who owned a mansion in Palm Beach not far from the Trump resort.“Where in the spa were you when you were approached by Ghislaine Maxwell?” Maxwell’s attorney Laura Menninger asked at a May 2016 deposition.“Just outside the locker room, sitting where the other girl who works there usually sits,” Giuffre replied. She alleged she was also instructed by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with Epstein’s friends.“Name the other politically-connected and financially powerful people that Ghislaine Maxwell told you to go have sex with,” Menninger said.“They instructed me to have sex with George Mitchell, Jean Luc Brunel, Bill Richardson, another prince, that I don’t know his name,” Giuffre said.Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politicsBy signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. Since the day I met Jeffrey Epstein, I have had sexual contact with only one woman, namely my wife,” Dershowitz added.Epstein, who was arrested last month in New Jersey as he arrived on a private plane from France, was denied bail and remains in a federal jail in Manhattan awaiting a trial expected to take place next year.The newly released court records show Epstein invoked his right against self-incrimination when asked various questions in the Giuffre suit, including about whether Maxwell first encountered Giuffre at Mar-a-Lago. The court files also include a letter of recommendation Trump wrote for Giuffre’s father, who worked in maintenance at the resort and helped her get a job there.Flight logs for Epstein’s private planes show Trump as a passenger on at least one flight, in January 1997 from Palm Beach to Newark.The logs and depositions of Epstein’s pilots also detail former President Bill Clinton’s use of Epstein’s planes to travel around the world for the Clinton Foundation and to make paid speeches.“President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York,” Clinton spokesman Angel Urena said last month.