Welcome back to The MJ Project Channel. This is MJ your host, podcaster and vlogger.
Tonight on The MJ Project is the first episode of our True Crime Thursday series, where we will talk about true crime stories that shook the world, or crimes that needs our attention.
If you are a true crime fan, tune in every thursday here on The MJ Project. If you are watching this on youtube, just hit the subscribe button down below.
DISCLAIMER:
The following recordings may contain disturbing details that may bother some of our listeners and viewers. Listener and Viewer discretion is advised.
PART 1:
A few weeks ago, Netflix premiered a Documentary miniseries about Jeffrey Epstein titled Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich. Based on the book of James Patterson, co written by John Connoly and Tim Malloy of the same title.
The film documents the statements and stories of the survivors of Epsteins elaborate human trafficking pyramid scheme. It also gave us a look on the power of the 1% and how they can easily get away with such horrendous crimes.
The documentary is directed by Lisa Bryant. It has 4 episodes and around 55 minutes each episode.
PART 2:
Vicky Ward, a journalist from Vanity Fair, was tasked to write an article about a man named Jeffrey Epstein titled, The Talented Mr Epstein. This article was to be about his business and how he became a billionaire. Through the course of her research, she found out about two girls, sisters, who were abused by Epstein. One of them was underage when the abuse happened. This took her research on Epstein to a whole new different direction.
Ward recounted the moment Epstein found out that the story of the 2 girls will be included in the piece. He called Ward, she was pregnant at that time, and told her that if he did not like the article, he would be able to find out where she was to give birth, and have a witchdoctor place a curse on her unborn children. At the same time, her editor was also spooked because he found a severed cat head on his garden and a bullet on his doorstep. After these incidents, Ward’s editor told her to remove the story about the 2 girls from her article.
The two girls, sisters Marie and Annie Farmer was lured by Epstein and his girlfriend Ghillane Maxwell into their sinister scheme of lies and abuse.
Marie, a painter, met Jeffrey Epstein and Ghillaine Maxwell at an art exhibit where they bought all her paintings. And then she was offered a job to manage the door of his newly bought apartment. Through the course of their work relationship, she mentioned to Epstein that she has sisters and one of them, 16 year old Annie, had dreams of entering an Ivy League school. He then offered Annie to bring her on international trips to add to her portfolio. During a trip to his ranch in New Mexico, he and Ghillane molested Annie. Ghillane offered to massage her. She asked Annie to get naked and on the massage bed, she kept massaging her inappropriately. She kept touching her breast a lot. The next morning, alone in her bedroom, Epstein went in and said he wanted to “cuddled” her. He then proceeded to touch her inappropriately.
Marie on the other hand was also brought to an out of town trip to Ohio with Epstein and Ghillane where she was molested. In their bedroom, they asked Marie to lie down between them. Epstein and Ghillane started to grope her breast. After the abuse, she locked herself in her room until Epstein and Maxwell left that next morning.
When Marie found out that Annie also was abused by Epstein and Maxwell, she filed a report with the FBI but they never called her back.
Epstein and Ghilane found out that Marie reported them to the FBI. Marie then received calls from Ghillaine threatening her life. She had to move from her home to keep safe, but everytime she moves, Ghillaine would find her and would make the same threats over and over again. Marie never felt safe anywhere. She ended up changing her name and moved off grid to the mountains.
PART 3:
Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida mansion was the epicenter of his hunting ground in Florida, where he molested countless young girls. Take note that most of these were girls under the age of 13 to 16 years old.
Ghillaine Maxwell lured these girls by offering them 200$ to massage a man in Palm Beach. That man is Jeffrey Epstein. Ghillaine will bring the victim in a room where a massage bed is ready. Epstein will then lie down on the massage bed. Ghialline will teach the girl how to massage him, she will then remove her clothes and ask the victim to remove hers as well. Once they are all naked, she will leave the room. Leaving the victim and Epstein alone. He will then proceed to show his private part and sometimes pleasure himself. But most of the time, he will proceed in raping these young girls.
There would be some girls who he would not be able to abuse in such a gruesome way, what he would do is he would ask these girls to bring in other girls to “massage” him. With every girl they bring, he will give them 200$ as well.
This pyramid scheme of abuse has been going on for a long time until one of the victims made a report to the local Florida Police. Police started to interview several victims until they were able to get an approval to make an arrest.
The police then proceed to raid Epstein’s Palm Beach home. When they entered his mansion, everything about the victims’ description of the house was accurate. But Epstein was no where to be found. It looked like he was tipped off about the raid and the warrant of arrest. But The police did not leave empty handed, thye found message notes containing names of girls that were being brought to his house. Most of these girls were minors or below the age of 18. The message cards detail the calls from these young girls saying that they will be coming over for these “massages” after school. Without them knowing that these massages will end up in rape or harrasment.
Having all these evidence and the statements of about 40 teenagers, the police was ready to file a case against Jeffrey Epstein. They were positive that this will be a very easy case and he will definitely be prosecuted and put to jail.
Epstein hired a group of criminal defense lawyers, 8 in total. They were the best of the best in their field of work. One of his lawyers was Alan Dershowitz.
While the police was doing their investigation, Epstein hired personal investigators to harass both the police and the victims who were filing a case against him. These private investigators would stay outside the victim’s homes and put on their headlight on bright all through the night. Some of the victims had to be removed by the police from their homes and taken to a motel or hotel to protect them and their families from Epsteins private investigators.
The police and detectives were not safe from the harassment as well. These investigators would have them under surveillance for days and days. It came to a point where even their trash was being picked up by these Epstein investigators. They had to be very careful what documents they put in the trash. They made sure that their police reports about the Esptein case was kept in a secure place.
The state attorney’s office in Florida was all support for the police investigation against Epstein, until they weren’t. Suddenly they claim that these girls are not reliable witnesses because they accepted financial compensation for their “massages”. But the investigators were firm to say that having sex with a minor, paid or not, is still against the law. No child could consent to have sex with an adult.
Because of this, they were not able to file a solid case against Epstein, he was only prosecuted with a felony count. He was arrested but, the billionaire that he is, he was able to post bond just a few hours after.
But the media was quickly on his case. He was in the headlines, in every news station. The media and the public was questioning why they only prosecuted him for soliciting prostitution and not having sexual intercourse with a minor. But Epstein wanted it to stop. He calls the news station to threat reporters to make sure that they stop reporting about him.
Since the local florida police was not able put him in jail for his crimes, they transferred the case to the FBI.
When the FBI started their investigation, they found a report from 10 years ago from Marie and Annie Farmer, accusing him of sexual harassment.
Through out their invetigation, they met other victims. One of them recounted a story of how she met epstein through one of his “recruiters”. Epstein promise her that he will put her through design school. She was also invited by Epstein to vacation in his island at the Virgin Islands. In the plane, secretly called the lolita express, on their way to his island, Epstein started to have hard core sex with one of the girls on the plane. They were doing it infront of all the other passengers to see.
When they arrive at the island, she was raped by Epstein three times. She tried to escape but Epstein had a hold of her and her safety.
This island in the Virgin Islands is called The Island Of St James. But it is famously known by the locals as pedophile island. The girls that Epstein brings there calls it the orgy Island. But Epstein fondly calls it Little St Jeffs.
One of the employees who work for Epstein in the island says that he has seen His Royal Heighness Prince Andrew in the pool, having foreplay with a naked teenage girl. He also said he saw former president Bill Clinton with Epstein on the Island. The former president has denied ever been in the island inspite of the fact that there are airport logs showing his name on Epstein private plane more than 10 times.
The survivors have also made statements saying that Epstein and Ghillaine gave them to other men to molest and rape. One of these men is the prince of England, Prince Andrew. He is the son of the current reigning queen, Queen Elizabeth. The survivor, Virginia Roberts, said she was trafficked to Prince Andrew at least 3 times. Another name that Virginia mentioned is Epsteins own lawyer, Alan Dershowitz. She said she was trafficked to him as well. Dershowitz denies this allegations.
PART 4
Who is Jeffrey Epstein? Why is he a billionaire?
Jeffrey Epstein was born in humble beginnings to a middle class family. He was smart but he did not finish college.
He worked in Dalton College where he lied in his application, saying that he is a college graduate. But he was able to talk himself into not getting fired. This is the beginning signs that he was good at manipulation.
After Dalton College, he was able to work at Bear Sterns in Wall Street. This is when he met Steven Hoffenberg. Hoffenberg claims that he is the reason why Epstein became a billionaire. This is because him and Epstein were partners in crime on a 460 million dollar Ponzi scheme. Hoffenberg was jailed because of this Ponzi scheme but he did not bring Epstein down with him.
Epstein met another billionaire, Lex Wexner, the owner of Victoria Secret and other big name brands. Wexner made him take care of his corporations’ finances until he cut ties with him.
He used his connection with Wexner to lure women to his abuse by pretending to be the owner of Victoria Secret. He will pretend to recruit models in hotel rooms, but will rape them instead.
All of this connections made him so rich that he owns a whole island in the Virgin Islands, a ranch in New Mexico, a 7 story luxury apartment in New York, a vacation home in Paris and a summer mansion in Palm Beach Florida. He also owns 2 private planes. He is friends with very high profile personalities and politicians such as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Harry Weinstein and a whole lot more.
As an american billionaire, he has always kept a very private life. He seems to ba an introvert. And to compliment his personality come in Ghillaine Maxwell. She is this social butterfly. The daughter of powerful British media mogul Robert Maxwell. She grew up in England, studied in Oxford and she is close friends with the royals. She was the one who introduced Epstein to Prince Andrew.
PART 5
During the investigation, officials and lawyers interviewed Epstein about the charges made against him. In one of the interviews, the prosecution lawyer narrated on how one of the victims described his penis: egg shaped penis or oval shaped. Witness claimed that when erect, it was thick towards the bottom but was thin and small towards the head portion and called it egg shaped.
He walked out of the interrogation room after this. He does this several times whenever he feels like he is losing control of the situation.
In another interrogation, the investigator asked him if he knew one of the victims, Virginia Roberts. And then Epstein goes on to mock him by asking him to spell her name. The investigator said the spelling is the regular spelling of Roberts. But he kept on insisting for the investigator to spell it out for him. He won’t answer until the investigator spells it out.
When the florida police transferred the case to the FBI and the FBI were to take Epstein to court with a solid case, they were blind sided by Epstein and his lawyers. Epstein made a secret deal with the US State Attorney Alexander Acosta. Acosta made sure that Epstein would get away with just a slap on the wrist. Acosta gave him, and his associates a very sweet deal as long as he pleaded guilty. He did plead guilty to a lesser charge which only sentenced him to 18 months on prison. But during his time in prison, the justice system was very lenient with him. He was only required to go to prison to spend the night each day for 18 months which means he was allowed to go out and about during the day and be the notorious pedophile that he is.
But what’s more troubling is the fact that in every question, he kept pleading the 5th. To give you an idea, let me read Wikipedia’s description of the US 5th amendment:
The Fifth Amendment protects individuals from being forced to incriminate themselves. Incriminating oneself is defined as exposing oneself (or another person) to "an accusation or charge of crime," or as involving oneself (or another person) "in a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof." The privilege against compelled self-incrimination is defined as "the constitutional right of a person to refuse to answer questions or otherwise give testimony against himself. ..."[37] To "plead the Fifth" is to refuse to answer any question because "the implications of the question, in the setting in which it is asked" lead a claimant to possess a "reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer", believing that "a responsive answer to the question or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because injurious disclosure could result."
Historically, the legal protection against compelled self-incrimination was directly related to the question of torture for extracting information and confessions
But him pleading the 5th was not enough to keep him away from prison. In 2019 he was brought to a New York court to face his accusers and face his crimes. But none of that will happen again. Because Jeffrey Epstein will commit suicide in his prison cell. A lot of conterversy and theories surround his death though. Let me enumerate them:
Before his death, he was already on sucuide watch which means that he is not allowed to be left alone in his cell
Prison guards are required to check in on him every 30 minutes. But the guards said that they fell asleep and was not able to check on him for a couple of hours
Security cameras were all malfunctioning during the time of his supposed suicide
Post mortem autopsy shows the injury caused to his neck was more of a result of someone being strangled than someone being hanged
With all these facts I enumerated, everything that has to go wrong that night, went wrong. There is also his last will and testament. Just 2 days before his supposed sucide, he made changes to his will. All his assets and estate were transferred to his brother.
What does this mean? It means that his victims will never be able to get financial compensation from the civil suit case they have against him. It was his final blow to his victims which also shows that he has no remorse for his actions.
His death did not give peace or closure to the victims, it actually angered them more. Because they feel he made an easy way out. He did not make time or faced the consequences of his actions. He escaped the verdict and the judgement of his “peers”.
But this did not stop the survivors. They are still fighting. Fighting to put all those who abused them, who raped them, behind bars. No matter how powerful they are, even if they were “just clients” or “just friends” of Epstein and Maxwell, they still committed a crime. They still abused and raped these survivors when they were just minors. These strong women are still fighting and I admire them for it. And I am doing this podcast as my share in helping them to let all of you, my listeners, know that this is happening. I am helping them in my small way by educating you, my listeners, about what happened to them, that they may not be forgotten, because their abusers are not dead, they are still out there.
PART 5
(reflections)
The case of Jeffrey Epstein gave us a glimpse on the dark secrets that the elite is able to keep for years on end. How the powerful can ultimately get away with anything.
On his death, I mentioned there are a lot of theories surrounding his death. Personally, I feel like he as murdered. And he knew that he will be murdered. One of the details revealed in the docuseries was there are video cameras in all rooms in his houses. Which means he has recorded videos of all the people who molested the girls he was trafficking. And these videos may include the likes of Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew. With all these powerful names, it won’t be a surprise that they would want him dead, and their secrets dead with him.
This type of human trafficking crime is not new and definitely not isolated to the elite classes. A bigger network of human trafficking crimes happen to the lower classes, mostly to the poorest of the poor. Especially in a third world country such as the Philippines. Most of our women and children are vulnerable to cases of human trafficking because they are easily brain washed to believing that there is no other way out.
PART 6 (closing)
There are still a lot of topics that we can discuss from the case of Jeffrey Epstein. First is facts about human trafficking which I will discuss more in detail on my Tuesday Traffic episodes. Stay tuned next Tuesday if you would like to find out more about human trafficking.
On the next episode of True Crime Thursday, I will talk about the BBC interview of Prince Andrew about his involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein case. If you have not seen the interview, I will post on the caption a link to the youtube channel of BBC.
For tonight, Thank you everyone for your time and for listening. I hope you learned something from our True Crime Thursday episode. Keep listening, keep watching, and keep safe. Goodnight.
Comments