Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein Indicted For Sex-Trafficking, Accused Of Abusing 14-Year-Old Girls
The financier was arrested 11 years after first sex abuse scandal.
Feb. 12 2020, Updated 6:03 p.m. ET
Just two days after he was arrested, billionaire businessman Jeffrey Epstein has been charged with sex-trafficking, RadarOnline.com can report.
According to an unsealed New York federal court indictment obtained by Radar, the 66-year-old “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations” between 2002 and 2005.
The financier “enticed and recruited” minors to visit his lavish estates to “engaged in sex acts with him,” United States Attorney Gregory S. Berman wrote, adding that he paid the girls “hundreds of dollars in cash” after each incident of abuse.
The minors were as young as 14 years old at the time of the abuse, the documents state.
Epstein recruited the girls to provide nude “massages,” which became “increasingly sexual in nature,” the court papers claim.
The girls then were purportedly asked to recruit other minors, creating a vast network of alleged victims.
He was arrested on Saturday, July 6 after his private jet reportedly arrived from France to New York.
He is now being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, and is expected to appear in court on July 8.
In a press conference, U.S. Attorney Jeff Berman said he hopes Epstein will remain behind bars.
"We will make a case that Epstein should be detained pending trail," Berman revealed. "We think he is a flight risk. And with his tremendous wealth and two planes, and who spends most of his time abroad, we have reason to believe he could flee. With his age and the amount of time he is looking to serve, he could flee."
Berman claimed Epstein's alleged conduct "went on for years, and it involved a lot of underage girls."
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The alleged victims "deserve to be heard in court, and we are glad to be standing up for them. The sexual abuse of a minor can have a devastating effect on victims that last many many years. Our office will not rest until we seek justice for these victims."
In 2008, Epstein was convicted of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution, for which he served just 13 months in a “custody with work release" program.
