By Gregory Crofton
Jeffrey Epstein let the head of his legal team, former Harvard law professor and defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, know he wasn’t satisfied with the plea deal made on his behalf in 2008.
Still Epstein agreed to sign off on it. People described it as a “sweetheart deal” until a judge officially declared in 2019 it had been unlawful.
Apparently the late Mr. Epstein’s aggression and arrogance had no bounds.
“At the end, Jeffrey Epstein didn’t think we made a very good deal, he was pretty upset with us,” Dershowitz says in the film. “He thought he could have done better.”
Epstein’s crimes of raping and sexually molesting dozens if not hundreds of teenage girls should and could have put him in prison for life. What he got as punishment instead was minimal, an 18-month jail sentence and immunity for his co-conspirators. The fix had been in.
Epstein celebrated his release from jail by hosting a party at his New York City mansion. People like Woody Allen attended. Epstein was back on the scene, free to pile up nude photos in his safe and pay for sex from underage girls, apparently sometimes two or three times a day.
“Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich,” a four-part docu-series released May 27 on Netflix, was executive produced by prodigious author James Patterson and well-known documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, the Paradise Lost trilogy). It was directed by Lisa Bryant, who producers chose to direct the series in part because she is a woman.
They were determined to give “survivors” a real voice in the documentary. They succeeded, and fortunately those horror stories are woven into an investigative narrative in a way that doesn’t slow this mammoth story down.
Epstein was a sexual predator skilled in identifying vulnerable girls and roping them into a pyramid scheme that paid $200 for a “massage,” but if they refused his sexual advances he still offered them cash to recruit other girls.
Where did he get his cash?
Turns out Epstein stole it from Les Wexner, a multi-billionaire who started the women’s apparel store The Limited and later bought Victoria’s Secret, among other businesses. “Filthy Rich” reports that Epstein may have been sleeping with Wexner to gain his trust and steal his money.
The scope of this story is astounding. Jeffrey Epstein is certainly in the running for the worst, most productive criminal of all time. As someone close to me put it, “He was the devil walking.”
And, if you were ever to hear the devil’s voice, you might think it would be impressive or somehow sublime. Instead Epstein’s voice, recorded in various depositions, is jarring. It’s kind of cartoonish, with a thick Coney Island accent.
Pimps often have a girl or a single women treated best who is relied on most. In Epstein’s case, this woman was Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who found herself by his side in the early 1990s. She is mentioned throughout the series as being the primary recruiter of girls for Epstein. She is also accused of participating in many of the sexual assaults.
Watch the bonus Netflix clip below to learn more about what Maxwell is up to today.