Editor's note: On August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein died in an apparent jailhouse suicide. For more information, see The Daily Beast's reporting here.
Federal authorities revealed Monday that a raid on Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion turned up hundreds of nude photos of girls and young women; notes and messages that allegedly back up new sex-trafficking charges against him; and a massage table with sex toys.
The details were disclosed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan as it laid out its reasons for asking the court to hold the billionaire financier without bail until trial.
ADVERTISEMENT
It said Epstein’s vast wealth and international holdings make him an “extreme flight risk”—and noted that he is in serious jeopardy of spending the rest of his life behind bars because of the evidence against him.
To that end, prosecutors outlined some of the material it has gathered to corroborate allegations that Epstein paid underage girls for sex acts and then turned some of them into recruiters to bring him more victims.
A raid on his Upper East Side residence, which is said to be worth $77 million, yielded “an extraordinary volume of photographs of nude and partially-nude young women or girls,” a court filing states.
It said Epstein, a registered sex offender had “hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of sexually suggestive photographs of fully- or partially-nude females,” and some of them appear to be of underage girls.
Some were in a locked safe that contained CDs labeled “Misc nudes 1,” and “Girl pics nude,” or even individual names, prosecutors said.
Photos of nude girls were also found during a 2005 raid on Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida, mansion—but he never went to trial then. Instead, federal prosecutors in Miami allowed him to plead guilty to a state prostitution charge—a deal that is now under investigation.
The door to Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion after an FBI raid.
Kevin Hagen/Kevin Hagen / GettyThe evidence, however, is not limited to the photos.
One of the rooms in the mansion matches descriptions provided by victims, prosecutors said in court—complete with a massage table, sex toys, and lubricant.
“Even the room where abuses occurred is set up the way it was,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Rossmiller said.
The prosecution’s memo said corroborating evidence “also includes documents and other materials, such as contemporaneous notes, messages recovered from the defendant’s residence that include names and contact information for certain victims, and call records that confirm the defendant and his agents were repeatedly in contact with various victims during the charged period.”
The prosecutors argued that evidence, along with the testimony of the alleged victims, “will be devastating evidence of guilt at any trial in this case and weighs heavily in favor of detention.”
In the memo, the Manhattan prosecutors said what they found in New York shows that Epstein has not changed his ways.
“The defendant, a registered sex offender, is not reformed, he is not chastened, he is not repentant,” they wrote. “Rather, he is a continuing danger to the community and an individual who faces devastating evidence supporting deeply serious charges.”
Defense lawyers argued that Epstein is not a flight risk, but the detention hearing was adjourned until Monday.
