Two women are suing the co-executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, claiming that the late sex-trafficker “violently” assaulted them at his Manhattan mansion in the 2000s.
The lawsuits are the latest to arrive under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which provides a one-year window for adult survivors of sexual abuse to file claims regardless of whether the statute of limitations has expired. That window closes next November.
One of the accusers, referred to under the pseudonym “Naomi Doe,” alleges that she was recruited into giving Epstein massages at his Upper East Side townhouse in 2005—the same year Epstein was under investigation for molesting minors in Florida.
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The complaint says Naomi, then 20, was enlisted “under the false pretense that she would be providing a legitimate body massage” and that she was offered $300 for the visit, despite having no experience with massage therapy.
Once Naomi was inside Epstein’s room, the filing states, the financier began to assault her and ignored her when she voiced discomfort with his actions. “Throughout the duration of the sexual encounter,” the lawsuit says, Naomi “found herself trapped in Jeffrey Epstein’s large mansion under the impression that there was no feasible or safe means of escape.”
Naomi “observed the opulence of the mansion and the appearance of individuals with authority, which collectively facilitated her further cooperation with Jeffrey Epstein,” the lawsuit continues, adding that Epstein assaulted Naomi 10 more times over a span of months. The assaults escalated from forcible touching to rape, the complaint says.
Meanwhile, in her own suit, a woman identified as “Mia Doe” says that she was 18 in 2003 when a friend recruited her into giving Epstein a massage. The complaint says that when Mia arrived at Epstein’s lair, “because of its grandeur and opulence, she believed that the building was likely some type of professional massage parlor.”
“Once inside of the massage room with her friend, Jeffrey Epstein entered and removed his clothing,” the lawsuit says. According to the filing, Mia was “immediately uncomfortable” and “got upset and asked her friend what was going on.”
The friend then “begged” Mia to massage Epstein and to comply with whatever she or Epstein told her to do, the suit alleges.
The lawsuit says that Epstein “grew outwardly angry” with Mia’s friend when Mia refused to obey Epstein’s orders and demanded the friend “do something to force [her] to comply.” Epstein was so irate that Mia was concerned for her friend, the filing adds.
Epstein allegedly then began sexually touching Mia and refused to stop. After a struggle, the lawsuit says, Mia “was finally able to break free from his grasp and run to the door of the massage room to leave as Epstein continued to yell at [her] friend.” After Mia escaped from the mansion, she never returned, the filing states.
The pair of lawsuits allege sexual battery, sexual assault, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress and name the co-executors of Epstein’s estate, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, as defendants.
“Thanks to the New York legislature’s decision to do the right thing for sexual abuse survivors, young women who were victimized by Jeffrey Epstein have one more chance to receive the justice that they deserve,” said Brittany Henderson, a partner at the firm Edwards Pottinger LLC, which represents the accusers.
“We have filed these lawsuits because regardless of your age at the time of the abuse, sexual predators should always be held accountable,” Henderson told The Daily Beast. “For the next year, we will continue to stand beside our clients in their quest for justice and we encourage all other survivors, of Jeffrey Epstein or any other predator in the state of New York, to do the same.”
Naomi Doe and Mia Doe’s legal actions aren’t the only ones filed under the Adult Survivors Act to accuse Epstein of sexual abuse.
Last month, Cheri Pierson filed a complaint alleging Epstein arranged for billionaire Leon Black to rape her at Epstein’s New York townhouse. Epstein’s estate, as well as Black, are defendants in the case.
The complaints come on the heels of a recent settlement between the U.S. Virgin Islands and Epstein’s estate, which has agreed to pay the government $105 million to make up for the millions in tax benefits his financial companies received while running a sex-trafficking operation on his private island.
They also arrived the same day a Manhattan federal court unsealed another cache of records related to Epstein’s sex ring. The secret filings, which are part of a lawsuit Virginia Roberts Giuffre filed against Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015, have been released to the public in installments since 2019.
On Tuesday, the documents included a deposition from Sarah Ransome, a survivor of Epstein’s abuse who detailed how the financier “lent out” girls in his orbit to his powerful male friends. “He samples the girls, he has friends come over to New York or the island and they… get to pick one which they want to be with.”
