What we all know and do not find out about Jeffrey Epstein, in keeping with key victims’ lawyer

Brad Edwards is aware of that what you’re about to learn could also be tough for some to simply accept.

A victims’ rights lawyer from Florida, Edwards has been in pursuit of the reality about financier and convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein’s life and crimes for almost twenty years. He can be the primary to say that Epstein precipitated incalculable injury and trauma to a whole lot of ladies and ladies.

The truth is, lengthy earlier than Epstein turned recognized worldwide for his crimes, Edwards presciently instructed a federal choose, “Due to [Epstein’s] deviant urge for food for younger ladies, mixed along with his extraordinary wealth and energy, he could be essentially the most harmful sexual predator in U.S. historical past.”

That was 17 years in the past.

Again then, hardly anybody listened.

Within the years since, Edwards and his co-counsel — on behalf of Epstein’s victims — have sued Epstein, his property, the federal authorities and a number of other monetary establishments, recovering a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for greater than 200 survivors of Epstein’s intercourse abuse and trafficking. He is aware of the victims’ tales in addition to anybody and, in the middle of all of the litigation, he has reviewed an expansive quantity of private paperwork and proof associated to the late Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 whereas awaiting trial for intercourse trafficking of minors.

Now, because the Trump administration finds itself within the midst of a firestorm over its resolution to not launch any extra investigative recordsdata on Epstein — after promising to supply a so-called “shopper record” of individuals related to Epstein who might have participated in unlawful acts — Edwards has determined it is necessary to share what he is realized about Epstein, a lot of which contradicts what many have come to imagine in regards to the case.

“Jeffrey Epstein was the pimp and the john. He was his personal No. 1 shopper,” Edwards instructed ABC Information. “Practically the entire exploitation and abuse of the entire ladies was supposed to learn solely Jeffrey Epstein and Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual needs.”

Edwards describes the enigmatic Epstein as dwelling, primarily, two separate lives: one through which he was sexually abusing ladies and ladies “every day,” and one other through which he related to politicians, royalty, and titans of enterprise, academia, and science.

“For essentially the most half, these two worlds didn’t overlap. And the place they overlapped, within the situations they overlapped, it appears to be a really small proportion,” Edwards mentioned. “There have been events the place a choose few of those males engaged in sexual acts with a choose few of the ladies that Jeffrey Epstein was exploiting or abusing — primarily ladies who had been over the age of 18.”

“That conduct was coercive, it was exploitative, and it was unhealthy. Nevertheless it’s a small fraction of the lads he was related to,” Edwards mentioned. “And he was abusing a whole lot of ladies, if not a thousand. And it is a very small fraction of these ladies that he was sending to males. That conduct was secondary to his abusive conduct. [Epstein] abused all of those ladies.”

Edwards mentioned he’s certain by attorney-client privilege and can’t ethically reveal the names of any of Epstein’s alleged associates with out permission from his shoppers. However he mentioned he has seen no indication that Epstein saved an inventory of these males, or that he made it a follow to make use of these situations to blackmail or extort the lads, although these males might have been legitimately involved that Epstein had compromising data that he might use in opposition to them.

“It is tough to even discern, when he would ship a girl to one in every of his pals, whether or not that was even a motivation. What he was not is an individual on the highest of a intercourse trafficking operation that was sending ladies to highly effective folks world wide in order that he might earn a living. It was not a enterprise,” Edwards mentioned. “And I feel the few examples that we’ve, the recognized examples, have led to this perception that he will need to have been doing that with the entire ladies that he was abusing. That will need to have simply been his gig. However that wasn’t what he was doing every day. He is a sexual abuser and predator himself.”

If Epstein saved an inventory of these males, Edwards mentioned he isn’t seen it.

“Did Jeffrey write the names of those folks down? I’ve by no means seen that. I solely know of sure of those people due to representing shoppers,” Edwards mentioned. “I’ve by no means seen an inventory of those who Jeffrey Epstein saved that may say, ‘Here is an inventory of males that I’ve despatched ladies to,’ or a mix-and-match the place it is like, ‘I despatched this lady to this man.'”

“That is simply not one thing that he was preserving,” Edwards mentioned. “And it might be extremely, extremely unlikely that Jeffrey Epstein would preserve an inventory of the those who he despatched these ladies to. I would think about he would simply keep in mind it. It is not that many ladies, and it is not that many males.”

Over the previous couple of months, because the controversy surrounding the on-again, off-again plan to reveal Epstein-related paperwork has dominated the information cycle, Edwards mentioned he has heard from dozens of survivors involved in regards to the circus-like ambiance that’s forcing them to relive traumatic experiences and threatens to reveal their identities, even when inadvertently. Any public launch of knowledge, Edwards mentioned, ought to redact figuring out details about Epstein’s victims.

“They’d profit from the story ultimately dying off. However the story just isn’t going to die off so long as there’s this lack of transparency that’s permitting for conspiracy theories to proceed to fester and get out of hand,” Edwards mentioned. “So the perfect factor can be: Shield the victims’ names, launch every little thing else, in order that the world can see what’s actual, versus what’s whole fiction, after which everyone can transfer on.”

However the latest resolution by the Trump administration to rule out additional disclosures would appear to impression classes of fabric recognized to be within the possession of federal authorities, together with Epstein’s monetary data, particulars of his worldwide journey, logs of boat journeys to his U.S. Virgin Islands property, and inventories of what was present in searches of his mansions in New York and elsewhere. And it raises questions whether or not these data, if made public, might lastly result in a greater understanding of how a university dropout from Coney Island managed to build up astounding wealth and proximity to energy — a metamorphosis that has lengthy defied prepared rationalization.

“It’s extremely unusual to me that any individual who hardly ever leaves his home is one way or the other capable of get conferences with folks. And they’ll journey from actually all around the world to fulfill with him on his time, at his place, beneath his circumstances. Which solely simply leaves extra questions than solutions,” Edwards mentioned. “And the truth that they don’t seem to be releasing something is, I feel, simply sort of fanning the flames of the conspiracy concept that everyone that he was assembly with had one thing to do with unlawful intercourse. And I do know that is not true.”

“We’re all for transparency,” mentioned Edwards. “I feel the world must know who Epstein was, what he was doing, how he made his cash, who he was assembly with, and the way he may need operated in different areas of enterprise and politics. And all of that might be executed by way of the discharge of paperwork and data that’s at present throughout the Justice Division, with what they’ve. However now there’s this about-face the place they had been going to launch every little thing and now abruptly they’re releasing nothing. I feel there’s a center floor there that the general public deserves.”

Edwards notes that the federal government’s recordsdata might additionally make clear those that assisted or enabled Epstein to abuse so many ladies, and will lastly reply hypothesis that Epstein was an intelligence asset of the U.S. or a international nation.

“[The government] ought to know whether or not or not he was an intelligence asset, whether or not he is ever executed work with the federal government, whether or not he is ever had a take care of the federal government earlier than,” Edwards mentioned. “I’d assume that that can also be throughout the Epstein recordsdata. I do not know that data. I wish to know.”

However for Edwards, the first concern ought to be for the survivors of Epstein’s abuse — and he worries that the victims are an afterthought within the ongoing Washington energy wrestle.

“I feel some [victims] imagine that the federal government protected him, and there is this outrage as a result of they imagine that [Epstein] was all the time extra necessary than they had been, and that is why this was allowed to go on for therefore lengthy. So if there was proof that his political or different connections assisted, I feel that they might wish to realize it,” Edwards mentioned. “However extra so, they simply need this to die off. They usually see it is not dying off due to the way in which that it is being dealt with proper now. The truth is, one way or the other there’s extra consideration to it in the present day than there was when he was abusing them.”

For the well-being of the survivors, Edwards is hopeful there’ll quickly be a decision that can permit the victims to maneuver on.

“I simply want everyone would step again and keep in mind actual folks had been harm right here, and let’s attempt to do what’s of their greatest curiosity, versus politicizing this entire factor and making it the appropriate versus the left,” he mentioned. “All of that’s hurting the people who find themselves already harm.”