For a third straight day, more documents from a civil suit related to convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein were released Friday.
Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 as he faced charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy, has been the subject of conspiracy theories, which the documents released have done little, if anything, to justify.
The documents released Friday by a federal court in New York City are part of a settled lawsuit against now-jailed Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who said she was a victim of sex trafficking and abuse when she was a teenager in the early 2000s.
The documents include a deposition by Tony Figueroa, who testified he was paid to bring girls he knew to Epstein’s Florida property.
Figueroa has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing.
He would be paid $200 apiece, introduce them and leave, he said, according to a transcript. He told them they would be a masseuse.
“And then I told them — I was, like, ‘Now, listen.’ I was, like, ‘I’m letting you know I don’t know what he’s going to ask you to do,’” Figueroa said according to the transcript. “But, you know, he obviously has money willing to pay for stuff. So whatever happens, I don’t.”
The documents, which started to be released Wednesday, shed some light on the powerful and politically connected circles in which Epstein traveled.
Former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are mentioned, but the documents don’t allege any wrongdoing on either’s part.
The documents released Friday include a deposition from Epstein housekeeper Juan Alessi who said Trump would sometimes visit and have meals at Epstein’s Florida property — but in the kitchen, not at the table — and that Trump never got a massage or stayed there.
Alessi said in a deposition that he met Clinton on Epstein’s plane. A spokesperson for Clinton has acknowledged that Clinton and staff members were on Epstein’s plane four times when there were stops in connection with Clinton foundation work, but was never at Epstein’s Caribbean island or his properties in Florida and New Mexico.
“President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York,” Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said in a statement in 2019.
Giuffre testified in a deposition that at times she was directed to have sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew, another prince who is not named, the owner of a large hotel chain who is also unnamed in a deposition, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Glenn Dubin, a billionaire hedge fund manager.
Andrew has denied the claims, as has Dubin. Richardson died in September, but his office in 2019 said he never met Guiffre, he had limited interactions with Epstein and never saw Epstein with young or underage girls.
Alessi, the housekeeper, testified in a deposition released Friday that Andrew stayed at Epstein’s Florida property and got massages.
Alessi said he recalled Epstein talking to “many celebrities,” and his visitors also included a couple of Nobel Prize winners.
Also included in the exhibits released Friday are images of handwritten phone messages — including one that has the name Harvey Weinstein on it.
A handwritten note from 2005 that says for “Jeffrey” reads in the message field “she had on the phone Mr. Harvey Weinstein.” The person leaving the message is redacted. There are no other details about Weinstein on the note.
Weinstein, a former famed Hollywood producer, is serving prison sentences of 39 years combined after being convicted of rape in New York City and Los Angeles.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted by a jury on five federal counts, which include one count each of and sex trafficking of a minor and sex trafficking conspiracy.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
