The first account of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s meeting has been revealed in documents released by the US Department of Justice, and the financier claimed he had pulled the young British socialite out of a “dark depression” after the death of her father.
Maxwell moved to New York in the early 1990s in the months before Robert Maxwell’s mysterious disappearance off his yacht, named Lady Ghislaine after his youngest daughter.
Epstein, who was working as a wealth manager at the time, wrote that the pair had met through “mutual friends” and that she had found the friendship “immediately rewarding”.
He said that there had been “few bright spots for her during that period”, and he had tried to lift her spirits by giving her “books to read — good novels, scientific studies — containing issues to challenge her mind”. He claimed he would regularly take Maxwell to comedy clubs to “relieve her depression”.
There is no context provided as to why Epstein’s recollections of their early years together was typed out in a formal memo, or what date it was written. However, he appeared to be compiling character references for his defence after he was charged in Florida in 2006 with the solicitation of a minor.
Maxwell moved to Manhattan aged 29 to launch an international magazine for her father’s publishing empire, which had acquired the New York Daily News in May 1991. Czechoslovakian-born Robert Maxwell died in an apparent suicide in the ocean off the coast of the Canary Islands that November.
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It was discovered soon afterwards that millions of dollars were missing from pension funds that he had managed. Two of Maxwell’s brothers were charged for their alleged role in the fraud, of which they were later acquitted.
Maxwell and her seven surviving siblings were left with “no money, no trusts, no funds anywhere” their mother, Robert’s wife Elisabeth, later claimed.
One new detail that emerged from Epstein’s emails, released as part of the so-called “Epstein files” by the US Department of Justice on Friday night, is that in 2005 Maxwell told him that she was discussing with an intelligence operative how to recover lost assets from her father’s lost fortune.
“Was with a CIA agent who said he ‘worked’ w/Dad!” she messaged Epstein. “He said he could tell all, find all, reveal all (for a price!!)”
Epstein wrote in the unclassified documents that “over time the relationship became intimate” and carried on for some time in the mid-to-late 1990s.
US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Epstein claimed to have helped secure her a loan to “help her get her footing in the business world”. He saw that helping her with money was a way for her to “maintain her dignity” and “self-respect”. He writes that she paid him back.
Maxwell, now 63, is alleged in court documents to have received payments from Epstein totalling more than $30 million. The number is likely an underestimation, however, as it covers only the period of 1997-2007 and not the early years of their relationship.
Maxwell boasted to one of Epstein’s victims that he bought her her New York City townhouse, a few blocks from his own just off Central Park. She purchased a private helicopter for $7 million.
The relationship broke down but the pair remained friends
US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
According to Epstein’s account, revealed in the tranche of newly released files, their relationship ended “amicably” in 2000 as the “demand of his work, long hours and frequent travel, precluded a good married life with children”. Maxwell was reported to have wanted to start a family with Epstein.
In turn, Maxwell wrote glowingly of Epstein: “My experience of Jeffrey is of a thoughtful, kind, generous loving man, with a keen sense of humour and a ready smile — a man of principles and values and a man of his word. If he made a promise, he would always follow through. In fact, I never saw him break a promise. He is disciplined in business and conscientious.”
Epstein was the son of working-class parents from Brooklyn. Maxwell was the Oxford-educated heir apparent of an influential and connected family in Britain. Maxwell helped Epstein to establish himself on the New York and London social scenes and offered a veneer of respectability, while Epstein helped her to resurrect the lifestyle she coveted.
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The Epstein files laid bare the couple’s close relationship, which was far more intimate than Maxwell has ever publicly admitted. Photographs showed them on luxury holidays around the world and travelling on private jets and in hot tubs with former presidents, titans of industry and pop stars.
Others showed the pair enjoying a seat in the Royal Box at Ascot, hunting on the Balmoral estate and on the steps of 10 Downing Street, all facilitated by Maxwell’s friendship with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
However, they also revealed a much darker side — how the pair worked hand in glove to recruit and exploit women and young girls.
Newly declassified FBI documents show one victim, Maria Farmer, making a complaint to the bureau about Epstein’s interest in “child pornography” in 1996.
Court filings showed how Maxwell helped Epstein in his sexual exploitation of underage girls in 1994. Maria’s sister Annie, then 16, alleges that Maxwell insisted on massaging her breasts before Epstein tried to physically restrain and sexually assault her in at the financier’s ranch in New Mexico.
Maria Farmer said on Friday night that she was grateful to be “vindicated” but heartbroken that the FBI had not taken steps to stop Epstein and Maxwell until years after her report. “This is one of the best days of my life,” she said. “Of course, it’s mixed with the fact that I’m devastated about all the other little girls like Virginia [Giuffre] who were harmed because the FBI didn’t do their job.”
Maxwell is serving a 20-year-sentence for her role in Epstein’s vast sex trafficking ring. She lodged an appeal this week.