{"id":268027,"date":"2026-05-12T14:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/268027\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:21:08","slug":"jeffrey-epstein-survivors-to-return-to-palm-beach-florida-for-house-hearing-jeffrey-epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/268027\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Epstein survivors to return to Palm Beach, Florida, for House hearing | Jeffrey Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

Survivors of r Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> will return to the \u201cscene of the crime\u201d in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday for a shadow congressional hearing into abuses committed by the late sex offender.<\/p>\n

Several members of the Democratic House oversight caucus are scheduled to join the victims and several expert witnesses at the hearing close to Epstein\u2019s former waterfront mansion where he procured girls as young as 14 to perform sexual services for wealthy guests.<\/p>\n

They hope to bring more exposure to a \u201csweetheart deal<\/a>\u201d between Florida prosecutors and Epstein in 2008 that allowed him to escape federal charges. They also hope to look into the recruitment of the girls, some allegedly from Donald Trump\u2019s nearby Mar-a-Lago residence.<\/p>\n

The scandal, and the release of millions of government documents that have come to be known as the Epstein files, have dogged Trump\u2019s second presidency. One Epstein email<\/a> released in November stated \u201cof course [Trump] knew about the girls\u201d procured for his sex-trafficking ring, and another that said Trump \u201cspent hours\u201d with one victim at Epstein\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

The president has consistently denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of the activities of Epstein, who he said he dropped as a friend years earlier.<\/p>\n

Authorities say Epstein took his own life<\/a> in federal custody in New York in July 2019 awaiting trial of sex trafficking charges.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s gathering is a shadow hearing, and witnesses are not compelled to testify under oath. Democrats<\/a> have no subpoena power, and there will be no input from Republicans.<\/p>\n

But California Democrat Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House oversight committee, said the field hearing was an important step in bringing attention to Epstein\u2019s crimes and supporting his victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cPalm Beach is where Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s crimes first came to light, and where prosecutors offered Epstein a sweetheart deal that allowed him to continue his crimes,\u201d a statement by Garcia announcing the hearing said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPalm Beach is also home to Mar-a-Lago, president Donald Trump\u2019s primary residence and private club. During the many years of friendship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, multiple women were recruited for Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.\u201d<\/p>\n

They included Virginia Giuffre, who worked as a spa attendant at Trump\u2019s club at the age of 16 in 2000, when she said she was recruited by Epstein\u2019s associate and \u201cfixer\u201d Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.<\/p>\n

Giuffre was one of the most prominent voices in exposing Epstein, and appeared in an infamous March 2001 photograph<\/a> with Maxwell and the discredited British former royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, whose arm is around the then 17-year-old\u2019s waist.<\/p>\n

Giuffre died by suicide<\/a> in Australia in April 2025, with her family saying at the time: \u201cIn the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several survivors are expected to speak about their own experiences on Tuesday, at the hearing and a press conference that will follow it.<\/p>\n

Democrat Ayanna Pressley, the Massachusetts congress member, arrived in Palm Beach for the hearing on Monday evening, and she posted on Facebook<\/a> her expectation of the proceedings.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust touching down in Palm Beach for a committee field hearing to return to the scene of the crime, where so many young girls were first victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, this is a fight for the Epstein survivors, but for all survivors. We\u2019re looking to create a blueprint for accountability, to call out the systemic harms and abuses that not only occurred for the Epstein survivors, but are happening right now in communities all across this country.<\/p>\n

\u201cA reckoning is on the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hearing is set to begin at 10am ET and will be streamed live on the YouTube page<\/a> of the oversight committee Democrats.<\/p>\n

The panel has previously been critical<\/a> of the committee\u2019s Republican majority for refusing to hold formal hearings. It has accused its chair, Kentucky congressman James Comer, of helping the White House to cover up the Epstein scandal.<\/p>\n

Comer denies the allegation.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, attorney Jack Scarola, who is representing several of Epstein\u2019s victims, told local media on Monday he was not sure if he would attend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf those legislators who are here are really motivated to do something productive, holding another press conference with Epstein victims lined up behind them for another photo opportunity is not going to advance the interests of those survivors,\u201d he told Palm Beach ABC News affiliate WPBF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFile a bill, work on that legislation, get it passed, and do something substantive that will help avoid a recurrence of the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell fiasco.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Survivors of r Jeffrey Epstein will return to the \u201cscene of the crime\u201d in Palm Beach, Florida, on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-268027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}