The Seduction of Virginia Giuffre

Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein, center, pauses while speaking with members of the media outside of federal court in New York. That appears to be lawyer David Boies, one of her lawyers, looking on over her right shoulder. Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg

by Thomas Neuburger

I've been reading through the Jeffrey Epstein–Ghislaine Maxwell–Virginia Giuffre documents released last week and have to say, they make fascinating if confusing (to non-lawyers) reading.

The document I want to feature below struck me particularly, though. It's an early phone interview (2011) between Brad Edwards, a lawyer who appears to have been involved in a lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein (Edwards later appears to represent Ms. Giuffre), his own lawyer Jack Scarola, and Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein and Maxwell's alleged victims.

A PDF of this document is here. It's both clear and mind-blowing in the stories it tells.

The purpose of this piece is to encourage you to read it in full. It's only 24 pages, and the lawyer who leads the interview, Mr. Scarola, walks Giuffre through the history of her relationship with Epstein in a straightforward way. He covers other matters as well, but in that respect, the document is simple storytelling, and the story that's told is stunning.

I'll provide just a few excerpts here, and again, encourage you to read it for yourself. My main focus will be on the origin of Giuffre's relationship with Maxwell and Epstein — the initial seduction and its aftermath.

(Note: The original PDF is a series of images, not text. I've passed it though an OCR reader to make the text paste-able, but the process isn't perfect, so forgive any glitches in the "translation.")

The Initial Seduction

Here's how Giuffre (whose maiden name was Roberts) was introduced to Epstein by Maxwell. Maxwell basically "picked her up" while Giuffre was working at Mar-a-Lago as a women's bathroom attendant. (Except where noted, Giuffre is the speaker. I've added paragraphing to the original for readability. Underscores are in the original.)

I was introduced to Mr. Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell. I was working at Donald Trump's spa in Mar-a-Lago and I was prompted by Ghislaine to come to Jeffrey's mansion in Palm Beach that afternoon after work to make some extra money and to learn about massage. She met me at the spa, and I was reading a book about anatomy, so I was already interested in massage therapy as it was and not having any of the education or you know anything behind me, I thought this was a great opportunity to work for her and go.

So, I went to Jeffrey's mansion about 5 or 6 in the afternoon. My dad drove me there. My dad worked at Mar-a-Lago with me, and he met Ghislaine and she seemed like a nice, proper English lady, and she knows, I mean, you know, one time then _once before I left to travel overseas, she just seemed really nice and like she would like to help me out. So my dad left, and I had no problem getting home that night, one of her drivers would take me back after my trial.

So she led me upstairs, and into Jeffrey's bedroom, and past that is Jeffrey's massage room, which has got his steam room and a shower and a massage table, and there is actually an extra room that has, that nobody knows about it, it's kinda like a secret room and it's got a whole bunch of decorative pictures of pornographic literature and sex toys and I can _ ?_ [sic] what happened in there.

After discussion of this private room (which is also brought up later in the interview), Giuffre continues:

So anyways, that was getting there, and I was introduced to Jeffrey, he was laying naked on top of the massage table, and obviously for one, I'm a 15 year old girl [in later interviews Giuffre is presented with documents that cause her to revise the year in which this occurred] and seeing him on the table was weird but, also learning about anatomy and massage, I thought this would be part of it. So obviously, I thought it was part of the massage program, so I said ok, this is fine.

And, he then instructed me on how to touch the body, Jeffrey's body, how to massage him, and for the first hour, it was actually a real massage, maybe not an hour, maybe like 40 minutes or something, but of something like that _and that's when he turned over on the other side and to expose himself fully.

So then Ghislaine told me that she wanted me to undress and began to take off my shirt and skirt, my white uniform from Mar-A-Lago, she also took off her shirt and got undressed, and so I was there with just my undies on, and she was completely bare, and made some kind of little flake [sic] about the underwear that I was wearing because it wasn't my normal sexy girl underwear and just like, I don't know, had red hearts on it or something like that; just your normal, you know, real cute underwear.

Anyways, so during all of this I'm kind of like what's going on, how do I act, what do I say, I was so afraid of, not afraid or fearful for my life but _unsure of how all this started and wanting to obtain a profession_ I was so afraid thinking about upsetting and disappointing them, I don't know, it's a weird situation by far and I was expected to _Lick his nipples, instructed on how to do so by J.E_ and give him oral sex while he wanted to fondle me, and then at the end, I was told by Ghislaine to get on top and straddle Jeffrey sexually, and when we were done, we went and had a shower in the room and Jeffrey told me to wash him up and down, you know with a bar of soap and make sure he was all cleaned up.

And then he took me downstairs and took me to two of the guards and told John to bring me home. John was the butler at the time.

[...]

Q: You've told us about the first visit. Was there any discussion on the occasion of that first visit about your returning?

Yes, they were very pleased with me and after the encounter was finished, the sexual encounter, he went and told me I did well and I have a lot of potential to become a massage therapist and if I'd like I could return tomorrow, you know, and do the same thing and get paid $200/hr, so Jeffrey insisted that I come after work, and over the next few days, I guess the relationship grew into more, and within a couple of weeks, not even a couple of weeks, maybe a week, I had quit Mar-a-Lago and I was working for Jeffrey full time.

When she's asked about whether they were aware of her age, she replies:

During the entire hour of what I call the legitimate massage I was giving him, it was cat and mouse games getting information from me to find out who I am, am I a willing participant in these kind of things, and how would I react if they were about to take the next step.

But they got information off of me, they got my age, they got my, a little bit of my history so they knew I was, you know, not very stable at home, and they knew that, you know, I was actually interested in making my life better by studying so what they were offering me was a chance to become a legitimate masseuse but it was getting trained.

They would have people show me how to work the body and be called a massage therapist and get me books on it, and you know, keep me interested, and every time, you know, I was with Jeffrey, literally was about massages, I don't mean just going in and have sex with him. I mean massage, because it would always start out with massage and then it would lead into sometimes other things.

Taken together, this is a straight-up, nearly clichéd pick-up and seduction — Maxwell, a wealthy posh-accented British woman ("nice, proper English lady") and member of an elite resort, spots a pretty, inexperienced, hoping-for-better-things girl working a menial job and uses the girl's interest in massage therapy as a hook to bring her to Epstein. The two of them proceed to walk her through from a massage to sex, then to a repeated pattern of massage-and-sex with promises of job training as a professional masseuse and (later) clients of her own from among Epstein wealthy friends.

It's short road from that initial seduction to a regular well recompensed life, as a member of Epstein and Maxwell's harem. Soon after she started with the pair, she was sent traveling regularly to service other of Epstein's friends, about eight in number, whom she declined to name. ("[S]ome of these people are really influential in power, and I don't want to start another shitstorm with a few of them.")

This tale could have been taken from a Victorian novel, but I don't think the non-rape method of wealthy men seducing girls — her poverty, their money and false promises — has changed at all since then. I don't think it has changed at all in millennia.

Note, by the way, that Maxwell is a semi-participant in the sex. From other documents it appears that Maxwell herself had sex with some of the girls, both in conjunction with Epstein and perhaps alone. In other words, Epstein is not the only pedophile in the relationship, though I don't think Maxwell herself has been charged as such.

About the Ages of Epstein's Underage Girls 

At one point Mr. Scarola starts to question Giuffre about the ages of some of the other girls. Here's one such exchange:

Q: Did Jeffrey ever brag to you about the age of any of the girls with whom he had relationships?

Yes, he did. He did all the time. The worst one that I heard from his own mouth was this [sic] pretty 12 year old girls he had flown in for his birthday. It was a surprise birthday gift from one of his friends and they were from France.

I did see them, I did meet them. Jeffrey bragged afterwards after he met them that they were 12 year olds and flown over from France because they're really poor over there, and their parents needed the money or whatever the case is and they were absolutely free to stay and flew out.

Those were the worst ones. He was constantly bragging about girls' ages or where he got them from or their past and how terrible their past was and good he is making it for them.

A "birthday gift" of poor 12-year-old girls.

Lives of the Rich and Famous

Bill Clinton is discussed on pages 22 and 23 of the transcript. Because that section has been so widely reported — yes, Clinton was on the island; yes, in the company of two of Epstein's girls, though no allegation is made of sexual conduct; and yes, "sexual orgies" did occur on the island — I'll skip that section.

Near the end of the interview, Scarola asks a fascinating and well-worded question. He knows Giuffre doesn't want to "name names" with respect to sexual conduct, so he phrases a question to her this way:

Q: If we were to take sworn testimony from the people I am going to name, and if those people were to tell the truth about what they knew, do you believe that any of the following people would have relevant information about Jeffrey's taking advantage of underage girls? 

So I'll just name a name, and you tell me yes if they told the truth, I think they'd have relevant information or no, I don' t think they would, or I don't know whether they would or not. Ok? You understand?

She does understand, and the following exchange takes place:

Q: Ok. Les Wexner.

I think he has relevant information, but I don't think he'll tell you the truth.

Q: Ok. Alan Dershowitz.

Yes.

Q: David Copperfield.

Don't know.

Q: Tommy Matola. [sic]

Don't know.

Q: Prince Andrew.

Yes, he would know a lot of the truth. Again, I don't know how much he would be able to help you with, but seeing he's in a lot of trouble himself these days, I think he might, so I think he may be valuable. I'm not too sure of him.

As I said, the interview is fascinating — straightforward, lacking in legalese, storylike in its simplicity, and stunning in its content.

Keep in mind, this interview took place in 2011, early in the game — after Giuffre had left Epstein (that part of the story is interesting in itself) to marry, live and raise a family in Australia and after Epstein began to have legal trouble — but not long after. It's from early interviews like these that the real wrangling begins.

All in all, if you read only one Epstein document, this is one you should turn your attention to.