Page QQQ Daily Mail, Tuesday, August 13, 2019
PAGES
Paraded at VIP parties 8-DEATH OF A PREDATOR
FBI RAID EPSTEIN
Caught on camera: FBI agents disembark on a jetty at Little St James yesterday
Dramatic swoop
as dead tycoon’s
friends are told:
‘Don’t rest easy’
F
ROM THE air, it looks like
the perfect Caribbean
island — a billionaire’s
holiday playground with
its 70 acres of beaches,
palm trees, pools, a tennis court,
a mansion, outbuildings and, of
course, a helipad.
Very few would turn down an
invitation to spend a few days at
Little St James in the United States
Virgin Islands, which is why the
roster of those who visited the late
Jeffrey Epstein’s lair in paradise was
truly A-list, including Bill Clinton,
Prince Andrew, Naomi Campbell, Peter
Mandelson and, of all people, the late
Stephen Hawking.
But while the island appears to be
undoubtedly a heaven on earth, for
many of its more reluctant visitors, it
was hell.
For it was here that the late financier
is said to have pressured underage
girls to have sex with him, to the extent
that it has been dubbed ‘Paedophile
Island’ or ‘Orgy Island’ by those on
neighbouring islands.
These lurid, throwaway epithets
do not, however, lessen the horrors
that Epstein inflicted on the girls,
nor the lasting emotional damage he
caused them.
Their claims were made public last
week after documents were unsealed
in a defamation suit filed by Virginia
Roberts Giuffre against Ghislaine
Maxwell, Epstein’s friend and alleged
procurer-in-chief.
Take the case of a 15-year-old
Swedish girl who, in 2005, recalled
that while she was ‘distraught and
shaking ... literally quivering’, Maxwell
and Epstein’s assistant, Sarah Kellen,
had pressured her into having sex
and even confiscated her passport
and phone.
Another who allegedly had her
passport confiscated was Sarah
Ransome, who also claims to have been
one of Epstein’s victims and who once
tried to swim away from Little St
James. She was eventually tracked
down by a search party that reportedly
included Epstein himself.T
HEN there is the statement
made by Virginia Roberts
Giuffre herself, who claimed
in her 2015 lawsuit that she
was one of Epstein’s sex slaves, and
that when she was on the island, she
was allegedly forced ‘into an orgy with
numerous other underaged girls’.
And let us not forget Ms Giuffre’s
much-publicised allegation that it
was also on the island that she ‘was
forced [by Epstein] to have sexual
relations’ with Prince Andrew when
she was a minor. The allegation is
strongly denied by Buckingham
Palace, who claim ‘any suggestion of
impropriety with underage minors is
categorically untrue’.
In April 2015, a judge threw out the
allegations against Prince Andrew
and ordered them to be struck from
the record as being ‘immaterial and
impertinent’.
Shockingly, girls of such a young age
appeared to be all-too frequent visitors
to the island, according to Cathy and
Miles Alexander, the couple who
managed Little St James for Epstein
for eight years until 2007.
‘I saw some girls who I thought were
very young-looking — about 16 or 17,easily — and it bugged me because I
have a daughter and, although she was
in her 20s, I didn’t like the idea that
another woman’s child was in that
situation,’ Cathy Alexander revealed in
an interview.
‘I didn’t feel comfortable about it.
They looked like they had stepped out
of an underwear catalogue.
‘They walked around with very few
clothes on or lounged by the pool with
nothing on. It was like that most of
the time. I was concerned about their
ages. A few of them looked very young
and I couldn’t help but wonder if their
mothers knew where they were.
‘One very young-looking girl was
called Tila. I just thought “you really
shouldn’t be here” but I made myself
switch off, as I had no proof.’
On many occasions, Epstein was
insistent that Miles Alexander should
smuggle the girls on to the island and
have them circumvent immigration
control on the nearby island of
St Thomas.
Mr Alexander refused to help but, as
he acknowledged, there were others
who were more than willing.
‘What Jeffrey wants, Jeffrey gets,’ said
Mr Alexander.
Such complicity — and the turning
of blind eyes — is, of course, what ena-
bles rich and powerful men like
Epstein to indulge their criminal and
abusive tastes.
Another man who worked there was
Steve Scully, who recalled Epstein’s
troubling approach to decorating his
buildings throughout the island.
‘There were photos of topless
women everywhere,’ Scully told ABC
News. ‘On his desk, in his office, in
his bedroom.’
It wasn’t just topless photographsBy Guy
Walters
JEFFREY Epstein’s pri-
vate island was raided by
the FBI last night.
More than a dozen agents
arrived on speedboats at the
luxury Caribbean property –
dubbed ‘Paedophile Island’.
It came only hours after high-
flying friends of the disgraced
late financier were warned that
they ‘should not rest easy’.
US Attorney General William
Barr vowed the probe would
continue despite Epstein’s sui-
cide at the weekend.
A tourist filmed law enforce-
ment officers wearing the yel-
low ‘FBI’ logo on their backs
arriving at Little St James, the
72-acre US Virgin Island retreat
Epstein bought 20 years ago.
The onlooker, who asked to
remain anonymous, said: ‘We
were enjoying lunch when we
saw over a dozen people getting
off their speedboats and land-
ing on the island.
‘When we looked harder, we
could see the FBI logo on the
backs of their shirts.
‘It didn’t take long for us to
realise they must be conducting
a raid on Epstein’s house.’
Claims have been made that
underage girls were used as sex
slaves and repeatedly abused
inside a temple on the island.
Meanwhile, Mr Barr vowed to
continue probing the alleged
sex trafficking of underage girls,
despite the tycoon killing him-
self in jail. His comments will
heap further pressure on
Epstein’s close associates,
including Prince Andrew, who
has been accused of having sex
with one of the ‘sex slaves’.
Mr Barr’s intervention comes
as Ghislaine Maxwell, a former
friend of Andrew’s and Epstein’s
ex-girlfriend, hinted that she
planned to ‘totally disappear’.
Some reports suggested the
socialite daughter of the dis-
graced late tycoon Robert Max-
well had started to co-operate
with the FBI and provide details
of her alleged recruitment of
girls for Epstein. Her current
whereabouts are unknown.
‘She said that she planned to
totally disappear and not say
anything,’ a source close to Miss
Maxwell said. Miss Maxwell has
never been charged and has
vehemently denied the allega-
tions. Prince Andrew also
denies the claims against him.
Mr Barr’s broadside came at a
police event in New Orleans. He
said: ‘Let me assure you that
this case will continue on against
anyone who was complicit with
Epstein. Any co-conspirators
should not rest easy. The victims
deserve justice.’ Mr Barr said
there would also be a full inves-
tigation into the catalogue of
failures which allowed Epstein
to hang himself on Saturday at
the high-security prison where
he was being held.
He said he was ‘appalled and
angry’ at the failure to check on
the 66-year-old every 30 min-
utes at the Metropolitan Cor-rectional Center in New York.
Epstein was found at 6.30am by
a guard at the prison, where a
series of errors allowed him to
become the first suicide there
in 21 years.
The day before, New York’s
federal court had released 2,
pages of damning documents.
Officials said Epstein was
placed on suicide watch after
he tried to kill himself on July- But on July 29 he was taken
off suicide watch and returned
to the 9 South special housing
unit, which has less stringent
security. Last night it emerged
that Epstein was not checked
on for ‘several hours’ and one of
his guards was not even a
trained prison officer. Serene
Gregg, of the American Federa-
tion of Government Employees,
said the prison is operating with
inadequate staffing. She said:
‘It was only a matter of time for
it to happen. It was inevitable,
because of the conditions at
that institution.’
Although officials believe
Epstein killed himself, the
results of his post-mortem
examination have been delayed- a move bound to fuel conspir-
acy theories that his associates
may be implicated in his death.
If Epstein’s death is ruled a
suicide after an autopsy, his
family could pursue a claim for
wrongful death because he was
in the custody of the state. Vic-
tims of the financier’s alleged
sex trafficking ring are also
planning to sue his estate.
Former employees of Epstein
closed ranks yesterday. One told
the Mail that he ‘saw nothing
that was of concern’ while work-
ing as an interior designer for
him. Another hung up. A sepa-
rate document released by the
US courts last week suggested
Princes William and Harry may
have met Epstein when they
were children.
Epstein’s former maintenance
man at his Palm Beach man-
sion, Juan Alessi, said he had
met ‘Princess Diana’s secretary
with her children’. But Diana’s
ex-secretary Patrick Jephson
told the Sun: ‘I can’t think of
any occasion when Mr Epstein
would have any claim to say he
had given hospitality to the
Princess of Wales.’
Additional reporting: George
Odling and Jake Hurfurt
‘The victims
deserve justice’
Pictures: EMILY MICHOT/MIAMI HERALD/TNS; AXIOM IMAGES; JAE DONNELLYFrom Daniel Bates in New York
and Arthur Martin