Jeffery Epstein - The Saga - 7

Investigation in France
On August 23, 2019 the prosecutor's office in Paris, France opened a preliminary investigation into Epstein. He is being investigated for rape and sexual assault of minors under and over the age of 15, criminal association with a view to committing crimes, and association with criminals with a view to committing offenses. The prosecutors said that the goal of the investigation is to find possible crimes committed in France and elsewhere against French citizens.  

Previous long-term girlfriends associated with Epstein include Eva Andersson-Dubin and publishing heiress Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein was romantically linked with Andersson-Dubin in the 1980s and the two later remained friendly well after her marriage to Glenn Dubin. Epstein met Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of disgraced media baron Robert Maxwell, by 1991. Epstein had Maxwell come to the United States in 1991 to recover from her grief following the death of her father. Maxwell was implicated by several of Epstein's accusers as procuring or recruiting underage girls in addition to once being Epstein's girlfriend.

In a 2009 deposition, several of Epstein's household employees testified that Maxwell had a central role in both his public and private life, referring to her as his "main girlfriend" who also handled the hiring, supervising, and firing of staff starting around 1992. In 1995, Epstein renamed one of his companies the Ghislaine Corporation in Palm Beach, Florida; the company was later dissolved in 1998.[146] In the year 2000, Maxwell moved into a 7,000-square-foot townhouse, less than 10 blocks from Epstein's New York mansion. This townhome was purchased for $4.95 million by an anonymous limited liability company, with an address that matches the office of J. Epstein & Co. Representing the buyer was Darren Indyke, Epstein's longtime lawyer. In a 2003 Vanity Fair exposé, Epstein refers to Maxwell as "my best friend".

Epstein was a longtime acquaintance of Prince Andrew and Tom Barrack, and attended parties with many prominent people, including Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, Donald Trump,[175] Katie Couric, Woody Allen,[176] and Harvey Weinstein.[177] His contacts included Rupert Murdoch, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Michael Jackson, Alec Baldwin, Kennedys, Rockefellers and Rothschilds.[178] His contacts also included Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, British prime minister Tony Blair, and Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.[179][180][181] Both Clinton[182] and Trump[183] claimed that they never visited Epstein's island.

Epstein owned a private Boeing 727 jet, nicknamed the "Lolita Express", and traveled in it frequently, logging "600 flying hours a year ... usually with guests on board". Virginia Roberts Guiffre claimed that in 2001, Epstein flew from Carmel, California to Los Angeles with Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, and that she was asked to give Groening a foot massage. In 2003, Epstein flew to Cuba aboard his plane with Colombian president Andrés Pastrana Arango at the invitation of Cuban president Fidel Castro. According to Fabiola Santiago of the Miami Herald, Epstein was likely considering relocating to Cuba in order to escape U.S. law enforcement; Epstein was under investigation from U.S. law enforcement at the time. In 2009, Epstein's brother Mark claimed Trump had flown on Epstein's plane at least once.

He later told The Washington Post that Trump flew "numerous times" on Epstein's airplane, although Mark was only present on one of the flights. According to Michael Corcoran, Trump flew Epstein on his own airplane at least once.[190] In September 2002, Epstein flew Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa in this jet. Flight records obtained in 2016 show Bill Clinton flew 27 times to at least a dozen international locations. Flight logs did not list any Secret Service detail for at least five flights, all in Asia, and Secret Service stated that there is no evidence of the former President making a trip to Epstein's private island. In 2019, a Clinton spokesperson stated that, in 2002 and 2003, Clinton took four trips on Epstein's airplane, making stops on three continents, all with his staff and Secret Service detail.

At the time of Epstein's 2019 arrest, Clinton's spokeswoman Angel Ureña stated that Clinton had "not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein's ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida."In documents unsealed the day before Epstein's death, the deposition of alleged sex slave Virginia Giuffre includes her allegations that when she was 17, Clinton visited Little St. James island, that underage girls were present, and that Epstein threw a dinner party for Clinton. She stated Secret Service was present, but not at all times.

Her deposition did not include any claim that Clinton had sexual contact with anyone on the island. The Secret Service told Fox News in 2016 it had no record of agents being on the island.[198] The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false. Giuffre claims Maxwell told her she flew Clinton to the island on her helicopter, although she conceded, "I heard a lot of things from Ghislaine that sounded too true – too outrageous to be true, but you never knew what to believe." Maxwell denied Guiffre's claim that Clinton visited the island.

President Trump states "I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him." July 2019 video from the White House. 

Reference: Wikipedia