As the United States Division of Justice printed 3.5 million pages of the Epstein recordsdata, deputy US lawyer Todd Blanche indicated that the deluge of paperwork wouldn’t result in further felony fees. Sufferers need “to be made whole”, he stated, however that “doesn’t mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up with a case that isn’t there”.
Given the size of the revelations, and the truth that thousands and thousands of recordsdata haven’t been launched, that remark turns out improbable. However past this, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have come ahead for years to inform their tales, and feature no longer gained justice.
In an interview in September 2025, six Epstein survivors said that the Division of Justice had no longer contacted them within the strategy of reviewing the recordsdata.
In fact, no longer all other people named within the recordsdata sexually abused or have been complicit within the sexual abuse of ladies and younger girls. However this second is an echo of the way government have reacted to Epstein’s survivors for 30 years.
Because the political and fiscal scandals emerge, politicians have known as for a “victim-centred” way. However as other people react with surprise to the revelations within the recordsdata, it’s transparent that the voices and studies of the sufferers are nonetheless being unnoticed.
A long time of proof
Survivors of Epstein’s abuse were talking out for years earlier than the general public changed into enthusiastic about Epstein’s crimes and the well-known males in his community.
In 1996, Maria Farmer reported to the New York Police Division and the FBI that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had violently groped her. She used to be 25 on the time, and later discovered her 16-year-old sister Annie had additionally been violated via Epstein. The FBI failed to analyze, and abuse of ladies endured.
Sufferers’ rights legal professional Brad Edwards has represented over 200 of Epstein’s survivors. In 2008, Edwards instructed a federal pass judgement on that Epstein may well be the “most dangerous sexual predator in US history”.
That very same 12 months, Epstein used to be passed a sweetheart deal of being charged with solicitation of prostitution handiest, as an alternative of kid sexual abuse or trafficking. This led to a 13-month stint at a minimal safety facility, which he left 12 hours in step with day on maximum days to “work” at his basis. He used to be required to sign in as a intercourse culprit, despite the fact that no longer attempted as one.
In Florida, kid sexual abuse circumstances can counsel as much as lifestyles imprisonment for responsible convictions. Human intercourse trafficking in Florida may end up in as much as 30 years imprisonment. In fact, convictions may also be difficult – however each kid sexual abuse and human intercourse trafficking are severe crimes related to prolonged jail sentences.
The most recent recordsdata confirmed that many robust other people in Epstein’s community – Peter Mandelson, as an example – weren’t deterred via him registering as a intercourse culprit in 2008.
On the time, the New York Instances headlined its tale “Financier Starts Sentence in Prostitution Case”. Whilst factually right kind, such an way arguably downplayed Epstein’s sexual abuse of ladies and younger girls.
Few newshounds have been brave sufficient to explicitly identify Epstein’s crimes for what they have been. One exception used to be a 2006 opinion piece via journalist Eliza Cramer of The Palm Seaside Publish, who wrote: “He was over 50. And they were girls. 14, 15, 16, 17-year-old-girls. That should count for something – the difference between prostitution and pedophilia.”
By means of 2009, no less than a dozen civil complaints were filed towards Epstein. In 2010, flight logs acquired during the fits confirmed a number of high-powered males, together with politicians, celebrities, teachers and CEOs, flying on Epstein’s jets.
Justice denied
It took any other 9 years and plenty of extra civil fits earlier than Epstein used to be arrested on July 6 2019 for intercourse trafficking and intercourse trafficking conspiracy. He confronted as much as 45 years in jail if convicted.
Survivors once more got here ahead publicly to inform their tales, like Courtney Wild, Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Jennifer Araoz, who have been 14 and 15 when first recruited to “massage” Epstein. All 3 got here from tough backgrounds, and all 3 claimed to have sooner or later been raped via Epstein. They have been adults by the point they in the end noticed their abuser at the back of bars.
Survivors have been denied justice as soon as once more when Epstein used to be discovered useless in his prison mobile in August 2019. However that didn’t prevent them from talking out in 2021 right through Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, which resulted in a 20-year sentence for intercourse trafficking ladies.
Virginia Giuffre and a number of other different Epstein accusers attend a different listening to in August 2019, after Epstein’s dying in prison.
Emily Michot/Miami Usher in
The fallout from the newest revelations has once more put survivors secondary to the movements of robust males. Mandelson, who maintained a friendship with Epstein after his 2008 conviction, to start with declined to apologise to Epstein’s sufferers and distance himself from any wisdom of the financier’s intercourse crimes.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who in 2022 settled a civil sexual attack case from Giuffre with out an admission of legal responsibility, has handiest in the previous couple of months misplaced his royal titles. And handiest with this newest batch of revelations has in the end left his royal place of abode.
Giuffre’s memoir used to be launched October 2025, months after she died. A line in her e book sums up our duty to forestall ignoring the survivors: “I know this is a lot to take in. The violence. The neglect. The bad decisions. The self-harm. Imagine if a trauma reel like this played in your head all the time, as it does mine … but please don’t stop reading.”
The sexual abuse and intercourse trafficking of ladies and younger girls detailed via the survivors is harrowing. Taking away a couple of titles or shedding a role won’t ever be good enough justice for the crimes dedicated, nor for the sidelining of sufferers for such a lot of years.
