Sex Abuse Scandals News Articles

Excerpts of key news articles on

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly asked a "room of underage girls" to dance for Jeffrey Epstein. Ms Maxwell, 58, was charged last summer with six counts of recruiting and grooming girls and young women to be sexually abused by both her and Epstein, her former business partner and boyfriend. On Wednesday, 112 legal documents totaling thousands of pages were made public in the US. The documents included redacted witness testimony accusing Ms Maxwell of preying on underage girls and forcing them to perform sexual favours for Epstein's gratification. "Maxwell direct a room full of underage girls to kiss, dance, and touch one another in a sexual way for defendant and Epstein to watch," the statement said. A separate witness claimed that Ms Maxwell recruited her from a school campus to have sex with Epstein, by initially informing her that she would be hired as a personal assistant. While another released document alleges that "ample evidence in this case establishes that not only did Defendant [Maxwell] recruit underage girls for massage and sexual activities with Epstein, but that she participated in calling the girls; getting other people to bring girls; talking to the girls; taking massages from and leaving messages about the girls; and scheduling the girls to come over".

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal from reliable major media sources.

A former friend of Jeffrey Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell said Tuesday she had a “secret stash” of tapes and photos allegedly showing Epstein engaging in sexual activity with various underage girls. The friend said they expect Maxwell to use the stash as her “insurance policy” to possibly avoid jail time. The friend, whose name has not been released, spoke with Daily Mail about the collection. “Ghislaine has always been as cunning as they come. She wasn't going to be with Epstein all those years and not have some insurance,” the friend said. “The secret stash of sex tapes I believe Ghislaine has squirreled away could end up being her get out of jail card if the authorities are willing to trade.” The friend said Epstein not only recorded everything he did, but also recorded several “rich and powerful men who took advantage of his sick largesse.” This gave Epstein something to “hold over” anyone else who partook in the alleged circle of trafficking and abuse between Florida and New York. Maxwell is accused of recruiting and grooming several victims of Epstein’s alleged scheme since the early 1990s. Several victims, including Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said Maxwell would pay them to work at Epstein’s homes in either New York or Florida when they were teenagers. The pair would then begin grooming the victims for “sexual services,” which would allegedly be offered to many of Epstein’s associates and friends among the world’s elite.

Note: For more on this story which was hardly reported in the US, see this informative article. This New York Post article is an exception. 60 Minutes Australia has produced an excellent segment on Jeffrey Epstein and his recently arrested sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell. How did Epstein get away with sexually abusing hundreds of teenage girls for decades? The government and multiple police departments knew what was happening, yet key officials in high positions of power protected him.

Jeffrey E. Epstein, the wealthy financier who is accused of sex trafficking, had an unusual dream: He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch. Mr. Epstein over the years confided to scientists and others about his scheme ... although there is no evidence that it ever came to fruition. Mr. Epstein, who was charged in July with the sexual trafficking of girls as young as 14, was a serial illusionist: He lied about the identities of his clients, his wealth, his financial prowess, his personal achievements. But he managed to use connections and charisma to cultivate valuable relationships with business and political leaders. He used the same tactics to insinuate himself into an elite scientific community. Mr. Epstein attracted a glittering array of prominent scientists. They included the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who discovered the quark; the theoretical physicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking; the paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould; Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-selling author; George M. Church, a molecular engineer who has worked to identify genes that could be altered to create superior humans; and the M.I.T. theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, a Nobel laureate. The lure for some of the scientists was Mr. Epstein’s money. He dangled financing for their pet projects. Some of the scientists said that the prospect of financing blinded them to the seriousness of his sexual transgressions.

Note: A probing 16-episode program titled "EPSTEIN: Devil in the Darkness" has incredibly revealing interviews with dozens who worked directly with Epstein. Incredibly detailed, it reveals the huge blackmail operation, connections with Israel, and much more. This series goes where others have not dared go. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and corruption in science from reliable major media sources.

A former IT contractor for Jeffrey Epstein who said that he ended their business relationship over personal concerns about gaggles of apparently unsupervised young women on the embattled financier's private island told ABC News that his reluctance to continue working there was underscored by what he said was an extensive collection of photos of topless women displayed throughout the island's compounds. “There were photos of topless women everywhere," said contractor Steve Scully, who said he worked for Epstein for six years beginning in 1999. "On his desk, in his office, in his bedroom,” Scully ... said of the private island dubbed "Little St. James." Scully ... was contracted by Epstein to set up a communications network on Little St. James. But it’s what Scully said he saw on the island itself more than six years ago that led him to agree to an interview with ABC News: revolving groups of young girls that appeared to him to be minors who were guests on the island. “They couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16 years old," he said. Scully said that he would see them on the island whenever he visited for work, riding ATVs, or at times bathing topless on the island's pools and beaches. Scully said he became increasingly alarmed by the presence of these groups of young girls that appeared to him to be without any visible parental supervision.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

Text of the apology speech for institutional child sexual abuse as delivered in parliament: Silenced voices. Muffled cries in the darkness. Unacknowledged tears. The never heard pleas of tortured souls bewildered by an indifference to the unthinkable theft of their innocence. Why weren’t the children of our nation loved, nurtured and protected? Why was their trust betrayed? Why did those who know cover it up? While we can’t be so vain to pretend to answers, we must be so humble to fall before those who were forsaken and beg to them our apology. Nothing we can do now will right the wrongs inflicted on our nation’s children. The steady compassionate hand of the commissioners and staff resulted in 17,000 survivors coming forward and nearly 8,000 of them recounting their abuse. We are all grateful to the survivors who gave evidence to the commission. It is because of your strength and your courage that we are gathered here today. Even after a comprehensive royal commission, which finally enabled the voices to be heard and the silence to be broken, we will all continue to struggle. We honour every survivor in this country, we love you, we hear you and we honour you. Elsewhere in this building and around Australia, there are others who are silently watching and listening to these proceedings, men and women who have never told a soul what has happened to them. To these men and women I say this apology is for you too. The crimes of ritual sexual abuse happened in schools, churches, youth groups, scout troops, orphanages, foster homes, sporting clubs, group homes, charities, and in family homes as well. As a nation, we failed them, we forsook them. That will always be our shame.

Note: The importance of the prime minister's mention of ritual sexual abuse should not be downplayed. Organized groups of powerful people, mostly men, are behind huge amounts of child abuse and trafficking. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse from reliable major media sources. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government.

Two weeks before Devani's second birthday, she was taken away from her parents in Tucson by a state child-welfare caseworker. The little curly-haired girl seemed to be well-fed and cared for, but the caseworker cited drugs in the home and alleged domestic violence in deciding that Devani would be safer, at least temporarily, in foster care. Instead, over the next four years – as her mother fought to get her back – Devani suffered an odyssey of mistreatment in a succession of foster homes. She was physically abused. She was placed with David Frodsham, a man subsequently convicted of child molestation, who investigators suspect repeatedly sexually assaulted her and other foster children while he ran a pedophilia ring. And that would not be the worst that Devani would face. Foster parents who harm children the state leaves in their care are tracked in only the broadest terms. The state handles verified allegations of neglect or abuse in foster families much as it does those in other families. But officials admit they don't really analyze the data for patterns of foster-care problems that could be prevented. And data shows caseworkers often don't talk privately with children to identify what happens to them in foster care. Those children's families say the problem is real. Of 42 families interviewed for this story who had children removed, 11 alleged that their children were physically or sexually abused, exposed to drugs or harmed in some other way while in foster care.

Note: More in this case available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.

In 2016, famed crime novelist James Patterson and co-authors Tim Malloy and John Connolly published Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him. Patterson had heard about the story of the mysterious billionaire who’d gotten a sweetheart deal after having been charged with sex with underage girls, and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Yet after the book came out, laying out the breadth of Epstein’s crimes and how a cadre of enablers and hangers-on enabled him for years, it got relatively little attention. By 2019, of course, that had obviously changed. The Miami Herald had published its bombshell investigation into the 13-month deal then-Florida attorney general Alexander Acosta had offered Epstein, allowing him to serve little hard jail time. A new Netflix series, Filthy Rich, based on Patterson’s book, documents all of the lurid details familiar to those who’ve been following the story — the Trump/Clinton connections, the bizarre relationship with British heiress and alleged procurer Ghislaine Maxwell. But it also includes heartbreaking interviews with the young women who say they were victimized by Epstein, adding humanity to the familiar tabloid story. "Initially, people just didn’t see this is as big a story as I thought it was," [said Patterson]. "I just couldn’t imagine anybody that is involved with news that wouldn’t say, 'Oh my God, this is a story.' This is unbelievable to me. Imagine if somebody out in the middle of the county had been with 50 underage girls. I mean ... are you kidding me?"

Note: Watch the revealing documentary "Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein?" A probing 16-episode program has incredibly revealing interviews with dozens who worked directly with Epstein. Incredibly detailed, it reveals the huge blackmail operation, connections with Israel, and much more. This series goes where others have not dared go. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.

The number of reported photos, videos and other materials related to online child sexual abuse grew by more than 50 percent last year. Nearly 70 million images and videos were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a federally designated clearinghouse for the imagery that works with law enforcement agencies. Over 41 million videos were reported; the number five years ago was under 350,000. The center identified ... the companies that had detected the imagery, the first time detailed company information had been released. The companies flagged many of the same images and videos multiple times as they were shared among users. Facebook reported nearly 60 million photos and videos, more than 85 percent of the total. About half of the content was not necessarily illegal, according to the company, and was reported to help law enforcement with investigations. Instagram, owned by Facebook, was responsible for an additional 1.7 million photos and videos. Snapchat, Twitter and other social media companies also submitted reports of imagery. So did ... Google and Microsoft. Apple, Dropbox and the chat platform Discord also detected the illegal content. In all, 164 companies submitted reports. Some companies that made a small number of reports ended up finding a large volume of imagery. Dropbox, for instance, made roughly 5,000 reports last year but found over 250,000 photos and videos.

Note: Listen to a disturbing, yet vitally important New York Times podcast showing this huge problem that few are willing to look at. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.

TrineDay Books announces the release of Blue Butterfly: Inside the Diary of an Epstein Survivor, a gripping memoir of Survivor Juliette Bryant that exposes Jeffrey Epstein's previously unreported medical crimes. Juliette's firsthand testimony ... unravels Epstein's deep ties to the shadowy intelligence community that controlled him. It explores how the two-time college dropout amassed a fortune of half a billion dollars while spending his days abusing young girls. Twenty-three years ago, on September 26, 2002, Jeffrey Epstein touched down in Cape Town with a high-profile entourage. That night, 20-year-old Juliette Bryant, a psychology student and aspiring model, was recruited and promised a future with the lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret. Instead, she found herself ensnared in a global network of abuse. Juliette was trafficked across continents and American states, taken to all of Epstein's luxury residences, and introduced to co-conspirators who enabled his operations to flourish in plain sight. The sexual abuse and psychological manipulation Juliette endured were pervasive as she made her final trip to Epstein's remote Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. There, in June 2004, Juliette awoke paralyzed in a laboratory, while a female doctor operated on her–without her knowledge or consent. While other books have documented his trafficking network, Blue Butterfly explores his obsession with elite eugenics, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, cryogenics, and cloning.

Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's criminal enterprise.

After House Democrats released a scrapbook gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, questions have emerged about whether the late child-sex trafficker's proclivities were an open secret. Indeed, the so-called birthday book, which was compiled by Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, contains multiple letters that are laden with sexual innuendo – including one alleged missive from Donald Trump. A mysterious message, typed on a naked female torso, quotes Trump as stating: "We have certain things in common, Jeffrey." Part of this birthday note implored that "every day be another wonderful secret". "Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?" a quote on the drawing attributed to Trump also stated. Trump is listed under the "friends" section of the book's table of contents, as are former president Bill Clinton and attorney Alan Dershowitz. Jean-Luc Brunel, a former model agency head suspected of supplying young girls to Epstein, was also included in the friends section. Maxwell introduced Brunel to Epstein in the 1980s. Brunel, who was arrested in 2020 by French authorities on suspicion of rape, was found hanged in prison while awaiting trial. Epstein died in jail pending trial six years ago. Several familiar with the 1980s and 1990s scene inhabited by moneyed men, such as Epstein, said that mistreatment of women and girls was well-known. [Model] CarrĂ© Otis ... said she did not meet Epstein but "definitely knew his name" from a whisper network among her colleagues.

Note: When undeniable evidence of Epstein's child sex trafficking ring came to court in 2008, the entire system moved to shield him and his associates from the gravity of his crimes. Major news outlets suppressed key evidence. Prosecutors shut down an FBI investigation and gave him a sweetheart deal. Alexander Acosta, the US attorney who signed off on the deal, later said he was told Epstein "belonged to intelligence, and to leave it alone." Even after his conviction as a sex offender, Epstein was meeting with top officials at the CIA and the White House. Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.

The emails from [Jeffrey] Epstein's inbox span a 20-year timeframe, but the message traffic is most active between 2005 and 2008. (There are indications that many of the emails were deleted.) Epstein's abuse has been well documented, but the emails detail a methodical and callous approach he took to recruiting young women. His female contacts and assistants sent him steady streams of photographs and descriptions of women like this one: nice personality, student, a little curvy, Russian, 19. Epstein often replied with a brief yes or no. Sometimes he was more expansive: "fat and Asian sorry," he wrote in one email. One exchange referencing [Donald] Trump came on Sept. 14, 2006, two months after Epstein was charged in Florida with solicitation of prostitution. It includes a list of 51 politicians, business executives and Wall Street powerbrokers. The list includes people who've previously been linked to Epstein, including Jimmy Cayne, former chief executive of Bear Stearns; Jes Staley, who would later be named the CEO of Barclays; and Trump. "Plse review list and add or remove peeps," [Ghislaine] Maxwell wrote. "Remove trump," Epstein responded. In 2014, one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, accused Maxwell of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. Shortly thereafter, Maxwell sent Epstein a request: "Can you send me the file on Virginia?"

Note: It was reported that Virigina Giuffre killed herself earlier this year, even though she had once declared, "In no way, shape or form am I suicidal ... I have made this known to my therapist and GP – If something happens to me – in the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me [quieted]."

In May, prosecutors in Seattle charged a sheriff's deputy with raping a 17-year-old girl. The deputy met the teenager while he was an adviser in his department's youth mentorship program known as Explorers. Law enforcement departments across the country have Explorer programs – overseen by Scouting America, formerly known as Boy Scouts of America – and they have a history of sexual abuse and misconduct. Ride-alongs, in which young people accompany officers on their patrol shifts, are a key perk of the Explorers program. They are also a gateway to abuse. The Marshall Project examined hundreds of abuse allegations in law enforcement Explorer programs and found that about a quarter of them involved officers on ride-alongs with teens – some as young as 14 years old. The Marshall Project reviewed ... the 217 cases currently in our database. The review found that at least a third of the cases involved alleged abuses in an officer's vehicle. More specifically, about a quarter of the cases involved officers grooming, harassing, or sexually assaulting young people during Explorer ride-alongs. A 2003 report by the University of Nebraska at Omaha found that more than 40% of the cases of officers abusing teenage girls that researchers identified nationwide involved police Explorer programs. "And it's just like other types of police crime, we don't see a whole lot of changes as a result of police reforms," [said criminologist Philip Stinson].

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals.

The government has released 33,295 pages of Jeffrey Epstein-related records that it received from the U.S. Department of Justice. "Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released 33,295 pages of Epstein-related records that were provided by the U.S. Department of Justice," the committee wrote in a statement. "On August 5, Chairman Comer issued a subpoena for records related to Mr. Jeffrey Epstein, and the Department of Justice has indicated it will continue producing those records while ensuring the redaction of victim identities and any child sexual abuse material. Epstein-related documents can be found here." "The victims themselves have stated this is a lot bigger than I think anyone anticipated," Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said after the meeting. "There are some very rich and powerful people that need to go to jail ... it is very much so a possibility that Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligence asset working for our adversaries, but also, the question we have is, ‘How much did our own government know about it?'" On Wednesday, a pair of bipartisan lawmakers will host a news conference at the Capitol to advance their efforts to force the Trump administration to release all of the government's Epstein files. To ramp up the pressure, the lawmakers – Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. – will be joined by several Epstein accusers.

Note: When undeniable evidence of Epstein's child sex trafficking ring came to court in 2008, the entire system moved to shield him and his associates from the gravity of his crimes. Major news outlets suppressed key evidence. Prosecutors shut down an FBI investigation and gave him a sweetheart deal. Alexander Acosta, the US attorney who signed off on the deal, later said he was told Epstein "belonged to intelligence, and to leave it alone." Even after his conviction as a sex offender, Epstein was meeting with top officials at the CIA and the White House. Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.

An interview that I conducted in 2020 with Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Epstein's victims, has always haunted me. It's about a conversation Edwards had with Epstein's bodyguard of five years, Igor Zinoviev, who warned him to back off because of Epstein's shadowy connections to the U.S. government. "[Zinoviev said] ‘You don't know who you're messing with and you need to be really careful. You are on Jeffrey's radar and somebody that Jeffrey pays a lot of attention to, which is not good, you don't want to be on Jeffrey's radar,'" Edwards told me for Broken: Jeffrey Epstein, the podcast series I hosted and reported. "And I said, ‘Well, give me some examples. I mean, who am I messing with?'" Edwards recalled. "And that's when he looked across the table and whispered three letters, ‘C-I-A.'" One of Zinoviev's first assignments during Epstein's brief 2008 detention – just 13 months of overnights at the Palm Beach County jail with so-called work release – was to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. There, he says, he attended classes for a week as the only private citizen in the room. At the end, the director or assistant director – Zinoviev couldn't remember – handed him a book with a handwritten note inside. He was told not to read it and to deliver it directly to Epstein in jail. Edwards later wrote about this encounter in his own book, Relentless Pursuit: My Fight for the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein's usefulness to high-ranking officials might also explain why a Freedom of Information Act request of his calendar by The Wall Street Journal revealed multiple meetings with former CIA director Bill Burns when he was Deputy Secretary of State.

Note: This piece was published on Tara Palmeri's Substack. Palmeri is an investigative journalist and former ABC News White House correspondent. US attorney Alexander Acosta was once told Epstein "belonged to intelligence, and to leave it alone." Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.

Jeffrey Epstein "loved life too much" to kill himself and was confident of securing bail before he died, his butler for 18 years has told The Telegraph. Valdson Vieira Cotrin, who ran Epstein's Paris home, [said] he could not accept the official verdict of suicide and feared that his own life was in danger. He also said he believed that Virginia Giuffre, the Epstein victim who accused Prince Andrew of rape and died by suicide in April, was a victim of foul play. Mr Cotrin also made the extraordinary claim ... that Epstein told him he had been offered a job by Donald Trump. There is no evidence that the allegation is true. But Mr Cotrin's recollection of a conversation with his boss will fuel a growing demand for the full Epstein files – the trove of documents from the criminal investigations into the financier that allegedly name high-profile celebrities and politicians, possibly including Mr Trump – to be released. Mr Cotrin remains in possession of a number of photographs taken with friends of Epstein, including a photo of himself with Bill Clinton on the so-called Lolita Express, Epstein's private plane that he used to traffic underage girls and women for sex. The existence of the photo showing Mr Clinton on board Epstein's jet will also fuel demands for the former president to reveal his full dealings with Epstein. Mr Clinton was issued with a subpoena on Tuesday, demanding he give evidence to a congressional committee investigating the financier.

Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's criminal enterprise.

Newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what the US Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation described as "full raw" surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein's prison cell the night before he was found dead. The video was released last week as part of the Trump administration's commitment to fully investigate Epstein's 2019 death but instead has raised new questions about how the footage was edited and assembled. WIRED previously reported that the video had been stitched together in Adobe Premiere Pro from two video files, contradicting the Justice Department's claim that it was "raw" footage. Now, further analysis shows that one of the source clips was approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds longer than the segment included in the final video, indicating that footage appears to have been trimmed before release. It's unclear what, if anything, the minutes cut from the first clip showed. The footage was released at a moment of political tension. Trump allies had spent months speculating about the disclosure of explosive new evidence about Epstein's death. But last week, the DOJ and FBI issued a memo stating that no "incriminating ‘client list'" exists and reaffirmed the government's long-standing conclusion that Epstein–whom the US government accused of committing conspiracy to sex traffic minors and sex trafficking minors–died by suicide.

Note: Internal US Bureau of Prison (BOP) documents suggest a possible cover-up, while a 60 Minutes 2020 investigation uncovered compelling evidence that challenges the official suicide ruling in Jeffrey Epstein's death–including suspicious neck fractures, missing surveillance footage, and a series of unexplained security failures. Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.

The daughter of a New Jersey police chief claims he repeatedly raped her for more than a decade as part of a "ritualistic" cult allegedly involving their neighbours, according to a shocking lawsuit she filed. Courtney Tamagny's allegations against Leonia Police Chief Scott Tamagny, his neighbour Kevin Slevin and others have starkly divided the small Bergen County borough. The 20-year-old claims her father and Mr Slevin heinously abused her in their home, alongside "ritualistic" worshippers in the woods near their house. "[Courtney was brought] into the woods in Rockland County New York, and there was what appeared to be other middle-aged men present with masks on their faces," the lawsuit claimed. "She recalls there being fire and animals being burned, and they would chant. She was sexually assaulted in those woods by defendant Slevin, defendant father, and some of the other men present," it further claimed. The alleged abuse began in 2009 when Ms Tamagny was around four years old, with the lawsuit claiming it continued until 2020, when she was 15. Both of Ms Tamagny's sisters were also allegedly subjected to abuse, according to the lawsuit, with their father allegedly using drugs to sedate them before assaulting them when their mother was either away or asleep. The mother, Jeanne Tamagny, joined Ms Tamagny as a plaintiff on the lawsuit and is in the process of divorcing her husband.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals.

The United States Department of Justice this week released nearly 11 hours of what it described as "full raw" surveillance footage from a camera positioned near Jeffrey Epstein's prison cell the night before he was found dead. The release was intended to address conspiracy theories about Epstein's apparent suicide in federal custody. But instead of putting those suspicions to rest, it may fuel them further. Metadata embedded in the video ... shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison's surveillance system, the footage was modified. Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley whose research focuses on digital forensics and misinformation, reviewed the metadata at WIRED's request. Farid is a recognized expert in the analysis of digital images. He has testified in numerous court cases involving digital evidence. "If a lawyer brought me this file and asked if it was suitable for court, I'd say no. Go back to the source. Do it right," Farid says. "Do a direct export from the original system–no monkey business." The footage confirms that from the time Epstein was locked in his cell at approximately 8 pm on August 9, 2019. However, the recording includes a notable gap: Approximately one minute of footage is missing, from 11:58:58 pm to 12:00:00 am. The video resumes immediately afterward. It looks suspicious–but not as suspicious as the DOJ refusing to answer basic questions about it.

Note: Followup reporting by Wired indicated that almost 3 minutes were cut before this footage was released. Internal US Bureau of Prison (BOP) documents suggest a possible cover-up, while a 60 Minutes 2020 investigation uncovered compelling evidence that challenges the official suicide ruling in Jeffrey Epstein's death–including suspicious neck fractures, missing surveillance footage, and a series of unexplained security failures. Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations.

Jeffrey Epstein, the registered sex offender, met with many powerful people in finance and business during his career, but the financier invested with only a few of them. One of those people was Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire. In 2015 and 2016, Mr. Epstein put $40 million into two funds managed by Valar Ventures, a New York firm that was co-founded by Mr. Thiel. Today that investment is worth nearly $170 million. The investment in Valar, which specializes in providing start-up capital to financial services tech companies, is the largest asset still held by Mr. Epstein's estate. There's a good chance much of the windfall will not go to any of the roughly 200 victims whom the disgraced financier abused when they were teenagers or young women. Those victims have already received monetary settlements from the estate, which required them to sign broad releases that gave up the right to bring future claims against it or individuals associated with it. The money is more likely to be distributed to one of Mr. Epstein's former girlfriends and two of his long-term advisers, who have been named the beneficiaries of his estate. Just one major federal civil lawsuit remains pending against the executors of the estate, a potential class action filed on behalf victims who haven't yet settled with the estate. In the past, victims have received settlements ranging from $500,000 to $2 million.

Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.

When Jeffrey Epstein purchased Little Saint James, the teardrop-shaped island southeast of St. Thomas, in the late 1990s ... he told U.S. Virgin Islands officials that he was seeking privacy. He also appears to have purchased impunity. Investigators accuse him of raping and sexually abusing girls as young as eleven at his island compound where he also hosted many A-list politicians, business leaders and celebrities. One 15-year-old, whom Epstein allegedly forced into sex acts, attempted to escape by swimming away from the island. She was caught and her passport was taken away. While Epstein was alive, Virgin Islands officials appear to have shielded him from scrutiny. After his death in 2019, other officials who aided Epstein began profiting from continued secrecy and a string of legal settlements ... that put hundreds of millions of dollars under the government's control. No one appears to have benefited more than Albert Bryan Jr., the governor of the territory. Bryan has tapped the Epstein settlement funds to pay for a variety of his domestic political agenda items. The proceeds were promised to assist victims of sexual assault, human trafficking, sexual misconduct, and child sexual abuse. In late April, Bryan ... announced the allocation of $22 million in retroactive wages to government workers. Bryan [also] applied the Epstein funds for vendor payments and sought to use the money for a variety of other earmarks, such as a $25 million makeover for the Justice Building on St. Croix.

Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.