Jeffrey Epstein Ran Sex Blackmail Operation For Intelligence Agencies, New Evidence Suggests
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell used a puppet to entrap Prince Andrew, victim claims in unsealed court documents
by Alex Gutentag And Michael Shellenberger
The release of new court documents from a lawsuit related to Jeffrey Epstein yesterday “provided little, if any, new fodder for conspiracy theorists who remain fixated on Mr. Epstein’s dealings more than four years after his death,” according to the New York Times. The documents, the Times claimed, reinforced what the public already knew, namely that pedophile financier Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell made young and often underage women available for sex to powerful men.
In fact, the documents offer new evidence and insight into how Epstein and Maxwell appeared to be blackmailing powerful individuals, albeit to mysterious ends. A judge ordered the release of the court documents, which were from a case brought by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell in 2015. The parties settled in 2017. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
It’s true that some of the information released yesterday had already come to light. Last April, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported that the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, had scheduled three meetings with Epstein in 2014. At the time, Burns was deputy secretary of state. According to the Journal, they met in Washington, D.C., and at Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan. The Journal based its reporting on Epstein’s own emails and schedules.
In 2019, reporter Vicky Ward for the Daily Beast wrote a story about the Justice Department’s 2007 “non-prosecution agreement” with Epstein. Where others might have gone to prison for similar crimes, Epstein made a deal with the US Attorney’s office and avoided federal prosecution for sexually abusing young girls by pleading guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida. Under this agreement, Epstein avoided a potential life sentence and served only 13 months in a work-release program.
That same year, another of Epstein’s victims alleged that he had cameras in his house to monitor people. That claim lent further credence to the theory that Epstein was collecting compromising material on influential figures.
But the newly unsealed documents include powerful new evidence that Epstein and Maxwell were deliberately blackmailing people. Johanna Sjoberg, another one of Epstein’s victims, recounted that he and Maxwell had created a Prince Andrew puppet for Prince Andrew. They presented it to him and used it to guide him into taking sexual photos with Sjoberg and Giuffre.
“They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap,” Sjoberg testified, “and I sat on Andrew’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo.”
It is a remarkable passage since Maxwell and Epstein appear to be engaged in a kind of psychological operation, framing Andrew, to himself, as their puppet. Maxwell and Epstein apparently played it off as a joke to Andrew, and he played along, copying his puppet’s behavior and groping Sjoberg.
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