Jeffrey Epstein Didn't Kill Himself
A brief review of Julie K. Brown's book, Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story
At some point over the last several years and well before his arrest, I became aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s perverted propensity for pre-pubescent and pubescent girls. And like a rubber-necker passing a terrible accident on the highway, I couldn’t look away.
Maybe it’s the fact that I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse that I became deeply enraptured with the quest for justice for Epstein’s victims. Still, something tugged at me, kept me watching the news, searching for clues that justice may arrive.
After the disgraced financier’s arrest and death, though, my stomach fell.
I just knew in my heart of hearts that justice — real justice for all the women whose lives were ruined by his hellish fetish — would never arrive. Despite the fact that the #metoo movement was underway, and even after Ghislaine Maxwell’s arrest, it seemed that the billionaire’s abuse would largely be brushed under the rug.
To this day, there are too many open questions. There are ongoing theories of the conspiracy kind, and there’s been lots of money paid to many people for silence.
I picked up Julie K. Brown’s book because I desired to understand the Epstein debacle from the perspective of the investigative journalist who violently yanked this high-profile story back into the public spotlight — the way Epstein and Maxwell violently yanked young women into sex trafficking.
Julie’s book covers more than a decade of research, sheds light on government corruption, poor assumptions, and vapid promises. It shows that, at minimum, state and federal actors operated with implicit bias: the rich white guy should be believed; the women from poverty should not.
Here are some quotes from the book to give you a taste of what you’ll find in the pages of Perversion of Justice:
“I started getting the inclination that for some reason, the defendant and the government were working together against the victims, although I knew that kind of conspiracy theory was so far-fetched that I didn’t want to believe it.”
—Brad Edwards, victim’s lawyer
[Federal prosecutors] go into legal practice, or they become bankers, consultants, lobbyists, political operatives, or fixers, like Kenneth Starr, who used his political connections in the White House to get the Justice Department to review Epstein’s case.
Then they can earn lots of money from wealthy people, like Epstein, who are trying to get away with bad deeds.
Of course, none of this is illegal.
The Office of Homeland Security, in less than six months, closed their investigation into whether Epstein was trafficking women and girls from overseas using his planes. To this day, the names of the passengers on those Homeland Security forms that Epstein’s pilots were required to complete for flights in and out of the United States have never been made public.
“Ms. Villafaña believes the injustice in this case is a direct result of implicit biases based on gender and socioeconomic status—biases that allowed Mr. Epstein’s defense team unparalleled access to the decision-makers at the Justice Department, while the victims, Ms. Villafaña, and the FBI agents working the case were silenced.”
—Ty Kelly, Ms. Villafaña’s lawyer (Ms. Villafaña was a federal prosecutor at the time)
Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story provides a robust, deep dive into the evidence surrounding this case. And Brown closes the book with a nod to the victim’s compensation fund set up for Epstein’s survivors. She writes, “As of March 2021, at least 175 women have filed claims and more than 67 million dollars has been paid his sexual assault survivors.
For insight into how it was possible for this monster perv to fly under the justice radar for so long, crack into this book. Just know that with the turn of every page, you may trust the government less and less and learn to question the motives of government actors more and more.
This book was emotional, informative, and sad. My heart goes out to all of Epstein’s victims and victims of sex trafficking, broadly.
Slavery still exists: It’s called rape.
I’d love to say, “Happy reading,” but this isn’t exactly a fun book to read, despite its importance and cultural significance.
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