Epstein -- who faced federal charges in New York that could have imprisoned him for 45 years -- had been sued numerous times.
After he served 13 months in jail in Palm Beach following a guilty plea in 2008 to state charges including soliciting prostitution from a minor, he settled more than two dozen suits by women. They claimed he lured them when they were teenagers to his mansion there, coerced them into sex, paid them and asked them to recruit others.
Three of those cases, filed by clients of Brad Edwards, settled for a total of $5.5 million. Edwards is the lawyer for the women who filed the complaints Tuesday in federal court in New York. The plaintiffs aren’t named because of the “sensitive sexual nature” of the cases, the suits say.
Late Tuesday, Edwards submitted arguments on behalf of VE, another client who last week sued Epstein’s estate and three of the same companies targeted by the latest suits, asking the court to allow her to proceed anonymously.
“Epstein’s vast wealth and far reaching connections make it clear that retaliation could be employed against individuals pursuing claims against the estate” and could deter witnesses, according to the filing. VE’s anonymity will serve society as well, which “has an interest in eradicating the predatory practices of powerful men against vulnerable, susceptible women.”
One of the them, identified as Katlyn Doe, says Epstein tricked her into having sex with him while he was on work release from the Palm Beach jail -- he was allowed to leave to go to a nearby office six days a week -- and manipulated her into a phony marriage.
She says she agreed to come to Florida after he promised her a job at his office there, and that HBRK coordinated her travel. Instead, Epstein forced her to “engage in sexual encounters” with him and another young female. The office was the headquarters of Epstein’s Florida Science Foundation, which is a defendant in her suit.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff is conducting an internal investigation into the conditions of Epstein’s sentence. He served 13 months of an 18-month term as part of a secretive deal that involved a federal non-prosecution agreement negotiated by former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta. He was forced to resign last month as U.S. Secretary of Labor amid harsh criticism of that deal, which the Miami Herald wrote about in a 2018 series called Perversion of Justice.
In her lawsuit, Katlyn Doe says that people around Epstein would often remind her of his “extraordinary power to reward and punish.” She was 17 when she first met him, she says, suffering from an eating disorder and an unspecified medical condition that required surgery.
Epstein promised to give her $20,000 for an operation, coming through with $10,000 when she agreed to marry an Epstein associate who was seeking U.S. residency, the suit says. Epstein said he would hand over the rest when the marriage ended but didn’t do so after the 2017 divorce, according to the suit. Epstein continued to sexually abuse Katlyn Doe until 2017, the suit says.