The Spider: Inside the Criminal Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
This month we’ve been looking at how power silences victims, making this weeks book The Spider: Inside the Criminal Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell by Barry Levine. So lets do this.
Jeffrey Edward Epstein was born January 20, 1953 to Seymour Epstein and Pauline Epstein, nee Stolofsky. His parents were first generation born in the United States, his grandparents having immigrated to the United States following the Jewish pogroms in Russia and grew up in Sea Gate, a small community of other Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn. He would be joined 18 months later by a brother, Mark.
Epstein was unquestionably bright, he skipped two grades and graduated at 16 from Lafayette High School. His classmates didn’t really have anything bad to say about him, he was the smart kid, he was seen as charming and funny….traits which he apparently abandoned when he became rich because it seems like the more embroiled he became in later pedo-pursuits, the less he cared about charming his victims, choosing to just throw money at them instead. But we’ll come back to that.
After high school he attended Cooper Union, which was a highly selective university known to producing some of the best engineers and architects, and Epstein fit right in there, he was seen as a brilliant student. But he dropped out after two years, transferring instead to New York University, where he again dropped out without receiving a degree and in 1974, he opted instead to become a teacher.
But not just at any school...he joined the staff of The Dalton School, which is where the elite sent their children to high school. And at 21, Epstein was closer in age to his students than to his fellow staff members. Epstein stood out in another way, in that he was the only member of staff to NOT have a college degree. Despite this, he spent a relatively uneventful year. He did show up to a students party, which the kids thought was weird, but nothing really happened near as anyone can remember, other than kids were like….hey, Mr. Epstein…. Although Levine says this is likely where Epstein’s involvement with young girls began. And he’s most likely right. Just because no one remembers anything doesn’t mean the right kids to know were interviewed for the book. Or were willing to speak about it.
I believe he only taught one year there, the 1975/1976 year, before he was sacked, ostensibly for being an uninspiring teacher. Which did not matter in the slightest because his year spent teaching the children of the rich got him the intro he needed when he met Bear Sterns CEO Alan “Ace” Greenberg. And Greenberg liked the cut of Epstein’s jib, giving him an introduction to market trading at Bear Sterns with Greenberg acting as his mentor.
And with his head for numbers, Epstein was on the fast track to wealth with all he learned at Bear Sterns, handling high end accounts, and earning a high salary. However, this all came to an abrupt end in 1981. There were several reasons given, the one that’s provided generally is the one that is least likely to get Bear Sterns sued...or would have if the company still existed. They famously went bellyup during the 2008 crash. So the reason generally given is that Epstein had lied on his resume, claiming to have a college degree he did not have.
However, there are rumors of insider trading, which never saw sanctions from the SEC because Epstein voluntarily resigned. And his days as a trader were over as of March 12, 1981.
From there, he opened his own business. Not trading. He was legally barred from trading, having lost his licenses to do so as part of the SEC investigation into the allegations of insider trading. No, and this was something he was probably uniquely qualified to do, he set himself up as someone who could find missing money. So if an employee was accused of embezzling funds, for example, he would follow the money trail and retrieve the stolen funds. He also offered services advising the wealthy on investment opportunities.
In 1984, we have Epstein’s first documented allegation of rape, which would not come to light until 2019 when his victim finally came forward. But in 1984, she was only 13 when Epstein hired her to babysit for him. Only, Epstein did not have any children. And when she showed up, he offered her drugs and alcohol and raped her. He would assault her several times over the next couple of years. It’s not real clear under what pretense he got her to come over after the first time.
It was during the 1980’s that his client list would become...really interesting. I know everyone talks about the Clinton’s and the Trump’s and the author certainly made his own opinions on the politics crystal clear, but what caught my eye were the international arms dealers Epstein befriended. Those who know how to smuggle arms, would certainly know how to smuggle victims.
And then Epstein made another leap forward financially, when he met Leslie Wexner, who by the time he met Epstein was a billionaire himself, having successfully leveraged his family’s fortune from running a clothing store in Dayton, OH into international brand the Limited that encompassed Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, The White Barn Candle Company and La Senza. And not too long after Epstein met Wexner, he had impressed Wexner so much that Wexner made him like...business manager? I forget the exact title Epstein held, but it came with power of attorney to make business decisions for Wexner and the Limited body of businesses.
From here, the sky was the limit. Wexner purchased the enormous mansion in New York that would be Epstein’s flagship residence, and then basically gifted it to Epstein. Epstein would have his property in Florida, just down the street from Mar a Lago, Trump’s residence turned golf course, and he would have a membership there. And of course, the island properties in the US Virgin Islands. And his airplane, which the pilots and ground crew dubbed “The Lolita Express” based on the number of very young looking girls who would fly with Epstein to these locations.
Wanna step outside the book for a minute here and let those who don’t know, know where Lolita comes from. It is frequently misunderstood to be a young girl who is trying to seduce an older man. That is ass backwards. The phrase actually comes from a novel by Russian/American novelist Vladimir Nabokov, where in the main character develops an obsession with a 12 year old girl Dolores, who he kidnaps and rapes, calling her lolita, which is the Spanish diminutive for Dolores.
I bring this up, because I’m seriously wondering about the morals and ethics of the flight and ground crew who would see young enough girls aboard the plane to call it the Lolita Express, yet not one of them thought to wonder if they were too young to be legal, and maybe someone should call the FBI.
Regardless, we actually don’t know how many victims there are, and we will likely never know, for a variety of reasons, some of it pervading fear of the powerful men who participated in these assaults, some will have determined revisiting the past isn’t worth the cost to whatever peace of mind they’ve garnered in the present.
On to Ghislaine.
Ghislaine Maxwell was the polar opposite of Epstein, having been born into outstanding wealth and privilege. Maxwell was also of Jewish descent, her father Robert Maxwell having been born Jan Ludvik Hyman Binyamin Hoch in a part of the Czech mountains which is currently in the Ukraine. He was part of the resistence when Germany rolled into Prague in 1938, losing his entire family in the camps during WWII. He would eventually join the British Army and change his name to Robert Maxwell, serving in the foreign office and building his wealth, becoming a political player in England, and raising his children in wealth he had never known. And Ghislaine, who was his youngest, was the apple of his eye.
Ghislaine was born December 25, 1961 in France, and grew up in an enormous like 50 room mansion in England, attending the very best schools, and becoming an accomplished socialite, the belle of the party and a witty conversationalist. She was a bit of a wild child, landing in the tabloids on more than one occasion, for which her father kind of rolled his eyes and never really seemed to chastise her, just wanting her to settle down.
That all ended on November 5, 1991, when Robert Maxwell died, having apparently fallen off his yacht and drowned. His fortune was basically gone to lawsuits due to shady business dealings. Ghislaine was left comfortable due to money she inherited from a trust, but it was not the level of wealth she had been used to. And it was around this time that she met Epstein.
And kind of turned him into her project, teaching him how to dress and talk. He remained more or less reclusive though, avoiding public outings and papparazi...not that the paps had any idea who he was, he was so reclusive.
In the Summer of 2000, while at Mar A Lago, Epstein and Maxwell noticed a pretty young girl who was reading a book on massage techniques. Virginia Roberts had already been victimized once, in 1996 at the age of 13 she was picked up by Ron Eppinger, who was 65 years old and ran a “modeling agency” Perfect 10. He was also a sex trafficker. But by 2000, the now 17 year old Virginia had reunited with her family and was getting her life on track, looking at becoming a massage therapist.
Maxwell made the initial approach, saying that Epstein was looking for a masseuse, and if Virginia wanted to do a trial run, and he liked her, Epstein would pay for her education. Roberts initially declined, pointing out she didn’t really know what she was doing to make this a reasonable proposition. Maxwell took her number anyways because she thought Roberts had a cheerful disposition.
Roberts immediately went to find her dad, who, not knowing any different, said it could be a wonderful opportunity. And with anyone else making the offer, it could have been. Instead, this was Roberts introduction to the Epstein circle, where she would be embroiled for 2 years.
Levine does go into detail as to what Roberts, later Giuffre, experienced with Epstein and Maxwell, and of course how the world got that infamous photo of her with Prince Andrew. The breaking point for Roberts came when Epstein apparently decided he wanted a child that he and Maxwell could raise, and asked Roberts if she would be willing to be the baby mama. This freaked her out. Realized she was not seen as an erotic masseuse or any member of any team. She was simply a commodity to Epstein. She she talked him into sending her to… I think it was Thailand, for a massage seminar or something. And she was already intending NOT to come back, when kismet happened. She saw Robert Giuffre in I believe it was a Muy Thai fight, although it may have been an MMA fight, and the two fell instantly in love, marrying shortly after they met, and Virginia joined her new husband in Australia, never returning to Epstein’s clutches.
There were more. God alone knows how many more, like I said earlier, we will likely never know the true extent of Epstein’s perfidy. Here’s what we do know:
He liked em young. When New York eventually arrested him, and I’ll come back to how the New York thing played out, they found tons of photos of very young looking girls, many who were wearing braces. I googled this, and the average age at which most Americans get orthodontics is 11 to 14. Most are done within a year, a few might wear them for two. So...say between 13 and 15 was his preferred age demographic.
He liked to have them “massage” him, and sometimes he would masturbate, and sometimes he would outright rape them. And he paid them. He had a never ending stream of very young girls, both giving the massage and procuring others. If you gave the massage, you’d be paid $300. If you brought the masseuse, you’d get paid $200. And he routinely spent between $1500 and $2000 A DAY for this little vice.
Now in January 2006, Florida State attorney Barry Krischer determined to investigate the weirdness around Epstein’s Florida residence. He got reports of the hinkiness, and built a pretty solid case against Epstein, I think it was April 2006 the DA brought his case before the grand jury, ultimately only bringing one victim to stand for witness. While all of this is going on, Epstein is still flying between NY, FL, NM, and the USVI for his properties.
The US Attorney was set to take over this case in June of 2007, but then never filed the indictment, Epstein’s attorneys just wanted this kept quiet. Like that was their primary concern. A year after that, in June 2008, Epstein’s attorney’s had hammered out a non-prosecutorial agreement, NPA, which would see him pleading guilty to one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution. He was required to register as a sex offender. He was sentenced to 18 months in county lockup. Which was a fucking joke.
And I don’t mean it was a joke because OH MY GOD he only got 18 months. I mean, his sentence was a literal joke. He immediately applied for “work release” which was granted. Which meant for his time in prison, he was released to go about his business for up to twelve hours a day. Levine describes it as spending his nights in a shitty hotel without roomservice. Otherwise...it was business as usual for Epstein.
By this time, Maxwell had bailed out, although she did write letters of support. And immediately after his sentencing, the law suits started. Which he settled almost as fast as they were filed, with an average settlement of about $50,000. Which, if you recall from last weeks book, is also what the Catholic church offers her victims...so I guess $50K is the going rate for pedophiles. Fucking hell…
And once his “jail” sentence was done, Epstein was free to continue. And he kept going, business as usual. Although it was not as fun as before, as the law suits kept rolling in. And finally, it dawned on Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York realized that at least some of these crimes had occurred in his jurisdiction. And Epsteins former NPA with the district in Florida specified that he could not be tried for this crime again IN THIS DISTRICT. Which left the court wide open for NY.
Now...I RARELY approve of anything coming out of NY. But this...they did right. They kept a very low profile on July 6, 2019 as they waited for Epstein’s plane from Paris to land at Teterboro Airport. And they caught him as he walked off his plane towards his car. And THEN...to cap off my approval of how NY handled this...the judge denied him bail. Epstein offered to put his ENTIRE like 221 million fortune up as bond, AND to pay for security ensuring he did not leave his residence. The judge denied. And he would spend what remained of his life at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Now...the conspiracy. We all know the conspiracy. And Levine does an outstanding job laying out the last….sixish weeks of Epstein’s life. But he has no answers on the conspiracy. It COULD HAVE been suicide. Epstein certainly had reason enough to off himself, and in fact had already attempted it once at the MCC before he succeeded...or was murdered. Whatever.
And it’s kind of the fact that he had already tried once, that lends credence to indifference allowing him to succeed. Usually, once someone has made a credible attempt, and it was a hanging attempt, for which his cell mate raised the alarm and Epstein was successfully revived, one is put on suicide watch indefinitely. Instead, he was put on a limited suicide watch before being returned to his cell. Where eventually his roommate was transferred out, leaving him alone in his cell. And of course on August 10, 2019 he was found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead.
Why wasn’t he kept on suicide watch? Why did they leave him alone in his cell? I mean, there are a lot of questions. An argument AGAINST it being suicide is that he was scheduled to have another bail hearing on August 12. So, he may have had a chance to not be in prison while awaiting trial.
I think suicide is possible. I think its very possible that he wanted to deny his victims their day in court. I think its possible that he was a narcissist and chose to go out on his own terms.
But I also think it’s possible that powerful people wanted to silence him. It’s possible. Just another of the things we’ll never know about the Jeffrey Epstein saga.
Overall this book was a fast read. I was going to say an easy read, but there’s nothing easy reading about child sexual assault and rape. It was a little exasperating that the author could not keep his political opinions out of it. I mean, kudos he didn’t shy back from repeating some of the famous names that were known associates of Epstein and Maxwell. But he tried way too hard to build bridges between Trump and Epstein that there just isn’t enough evidence to support existing, while simultaneously insisting that Bill Clinton was always a perfect gentlemen...a point I think Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick would disagree with.
Kind of like Levine “believes all women” until someone accuses someone Levine doesn’t think could do it. But overall this was an engaging review of a genuine monster, and someone the world is much better off without.
