Relentless Pursuit

by Bradley J. Edwards

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  Papa, I miss you. You are my guide every day. Your selfless leadership lives on forever, through all those you taught and influenced during your lifetime.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  IN WRITING THIS BOOK, THE protection of our clients and other victims was paramount. For that reason, several names have been changed to protect the identity of certain individuals who wish to remain anonymous. Additionally, we simply could not include all the meaningful histories of the many survivors we interviewed over the years. For those reasons, we have included composite characters in this book—namely, Allison, Savanah, and Seloh. Through each composite character, we were able to share the experiences of more than one survivor of Jeffrey Epstein in a way that both protects privacy and allows for a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding the breadth of Epstein’s abuse and the history of those he preyed upon.

  Finally, with regard to the many conversations that occurred between Jeffrey Epstein and me that are detailed herein, the quotations represent the essence of the words spoken during such exchanges to the very best of my recollection.

  PROLOGUE

  MY PURSUIT OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN on behalf of his victims became my personal life’s mission. Jeffrey Epstein was an intellectually gifted sociopath with unlimited wealth who lived an unconventional and virtually unconstrained life. The rules he—and those in his fold—lived by were his own. The problem was that his rules didn’t account for laws.

  Epstein had amassed extensive political and worldly connections. His friends included a former United States president, the current U.S. president, leaders of foreign countries, the greatest scientists on the planet, some of the wealthiest men in the world, and even a member of the British royal family.

  But his wealth and connections weren’t what put him on my radar. It was his lifestyle that did. For decades he used his tremendous fortune to sexually exploit women and girls, some as young as fourteen years old. The more I learned, the more determined I was to bring his manipulation and abuse to an end. When he was finally discovered by law enforcement, his money and connections bought him out of serious trouble. He was able to negotiate an agreement with the United States government that essentially immunized him from the federal sex crimes he’d committed against dozens of children. Even more offensive, the government worked with Epstein to keep the immunity agreement concealed from the victims he had abused.

  One victim, Courtney Wild, hired me as her lawyer to make sure her rights as a crime victim of Jeffrey Epstein were protected. At first, that sounded as if it should have been easy. It was anything but. Over the course of eleven years the investigation had taken me all over the United States and beyond. I had represented more than thirty victims in lawsuits and claims against Jeffrey Epstein, multiple personal lawsuits, and an unprecedented pro bono case that itself spanned more than a decade. In the end, however, justice was finally served. Epstein was arrested. He was incarcerated for only a month before he escaped responsibility once again, this time by committing suicide in a federal correctional institution in New York.

  Had it not been for some very courageous women, there is little doubt Jeffrey Epstein would have continued to harm young girls on a massive scale while globetrotting with his dedicated followers. He was the master of his universe, ruling through manipulation and absolute control. After years of being pursued, fighting one legal battle after another, he was eventually captured. Still, he managed to stay in control—by choosing the way he left his universe behind.

  Even though he died, the story of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes should not. I believe I owe it to my clients, the brave women who came forward to seek justice, and the good people who risked their privacy and safety to help us hold Jeffrey Epstein accountable to share what really happened during this time in history.

  ONE THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  IT WAS SATURDAY, JULY 6, 2019. I was in Naples, Florida, with my wife, Terry, and our three sons, Blake, Cashton, and Austin, enjoying the Fourth of July holiday weekend with several other families from our hometown of Fort Lauderdale. We spent the day hanging out at the hotel pool and throwing a football around until suddenly black clouds came out of nowhere and filled the sky. Within minutes, a lightning bolt shot down and thunder drowned out the lifeguard whistles as everyone was asked to evacuate the pool area. We corralled the children and ushered them inside.

  Cooped up in a hotel room, the kids were bouncing off the walls, and the adults wanted a break. One of the other dads and I volunteered to take all the kids somewhere to let them run off their energy. We loaded up two cars with ten children ranging from four to fourteen years old and went to the local bowling alley.

  As soon as I parked, my phone rang. It was my law partner Stan Pottinger. Making a concerted effort not to let anything disrupt my family time, I didn’t answer and shoved my phone back in my pocket. It was still raining so hard you could barely see. The kids and I opened the car doors and made a run for it. We quickly realized we were not the only ones in town with this idea. The alley was packed. And loud. The kids immediately dashed to the counter. While I was trying to pay for the shoes and lanes, my phone kept ringing. Stan again. I thought to myself, This is strange He never does that. Still, I couldn’t answer at the moment.

  “What size shoes do you need?” asked the clerk. Most of the kids, excited to get bowling, just started yelling out shoe sizes simultaneously.

  “I don’t know what my shoe size is,” shouted my friend’s four-year-old daughter, Callie. I placed my phone faceup on the counter while lifting Callie in the air to show the clerk her foot so that he could take his best guess at her size.

  “Your phone is ringing,” Callie said. I looked down. It was Stan again. This had to be important. After I helped Callie get her shoes on and find a lightweight bowling ball, I asked the other dad to watch the kids while I made a quick call.

  Before I could dial, Stan called again. I ducked into the quieter bar area to answer. “Are you okay?” I asked as I pulled the phone to my ear.

  Stan, in his typical very calm voice, said, “I just got a call from the FBI. He’s in handcuffs. They arrested him an hour ago coming off his jet from Paris.”

  Jeffrey Epstein, infamous billionaire and my longtime archenemy, who until now had gotten away with international sexual abuse against hundreds of young women and girls, was in custody.

  At that moment, a million thoughts shot through my mind. I didn’t say anything for a good five seconds, unable to figure out which one I wanted to turn into a question. “No kidding,” I finally replied. “Who arrested him? What did they charge him with? Have you seen the indictment? Has it been reported?”

  Stan continued with what little information he had. “The indictment is sealed,” he explained. “I don’t know who the victims are, but he’s charged with sex trafficking. His first appearance hearing is Monday. Because some of our clients are known victims and may be witnesses, the FBI is trying to alert them to the arrest before it leaks to the press. Hopefully that won’t happen before we get to them, but you should call them as soon as you can.” He was right—bowling would have to wait. Our clients should get the news from us, and as soon as possible. I hung up with Stan and immediately called my associate attorney, Brittany Henderson, so that she could help m
e begin sharing the news with all of our clients.

  The first client I called was Courtney Wild. “No way. I don’t believe you,” she said. After that, all I heard was crying, years of emotions pouring out. “I have to see him in handcuffs. I won’t believe it until I do. I want to be at the hearing on Monday. If I have to drive to New York, I will! We need to be there,” she exclaimed.

  “One way or the other, we will be,” I assured her.

  Before I could reach out to anyone else, I received an incoming call from another client and victim, Olivia. Her voice was shaking, “Jeffrey Epstein was arrested. The FBI just called me. I can’t believe this day has finally come.”

  When the next call came, I figured it was a client, but it was a reporter from the New York Times, and within seconds, I discovered that he knew more than I did. “Why did they raid his New York mansion?” he asked. I didn’t know they had. I wasn’t interested in wasting time on the phone speculating, so I let all the other unidentified calls go to voice mail.

  I spent the rest of the night talking with clients, one after another. For more than ten years, we had been through so much together. I was more than just their lawyer. By this point, I served in the role of trusted friend and oftentimes therapist. After hours of trying to answer as many questions as possible, I finished the last client call and sat on the hotel balcony, staring at the water and reflecting.

  The day has finally come. Jeffrey Epstein is in custody. But this is not over. This is a world-class heavyweight fight and Jeffrey Epstein is not someone you can just sucker-punch and think you’ve won. The government has to keep swinging until they finish him off, because if he gets a second to recover, he will. And if he does, he will make them pay. He will make everyone who took this shot at him pay. Those thoughts made sleep impossible that night.

  * * *

  The next day, Sunday July 7, Courtney got on a plane from West Palm Beach, Florida, to New York City. I drove back from Naples to Fort Lauderdale and flew to New York Monday morning. We knew the courthouse would be crawling with reporters, which made Courtney nervous. As an Epstein victim, she’d been unfairly labeled and mischaracterized by certain members of the press, which meant that, unable to tell the good ones from the bad, she distrusted them all.

  While we hoped to avoid the press altogether—at least until everyone got their bearings—we knew that was not going to be possible. Courtney rode in one car with Michelle Licata, another Epstein child sex abuse victim, whom Courtney had never met before that day. I went separately in another. We thought if we didn’t show up together, we could probably get into the courthouse without a media siege. To some extent, the strategy worked.

  As I approached the lawyer’s entrance to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street, I could see the sidewalk lined with cameras. It was raining, so I used my umbrella to shield my face as I scooted behind the reporters, who were waving their microphones while frantically scanning the perimeter of the building in search of victims or their attorneys.

  I made it all the way to the courthouse steps unnoticed before a member of the crew working on an Epstein-related Netflix series recognized me. “Brad, where are your clients?” he called out. I ignored the question and made my way up the courthouse steps. Just then, at least twenty reporters who had covered the Epstein saga over the years started shouting my name, all following with different questions. When I didn’t answer, one called out, “Come on, Brad, give us something. Are you relieved that he is in custody?” I turned to the crowd and responded to the calls for comment with one line: “Better late than never.”

  Once inside the federal courthouse, I called Courtney and told her where to enter to avoid reporters. With most of the press standing guard at the front, Courtney and Michelle were able to enter through a side door. Both were smiling from ear to ear as they waited in the security line, which I could see through a glass-plated window inside.

  After moving through security, Courtney walked up to me and gave me a hug. Reporters noticed us and approached, although they were respectful when I waved them off and walked with Courtney and Michelle toward the elevator.

  We got off on the seventeenth floor. The hall was filled with people. It was standing room only in the courtroom, and a long line had formed outside where the bailiff was deciding who was going to get in and who was not. “Will we be able to get in?” Courtney asked.

  “Yes,” I told her, “because of you, we will get in. You won’t be denied your right to be at this hearing.” She smiled, realizing the truth in that statement. The Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA), a federal law Courtney and I had litigated for years to enforce, explicitly gave her that right.

  We walked to the courtroom door and the bailiff asked that we go to the end of the line that extended the length of the hall. I told him, “I represent these two victims.” The bailiff responded, “Right this way,” and escorted us into the courtroom, where he sat us in the special row designated for victims and their attorneys.

  Members of the press comprised most of the gallery; they turned around, staring at us. Some of the reporters were friendly, familiar faces, like investigative journalists Julie Brown of the Miami Herald and Vicky Ward. Others, I had never met. Regardless, any reporter who was able to make eye contact asked if we would stick around afterward for an interview. We ignored all of the inquiries. The thought of Jeffrey Epstein walking into the room in handcuffs was so unbelievable that none of us could think past that.

  Courtney, nervous, looked around the courtroom, trying to take it in. While a first appearance hearing is not usually terribly exciting, she had been waiting for this scene for almost fifteen years. Her abuser was in custody. Even though his arrest was not directly for crimes he had committed against her, this day was evidence that her voice, long disregarded, finally mattered.

  After a half-hour wait, Judge Henry Pitman entered, and everyone stood. The tension in the room thickened. As the court came to order, the surreal nature of the moment set in. It was like no other feeling I had ever experienced, in or out of a courtroom, and I could tell Courtney felt the same way. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.

  After the judge took the bench and we all sat, Courtney whispered to ask who everyone was. At the table for the United States were prosecutors Alex Rossmiller and Alison Moe, along with two FBI case agents, all of whom Courtney had previously met. At the defense table sat nationally renowned white-collar criminal defense lawyers Marty Weinberg, Reid Weingarten, and Marc Fernich. The gallery was full, and the jury box was packed with additional press members and courtroom artists (no cameras are allowed in federal court, so artistic sketches are the only images released to the public). Everyone was in position, motionless. There was complete silence as the United States marshals walked to the side door of the courtroom that connected to the inmate holding cell.

  All eyes were fixed on the door. Federal officers opened it and walked in first. Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for. Dressed in a navy blue federal prison uniform, Jeffrey Epstein entered the courtroom.

  He looked reasonably fresh, considering that he had spent the last forty-eight hours in a jail cell. As he approached his table, he still had his typical confident air, although his normal strut was slightly less arrogant than usual. But still, something about him, even in a jail uniform, made him seem more important than everyone else in the room.

  As he sat down at the table with his attorneys, he scanned the courtroom. Based on what had led up to this moment, I had to wonder if he was looking for me, suspecting that I was the person behind his arrest. In any event, given our long history, he no doubt knew I would not have missed this hearing for anything. But at the moment, he had more important problems. He never looked back again.

  Within seconds of sitting down, Epstein turned to Marty Weinberg, his counsel, and appeared to whisper one of his typical wisecracks. I’d seen that facial expression too many times to miss its nature—it was the one he made ju
st before unleashing a perfectly executed one-liner that reset the mood of everyone in the room. I could only guess at this one, probably something about how his prison cook did not quite measure up to the five-star traveling chef he employed.

  The hearing was short. It was only an arraignment—a reading of the government’s charges to the defendant, which is a right the Constitution affords all people charged with a crime. As it ended, Judge Pitman informed the attentive audience that the next hearing would be held immediately in Judge Richard M. Berman’s nearby courtroom. Eager to learn whether Epstein would be let out on bail, our small group left the courtroom and stayed together, steering clear of reporters who were trying to corner us.

  I ran into Marty in the hallway. “Brad, why are you here?” he asked.

  “Why do you think?” I replied. We exchanged respectful smiles and walked in opposite directions.

  A row near the back of the gallery in Judge Berman’s courtroom had been cleared for the victims and their lawyers, so we took our seats. Soon, the U.S. marshals turned toward the side door, and all eyes followed. So did utter silence. As in the other courtroom, Epstein, unshackled, walked in seeming as though he was still on top of the world. But knowing him as well as I did, I could sense his irritation.

  Jeffrey Epstein, accustomed to sitting on his throne, hated nothing more than having a room filled with people whom he considered to be insignificant staring at him like some type of caged animal at the zoo. He was a lion who, when free, would be king of his jungle, with a hit list including all of those people in the audience who now dared to look at him. But he was also an actor on his best behavior, with one objective: to impress the federal judge who would determine his fate and consequently the fates of many others.

  Judge Berman heard from the prosecution first. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Rossmiller revealed that hundreds, if not over a thousand, photographs of nude young women had been confiscated from a secret vault in Epstein’s mansion—a vault that had been sawed open by the FBI after its court-approved search. This was the first indication I had gotten that Epstein had no idea his arrest was coming. When a search warrant had been executed on his Florida mansion fourteen years earlier, he had been tipped off and had sanitized his house before the FBI could find much of value. There was no way he would have left behind those photos for the FBI to snag if he knew they were coming for him.