by Dylan Howard
The main port of call for Epstein’s mile-high crime wave was Teterboro Airport. Located on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, it is a thirty-minute drive to Epstein’s uptown residence. The pimp and his posse used the transportation hub more than seven hundred times.
“I was astonished that somebody could fly around like that,” he said. “He had a hectic schedule. He flew a $32 million jet like we drive our cars. . . . We had guys that were big time bankers, hedge fund managers and all that, that were customers of ours, celebrities that had jets. Nobody flew like he did. It was unbelievable.”
Epstein certainly made an impression.
“Epstein was an arrogant, aggressive guy who was in total control of the situation,” the chauffeur said. “He would sit back there and just direct you and give you orders. He was the king in the car. . . . I wasn’t even in the car as far as he was concerned. He was more interested in the girls and joking and playing with them and pinching them on the cheek.”
He continued:
The girls seemed a little nervous and [Ghislaine] just kept reassuring them, “Don’t worry, everything will be okay. You’ll be fine. Just do what I told you to do. And when it’s all over you’ll be very happy. You don’t have to worry about anything and we’ll get you home as soon as you’re done.”
They were young. They would fly in on his jet all the time. . . . I mean it’s obvious. How could you have so many of these girls coming and going out of there? I mean, if we just dropped them off and left them there and picked them up in two weeks, you’d say, “Oh, well maybe it’s his niece or whatever.” But when you’re dropping them off for two hours and driving them right back, something’s up.
One time, he was with two girls. I assumed they were relatives or nieces. . . . But I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
We picked him up at Newark Airport and we took him and these two young ladies. I guess they were about sixteen, seventeen years old. These girls today, they look older than they are. But we took him and these two girls to his apartment on Seventy-first Street.
Like I said, I thought it was his nieces or something or his daughters, because at that time nobody even had a clue what was going on. But as time went on, myself and other drivers assumed something was fishy because we kept picking up these teenage girls and he couldn’t have that many nieces! We would sometimes take them there to the apartment. And we were told to wait two, three hours and then drive back to the point.
So at that time we started getting suspicious and a lot of the drivers started saying, “You know what, I don’t even want to drive for this guy anymore because there’s something wrong.” But needless to say, I needed the money at the time, I wasn’t married that long. I was in the process of buying a house. I wasn’t in a position to turn down rides. I didn’t know what was going on.
So I continued the work, and looking back today when I see all this stuff that’s come out, I feel terrible that maybe I could have done something to prevent people from being hurt at the time. When you look back, what are you going to do?
This was years before he was arrested. Nobody knew for sure, but we used to say, “Oh, I’ve got to go pick up the pedophile.” And then all this comes out and it was true.
The chauffeur also was responsible for shuttling Epstein’s pilot Dave Rodgers and his co-pilot Larry Visoski to their regular accommodations in the captain’s building on Sixty-sixth Street.
“I drove them a lot,” he admitted. “They never talked about where they went or who was on the plane. The only way I could gauge who was on the plane was the person that I was picking up. So they never talked about that kind of stuff. I guess, you know, he must have had them on a tight leash.”
When Epstein was arrested in 2008, Rodgers and Visoski were grounded for more than a year. But Epstein found other ways of using them. According to the chauffeur, the pilots were ordered to drive the felon’s Bentley from Florida to Texas to get it armor plated.
“Epstein was afraid that somebody was going to try to shoot him,” the chauffeur claimed, recalling how the pilots “complained they had to drive all the way out there with the car because he was so paranoid.”
“But they did it because they did whatever he was told to do. . . . You’ve got this guy that’s overpowering them and giving them money. It’s a sad state of affairs.”
“We were like a courier service, so to speak,” he said. “I overheard them talking one time that they had a safe there. Dave mentioned to Larry that Jeffrey called and wanted him to take the stuff that was out of the safe and bring it to him. So I don’t know what it was, but there was a safe in that apartment.”
Indeed, there was a safe—one that police cracked open after Epstein’s second arrest, finding thousands of pictures and videos of unsuspecting subjects in sexual situations.
Looking in the proverbial rearview mirror, Epstein’s personal chauffeur reflected on Epstein’s gigantic web of blackmail, likening him to a mob boss.
“He was like the Godfather of the sky,” the driver concluded. “He could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and nobody could touch him because he had money, he had influence, and he had dirt on all these people. And he was able to control and manipulate everything because everybody was afraid of him. Nobody would want that stuff to come out.”
Today, the chauffeur has regrets about not coming forward sooner. Although, he and the other drivers certainly had their reasons.
“It just seems that these people with power and money and prestige, when they’re involved in something, they will go out of their way and do anything they can to silence everybody.”
“Epstein was paranoid years ago that someone was going to kill him and now he’s dead,” the driver explained. “They say it was suicide and whether it was or it wasn’t. You know what? Karma’s a bitch and you get what you’ve got coming. I think he was guilty of all that stuff and all the proof that’s coming out says that it was true. So my feeling is that he got just what he deserved. It’s just a shame that it happened so soon before these people could get their justice. But the bottom line is, he’s gone and it’s just another piece of garbage out of this world.”
For the chauffeur, though, this tale has a particularly chilling ending.
“The guy who owned the company that I worked for, the Wednesday before Epstein killed himself, he died mysteriously in New Jersey,” the chauffeur revealed. “I don’t know if it’s connected in any way, but it just seems funny that the guy who owned the company for all those years mysteriously died three days before he did.”
“I don’t know, it’s crazy. But I don’t want to end up like that.”
More and more, it was becoming clear that Epstein was not just a jet-setting international playboy. Those around him, however, continued to keep their silence. Are they responsible for what followed?
Model and actress Alicia Arden told these authors that she was sexually assaulted by Epstein in 1997. Although she filed a police report, she claims, no one would listen to her allegations about the powerful businessman.
In May 1997, my good friend knew Jeffrey Epstein. She was in finance at the time, and I guess he was too, although no one seemed to know anything about him. I didn’t even know who he was. I didn’t hear of his name at all. So she apparently knew of him because she worked legitimately in finance. So she met him at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
She went in there in a different matter, of wanting to work with his company, or his company coming over to work with hers, or merging in some capacity. Some capacity in the finance world. And then he started telling her that she was really pretty, and “Do you want to model for Victoria’s Secret?”
She was not a model, and she didn’t want to do that. She said, “No, I don’t want to model. But my friend Alicia does. You should meet her.” So then Jeffrey said, “Have her call me. I work for Victoria’s Secret. I could get her in the catalog.” And she said, “Oh, great. She would love that.” And then he told her, “Any other girls tha
t you know of, have them call me.” So then I did.
I called him and he told me to send my pictures to him, to his apartment on Madison Avenue, in New York. At the time, I was excited. I thought I was really going to get a picture or job in the Victoria’s Secret catalog, because he told me that he worked for that. I was like, “This is great!” I was excited that I had kind of a hookup, where I’m not really going to go on an audition with a sea of girls.
I bought more Victoria’s Secret lingerie, and I had a photographer shoot me in more pictures, in that specific brand, and then I sent those photos along with my existing book of pictures, my tear sheets.
I was not a model who was starting out. I had an array of work in tear sheets, and beautiful pictures. So I took all these extra pictures for him, along with the existing ones, and I Federal Expressed them to his apartment in Manhattan, on Madison.
He called me and said he got the pictures, and they were great, and he’s going to have a woman named Kimberly, his secretary, call me to set up a time. So she did, and she said he was coming out there, to Santa Monica, California. And, “Would you like to meet him in the afternoon or the evening?”
It’s not normal with all these modeling and acting jobs I’ve done, and auditions, for someone to call me and say we’re going to meet in a hotel room. I have been in auditions in hotels, but there’s other people, and you know that the casting is there. There’s like a sign at the door, and you have to sign in, and you’re there with a lot of other people. But I didn’t think that there were going to be other people there that day. I thought, “This is a hookup. This is a major in, to getting in the Victoria’s Secret catalog, because my friend met him and then the secretary’s calling me, and he’s already seen my pictures. So he likes me. I’m not going to have to go on a casting with other girls. He’s just going to hire me, because he’s already seen my pictures, and I’ll get at least one picture in the catalog.” So I was very happy about that.
I wanted to go in the afternoon. I thought that was better. I still had reservations about going into a hotel. But I thought, you know, this is Santa Monica, California, and this is Shutters. It’s a very expensive, beautiful hotel. But I never went back, for anything, after I went there that day.
So it was set up in the afternoon. I was very excited. I mean I just visualized positive things, like, “I’m going to get in the Victoria’s Secret catalog, and here’s my portfolio, and just walk in and show my pictures to him, and then he can ask me about photos.” Usually they ask you, “Where did you do that magazine? Did that come out? When was that? When did you take that picture?”
But I was just really expecting to already have the job, because of what had happened. My friend met him, the secretary called me, he said he worked for Victoria’s Secret, and I thought, “Oh I’ll get at least one picture. There’s not a casting with all these other girls, or a sign-in sheet. It’s just me meeting him, thinking like that picture would be great in the catalog.”
Well, so I got there, and I walked in the front door, and he was kind of in the back, like in a kitchen, at a table. These hotels are kind of like, you could live there. It looks like a mini apartment. And they’re on the beach.
He was kind of in the back, in a USA sweatshirt, and black sweatpants, and barefoot. Usually they are dressed a little bit more professional than that, the people who are auditioning.
I was sitting on the couch, kind of like I am now, and he was kind of far away from me. I went to give him my portfolio, and then I went back to the couch.
Then he was looking through it. I had a tendency sometimes to want to kind of stuff my bra a little bit to look bustier. I don’t know why I was doing that, because nowadays they don’t like you to do that in swimsuits and lingerie. But I did that, and then he was looking at my pictures, and then he was saying, “Oh, you look a little bustier in this picture, and you look a little bustier in that picture.”
So I said, “Well, Jeffrey, I photograph different all the time. I’m very athletic. I could look bustier or not.” Sometimes I would pad bras or wear two bras. I didn’t really have to do that. I just kind of did it, and so he would make a comment on that.
Then he was looking and then he was saying, “Oh, well you look a little bit hippy in this picture.” I said, “I mean I can photograph any way that you want. It’s just the angle of the picture, the lighting, the photographer, or if I’m put in a skirt.” So then he wanted me to come closer to him.
I got up off the couch, and then I walked closer to him, to the kitchen table. So he wanted me to come closer to him, and he said, “Well, let me see your hips and your butt.” And he was just starting to look at me, and he said, “I need to manhandle you.” So I came closer to him, and he was touching my chest, and my stomach, and then moved down to my hips and my butt.
He was kind of like evaluating my body, and then he started to lift up my skirt, kind of assisting me in undressing, and trying to take off my top. And I just thought, “You don’t do this in a normal audition at all.” So he was lifting up my skirt, and my top, and touching me, and he said, “I want to manhandle you.” He said the word “manhandle” twice. And I’ve never heard that word from anyone ever again in my entire life. Not from anyone, like professional, nonprofessional, friends, or anything. I’ve never heard that word.
So he was touching my hips and my butt, and my buttocks and wanting to lift my skirt up and said he wanted to manhandle me. So I started to feel uncomfortable. And I just thought, “I have to get out of here before anything really bad happens.” I had a friend who was raped and murdered around that time, so I always thought about that. I said to myself, “I never wanted to be raped. Never.” I felt if I didn’t leave, it could lead to that.
So, he was touching me. My shirt was kind of coming off. I just put it all down and got my book and went to leave. When I was doing that, he was putting a hundred dollars on the table.
I was like, “I don’t need that, Jeffrey. I’m starting to feel like a prostitute. I don’t need that. I’m not here for that.” So I left it, and then I took my portfolio and I walked out of the hotel room.
I filed a police report. They weren’t taking me seriously enough to even file. And then I went back a week later and did it anyway.
I guess the police officers ended up calling him, and he said, “Oh no. I don’t know why she’s doing that. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Meaning me. But I documented everything he said, in a report, and I’ve never done that in my entire life, before or after that. I never needed to do that, but I felt I needed to [do that], with him. And I documented everything. It’s all in writing, saying that I went in there, and what happened.
If the police officers would’ve taken me seriously and kind of investigated him, all those years ago, then maybe . . . It’s very upsetting, because I’ve thought about that for a long time. If the police officer and the Santa Monica Police Department would’ve investigated him, and taken me seriously, then I think he could have saved all the girls, the high school girls from being raped and attacked. Then maybe the girls could’ve been saved.
But I really wasn’t taken seriously. My family, my friends discouraged me. Everyone discouraged me from going over there and filing the police report, because I wasn’t physically raped.
I was assaulted, and I felt I could’ve been raped. He was touching me and taking my clothes off, and I felt if I didn’t get out of there, it could’ve been worse. So did it need to be worse? Did I need to be raped? Did I physically need to be raped for anyone to take me seriously?
It could’ve saved all the girls from being attacked. And I don’t know, his circle of friends, they just kind of put it under the cover, and socialized with him at events. That’s what I saw in the news.
No one cared. Not just the police officers, but no one in his circle cared to see what he was doing.
For some of Epstein’s friends, it was more that they did see what he was doing, but they just didn’t care—because they we
re doing it, too.
What was it that brought these leaders of industry, media, and politics into the inner circle of a college dropout?
Maxwell family friend Laura Goldman has a theory, as she explains here:
I believe that Jeffrey Epstein was a genius, a savant, at understanding rich people.
This is what I know. Rich people are cheap, and rich people love nice things. What I believe that Jeffrey Epstein understood that and he provided people like Bill Gates, Bill Clinton with private planes, luxurious private planes and they just ate it up. It’s a sad commentary on our society.
He understood that waving a private plane in front of Bill Clinton would make him a friend for life. He understood that offering a ride on the Lolita Express to Bill Gates and offering to talk to him about philanthropy would entice Bill Gates.
He understood your weak point. It may be that he was exceptionally good at it and exceptionally good at understanding rich people, but it is the method of all bullies to do that.
Epstein also paid for prestige, literally.
He gave $180,000 to the West Palm Beach nonprofit organization Ballet Florida and earmarked some of the cash for “therapeutic” massages. He gave $25,000 to a junior tennis center in Maryland, $30,000 to a preschool in New York, $15,000 to an all-girls private school a few blocks from his mansion in Manhattan, and, perhaps least unsurprisingly, nearly $100,000 to his former employer, Dalton.
From the 1990s through 2018, Epstein also gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians on both sides of the aisle, including the Clintons and their foundation, President George H.W. Bush, Ohio Senator John Glenn, New York Senators Charles Schumer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Ohio Governor John Kasich, former Secretary of State John Kerry, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (who would later be named in court documents as a coconspirator, a claim he vehemently denies).