Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse returned to West Palm Beach to demand prosecutions from Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, steps away from where Florida prosecutors brokered the dead sex offender’s infamous “sweetheart” deal nearly 20 years ago.
An unofficial hearing with Democrats on the House Oversight Committee — only a few miles from the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where many survivors were introduced to Epstein — heard testimony from five women who recounted their abuse and years of failures from state and federal officials to investigate their claims or the alleged network of powerful figures connected to him.
Dani Hannah Bensky said Epstein abused her in 2004 and 2005, eight years after Maria Farmer first reported him to the FBI. When she was first subpoenaed in 2008 at age 20, no one told her she was entitled to a victims’ rights advocate or a lawyer, she told the panel on Tuesday.
“For many parts of my interview, it felt like an interrogation,” she said.
“Our entrenched systemic failures have allowed powerful people like Jeffrey to thrive,” she added. “If we continue down this path, the question isn’t whether abuse will happen again, but who will be the next Jeffrey Epstein?”
Roza, who was recruited by modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel in her home country of Uzbekistan, was introduced to Epstein in Florida.
She said she was raped by the sex offender over three years beginning in 2009 — a period in which he would he was on work release after a controversial plea agreement that avoided a lengthy prison sentence.
Roza alleges Epstein threatened her visa status and financial security to keep her from escaping.
“The fact he could commit those acts made justice feel impossible to me,” she told the panel.
After the Justice Department released millions of documents connected to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwel, the government published Roza’s name more than 500 times — exposing her name and the names of other survivors while redacting the names of powerful figures with ties to the sex offender.
Asked what justice looks like for her and other survivors, Roza said the onus is on members of Congress and federal law enforcement — not survivors whose lives have been uprooted by what they see as a system that continues to fail them while protecting powerful people.
“You guys have to figure out justice. Not me. You can’t give me justice,” she said.
“When I came to this country, I thought something was going to be different,” she said. “I am shocked this is happening here, in the United States … You need to figure it out, and I hope you do, and I hope this never happens again.”
The president and the Justice Department have been eager to wind down public scrutiny into Epstein and federal law enforcement’s handling of the cases against him and Maxwell, which have grown into political liabilities for the president and his allies now facing bipartisan outrage over a lack of promised prosecutions against alleged co-conspirators and fueling allegations of a cover-up.
“The current administration through its DOJ believes that this investigation is over, that no one else could be investigated for perhaps the worst sex trafficking ring in American history, that no other person could be held accountable,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat.
The committee has heard testimony from several people in Epstein’s orbit, including Bill and Hillary Clinton and Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The panel is expected to receive testimony from former Attorney General Pam Bondi later this month after she initially defied a subpoena for her deposition.
Maria Farmer, who was the first person to report Epstein’s abuse to authorities in 1996, submitted video testimony to the hearing.
“Why won’t the FBI release my full report?” she said in tears. “Doing my civic duty has cost me dearly.”
Had federal authorities done their job, “30 years of abuse and trauma could have been avoided,” she said.
Sky Roberts, the brother of Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, recounted how Maxwell recruited his younger sister at Mar-a-Lago when she was 16.
He then read from her sworn testimony in which she named former Prince Andrew, attorney Alan Dershowitz and billionaire hedge-fund manager Glenn Dubin. The men have denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
“Will there finally be investigations and accountability?” Roberts asked.
Courtney Wild, who was 14 years old when Epstein first abused her, said she has lost years of her life trying to hold the government accountable for Epstein’s 2008 plea deal.
Attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represented the first victim to come forward in the Palm Beach investigation, called the agreement brokered by then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta “the worst” ever executed by a federal prosecutor.
In 2006, a Palm Beach grand jury indicted Epstein on one state felony charge of solicitation of prostitution in 2006, a case that was then referred to the FBI. In 2007, an assistant U.S. attorney crafted a draft indictment outlining 60 criminal counts against Epstein, along with a memo of evidence against him.
But Acosta then arranged for Epstein to plead guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18. He was released after serving less than 13 months in state prison.
In 2019, Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial on federal trafficking charges,
“Instead of a prosecution that matched the scale of the harm, what followed was a secret agreement that minimized the abuse and insulted the children who had been abused,” Kuvin said.
“The victims were not consulted,” he said. “Their advocates like me were not consulted. Victims were never given an opportunity to be heard.”
Survivors have called on the government to uphold the Crime Victims’ Rights Act and urged better education on what grooming and sex trafficking look like to help women identify abusers.
Jena-Lisa Jones, who said she was abused by Epstein in Florida when she was 14, said she does not believe justice “will ever be served in this case.”
“I don’t know what justice looks like anymore,” she said. “When we came forward and told our stories, I was treated like a criminal by the federal government.”
About the Author
