On civil liberties and the hearing in which women testified against Epstein after his death
I'm
often asked why I've bothered to devote so much time and energy to this
interminable Jeffrey Epstein saga, and it's forced me to come up with a
bit of a stock answer. One major reason, I tell my kindly inquisitors,
is that the sprawling multi-decade fiasco has been disastrous for civil
liberties. Which gets comprehensively
ignored, despite the hyper-saturation levels of media coverage. No one
in their right mind wants to be accused of "defending Epstein," even if
what they're manifestly doing is not "defending Epstein," but pointing
out that civil liberties have been worryingly abridged.
The
vindictive moralistic frenzy that attaches to this issue means that by
simply calling attention to objectionable government conduct, you can
expect to be instantly spun as somehow condoning the personal
proclivities of Jeffrey Epstein. And who wants to deal with that
headache? Therefore: out of sight, out of mind. Which is a recurring
pattern for how civil liberties invariably end up getting eroded. It's
always a crowd-pleaser to direct punitive state action at the most
reviled figures in society — the most notorious of which in previous
eras have included "terrorists," "domestic extremists," "drug dealers,"
and the like. The more untamable the public animus against a particular
category of wrongdoer, the more readily civil liberties can be chucked
aside. So when it comes to "pedophiles" and "child sex-traffickers" —
forget it. All bets are off. Perpetrators of quadruple homicide are less
culturally anathema these days. Here's a neat trick for prosecutors and
politicians: if you want to make the Constitution vanish, just say
you're punishing "pedos."
However
unpleasant we might find actual pedophilic criminality — though the
definition of such seems to expand exponentially by the day — unchecked
degradation of civil liberties affects the entire body politic, whether
or not you give a hoot about Epstein. Some readers might be wondering
what specific infringements I'm talking about, and their wonder isn't
unreasonable, as so little airtime has ever been given to these
affronts. So let's get specific.
After
he died in federal custody, the government predictably moved to dismiss
the charges pending against Epstein, because he was no longer alive.
Thus rendering any criminal proceedings against him moot. Or so one
might have thought. Turns out, the presiding judge in the Southern
District of New York, Richard M. Berman, had another idea. Berman
announced he was going to do something wildly aberrational — or as the New York Law Journal politely described
it at the time, "unique, and perhaps unprecedented." That is, Berman
proclaimed he would convene a hitherto unheard-of hearing, in which any
self-identified "victim" was invited to show up and be granted an
unfettered platform to say whatever the heck they wanted about Epstein.
Who at this point had never been convicted of any federal crimes. And
was also deceased. Thus eliminating his ability to refute unflattering
claims made against him. Berman said the technical purpose of the
hearing was to consider arguments around nolle prosequi
— the nullification of Epstein's indictment upon his death — even
though there was no serious legal question that charges against a
decedent must be dismissed. Using this bogus pretext, Berman allowed his
courtroom to transform into a complete free-for-all, with a parade of
self-declared "victims" and lawyers filing in for what could only be
described as a judicially-authorized "struggle session."
The
hearing, on August 27, 2019, also predictably became a giant media
frenzy. Journalists swarmed the courthouse and its surrounding environs,
though virtually none evinced the slightest apprehension about the
civil liberties implications of the spectacle they were about to behold.
"Victim" after "victim" — some named, some permitted to stay
comfortably anonymous (emphasis added)— gave tearful monologues recounting their
purported victimization by Epstein, without the faintest notion that
their claims would be subjected to even basic corroborative vetting,
much less cross-examined. Instead, they could just rattle off whatever
came to mind, with the implied imprimatur of the court. Epstein's
erstwhile defense counsel was relegated to sitting quietly by, with
their client having just been found dead under circumstances that are
still murky.
One
anonymous "victim" presented at this hearing claimed that as a
15-year-old girl living in Texas, she was approached at the mall one day
by an unidentified woman who spotted her carrying a violin case. The
woman purportedly told her about a "very rich man who had a home close
by," and that he would like to hear her play the violin. "After some
hesitation," the anonymous "Jane Doe" recounted, she agreed to visit the
man. This, she said, turned out to be the most catastrophic decision of
her life, marking the death of her childhood and loss of her innocence.
Eventually, she claimed, she was tricked into "forced copulation" with
the man, who she now understands to have been Jeffrey Epstein.
There
was just one slight problem: Epstein is never known to have had a
"home" in Texas. The closest conceivable property would've been his
ranch in New Mexico, which was located about 200 miles from the Texas
border — certainly not "close by" to any shopping mall in Texas. Nothing
about this person's anonymous story made a lick of sense, but it was
all lapped up totally uncritically, as Judge Berman decided anyone who
believed themselves a "victim" could saunter into the courthouse that
day and tell any Epstein-related tale they cared to conjure.
From
the bench, Berman affirmed that the individuals present were in fact
bonafide "victims," and repeatedly referred to them as such, without
requiring even minimal verification of the facts underlying their
purported victimhood. Gone was any idea that assigning the label of
"victim" should be accompanied by meddlesome, outmoded qualifiers such
as "alleged victim," or "purported victim." Instead, "victimhood" was
now an unchallengeable metaphysical status (emphasis added) that could be conferred on
anyone who desired it. Abandoning the customary pretense of judicial
neutrality, Berman even personally commended the "victims" for their
"courage to come forward" — regardless of whether or not what they were
"coming forward" to say was true. That was totally immaterial.
As
to the mystery Texas victim, her statement was read aloud in court by
the famed feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, who clearly relished the chance
to get in on some hot Epstein action. But a few weeks after the
hearing, the mystery compounded. Allred submitted a notice to Judge
Berman on September 26, 2019 declaring that she no longer represented
the "Jane Doe" whose statement she had dramatically read. No further
explanation was given. Nor, apparently, was any explanation ever sought.
I recently asked Allred for an update on this mysterious turn of
events. What steps, if any, were taken to corroborate the accuser's
claims? Has any evidence emerged in the past six years that would
substantiate the notion that Epstein procured teenage girls from
shopping malls in Texas? What were the grounds for Allred's sudden
withdrawal of representation from this individual? Her answer: "No
comment."
This
unexplained snafu did not stop the government from relying on Allred to
furnish additional "victim" evidence as the investigatory process wore
on. In the "Epstein Files" released by the Department of Justice earlier
this month, Allred can be seen emailing her contact at the U.S.
Attorney's office, on October 18, 2019, with the subject line: "Urgent
[...] I have a new client who was a victim of Epstein. She is willing to
fly to New York for the victim meeting on Oct. 23. May I call you at
5:45 P.M. to discuss ?" An assistant U.S. attorney, apparently on a
first-name basis with "Gloria," replies: "We will make ourselves
available to meet with your new client on 10/23."
Given
the expansive redactions that suffuse these latest "Epstein Files,"
it's difficult to discern whatever came of this "new client," and if she
was deemed of any "urgent" value by the Southern District of New York,
which by then was in fervent pursuit of Ghislaine Maxwell, and perhaps
other potential "co-conspirators" of Epstein. Either way, interfacing
with the FBI and US Attorney's Office could be profitably cited in any
civil litigation Allred might subsequently bring.
Another
chain of emails between August and October of 2020 shows Allred once
again propositioning her federal contacts about "new potential victims
of Epstein and some of Maxwell who are willing to speak to you and the
FBI." No clients of Allred are known to have testified in the 2021 trial
of Ghislaine Maxwell, or to have played any material role in that
prosecution. However, an associate at Allred's law firm can be seen
repeatedly inquiring if the Feds could please send her "documents" and
"photographs" related to Allred's clients, which would certainly have
been helpful for any forthcoming lawsuits.
One
client of Allred's was eventually revealed to be Alicia Arden, who
claims that in 1997, she met Epstein in a hotel room in Santa Monica,
Calif., for what was ostensibly supposed to be some sort of private
lingerie exhibition. Arden, then age 27, was an aspiring Victoria's
Secret model. Epstein was then a money manager and confidant to
billionaire Leslie Wexner, the owner of Victoria's Secret, and he'd
often use this fortuitous position to attend various soirees filled with
attractive young ladies, to whom he could present himself as a friendly
conduit to the elite modeling industry. Over the course of their hotel
room liaison, Arden claims Epstein "groped her buttocks," and she
reported the offense to local police, who determined the complaint to
merit no further action. The officer documenting Arden's complaint noted
that she acknowledged "having reservations" about the meeting before
her arrival, because "generally, meetings are not conducted in hotel
rooms." Details of this decades-old encounter were tearfully recounted
by Arden, with Allred by her side, as recently as August 6, 2025, and again on November 17, 2025,
at press conferences convened by Allred in Los Angeles. None of the
attending journalists asked what the allegation, even if true, would
have to do with the "child sex-trafficking" theories that tend to
dominate the public's conception of the Epstein matter, seeing as Arden
was 27 years old at the time. Allred told me in a September 3, 2025, interview
that at some point Arden did speak to federal law enforcement about
Epstein, but evidently, nothing ever came of it. When I inquired if
Arden had sought or received any of the profligate settlement monies
that became available after Epstein's death — including for alleged
adult "victims" — Allred would not say, citing client privacy concerns.
Other emails from the recent DOJ batch show unnamed officials forwarding around
news of a "stunt" Allred had orchestrated, in which she placed a banner
ad on the side of a school bus circling Buckingham Palace, exhorting
random British pedestrians to send the FBI tips about Prince Andrew.
Curiously, another email exchange from November 2024 features FBI agents
discussing
how Allred "made it difficult speaking with individuals she
represented," as certain clients of hers had "refused" to provide the
FBI with their contact information.
Returning
to the fateful August 27, 2019, hearing held by Judge Berman, ahead of
this confab, Bradley Edwards — one of the "victim" lawyers who's made an
absolute fortune on his years-long entanglement with Epstein — sensed a
priceless opportunity. In his widely unread 2020 memoir, Relentless Pursuit,
he recalls that when Judge Berman announced the hearing, Edwards had a
bold idea, so he got on the phone with a prosecutor in the Southern
District of New York, Maurene Comey. Yes, that Maurene Comey.
Edwards says he "pleaded" with Comey: "Can you ask the government to pay for all who want to come?"
"The government has never done that before," Comey reportedly told him. "But we will ask."
Within
an hour, Edwards got a phone call back, with amazing news: "Please tell
your clients that the government has agreed to pay for the travel and
hotels of all Epstein victims who wish to attend." (emphasis added)
So
not only was Judge Berman holding this elaborate, essentially
extra-judicial hearing, where self-described "victims" who had never
been adjudicated as such could pile into court and blast off whatever
damning commentary they wanted about a dead defendant — taxpayers were
also going to subsidize the brouhaha. More details on the mechanics have
begun to trickle out in the long-awaited "Epstein Files" production
earlier this month. Emails show the superstar Epstein "victim" Virginia
Roberts Giuffre — a proven serial fabulist who had to recant a
succession of her most sensational claims — scrambling to arrange
last-minute travel from Australia to New York, so she could take part in
the hotly-anticipated August 27 hearing. Prosecutors were eager to
assist in whatever way they could. Taking up the offer, Virginia writes
that since it had been decided that U.S. taxpayers would underwrite her
hotel, ground transportation, and airfare, "I would need to fly
business." This was "needed," she claimed, due to "an ongoing medical
condition." Perhaps what she was referencing was the universal
"condition" of preferring spacious and comfortable First Class seating
on a long-haul flight. The cost for a one-way ticket was $10,673.40 —
and the government seemingly picked up the tab.
Email from U.S. Attorney's Office
Also
among those whom Judge Berman thanked that day for having "the courage
to come forward" was Sarah Ransome. Taxpayers likewise were made to
shell out $1,492.02 for Ransome's flight from Barcelona to New York.
She
declared that she was a "victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine
Maxwell's international sex trafficking ring," and further announced
that she was not merely a "victim" but a "survivor" — catalyzing a
strange lexical shift, where it's now increasingly mandatory to use the
term "survivor," seen as a more empowering designation than "victim" (emphasis added). It
also seems to carry a certain sense of enhanced moral profundity, not
unlike "Holocaust Survivor" — and certainly the Epstein affair has come
to be regarded as of comparable historical magnitude. Ransome duly
denounced Epstein as a "depraved and cowardly human" and added, "we all
know he did not act alone."
In
the more than six years since that hearing, no criminal proceeding has
ever found Ransome to have been the victim of any "international sex
trafficking ring." However, a variety of other interesting findings have
been made. Such as that Ransome first entered Epstein's orbit
as a 22-year-old fashionista who earned an income by having "dinner"
with "gentlemen," for which she would be paid $1,500, and would
sometimes have sex with these gentlemen if she found them attractive.
She also claimed
to possess sex tapes of Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Richard Branson,
and Prince Andrew. "I have backed up the footage on several USB sticks
and have securely sent them to various different locations throughout
Europe," Ransome said. She later admitted this was all completely
fabricated (emphasis added)— there were never any sex tapes. Her declared mission at the
time was to ensure that neither "that evil bitch Hillary" nor
"Paedophile Trump" would win the 2016 presidential election. Exactly who
Ransome thought would be the alternative victor is unclear: perhaps she
backed the Libertarian Party. Ransome also claimed that the CIA hacked
her emails. "I have reached out to the Russians for help and they are
coming to my aid," she wrote to New York Post
journalist Maureen Callahan, adding that she had already "corresponded
with the Moscow police" on the matter, and had resolved to "aid them in
stopping Hillary or Trump getting through." (Callahan reported none of
these emails contemporaneously; all were eventually unearthed through
lawsuit discovery.)
So
in other words, Ransome was a certified nutcase. This didn't stop her
from getting a HarperCollins book deal, for a memoir touchingly entitled
Silenced No More — nor was her nuttiness any impediment to being named
as a plaintiff in some of the most consequential litigation against the
Epstein estate, which ultimately led to the creation of the Epstein
Victims' Compensation Program, from which Ransome undoubtedly received a
generous (tax-free!) payout — likely in the millions. Perhaps her good
fortune in this regard stemmed from the perceived credibility she was
afforded by her participation in Judge Berman's wild August 2019
hearing. But as the years went by, things continued to unravel for
Ransome, psychologically and otherwise. She turned on one of her
high-powered lawyers, David Boies, declaring
he had "betrayed" her for reasons she attempted to explain, but were
increasingly indecipherable. She wrote in a 2023 affidavit: "I am
infertile and have no children. I am damaged and broken because I was
raped hundreds of times by Epstein while his enablers stood by and
watched. My mother witnessed me die three times." She started rebuking
Boies not just as a craven betrayer, but as "Deablous," a demon-like
being. She sent rambling emails addressed to Joe Biden, Pope Francis,
Vladimir Putin, Recep Erdogan, Mohammed bin Salman, among others,
demanding to be granted a central diplomatic role in mediating the
Ukraine war and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She even did the
unthinkable for any self-respecting "Epstein Survivor," and condemned
Virginia Roberts Giuffre:
And
so, a core function of Judge Berman's state-sanctioned struggle session
was to give a veneer of credibility to the delusions of straight-up
crazy people. Viral videos still routinely circulate of Ransome speaking
to the media that day in August 2019, alleging that factory-style mass
rape went on at Epstein's property in the US Virgin Islands, or as she
called it, a veritable "conveyor belt of abuse."
Of course, nothing was ever remotely proven to this effect. Another
function of Judge Berman's hearing was to assist federal prosecutors in
what had become their supreme prerogative: making sure someone,
somewhere, got convicted of something in lieu of
Epstein, who had embarrassingly perished on the government's watch.
Bradley Edwards wrote that the "victims" he'd helped assemble were
ushered directly from the courthouse into the quarters of US Attorney
Geoffrey Berman (no relation to Judge Berman).
Among
the most notable of these proved to be Anouska De Georgiou, who said in
July 2025 that she fondly remembers the hearing as "probably the single
most emotional moment of my entire life," as it felt like she had
finally been inducted into a collective of "sisters in trauma."
Serendipitously, De Georgiou was interviewed by the FBI "directly after"
the hearing. By 2021, she was a marquee government witness in the trial
of Ghislaine Maxwell — permitted by Judge Alison Nathan to testify
under a fake name, "Kate," despite having already gone public under her
real name, both at the August 2019 hearing and a subsequent NBC interview
with Savannah Guthrie. New records produced by the DOJ finally
elucidate a thorny issue that came up at trial, which is that in 2008,
when she was 31 years old, De Georgiou was writing flirtatious emails
to Jeffrey Epstein (while he was incarcerated in Florida!) offering to
send him racy photos, and even to come visit. She continued to initiate
similar communications in 2010 and 2011, always keen to pay Jeffrey a
wholesome social visit. However, by 2019, she realized she was in fact a
"survivor," and reaped $3.25 million (tax-free!) from the Epstein
estate, not to mention whatever remuneration she also surely received
from other settlement funds. By 2021, her survivorship had been upgraded
to "child sex-trafficking" survivor, as she was called forth by the
government to send Maxwell to prison. By 2025, she was delivering
soaring oratorical performances at rallies and press conferences in
front of the US Capitol, flanked by politicians enthralled with her
bravery. She has also launched her own podcast.
After
Maxwell was convicted, thanks in part to the pseudonymous testimony of
De Georgiou, "survivors" gathered once more at the federal courthouse in
Manhattan, this time to promulgate "Victim Impact Statements." That's
the practice whereby judges can hold hearings after a defendant has been
found guilty, and allow a bunch of people to say stuff that's supposed
to influence the judge's sentencing decision. These statements are not
scrutinized for factual accuracy, or subject to cross-examination, and
can include evidence (or purported evidence) that was never admitted at
trial. Among those permitted
to make "Victim Impact Statements" against Ghislaine Maxwell at a June
28, 2022 hearing were Anouska De Georgiou, Virginia Roberts Giuffre,
Sarah Ransome, and Juliette Bryant, the latter of whom claims she was
abducted by UFOs, and once witnessed Jeffrey Epstein morph into a
reptilian humanoid creature. Bryant has also attempted to perform an
astrology reading on me personally over DMs. The reading was harmless
enough — even mildly amusing — but the idea that this woman could ever
play a legally decisive role in anything is self-evidently absurd.
The very concept of "Victim Impact Statements" is already dubious enough. They used to be quite controversial. In Payne v. Tennessee
(1991) Justice John Paul Stevens lamented that "Victim Impact
Statements" enable prosecutors to introduce irrelevant and prejudicial
evidence against defendants, and further, that the practice "encourages
reliance on emotion" rather than what sentencing decisions should be
properly based on, which is "reason." Ransome submitted a suite of
disturbing photos in her "Victim Impact Statement," purporting to
illustrate at least two of her apparent suicide attempts. No causal link
between these apparent suicide attempts and the conduct of Ghislaine
Maxwell was ever meaningfully established. De Georgiou wrote in her
statement that "the many acts that were perpetrated on me by Epstein,
including rape, strangulation and sexual assault, were never consensual,
and would have never occurred, had it not been for the cunning and
premeditated role Ghislaine Maxwell played." Curiously, these
allegations of violent rape cunningly facilitated by Maxwell were wholly
absent from the actual trial in which De Georgiou had testified, with
its slightly stricter standards around the admissibility of evidence.
Indeed, the judge in that trial was compelled to instruct jurors that De
Georgiou had undergone no "illegal sexual activity." But during this
more free-wheeling "Victim Impact" phase, the gloves were off, as were
any evidentiary safeguards. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison,
where she remains today.
At least Maxwell had been convicted
of something when she was harangued with these "Victim Impact
Statements" of questionable veracity. Not so for the August 2019 hearing
held by Judge Berman, which amounted to a de facto "Victim Impact" session to cathartically malign a defendant, Epstein, who was never convicted, or even stood trial, and was also dead.
As a subsequent article in the Fordham Law Review
opined: "When, as in Epstein's case, the defendant dies before a trial
has even begun, the court must treat the accused as innocent for all
legal or judicial purposes (emphasis added), regardless of popular sentiment or
assumptions to the contrary." Judge Berman delivered a resounding blow
to this most basic tenet of due process, thus undermining the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments, not just for deceased alleged "pedophiles" such
as Epstein, but for everyone who'd like to retain the pre-Pedo Panic
principles of the Constitution.
Whenever I try to highlight any of this stuff, there's always an onslaught of trolls demanding that the FBI seize my
hard-drives — with the idea being that I must be hiding my own sexual
depravities. That could be my only conceivable motive for "defending
Epstein," or more accurately, highlighting the ways in which Epstein
mania has undermined core precepts of civil liberty. You can try to
refute these sleazy imputations all you want, but anyone who'd sling
them in the first place is never going to be persuaded. (For the record,
I can confirm there's nothing of much interest on my hard-drive,
perhaps other than the mountains of PDF files I've had to accumulate
researching this case. If you'd like to make an appointment to view the
hard-drive yourself sometime, let me know.) At this point, for me, the
sicko name-calling barely even registers anymore. But the torrential
downpour of slime gives some insight into why the media has almost
uniformly declined to cover this story with any semblance of critical
detachment or discernment. Most people, including journalists, have
concluded that life is too short to be barraged day after day with
ridiculous "pedo" smears. Even to refute such smears would be to bring
more attention to them, and no one wants to be associated with
"pedo"-related insinuations at all, regardless of
context. Though it should be said: a handful of journalists have
contacted me privately to say they now agree with, or at least
tentatively appreciate, what I've been trying to get across about
Epstein. Even if going public about it themselves is not worth the
hassle. The problem with this mentality, however, is that while you
might spare yourself short-term hardship, the long-term debasement of
civil liberties will continue unabated. And those civil liberties could
come in handy someday, if they're still around.
