Savanah flashed Allison and Allison smiled. “Good enough for now.” She grabbed her key and handed it to Savanah so that she could open the box.
Savanah looked inside and turned immediately to find Allison laughing on her bed. “It’s empty,” Savanah said.
“I didn’t say anything was inside,” replied Allison. “Are you a virgin?” she asked, certain she knew the answer but wanting to hear it anyway.
“What does that mean?” Savanah asked.
Allison said, “It’s when a boy puts his penis in you.” Allison was expecting to hear Savanah say that was gross or no way or one of the responses Allison had received from her other friends with whom she had played this “show me yours and I’ll let you see the stuff in my room” game.
Savanah instead whispered, “Has it happened to you?” It hadn’t, although Allison was “too cool” to admit that. Since graduating from elementary school, she had met up on several occasions with some older boys—fifteen and sixteen—at the community park. There, she became increasingly “experienced,” fooling around and letting them touch her. But she had not actually had intercourse.
“Of course I have,” Allison lied, “with the older guys.”
Savanah paused for an uncomfortably long time and stared at Allison. She believed she knew what Allison was saying because Allison had referred to the dads at the pool as the “old guys.” Seizing on the connection, Savanah pulled closer and spoke in a softer whisper. “Then I can talk to you,” Savanah said. “I’ve never told anyone, but I also haven’t ever met anyone else whose dad did that to them.”
Allison’s mind was immediately racing. For once, she stayed silent.
“Are they going to make us do it tonight?” Savanah asked. “My dad did it to me the first time when I was really little. I think I was seven. A few months ago, he started taking me to his friend’s house by my school in North Carolina and letting Jesse do it to me, too. My dad and Jesse dress up as girls when they do it to me. They did it to Jesse’s daughter the day before we drove down here. Does your dad dress up like a girl? Is he mean?”
As confident and in charge as Allison always liked to be, she was unsure how to respond. She later explained to me how she thought to herself at that point, I can’t believe I let the conversation get this far. How do I tell her now that my dad hasn’t ever done anything like that to me?… Wait, is my dad going to do this to me?… Is that why Savanah is here?
She quickly put on a strong face. Even though she had not gone through exactly what Savanah was describing, Allison did now feel a connection that she hadn’t previously felt.
Her dad was down the hall laughing loudly with Forrest. She could tell they were continuing to do drugs and get drunker. One thing Allison decided was that she and Savanah were not staying there. Savanah believed she and Allison had this bond, having endured the same type of abuse. While that wasn’t actually true, Allison was taking no risk that it might become true.
Allison stood up and grabbed Savanah’s hand, saying “Let’s get out of here. Follow me.” They both walked quietly out of the bedroom and left through the back door of the trailer to walk to the community park. When they got there, they found Chad and Joe, two of the older boys Allison had made friends with, drinking.
“We want a drink,” Allison said.
John handed her two Natural Lights. “Take this, too,” he said, handing out two white oblong pills.
Allison tossed one of the pills in her mouth and chased it with a sip of beer before asking, “What is it?”
“Xanax bars. They get you messed up faster,” Joe told her.
“Exactly what I was hoping for. Here’s yours, Savanah,” Allison said as Savanah took the pill from her and followed her lead.
Before they knew it, the girls had each downed four beers. Allison turned to Savanah and said, “I dare you to kiss Joe.”
Joe was cool. He was a sixteen-year-old who drove a black 1988 Mustang 5.0 with no muffler that he had rebuilt himself in the garage next to his trailer. Savanah, with clearly lowered inhibitions, gazed at Joe, almost daring him to do it. Joe leaned in and grabbed Savanah’s face as he pecked her on the lips.
“What was that?” Allison asked. “I said kiss him, like this.” She jumped into Chad’s arms and made out with him.
Allison had this way about her that made Savanah want to do anything she said. For the rest of the summer, Allison and Savanah hung out with Chad and Joe, driving around West Palm Beach and getting drunk. The girls were bound together by secrets. Savanah left Florida at the end of the summer to go back to North Carolina.
* * *
Allison spent the next two years spiraling further and further into the world of sex and drugs as she watched her mom work the streets day in and day out—just as she had for Allison’s entire existence. With her confident personality, Allison started to outgrow coordinating her mom’s escorting schedule.
At Allison’s middle school graduation party, she met a girl named Carol. The two girls spent the night drinking together. When the keg ran dry, Carol pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill and yelled to her friend’s dad, “Go get us another keg.”
“Where did you get that money?” Allison asked.
“An old guy in Palm Beach. He’ll let you give him a massage for two hundred dollars, cash.”
“What do you have to do for it?” Allison responded.
Carol just looked at Allison, not directly answering the question. “Do you want to make money?”
Allison’s eyes lit up. “Of course.” She wanted nothing more in this world than to make money. Her own money. The girls partied until the early morning. When they were leaving, Allison turned to Carol and said, “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” Carol responded.
“To go to the guy’s house to get the money,” Allison reminded her.
While Carol wasn’t nearly as ambitious as Allison, she needed money, too, and wasn’t passing up this opportunity. Carol went back inside to use the house phone. She pulled a napkin out of her purse with a telephone number and the name Sarah Kellen written on it.
Allison stood there listening to half of the conversation. “Do you have work for me? It’s not just me, I have a new girl for Jeffrey,” Carol explained. “Today? Okay, four o’clock is fine.”
“We’re going today?” Allison asked. Carol nodded. A huge smile spread across Allison’s face. “What do I have to do again? Give this guy a massage? I’ve never given anyone a massage. What should I wear? Where is his house? How do we get there?”
Carol held out her hand as if to stop Allison from talking. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine. He doesn’t care about what you wear. You can wear what you have on.”
Allison went home and lay down in her bed, but not before setting her alarm for three p.m. When she woke up, she heard a car horn honking outside. Allison looked out the window and saw Carol waving from a yellow cab. She ran outside and jumped into the taxi, barely able to contain her excitement.
“Where am I going?” asked the cabdriver.
Carol responded, “Let me look for the address, it’s El Brillo or something like that, on the island.”
The cabdriver cut her off: “Let me guess, 358 El Brillo Way?”
“That’s it!” Carol confirmed before the cab headed east.
Allison had never been to Palm Beach Island. The closer the cab got to the house, the stronger the butterflies grew in her stomach. The taxi parked in the driveway and Carol told the driver that she would be right back. She walked up to the house while Allison sat in the cab, as instructed. The fare was $11.69. Within seconds, a striking blonde walked up to the car with a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to the cabdriver as if this was something that she had done a million times.
Allison had been gazing up at the massive house from the back seat of the taxi. She was mesmerized. She stepped out of the cab and continued to stare. In that moment, she knew that no matter what happened in that house, she was all in. Thi
s house and this experience represented all that Allison ever wanted.
An hour later, the same cabdriver was sitting in the driveway as Allison and Carol exited the kitchen door. Unlike most of the girls leaving Epstein’s house after giving him their first “massage,” Allison could not have been happier. While her experience in the room was no different than the others’, her reaction certainly was. “That was awesome,” Allison said. Carol told her to just let her know when she wanted to go back and she would call Sarah. Carol didn’t know that Allison had already left her number with Sarah and even told Sarah that she expected a call the next day. Carol had served her purpose for Allison. Now nothing was going to stand in Allison’s way.
Allison went home to her mom’s trailer that night, about a mile east of where her father lived. It wasn’t as roomy as her dad’s, but it was closer to Jeffrey’s house, and the park was full of childhood friends that Allison had already targeted in her mind as “masseuses” for Jeffrey. Plus, Allison had left her mother’s telephone number for Sarah, knowing that her dad might get suspicious of a call from an adult-sounding voice.
When Allison walked into her mom’s place, her mom was sitting at the kitchen counter. Allison pulled up a chair next to her and pulled out four folded fifty-dollar bills from her jean shorts pocket and began counting. Her mom took a long drag from her cigarette and laid it down on the ashtray before asking, “Where did you get that?”
Allison smiled. “I do my own thing now.”
Allison walked to her bedroom. She lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking just how easy it had been to make this money and how there was so much more where that came from. Her mom had brought her up in a very unorthodox way, but it had prepared her exactly for this.
Allison just needed to bring Jeffrey one girl and she would be off to a good start. It had to be someone who wouldn’t chicken out—a sure thing. Someone she could bring immediately to prove to Jeffrey that she was a better recruiter than anyone else. She racked her brain, going through everyone she’d grown up with. It had to be somebody who needed money. It had to be someone who wasn’t going to think that going over to some old man’s house to “massage” him was too crazy or scary. It needed to be someone who had already experienced pain. Someone who might actually see this strange experience as a good escape from ordinary life.
“I wonder what happened to Savanah,” she thought. Allison hadn’t seen the girl in more than a year. The last she heard, Savanah’s father, Forrest, had died. There was actually suspicion that he had been killed, but that was probably just a drunk story Allison’s dad had told her. She did remember that her dad said the funeral was in Florida, and that he had gone.
Allison picked up the phone. “Dad, remember your friend Forrest? You went to his funeral, right? Where is Savanah?” Her dad explained that Savanah had been arrested and was now in summer school at the Pace Center for Girls, a local center for troubled kids. After school the next day, Allison took a cab to Pace and waited for her old friend to show up.
Allison stood behind a tree watching as kids filed down the stairs of a bus. When she saw Savanah, she ran at her at full speed. Savanah lifted her head to see this flash coming out of the corner of her eye. Before she could really react, Allison had her in a bear hug and was spinning her in circles. “What’s up, bitch? It’s been a long time.” Both girls were so excited to see each other, they were jumping up and down.
“What are you doing here?” Savanah asked.
“Look, I’m not going to get mad at you for not telling me you moved back to Florida or for not tracking me down, but I got us all set up. Wanna make two hundred dollars? Meet me at Lakeside at ten a.m. tomorrow and be excited.” Lakeside was a trailer park that both girls knew well.
Allison called Sarah as soon as she left Savanah. She told Sarah that she was ready to work again in an hour. Sarah told her there was an opening and to come over. That afternoon, when Jeffrey was on the massage table and instructed her to remove her panties, Allison did so without pause. “I have someone new for you tomorrow morning.”
Jeffrey opened his eyes and smiled at Allison. “Very good. Now pinch my nipples,” he said as he closed his eyes again.
The next morning, Allison was at Lakeside in a taxi thirty minutes early, at 9:30 a.m. So was Savanah. “Get in, you’re about to have the time of your life,” Allison told her. She talked it up the entire ride. Savanah was about as excited as she could be, although with her usual emotionless face. You could never tell how Savanah was feeling by looking at her. She was almost a zombie going through life. But if Allison said to do it, then she would never turn it down.
Allison showed herself up the stairs and into the bedroom, with Savanah following closely behind. It all happened in such a hurry; Savanah didn’t have time to think, much less ask any questions. Allison walked into the bedroom and within seconds had stripped completely naked and told Savanah to do the same.
When Jeffrey emerged from the shower and walked toward the massage table, there were two naked fourteen-year-old children waiting to rub him down. Allison led the way and Savanah followed suit. While Jeffrey was pressing a vibrator down on Allison, he was commanding Savanah to pinch his nipples harder. No matter how hard Savanah squeezed, it wasn’t hard enough. He kept telling her over and over again to keep squeezing harder. Before Jeffrey finished, he was irritated. Savanah was pinching as hard as she possibly could and it still wasn’t enough.
Jeffrey wiped himself with a towel and hopped up from the massage table. “Your money is on the table,” he said as he walked toward the dresser.
“See you tomorrow,” Allison said arrogantly. She grabbed both stacks of money, handing one to Savanah. The girls got dressed and Allison led the way back down the stairs and out the door.
This was the last time Allison would see Savanah for a long time. Jeffrey typically only paid one finder’s fee for the first time a new girl was brought, so Savanah didn’t have much of a purpose for Allison after that day.
From that point forward, if Jeffrey was in town, Allison was there, either with a new young girl in tow or, on the occasion when she couldn’t find anyone, by herself. Allison didn’t have the patience for massage. When she went alone, she would sit in front of Jeffrey with her legs spread so that he could read the morning newspaper while looking over to catch a glimpse of her straddled in front of him. In her mind, it was the same two hundred dollars. She didn’t think that she needed to pretend to be a masseuse to earn it. She just gave him what he wanted, whatever that might be on any given day.
As the years went on, Allison stayed the course. She was on call until Jeffrey was arrested. Jeffrey called her himself and told her the news. “You have nothing to worry about,” Allison told him, “thank you for everything. You have always been good to me. If I can help, I will.”
By the time I learned Allison’s story, I had already spoken with many victims. Allison wasn’t the first to say that her time with Jeffrey wasn’t so bad. But she was the first to give such a glowing testament to his positive contribution to her life.
Allison thrived off of what Jeffrey Epstein did to her. For years, she remained in the sex industry and credited Epstein with catapulting both her confidence and her “career.” She was proud of the woman she had become and she always appreciated the role Epstein played in her life.
But then there was Savanah. Like Allison, Savanah didn’t get involved in the criminal investigation or any of the civil lawsuits. But unlike Allison, she felt severely damaged by this experience. At twenty-seven years old, she was sitting on the couch with her husband, breastfeeding her newborn for the very first time, when she started to cry uncontrollably. As her child latched down on her nipple, the only thought running through her mind was Epstein repeating “Pinch my nipples” and her overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. Savanah couldn’t do it. She couldn’t breastfeed her son. The flashback from that day began playing over and over in her mind. Savanah was able to put the incestual abuse by her fat
her behind her, but one morning at Jeffrey’s house was destroying her ability to nurture her child.
THIRTEEN THE CIRCLE
ONE MAJOR ASPECT OF PUTTING the case together was understanding the perspectives of the different victims. Their stories were sure to be powerful at any trial or any future prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein. But he knew the victims’ stories and had plotted his attack on them already. We needed other, more neutral witnesses to tell us what they knew about Jeffrey Epstein. Speaking with those witnesses would coincidentally have the effect of causing Epstein’s social and business world to fold in on him the way he constantly tried to do to anyone who opposed or tried to expose him. Deposing or taking statements from Epstein’s closest friends and associates would be my next focus.
While Jeffrey Epstein was flagrantly engaging in illegal sex with minors, abetted by many assistants and staff, surely not all of his friends or acquaintances were aware. But at the same time, his acquaintances, whether involved or not, were likely at least a bit suspicious that something unusual was going on. It seemed that every second of every day Epstein was either engaging in sex or encouraging his victims to bring him new prey. How big was the enterprise? How many victims were there? Who was involved? Which witnesses would be brave enough to come forward and tell the truth?
To answer these questions, I began seeking information in summer 2009 from many of Epstein’s onetime reportedly close friends, including Donald Trump; David Copperfield, the magician; Leslie Wexner, owner of Victoria’s Secret and the Limited, among other enterprises; modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel; hedge fund mogul Glenn Dubin; Bill Clinton; and director-producer Paula Heil Fisher; as well as Epstein’s assistant Sarah Kellen and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
The first of Epstein’s powerful friends to answer our subpoena in a meaningful way was Donald Trump. We served him in 2009 in the Trump Tower in New York City. His lawyer, Alan Garten, called in response to tell me that while Mr. Trump would appear for a formal deposition, it was not necessary. He would make Mr. Trump available for me to interview within the next few days.
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