STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We have the basics on Jeffrey Epstein. The sex offender who died six years ago is in the news because President Trump's administration promised revelations then enraged his supporters by failing to deliver. Many people listening right now were not even adults when Epstein was a friend of Trump, or when he served time in jail, or when he was arrested again and killed himself. So we've called journalist Vicky Ward who has covered Epstein most of that time. She profiled him in 2003. Our conversation will last about 4 1/2 minutes and will include details of sexual assault. Welcome to the program.
VICKY WARD: Thanks for having me, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK. So in 2003, Epstein was an apparently very rich man who was connected with many rich and powerful people. How did he make his money?
WARD: Great question. He claimed that he was a financial adviser for billionaires, and yet there was no footprint of him trading in the markets. We know that he invested money through hedge funds from a very wealthy billionaire whose name was Leslie Wexner. But even that didn't really explain why suddenly, out of nowhere, a guy who hadn't even graduated from college suddenly possessed the largest town house in Manhattan, a private island in the Caribbean, a ranch in New Mexico, an apartment in Paris and the famous Lolita Express, his private airplane. The math has never added up, and there's been a lot of mystery and secrecy, frankly, around his money. He was also - he had to leave Bear Stearns in the early 1980s under slightly strange circumstances.
INSKEEP: Wow. OK. Was it apparent to people who wanted to know how much interest he had in sex with minors?
WARD: So that is one of the great, great - another great mystery. We do know that there were a lot of bold-faced names, politicians, very rich men who were on his planes, who may have visited the island, who came to dinner at his houses. And he was, at the same time, surrounded by beautiful women, many of whom were underage minors, almost in plain sight. I mean, even last week, you had reporting in The Wall Street Journal that for his 50th birthday, which happened exactly around the time I did my first Vanity Fair piece on him - early 2003 - you know, people, again, big names were sending him messages almost referencing his obsession with sex with underage minors.
INSKEEP: Now, we'll just review that in 2007, he was charged with recruiting dozens of girls, some as young as 13. He reached a plea deal with Alex Acosta - who was a U.S. attorney in the Bush administration, went on to serve as labor secretary in Trump's first term - was arrested again in 2019. Here, however, is something that I think is important. You've mentioned how many questions there still are about this man. Do you think the Justice Department files, if released in full, would answer some of these questions for you?
WARD: I think there's got to be something in there. You know, we know that they took a huge amount of material out of his house in Palm Beach back in the - sort of the 2000s. They also had access to a huge amount of stuff out of his New York mansion when they rearrested him in 2019. There are still a lot of questions about that plea deal, how he escaped federal charges back in 2008, '09 and did that sweetheart deal with Alex Acosta. Who else was involved in this scheme? Who propped him up financially? Because without his money, there's no evidence that when he didn't have money, he was trafficking minors. So I think that there's got to be something. But the person who really, really knows a lot of the answers to these questions is Ghislaine Maxwell.
INSKEEP: ...Ah, who is now being questioned once again by the Trump administration. Investigative journalist Vicky Ward, thanks so much for the basics on Jeffrey Epstein - really appreciate it.
WARD: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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