Epstein, Trump... and how Maxwell ‘knows everything’

Barry Levine and Julie Brown, who have investigated Jeffrey Epstein from the beginning, tell Alex Hannaford why they believe many powerful men are yet to be brought to justice

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Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors (US District Court for the Southern District of New York) The conspiracies began circulating before the proverbial ink was dry.

Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier and convicted child sex offender, “dead after ‘apparent suicide’ in New York jail”, ran the headline in The Washington Post on 11 August 2019 (single quote marks theirs). The Boston Globe also described it as an “apparent suicide”. The Philadelphia Inquirer said: “Epstein’s jail death gets US scrutiny”.

When FBI agents arrested Epstein after his private jet landed in New Jersey a month earlier and charged him with sex-trafficking minors in Florida and New York, his victims waited to learn the truth. After his death, the voices clamouring for transparency got louder. As did those claiming conspiracy.

A year on, when his former girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was arrested by the FBI at a secluded property in New Hampshire, they didn't stop. And they didn't quieten when Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.

Over the years, conspiracy theories have abounded of deep-state cover-ups, speculation that rich and powerful men had been involved in an elite sex-trafficking ring, and that Epstein had been murdered so their identities would never be revealed.