Patterico's Pontifications

7/22/2019

Overlooking Jeffrey Epstein’s Behavior Because Money Talks

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:24 am



[guest post by Dana]

The more we find out, the more horrible it gets:

[O]n nearby St. Thomas, locals say Epstein continued to bring underage girls to the island as recently as this year—a decade after he was forced to register as a convicted sex offender—and that authorities did nothing to stop him.

…“On multiple occasions I saw Epstein exit his helicopter, stand on the tarmac in full view of my tower, and board his private jet with children—female children,” says a former air traffic controller at the airstrip who asked to remain anonymous.

Another employee at the airstrip, who requested anonymity because he is not allowed to speak about travelers in his official capacity, says Epstein would land at St. Thomas twice a month on average. “There’d be girls that look like they could be in high school,” the employee recalls. “They looked very young…

The employee adds that he and his co-workers would joke around about what they were seeing. “Every time he landed or took off, it was always brought up. We’d always be joking, ‘How many kids are on board this time?’”

No worries though. In spite of their joking about it, they were nonetheless disturbed by Epstein arriving with young girls in tow. Just not disturbed enough to do anything about it:

…the employee also says he felt “pure disgust,” calling it “absolutely insane” that a convicted sex offender was able to move around so openly in the era of MeToo.

“I could see him with my own eyes,” the employee says. “I compared it to seeing a serial killer in broad daylight. I called it the face of evil.”

Everything was happening in plain sight. Everyone knew. But apparently remaining silent was worth it:

Epstein apparently made no attempt to hide his travels with young girls. The airstrip in St. Thomas sits in plain sight of a central highway, and a nearby parking lot at the University of the Virgin Islands provides a complete view of the tarmac and almost every aircraft on the ground. When he’s “home” on Little St. James, Epstein’s plane is always parked right in front of the control tower.

“The fact that young girls were getting out of his helicopter and getting into his plane, it was like he was flaunting it,” the employee says. “But it was said that he always tipped really well, so everyone overlooked it.

Says the former air traffic controller:

My colleagues and I definitely talked about how we didn’t understand how this guy was still allowed to be around children… We didn’t say anything because we figured law enforcement was doing their job. I have to say that that is regrettable, but we really didn’t even know who to tell, or if anyone really cared.

Wealthy billionaire pulls out a $100 bill, points to the ocean: Hey, look over there!

Air traffic enabler: What a view!

It’s sadly ironic that the air traffic controllers questioned whether anyone would care, because clearly they didn’t. Not enough to do anything about it. But, hey, the chief of police didn’t care either:

In fact, it appears that local authorities did nothing to investigate Epstein’s repeated trips with young girls—let alone intervene—despite the fact that he was listed on the island’s registry of sex offenders. Chief William Harvey, a veteran of the Virgin Islands police department, tells Vanity Fair that he does not know who Epstein is, and is unaware of any investigation into him.

But airport employees and employees at Epstein’s compound knew who Epstein was and what he was up to. Yet we are to believe that the police chief, who could access the sex registry database at any time and had access to the internet, was the only one who didn’t know? Right.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

25 Responses to “Overlooking Jeffrey Epstein’s Behavior Because Money Talks”

  1. Everyone knew.

    Dana (bb0678)

  2. And when the Palm Beach cops did their best, the Democrat prosecutor spiked them. And when US Attorney Acosta had a go, he was told, “Intelligence community wants you to back off.”

    Ingot9455 (74ce6e)

  3. No the chief was the only one being paid.

    MikeGiles (c75530)

  4. Ingot9455 (74ce6e) — 7/22/2019 @ 11:40 am

    And when US Attorney Acosta had a go, he was told, “Intelligence community wants you to back off.”

    Is there actually a good source for that.

    I think this idea that “the intelligence community” wants something to be overlooked was.is used by corrupt people. It wouldn’t work wih Acosta because he would check it out, but it might ork with people who would want to get law enforcement involved, or maybe with reporters.

    In the 1980s people involved in the Savings and Losan scandal used to claim to connected with intelligence.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4c0a6)

  5. Folks like say Stephan halper and palmer national bank for instance.

    Narciso (5d1b28)

  6. When people at the top tolerate “badness,” people lower down will be silent. “I could be sued. Lose my job. My kids will be blackballed at a college. I could be bullied on the street and the cops won’t help me.”

    Even now, the only one who tried to do something while others did nothing, Acosta, is demonized for not doing enough.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (6b1442)

  7. Not only did everyone know. They’ve known for years. And said and did nothing until they could damage the current administration. I don’t have much use for Trump but I have even less for the media creeps who covered for Epsteins…. ummm …. transgressions. Scum, the bunch of them.

    Bob Smith (5a4596)

  8. Everyone knew – and they knew this information back when it would have mattered (i.e. before November 2016), yet very little was said because it would damaged the preferred candidate.

    bendover2 (076acf)

  9. national review did rehabilitation pieces on jeffery epstein when anti trump kristal needed the money. anybody knows if any girl has reported bubba?

    lany (fa975d)

  10. Where does this idea come from that some of the famous people associated with Epstein, and in particular Bill Clinton, shared his interest in teenage girls?

    A. Probably from some of the eople who took money from him. It’s a red herring.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  11. Sammy – I agree. I don’t think Bill Clinton was much interested in teenage girls, but teenage girls weren’t the only dessert on the menu.

    bendover2 (076acf)

  12. just like with Weinstein, new York magazine spiked that story in October 2016, like graydon carter, who omitted the details, now vanity fair comes off all high and mighty,

    narciso (d1f714)

  13. Narciso – absolutely true. Once again, everyone knew this information back when it would have mattered (i.e. before November 2016), yet very little was said because it would damaged the preferred candidate.

    bendover2 (076acf)

  14. I read taht Eopstein didn’t want to be seen by any of his employees in the Virgin Islands – or rather they were told that he shouldn’t see them – so not everybody knew.

    The timeline is important.

    This Vanity fair article says this continued after his conviction for sex crimes.

    It makes sense. Private island – anyone who gets near is tresspassing – maybe law enforcement is in his pocket, so he can get away with it, registered sex offender or no registered sex offender. That law wasn;t written for someone who owned a private little island and had people arriving there by airplane.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  15. now not only justice, was looking the other way but so was the sec, interesting they did flag the business of one of his associates leon black, who is behind among other things Telemundo, in a complicated catalytic converter scheme, but not him, of course cy vance was in his pocket as well, as it was with Weinstein,

    narciso (d1f714)

  16. In Florida, when he saw girls over age 18 (as far as the accusations are*) during his work release, during 2008 and 2009, this was in violation of the rules.

    he was not supposed to see anyone but his business partner or his lawyers – no friends, no family, no guests.

    And as a sex offender, which he was – Acosta made sure of that – he was not supposed to be eligible for work release at all!

    So now the Palm Beach sheriff has opened an investigation in how all this happened, or what happened, ten and eleven years ago.

    ————————–
    * More recently, on the Virgin Islands, they pretended to be college students. Always wearing college sweatshirts. So maybe in 2008 they weren’t all over age 18. But so far no names or even anonymous accusations, have surfaced. Of coiurse there could be nondisclosure agreements. I think, though his lawyers would have tried to get him to get involved only with women over age 18, especially whle he was on work release, with them involved, so he might have tried it for awhile.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  17. Steven Hoffenberg has said for years that Jeffrey Epstein was part of his Ponzi scheme. I haven’t researched any details, but it sounds like maybe he might have run off with some of the money.

    https://nypost.com/2019/07/13/jeffrey-epsteins-mysterious-wealth-could-be-explained-by-a-ponzi-scheme/

    For years, Epstein’s old boss, Steven Hoffenberg, has claimed that Epstein was his accomplice in a Ponzi scheme Hoffenberg ran through his Towers Financial Corp..

    …In a new interview, Hoffenberg said Epstein was “totally in the mix” of the scheme that defrauded 200,000 investors of $460 million.

    “He was my colleague daily, seven days a week,” Hoffenberg told Quartz magazine this week.

    Tower investors also claimed in an August lawsuit that Epstein “knowingly and intentionally utilized funds he fraudulently diverted and obtained from this massive Ponzi scheme for his own personal use to support a lavish lifestyle.”

    Epstein used the fraudulent funds to found Financial Trust in 1996, a business he used to manage the money of Victoria’s Secret mogul Les Wexner, among other clients, the investors allege.

    In court papers filed in conjunction with Epstein’s bail application — which offers his $77 million Upper East Side townhouse and private jet as collateral — Epstein’s lawyers asked a judge to keep his financial records under wraps.

    Also:

    https://www.inquirer.com/business/jeffrey-epstein-hoffenberg-trump-clinton-20190711.html

    It’s one of those Wall Street mysteries: How did Jeffrey D. Epstein, the “billionaire financier” and past social pal of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, who was arrested on sex-trafficking charges as investigators raided his Manhattan apartment last week, get to be so rich?

    From his prison cell at Fort Dix and later in a string of legal actions, Epstein’s former boss, Steven J. Hoffenberg, has for years claimed a simpler explanation. Hoffenberg alleges that Epstein kept proceeds from Towers Financial Corp., the vast 1990s Ponzi scheme that landed Hoffenberg a 20-year sentence and an order to repay nearly half a billion dollars — more like $1 billion by now, with interest.

    In a string of lawsuits filed by Hoffenberg, and most recently by a pair of Towers investors citing Hoffenberg’s claims, Epstein is described as the “unindicted co-conspirator” that federal criminal prosecutors referenced but never filed charges against in the Towers case. That was how 200,000 Americans lost that half-billion buying Towers’ uninsured high-interest-rate securities, most of which was never recovered.

    Epstein’s lawyers say that Hoffenberg’s claims are untrue, that the alleged fraud occurred too long ago for a civil lawsuit, and that Hoffenberg has no standing to sue to get investors’ money back. Hoffenberg was sent to prison in 2002 and released in 2013 from the lock-up at Fort Dix in Burlington County for orchestrating the Towers fraud.

    After Epstein’s legal team threatened to seek sanctions and costs for the latest attempt to resurrect Hoffenberg’s claims in a civil lawsuit, the Towers investors last November withdrew their case, preserving the right to refile later.

    This says Epstein would have $11 billion now from the proceeds of the Pnzxi scheme, but he lost a lot of money with the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns, and then he was spending a lot too, so it’s reasonable that he has a net worth of only a little over $500 million.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  18. *errata $1 billion, not $11 billion. But Jeffrey Epstein kept letting people think he was a billionaire.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  19. Where does this idea come from that some of the famous people associated with Epstein, and in particular Bill Clinton, shared his interest in teenage girls?

    It’s not that they shared his interest in underage girls. It’s that they directly observed some of it, and not only dud nothing about, but continued to party with him.

    Kishnevi (682c47)

  20. When people at the top tolerate “badness,” people lower down will be silent. “I could be sued. Lose my job. My kids will be blackballed at a college. I could be bullied on the street and the cops won’t help me.”

    Unfortunately, this seems to be the case too often, and yet we have seen in many cases (Cosby, Weinstein, etc), all it takes is one person to get the ball rolling. If these air traffic controllers were as disgusted as they claim they were, they could have contacted the FBI and down the line, anonymously. While it’s a horrible position to be put in, everyone has a conscience and to have it so troubled and not say anything, and worse, to take handsome tips for their silence, speaks to a seared conscience. I think it’s safe to say that if any of us were extremely concerned about the possible trafficking and sexual exploitation of young girls under those suspicious circumstances, we would have been compelled to say something, no matter the cost. At least I would seriously hope so. How did they ever look themselves in the eye, or sleep untroubled? A functioning moral compass dictates that there is a line we won’t cross, and that we will do what is right in spite of what may come. And when children are involved, even more so, I would hope.

    Dana (bb0678)

  21. Where were the girls’ parents? Were they paid to let their daughters run off with Epstein and his rich cronies? If so, let’s throw them into the hoosegow too.

    Gary Hoffman (7ec1de)

  22. Well folks, if we had real newspapers with real reporters neither Clinton, Bill or Hillary, or Trump would be candidates for anything. But we don’t.

    Bob Smith (5a4596)

  23. I’ve wondered that too, Gary Hoffman. I watched an interview with one of the moms after she found out what had happened but she wasn’t asked why she didn’t know anything until afterward. Teenagers are incredibly masterful at being sneaky and hiding what they don’t want found out but still, at some point in time, doesn’t the “I’m sleeping over at BFF’s house” become suspicious? Also, how have any of these dads responded? I imagine that would be gutting, and it’s surprising I’ve not seen any reports about them.

    Dana (bb0678)

  24. 20: yes me too. but all those people that knew about the coach molesting young boys; and Polanski…it seems like a moral rot…

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (6b1442)

  25. 21: yes, yes, yes, yes.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (6b1442)


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