Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women for sex while on work release, women say in lawsuits
Jeffrey Epstein had sex with women who were trafficked to his Florida office and home while he was on work release from jail in 2009, two of those women alleged in new federal court complaints.
It’s among the allegations against the deceased financier laid out in three separate lawsuits filed against Epstein’s estate and his network of companies, which "were designated to fulfill different roles in recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, obtaining, maintaining, patronizing, or soliciting by any means, young females, including Plaintiff, knowing that fraud or coercion would be used to cause that female, including Plaintiff, to engage in a commercial sex act," the complaints allege
Epstein, who died by suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, signed his last will and testament two days before he was found and the lawsuits are the first to emerge since Epstein established a trust – 1953 Trust – to contain his assets.
A woman suing under the alias Priscilla Doe said she was a 20-year-old dancer in New York when she met Jeffrey Epstein in 2006, while he was under federal investigation, and later was flown to Florida to service Epstein while he was on work release, as arranged by his businesses, according to the complaint.
“He and employees of [the defendant companies] caused Plaintiff to be transported to Florida in order to engage in commercial sex with Jeffrey Epstein in his Florida residence while on so-called “work release” from jail, while he was still wearing his ankle monitor,” her lawsuit said.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are currently investigating the work release program and whether Epstein was properly supervised. Neither agency returned messages seeking comment.
An attorney who reportedly represents an executor of Epstein’s trust did not immediately not return a call seeking comment.
According to Priscilla Doe's lawsuit, she was recruited by another Epstein victim and went to his New York home to give him a massage for which she was paid hundreds of dollars.
During that first massage she told Epstein she was "a virgin, she was economically very poor, she loved and wanted to financially support her mother, and she was very religious and consequently would not have sex before marriage," according to the lawsuit.
The visits became more frequent and, during one of them, Doe said "Despite the fact that he had assured Plaintiff he would not try to have sexual intercourse with her, Jeffrey Epstein forced himself on Plaintiff and took her virginity against her will and wishes," the suit alleged.
The lawsuit claimed Priscilla Doe was flown to Epstein’s compound in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2006 where his longtime consort, Ghislaine Maxwell, "explicitly told Plaintiff she needed to learn how to properly sexually service Jeffrey Epstein in the exact way that he preferred."
An attorney for Maxwell did not immediately return a message from ABC News but she has previously denied allegations that she was involved in procuring or training underage girls for Epstein.
All three lawsuits, which were filed under pseudonyms, were filed by attorneys Stan Pottinger and Brad Edwards. Their firm represents several Epstein accusers, including Courtney Wild, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice challenging Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution agreement with the US Attorney's Office in Miami.
ABC News' Kaitlyn Folmer contributed to this report.
