It’s been three days since Jeffrey Epstein reportedly committed suicide by hanging himself using a bedsheet in his jail cell. We are now learning more about what he told people in his final months.
New York Times columnist James Stewart penned a disturbing piece for the paper Monday about the last interview he did with Epstein a year ago. Stewart wanted to talk about rumors he’d heard that Epstein was advising Tesla’s Elon Musk. Musk’s reps deny Epstein advised him in any capacity.
Stewart did not discover information about Musk’s and Epstein’s alleged business relationship. Instead, Stewart said Epstein seemed interested in providing teasers about the influential, high-profile people who sought him out for money, influence, drugs, and access to young girls:
The overriding impression I took away from our roughly 90-minute conversation was that Mr. Epstein knew an astonishing number of rich, famous and powerful people, and had photos to prove it. He also claimed to know a great deal about these people, some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.[…]During our conversation, Mr. Epstein made no secret of his own scandalous past — he’d pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from underage girls and was a registered sex offender — and acknowledged to me that he was a pariah in polite society. At the same time, he seemed unapologetic. His very notoriety, he said, was what made so many people willing to confide in him. Everyone, he suggested, has secrets and, he added, compared with his own, they seemed innocuous. People confided in him without feeling awkward or embarrassed, he claimed.
Stewart noted in his column that Epstein had agreed to do the August 2018 interview provided it be considered “on background.” This meant Stewart could use the information Epstein gave him as long as he didn’t tag Epstein’s name to it. Since Epstein is now deceased, Stewart says he “consider[s] that condition to have lapsed.”
A blonde woman in her late teens/early 20s who had “what sounded like an Eastern European accent” led Stewart to a greeting room. Stewart said Epstein then showed him a wall full of photographs:
Before we left the room he took me to a wall covered with framed photographs. He pointed to a full-length shot of a man in traditional Arab dress. “That’s M.B.S.,” he said, referring to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. The crown prince had visited him many times, and they spoke often, Mr. Epstein said.He led me to a large room at the rear of the house. There was an expansive table with about 20 chairs. Mr. Epstein took a seat at the head, and I sat to his left. He had a computer, a small blackboard and a phone to his right. He said he was doing some foreign-currency trading.Behind him was a table covered with more photographs. I noticed one of Mr. Epstein with former President Bill Clinton, and another of him with the director Woody Allen. Displaying photos of celebrities who had been caught up in sex scandals of their own also struck me as odd.
Stewart reported that while Epstein was reluctant to share details about Elon Musk, he wasn’t shy about discussing his “interest in young women:”
If he was reticent about Tesla, [Epstein] was more at ease discussing his interest in young women. He said that criminalizing sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration and that at times in history it was perfectly acceptable. He pointed out that homosexuality had long been considered a crime and was still punishable by death in some parts of the world.Mr. Epstein then meandered into a discussion of other prominent names in technology circles. He said people in Silicon Valley had a reputation for being geeky workaholics, but that was far from the truth: They were hedonistic and regular users of recreational drugs. He said he’d witnessed prominent tech figures taking drugs and arranging for sex (Mr. Epstein stressed that he never drank or used drugs of any kind).
Stewart says in the weeks after the interview, Epstein contacted him several times to invite him out for dinner engagements, which Stewart declined. After several months, Stewart writes that Epstein indicated he was interested in having Stewart write his biography. Thinking Epstein was looking more for a confidante than a biographer, Stewart begged off, noting he was already working on another book.
The columnist concluded his piece by saying he now wonders what Epstein would have told him had he agreed to write the book.
Even knowing what we know about Epstein’s extensive rap sheet, that column was a lot to take in. It almost sounds like Epstein decided that he was going to do it his way in a tell-all of sorts instead of taking people down with him.
Unconfirmed rumors are now going around that Epstein might have kept a “meticulously detailed” diary as an “insurance policy” against the influential people in his circle.
Other Epstein news of note:
– A dozen FBI agents raided Epstein’s private Caribbean island on Monday in a public show of force. This action indicates that just because Epstein is dead doesn’t mean the feds will give up on obtaining justice for his victims.
– Doctors completed an autopsy of Epstein, but we may not know the results for some time. Per the Daily Beast:
The New York City medical examiner announced Sunday night that she has finished her autopsy of multimillionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell from an apparent suicide, but the cause of his death “is pending further information,” a determination that is not uncommon.Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson also noted that Epstein’s representatives have hired celebrity pathologist Michael Baden to conduct an independent autopsy and they were allowed to observe the autopsy. Baden, who served as the city’s chief medical examiner in the late 1970s, has made a career investigating high-profile deaths, including those of Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez. Baden also testified at the murder trials of O.J. Simpson and Phil Spector.
-Last but not least, Vanity Fair tries to unravel “the Mystery of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s Enabler.”
We’re sure to learn more about all the players involved in this sordid story in the weeks and months to come. Stay tuned.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. –-
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