A new trove of unsealed documents details the horrors that victims of prolific paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein faced during their time interacting with the disgraced financier.
The documents were unsealed by a federal judge on Monday night, The Daily Beast reports, as part of the defamation lawsuit filed against Ghislaine Maxwell by Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Epstein’s crimes.
In a deposition from 2017, Sarah Ransome, a South African woman living in the US, claimed she was forced by Epstein to engage in a threesome with Harvard Law professor and attorney Alan Dershowitz at the former’s New York mansion. The other woman involved had her name redacted from the documents. Ms Ransome claims that she was 22 when she met Epstein, and said the other woman began "undressing me in the room."
“Jeffrey then walked in the room,” Ms Ransome testified. “He started masturbating under his clothes. He put his hand in his trousers. A few minutes later Alan walked in the room. He started undressing, he got on the bed with [Redacted] and myself, and we basically had a three-way sexual interaction.”
She said she "just tried to get it done as soon as possible to get out of there," calling the incident a "traumatic experience." She described Mr Dershowitz as "pasty-skinned" and "wrinkly" in the court documents.
Mr Dershowitz told The Daily Beast that he has never met Ms Ransome, and maintains that since his second marriage in 1986 he has only ever slept with his wife.
He told the outlet Ms Ransome "made it all up."
The Independent has reached out for comment.
Ms Ransome also revealed that Epstein spared every expense when transporting his victims to his island, Little St James. She testified that Epstein’s assistant booked her economy class tickets to fly to St Thomas island from Newark, New Jersey.
Ms Ransome said in a deposition that she had to watch Epstein have sex with a woman in the back of the plane. The woman’s name was redacted from the filings.
She said that Epstein was "in his bed on the plane, having open sex with [redacted] for everyone to see, on display … [redacted] was straddling Jeffrey for quite some time. I watched them both ejaculate with each other. They were having quite a good time together."
She said there was no partition or door separating the bed from the rest of plane, "so you can quite easily have sex and show the whole plane," she said.
"Which is how it’s designed, I’m guessing," she added.
She described Epstein as "quite possessive of his girls," and said that he "lends them out" to friends.
"He samples the girls, he has friends come over to New York or the island they get to see who all the girls are around Jeffrey, and they get to pick one which they want to be with… But yeah. I mean he didn’t – he didn’t line them up and go ‘hey boys, pick which vagina you want.’ He didn’t do it that blatantly."
Many of the names of the men who visited Epstein’s properties are redacted in the documents, as are those of Maxwell’s assistants and fellow recruiters.
Ms Ransome also said that she and other women and girls on the island were supplied Victoria’s Secret pajamas, "bikinis" and "nightwear" to wear around the grounds.
Elsewhere in her testimony, Ms Ransome recounted how she and Esptein fought over her weight. Epstein reportedly threatened to not pay for her flight back to the US after she went home to visit South Africa, demanding she "get down to 52kg" (114lbs).
"I carried on losing weight to try and get to the goal… I was told to be 52kg, which is not – it can’t be achieved with my body frame, and [my family] saw me getting very ill."
She said her weight became a major issue of contentious for Epstein and Maxwell, who she says "bulled me massively." The issue became so toxic for Ms Ransome that she attempted to flee the island by swimming, but she was caught by Maxwell’s security personnel and brought back. Epstein told her she needed to go on the Atkins diet or he would force her to leave his service.
Maxwell became a recurring villain in Ms Ransome’s testimony. She claimed that Maxwell "ran [Esptein’s] house like a brothel," keeping various girls on rotation to give the financier "sexual massages each day."
She recalled the conversations at the house between the women often revolved around which of Epstein’s clients they had slept with, saying "what do you talk about when all [you do] is have sex every day on rotation? I mean, what is there to talk about?"
Other victims reportedly warned Ms Ransome about Maxwell, claiming she was "incredibly intimidating."
"She’s not someone you want to be stuck [with] in an alley at night, put it that way. She’s a very dangerous character and has connections," Ms Ransome said.
She said most of the other victims shared her feelings, saying "we were all frightened of her."
"She had a very odd relationship with Jeffrey and — yeah, she’s not a nice — I’m sorry, I know she’s your client, but she’s not — she’s not a friendly, warm person."
Ms Ransome did say she liked Maxwell’s dog.
