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Jennifer Araoz, who says deceased sex pervert Jeffrey Epstein forcibly raped her in 2002 when she was 15, has filed a lawsuit against Epstein’s massive estate; Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman police say was Epstein’s procurer; and multiple accomplices.
Araoz stepped forward last month to say Epstein raped her after federal prosecutors indicted Epstein on charges of sex trafficking.
Writing in today’s New York Times, Araoz detailed more of her story and the reason she is telling it: to make Epstein and his gang of sex traffickers pay for what they did to her and other innocent girls.
The Rape
July’s federal sex charges against Epstein did not allege that he forcbily raped victims, some of whom were as young as 14. The indictment says he paid them, like prostitutes, and used some to recruit others whom he also paid after the deed was done.
Helping Epstein in this criminal endeavor, the indictment alleged, were unnamed associates and employees, one of whom has now been widely identified as Ghislaine Maxwell, the jet-setting British party girl and socialite.
But Araoz, now 32, says Epstein raped her when she refused to have sex after she gave him a massage.
In an interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, Araoz said Epstein forced himself upon her, as TNA reported weeks ago. “He raped me. Forcefully raped me, knew exactly what he was doing, and I don’t think he cared.”
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In the Times, Araoz explained that “one of Epstein’s recruiters, a stranger, approached me on the sidewalk outside my high school” and told “told me about a wealthy man she knew named Jeffrey Epstein. Meeting him would be beneficial, and he could introduce me to the right people for my career, she said. When I confided that I had recently lost my father and that my family was living on food stamps, she told me he was very caring and wanted to help us financially.”
That was Araoz’s introduction to Epstein’s dark work. The first visits were “benign,” with Epstein giving her a digital camera. “The visits were about one to two hours long and we would spend the time talking. After each visit, he or his secretary would hand me $300 in cash, supposedly to help my family.”
Then Epstein moved on her.
Within about a month, he started asking me for massages and instructed me to take my top off. He said he would need to see my body if he was going to help me break into modeling. I felt uncomfortable and intimidated, but I did as he said. The assault escalated when, during these massages, he would flip over and sexually gratify himself and touch me inappropriately. For a little over a year, I went to Epstein’s home once or twice a week.
The last day I went to his house was during the fall of my sophomore year. This time, when I was giving him the massage, he told me to take off my underwear and get on top of him. When I said no, he got more aggressive, held me tightly and raped me.
Araoz never went back and quit the performing arts school she attended because “it was too close to his house, the scene of so many crimes. I was too scared I would see him or his recruiter.”
Araoz waited years to tell anyone about the rape, and now, she wrote, has sued the estate to get some measure of justice, although Epstein is no longer around to pay the price. He committed suicide, authorities say, by hanging himself.
“I want my story to hold Epstein to account and also his recruiters, the workers on his payroll who knew what he was doing and the prominent people around him who helped conceal and perpetuate his sex-trafficking scheme. Their hideous actions victimized me and so many young girls like me,” Araoz wrote.
A new law, the New York Child Victims Act, opened the door to the lawsuit. It allows the victims of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits and recover damages even if the statute of limitations on the crime has elapsed.
Maxwell’s Role
Though Araoz didn’t mention Maxwell, the complaint, the Washington Post reported, alleges that Maxwell hired the recruiter who set up the meetings with Epstein. It says the 57-year-old Maxwell “participated with and assisted Epstein in maintaining and protecting his sex-trafficking ring.”
The lawsuit also accuses three unnamed accomplices.
Maxwell is not named in July’s federal indictment, which says “employees and associates who facilitated his conduct by, among other things, contacting victims and scheduling their sexual encounters.”
As TNA reported yesterday, citing the Miami Herald, Maxwell’s recruiting for Epstein goes back years to before his first arrest on similar charges to those filed in July. Epstein cut a deal with federal prosecutors and skated away unscathed to continue his career of perversion and predation.
The Post reported that Maxwell is nowhere to be found.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Epstein’s co-conspirators will be prosecuted.
