NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI collected ample proof that Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused underage ladies however discovered scant proof the well-connected financier led a intercourse trafficking ring serving highly effective males, an Related Press evaluation of inner Justice Division information exhibits.
Movies and images seized from Epstein’s houses in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands did not depict victims being abused or implicate anybody else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in a single 2025 memo.
An examination of Epstein’s monetary information, together with funds he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and world diplomacy, discovered no connection to prison exercise, mentioned one other inner memo in 2019.
Summarizing the investigation in an electronic mail final July, brokers mentioned “4 or 5” Epstein accusers claimed different males or ladies had sexually abused them. However, the brokers mentioned, there “was not sufficient proof to federally cost these people.”
The AP and different media organizations are nonetheless reviewing thousands and thousands of pages of paperwork, a lot of them beforehand confidential, that the Justice Division launched beneath the Epstein Information Transparency Act and it’s attainable these information include proof neglected by investigators.
Listed below are takeaways from what the paperwork present concerning the FBI investigation and why U.S. authorities finally determined to shut it with out extra prices.
Origins of the investigation
The Epstein investigation started in 2005, when the mother and father of a 14-year-old lady reported that she had been molested on the millionaire’s residence in Palm Seashore, Florida. Then-Miami U.S. legal professional Alexander Acosta struck a deal letting Epstein plead responsible to state prices of soliciting prostitution from an underage lady. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.
In 2018, a sequence of Miami Herald tales concerning the plea deal prompted federal prosecutors to take a recent take a look at the accusations.
Epstein was arrested in July of 2019. One month later, he killed himself in his jail cell.
A yr later, prosecutors charged Epstein’s longtime confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she’d recruited a number of of his victims and typically joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year jail time period.
Lack of proof for coconspirators
Prosecution memos, case summaries and different paperwork made public within the division’s newest launch of Epstein-related information present that FBI brokers and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential coconspirators. Even seemingly outlandish and incomprehensible claims, known as in to tip strains, had been examined.
Some allegations could not be verified, investigators wrote.
In 2011 and once more in 2019, investigators interviewed Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who in lawsuits and information interviews had accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with quite a few males, together with Britain’s former Prince Andrew.
WATCH: What’s revealed within the newest Epstein information launch – and what’s redacted
Investigators mentioned they confirmed that Giuffre had been sexually abused by Epstein. However different elements of her story had been problematic.
Giuffre acknowledged writing a partly fictionalized memoir of her time with Epstein containing descriptions of issues that did not happen. She had additionally provided shifting accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote.
Two different Epstein victims who Giuffre had claimed had been additionally “lent out” to highly effective males informed investigators they’d no such expertise, prosecutors wrote in a 2019 inner memo.
Images and video do not implicate others
Investigators seized a mess of movies and images from Epstein’s digital gadgets and houses in New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They discovered CDs, onerous copy images and a minimum of one videotape containing nude pictures of females.
No movies or images confirmed Epstein victims being sexually abused, none confirmed any males with any of the nude females, and none contained proof implicating anybody apart from Epstein and Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Legal professional Maurene Comey wrote in an electronic mail for FBI officers final yr.
Had they existed, the federal government “would have pursued any leads they generated,” Comey wrote. “We didn’t, nevertheless, find any such movies.”
Investigators who scoured Epstein’s financial institution information discovered funds to greater than 25 ladies who gave the impression to be fashions — however no proof that he was engaged in prostituting ladies to different males, prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors weighed the potential of charging a few of Epstein’s shut associates, together with an assistant and enterprise shoppers, however finally determined in opposition to it due to lack of proof.
No shopper checklist discovered
Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi informed Fox Information in February 2025 that Epstein’s never-before-seen “shopper checklist” was “sitting on my desk proper now.” However FBI brokers wrote superiors saying the shopper checklist did not exist.
On Dec. 30, 2024, about three weeks earlier than President Joe Biden left workplace, then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate reached out by way of subordinates to ask “whether or not our investigation so far signifies the ‘shopper checklist,’ usually referred to within the media, does or doesn’t exist,” in keeping with an electronic mail summarizing his question.
A day later, an FBI official replied that the case agent had confirmed no shopper checklist existed.
On Feb. 19, 2025, two days earlier than Bondi’s Fox Information look, an FBI supervisory particular agent wrote: “Whereas media protection of the Jeffrey Epstein case references a ‘shopper checklist,’ investigators didn’t find such an inventory throughout the course of the investigation.”
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Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
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The AP is reviewing the paperwork launched by the Justice Division in collaboration with journalists from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC. Journalists from every newsroom are working collectively to look at the information and share details about what’s in them. Every outlet is liable for its personal impartial information protection of the paperwork.
