Nine women stepped forward saying that they were sexually abused by the convicted paedophile, with one accuser saying she was just 13 when the abuse began. The allegations are the latest to come to light since Epstein's arrest in July.
The lawsuit filed in New York state court in Manhattan alleges incidents of sexual abuse between 1985 and 2007 against all nine women. The accusers are listed as Jane Doe I through Jane Doe IX and their claim is against Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, the executors of Epstein's estate, which is valued at $577 million.
One of the women from the group, “Olivia,” who asked that her true identity be withheld, claimed in an interview with Fox News that she was abused dozens of times by Epstein between 2004 and 2006.
“He never asked my age. And at the time, I had braces. I looked very young,” she said during an interview at her attorney’s office in Midtown Manhattan. “Looking back at it, it just adds to the disgust and kind of horror of the whole thing. And just to be clear, I said, 'No.' Like, I didn't want to be there, when he was doing these things to me.”
“Olivia” was a 19-year-old actress struggling to make ends meet back in 2004 when her own roommate recruited her to provide massage services to Epstein.
“She thought that I might be interested in it,” “Olivia” says. “I really did just go into it with a, ‘Yeah, this guy could help me,’ and, ‘Yeah, this might be an answer.’ The pitch was, ‘You can go there. And he'll pay you $300 cash. And you only have to massage him in your underwear and for 30 minutes. That's it.’ And I was like, ‘Okay. That doesn't sound that crazy or bad.’”
She said Epstein almost immediately made her massage him while being stripped down to her underwear and in later sessions allegedly forced himself upon her. She said the financier would often masturbate in front of “Olivia” and on several occasions, he forced her onto the massage table and forced her to touch herself. He would then use massage tools on her and forced himself on her. In an effort to placate her, Epstein would often shower “Olivia” with gifts like lingerie and concert tickets and promises to help advance her acting career.
Last month, Indyke and Kahn asked a US Virgin Islands judge to establish a victim's compensation fund which they said would allow Epstein's accusers to proceed with "a confidential, non-adversarial alternative to litigation."
“The victims should be provided with the entire amount of what's remaining in his estate,” said New York-based attorney Jordan Merson, who represents the nine women. “They're young women, who are going to need lifelong medical care and treatment before you even get into their pain and suffering. So it is our position that Mr. Epstein's estate should be turned over to all the people that he's harmed.”
Merson says the impetus for the new lawsuit is the recent passing in New York of the Adult Survivors Act, which allows sexual assault survivors a chance to be heard in a court of law beyond the statute of limitations.
“A number of the women that we represent are under 18 years of age when they were abused by Jeffrey Epstein. Some of them are not,” he said. “The victims of Epstein who were part of the Child Victims Act, who were under 18 years of age, the statute of limitations in their lawsuit is never going to be questioned. The women who were over 18 - 18 and over, who were in theory adults at the time that they were sexually abused, the statute of limitations may very well be an issue that the Epstein estate looks to try to have their suit dismissed.”