Jeffrey Epstein: how US media - with one star exception - whitewashed the story
Not fake news. The Guardian brings up a major threat to democracy: corrupt news media.
Jeffrey Epstein: how US media – with one star exception – whitewashed the story
The Miami Herald exposed a vast criminal network and a government cover-up – but why the silence elsewhere?
Ed Pilkington
The Guardian, July 19, 2019
EXCERPT...
Reiter warned Brown what would happen were she to continue digging: “Somebody’s going to call your publisher and the next thing you know you are going to be assigned to the obituaries department.”
Brown did not heed his warning. She flung herself at the investigation and eventually persuaded Reiter to go on record. Her resulting, award-winning three-part series last November exposed a vast operation in which 80 potential victims were identified, some as young as 13 and 14 at the time of the alleged abuse. She persuaded eight to tell their stories.
Brown also exposed a government cover-up in which Epstein got away with an exceptionally light sentence that saw him serve only 13 months in jail. She discovered that a “non-prosecution agreement” had been negotiated secretly in 2008 by the then top federal prosecutor in Miami, Alexander Acosta, that gave Epstein and his co-conspirators immunity from federal prosecution.
In 2017, Acosta was appointed by Donald Trump as labor secretary, a post that ironically is responsible for combating sex trafficking.
CONTINUES...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/13/jeffrey-epstein-alex-acosta-miami-herald-media
We likely wouldn’t know squat about Epstein & Associates without the Miami Herald.
Original DU post from August 2019: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212367573
= new reply since forum marked as read
Why? Because his father, headmaster Donald Barr, likely hired the college-drop-out Epstein to teach at Manhattan's exclusive Dalton School.
From NYT:
Jeffrey Epstein Taught at Dalton. His Behavior Was Noticed.
Some students at the esteemed Manhattan prep school recall that Mr. Epstein, now charged with sex trafficking, was willing to violate norms in his encounters with girls.
By Mike Baker and Amy Julia Harris
The New York Times, July 12, 2019
Excerpt...
The school, which had been a progressive haven for the children of artists and writers, was undergoing a shift under a new headmaster. Donald Barr, the father of Attorney General William Barr, came in as a disciplinarian focused on beefing up the academics of the school, and on enforcing a strict code of conduct.
In a school known for creativity, administrators had prohibited denim jeans and “bizarre and eccentric costumes.” If Mr. Barr caught students using marijuana, he would often send them to therapy as a condition of staying in the school. He himself described his leadership style as “by ukase,” using the Imperial Russian term for an edict from the czar.
Staff members would sometimes turn students away from their morning classes; girls for skirts that were too short, and boys for hair that was too long.
Some students and parents balked at the constraints. Still, the school continued to draw families of fame. Around the years of Mr. Epstein’s tenure, records show the student roster included Prudence Murdoch, the daughter of the media mogul Rupert Murdoch; the fashion designer Jill Stuart; and several future actresses, including Jennifer Grey, Tracy Pollan and Maggie Wheeler.
While Mr. Barr was strict on the school culture, he made it a point to hire teachers from unconventional backgrounds, recalled Susan Semel, a social studies teacher at Dalton from the 1960s to 1980s who later wrote a book on the history of the school.
Continues...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-dalton-teacher.html
Should get all manner of awards for her tireless efforts to bring justice to so so SO many survivors
RESPECT
America should be ashamed at how Virginia Giuffre suffered -- and was treated -- the facts are horrendous.
Reminder: Jeffrey Epstein hired a 16-year old who worked for Donald J Trump.
Unsealed documents detail alleged Epstein victim’s recruitment at Mar-a-Lago
by JOSH GERSTEIN
08/10/2019
Excerpt…
The roughly 2,000 pages of records released by the Manhattan-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals also show the same woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, appears to have claimed she had sex with a series of prominent men — including former politicians — at Epstein’s direction while working as a staff masseuse for the investment adviser, who eventually came under investigation in 2006 for sex trafficking over his involvement with teenage girls.
The deal drew objections and a lawsuit from some of Epstein’s victims, who alleged they were illegally kept in the dark about the agreement. Earlier this year, a federal judge agreed the victims’ rights were violated. That ruling, and a fresh indictment of Epstein in federal court in New York City last month, set in motion the resignation of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was the chief federal prosecutor in south Florida and signed off on the Epstein deal.
Snip…
In deposition excerpts made public Friday, Giuffre said she was working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000 when she was approached by Epstein’s longtime friend Ghislaine Maxwell about giving massages to the wealthy investor, who owned a mansion in Palm Beach not far from the Trump resort.
“Where in the spa were you when you were approached by Ghislaine Maxwell?” Maxwell’s attorney Laura Menninger asked at a May 2016 deposition.
“Just outside the locker room, sitting where the other girl who works there usually sits,” Giuffre replied. “I was reading a book on massage therapy. … She noticed I was reading the massage book. And I started to have chitchat with her just about, you know, the body and the anatomy and how I was interested in it. And she told me that she knew somebody that was looking for a traveling masseuse. ... If the guy likes you then, you know, it will work out for you. You’ll travel. You’ll make good money.”
What people do to other people is sickening. What some do to children is unforgivable. Both scenarios include Donald John Trump.
Oligarch-owned media whitewashes many aspects of 'Murican life so as to not stir up the proles.
Many aren't coming forward, but some are. Julie K. Brown did an amazing and courageous thing, getting those women to go on the record. They gave dates, names, locations - whenever they could - and Julie worked hard to track it all down. As a great reporter does, she found corroborating sources and she turned it into a real news story.
Thank you, Julie K. Brown and the Miami Herald!
