How Epstein Groomed His "Number One Girl"

JULY 15--Like most of the girls exposed to Jeffrey Epstein’s predation, “Jane Doe 103” was introduced to the sex offender through an illicit bounty program run from the tycoon’s Palm Beach, Florida mansion.

While working one weekend at a mall across from the Palm Beach Polo and Country Club, Doe was approached by a fellow student from Royal Palm Beach High School, a feeder for Epstein’s underage massage corps. The other girl, who worked at Abercrombie & Fitch, had a proposition.

The teen told Doe, who was 16 at the time, that she could earn $200 by simply giving Epstein a brief massage at his Palm Beach residence. Doe’s friend noted that the massage would have to be performed naked or in some state of undress. In return for delivering Epstein a fresh face, the girl would pocket a $200 finder’s fee.

Doe’s acquaintance would later tell cops that she was introduced to Epstein by a classmate named Haley Robson, and would end up going to Epstein’s home “numerous times.” During those visits--which began when she was 16--the girl said that she was paid for “more than a massage,” telling police that Epstein would rub a “vibrator/massager on her vaginal area as he would masturbate” while laying on a massage table in the master bathroom.

Robson, who procured many girls for Epstein, compared herself to Heidi Fleiss while speaking with police. She claimed that every teen she delivered to Epstein’s home knew what to expect, saying, “They were told they would provide a massage, possibly naked, and some touching.” During a recorded call with Robson, a 14-year-old girl--who got $300 for massaging Epstein while wearing only thong panties--asked how she could make more money. Robson replied, “The more you do, the more you get paid.”  

In a sworn interview with Palm Beach Police Department detectives, Doe said that she agreed to massage Epstein since she “could make $200 for only 30 minutes of work.” Her classmate set up a massage appointment for later that day, and accompanied Doe to Epstein’s waterfront residence, where Doe was introduced to Sarah Kellen, one of the financier’s assistants.

Doe’s sexual encounter that day with Epstein was the first of many that occurred over a 17-month period ending in mid-2005. Doe said she would be summoned to the gated Palm Beach property whenever Epstein was in town, telling police that she visited the property “hundreds of times.” Doe initially said that she was 16 when she first met Epstein, though a lawsuit she later filed estimated that “when she was lured into [Epstein’s] sexually exploitative world,” she had just turned 17.

No victim is better positioned to detail for a jury what went on in the sex offender’s Florida home during the three-year span covered by the Epstein sex trafficking indictment than “Jane Doe 103.” Now 32, she was once such an Epstein regular, the victim told police, that she considered herself his “Number One girl.”

Many of Doe’s allegations have been corroborated by other witnesses, evidence seized during a search of Epstein’s Palm Beach home, and documents cops found in Epstein’s garbage during multiple covert “trash pulls.” Her name and home phone number also appear in the “black book” Epstein used to store contact information for his famous friends and the dozens of masseuses who would tend to him in New York, Paris, Palm Beach, and on his private Caribbean island.

While it seems likely that the case will expand to include additional victims--and other jurisdictions in which assaults allegedly transpired--for now Epstein is accused of sexually abusing three minors, two in Palm Beach and one in New York City. Epstein’s indictment alleges that he began recruiting girls to engage in sex acts “at least in or about 2002, up to and including in or about 2005.”

Epstein, who has been locked up since his July 6 arrest at a New Jersey airport, is scheduled today for a bail hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. 

Robert Josefsberg, the court-appointed lawyer who represented Doe and 15 other women identified by federal prosecutors as Epstein victims, declined comment when asked whether any of his clients were cooperating with federal investigators in the Southern District of New York, where the Epstein charges were filed earlier this month. Additionally, Josefsberg said he did not know whether any of his clients were the Palm Beach victims referred to in the charging document.

Doe spent more time with Epstein than any other teenage victim during the 2002-2005 period cited in the indictment.

In fact, she seemed to be a replacement of sorts for Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who fled from Epstein in late-2002 when she was 19. Giuffre alleges that she began engaging in sexual activity with Epstein when she was 15, and would eventually become his “sex slave” and get pimped out to the mogul’s friends and business associates, like lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew (both of whom deny her claims). Giuffre, a Josefsberg client, was initially identified as “Jane Doe 102” in civil litigation, but she subsequently shed her anonymity in news interviews. She is pictured at right with Prince Andrew.

This account of Doe’s involvement with Epstein is based on graphic Palm Beach Police Department reports, other law enforcement records, and the civil complaint she filed against Epstein in 2010. Within three months of that lawsuit being docketed, Epstein entered into a confidential financial settlement with the plaintiff. While police records refer to the victim by her initials, the lawsuit identifies her only as “Jane Doe 103.”

The original Epstein investigation began in March 2005 after a 14-year-old girl reported to police that Epstein touched her with a purple vibrator as she gave him a topless massage in the Palm Beach home. The teenager--who immediately identified Epstein when presented with a police photo array--told investigators that she thought he was on steroids because he was a “really built guy and his wee wee was very tiny.”

Six months into the probe, Doe was arrested by Palm Beach cops on a marijuana possession charge. While in custody, the teen told the arresting officer that she had “information about sexual activity taking place at the residence of Jeffrey Epstein.” It is unclear whether Doe knew at the time of her September 2005 bust that police were already investigating Epstein and, as a result, would want to interview her.

The pot case against Doe was dropped by prosecutors six weeks after the 17-year-old’s arrest. The dismissal came a few days after police raided Epstein’s home pursuant to a search warrant that included details Doe provided to Palm Beach police.

Doe was first questioned over the phone by a police investigator, but that interview was cut short after she began “crying hysterically” while recounting her initial meeting with Epstein, a $200 massage during which she wore only panties and had her breasts groped by Epstein as he masturbated.

The following day, Doe met with two detectives and provided a sworn statement about her involvement with Epstein. Months before the taped interview, police had come across Doe’s name and cell phone number on papers found in Epstein’s trash.

Doe told police that after the first massage was completed, Epstein instructed her to leave her cell number “so that he could contact her when he is in town,” according to a probable cause affidavit. She then explained that during her “many” subsequent visits to the El Brillo Way home, “a routine was established between her and Epstein,” who would sometimes summon her twice in the same day.

Upon arriving at the residence, Doe said, she would go to Epstein’s bedroom and remove her clothes. With Epstein lying on a massage table, Doe began by rubbing his back. When he flipped over, she started massaging his chest. Epstein would then begin to masturbate and “at the same time would insert his fingers into her vagina and masturbate her.” Epstein would continue doing this until he ejaculated. Doe told detectives that Epstein would also “utilize a vibrator/massager on her vagina.”

Epstein knew she was a minor, Doe told police, because she told him her age. “Epstein advised her not to tell anyone her real age,” the affidavit notes. Additionally, in her lawsuit against Epstein, Doe stated that he pushed her to file for legal emancipation from her parents before she turned 18.

Doe provided detectives with a detailed description of Epstein’s master bedroom and drew for them a schematic showing the location of the massage table in the master bathroom. She also described Epstein’s penis as “egg-shaped” and “deformed,” saying that, when erect, it was “thick toward the bottom but thin and small toward the head.”

Doe said that she became a “regular” at Epstein’s home, which she visited “hundreds of times” (though, she noted, “sexual activities did not occur every time" she was there). Doe told police that there were times she “went to dinners and parties with Epstein.” In her lawsuit against Epstein--which accused him of using his wealth and power to manipulate a “vulnerable young girl”--Doe charged that she was “sexually abused and/or battered and/or exploited” by Epstein “at least a hundred times.”

During some sexual episodes, Doe said, “things escalated” and Epstein introduced a second young female into the encounters. Doe identified Epstein’s friend as Nada Marcinkova, saying that Epstein claimed to have purchased the model “from her family in Yugoslavia” so that she could become his “sex slave.” Marcinkova (seen above) is now known as Nadia Marcinko and she works as a licensed pilot. Her address is listed in public records as a Manhattan building where a company connected to Epstein and his brother owns Marcinko’s apartment and 140 other condominiums in the 200-unit Upper East Side property.

The threesomes with Epstein and Marcinko, Doe said, included the use of “strap on dildos, large rubber penises and other devices that Epstein had at his disposal.” Each time “something new was introduced,” Doe said, she received additional payments from Epstein “to allow the acts to happen.” While Epstein “would watch them have intercourse and masturbate himself,” he would occasionally “join in during the female on female intercourse and provide oral sex” to both Marcinko and Doe, police reported.

Epstein, Doe told cops, photographed her and Marcinko “naked and having sex and proudly displayed the photographs within the home.” In her lawsuit, Doe alleged that police who raided the Palm Beach residence in October 2005 seized nude photos of her taken by Epstein when she was a minor.

While Doe told investigators that she had an understanding with Epstein that “no vaginal penetration would occur with his penis,” she alleged that he raped her at the end of one massage (for which Marcinko was present). Doe said that Epstein turned her over on her stomach on the massage table and forcibly inserted his penis into her vagina. With her head being “held against the table forcibly,” Doe said Epstein “continued to pump inside her” until she screamed “No!” Epstein, she said, stopped, apologized for his actions, and later paid her $1000 “for that visit.” Soon after the incident, Doe added, Epstein provided her with a rented 2005 Dodge Neon “for her personal use.”

Doe told Palm Beach detectives that there were times she was so sore when she left Epstein’s home that she had difficulty walking to her car, saying that she was “ripped, torn, in her vagina area.”

In addition to monies she received for sexual encounters with Epstein, Doe was also paid when she referred other underage victims. One girl Doe brought to the Palm Beach home told police that she massaged Epstein on 15 occasions, and that he fondled her breasts and touched her buttocks during these $200 sessions. When she was 17, the girl told cops, Epstein paid her $350 to have sex (he “climaxed on the massage table,” she recalled). On another occasion, she said, Epstein directed her and Marcinko to “kiss and fondle each other” as he watched and masturbated.

In Doe’s lawsuit, she accused Epstein of grooming that resulted in a “systematic pattern of sexually exploitative behavior.” Epstein, the complaint charged, lured Doe “early-on with modeling opportunities, impressing her with his modeling business and contacts with supermodels, indicating that he could help her with a modeling career.” Doe added that Epstein “showered” her with gifts of lingerie, flowers, bikinis, art books, purses, and envelopes of cash.

A houseman who worked at Epstein’s residence told police that the financier once directed him to deliver a dozen roses to Doe following her performance in a play at Royal Palm Beach High School. The worker, Alfredo Rodriguez, also said that Epstein ordered him to rent a car for Doe so that “she could drive herself to Epstein’s house without incident.” Rodriguez provided investigators with a note written on Epstein’s stationery that contained directions regarding the flower delivery and auto rental.

In her civil complaint, Doe reported that Epstein repeatedly urged her to become “legally emancipated” before her 18th birthday so that she could “accompany him as he traveled, both nationally and internationally.” Epstein, the lawsuit alleged, knew that Doe was 17 and he “lured her by inviting her to stay with him at his mansion in Manhattan and arranging and/or paying for airplane tickets, theater tickets, and a personal chauffeur as gifts for her upcoming birthday.”

Asked if Doe had ever traveled with Epstein to his New York City home (pictured above), her lawyer replied that he was “not allowed to say.”

Doe’s lawsuit described her as an “excellent student” who wanted to attend New York University or Columbia University. Epstein, Doe claimed, “pretended to show great interest in her college admission” and offered to help with her applications, assist with tuition, and use his “substantial connections within the academic community, a matter about which he often bragged.” Epstein, the complaint added, “took it upon himself to take control of [Doe’s] college application process” and insisted that she would be admitted into one or both of the New York City schools.

But Epstein’s promises did not pan out, the lawsuit reported, and Doe missed enrolling for the fall semester of her freshman year. She subsequently graduated from a Florida university and went on to get a master’s degree. Doe is a licensed professional and has been active in business organizations and volunteer groups. A south Florida native, she has remained in the Palm Beach area, living a short drive from Epstein’s home.

When police searched the Palm Beach property, they seized a variety of items from Epstein’s bedroom suite, according to a search warrant inventory. Along with a green massage table, framed photos of naked females, and a bottle of “Joy Jelly” lubricant, cops confiscated several porn videotapes, including “I Love Lesbians 4” and “Eatin’ Janine.”

Upon searching a desk in the bedroom, cops found stationery marked “Jeffey E. Epstein” along with a copy of Doe’s high school transcript, according to a police inventory (seen below).

While it is unknown what, if any, role Doe will play in the current sex trafficking prosecution, Epstein and his lawyers recognized the danger she posed during the original Florida investigation. Aware that Doe could provide devastating testimony against Epstein, his legal team sought to discredit her.

As detailed in a Palm Beach Police Department report, Epstein’s lawyers scoured the MySpace pages of Doe and a second teenage victim and provided police and prosecutors with printouts from the pair’s respective profiles. The copies were accompanied by a three-page letter from Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

Epstein’s legal team, led by Dershowitz, thought it significant that Doe’s MySpace profile stated that her interests included music, theater, and marijuana. And that she smoked pot with her boyfriend and used the MySpace handle “pimp juice.”

In his letter to investigators, Dershowitz wrote that Doe had an “apparent fascination with marijuana.” Her interest in pot, Dershowitz wrote, would come as no surprise to Joseph Recarey, the lead detective, since “I’m sure you are already aware of her recent Palm Beach arrest for both possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.” At the time of Dershowitz’s 2006 letter, the pot case against Doe had already been dismissed.

In another swipe at Doe, Dershowitz described the teen as an “accomplished drama student” who had previously “misled others.” The lawyer also claimed that he wanted to apprise criminal investigators of a “troublesome and telling illustration of her character.”

The character assault on Doe, of course, would likely be reprised if she somehow figured in the current federal prosecution. And this time, Epstein’s legal battalion would have fresh ammunition.

Doe was arrested two years ago for domestic battery (though it appears the misdemeanor case was either dismissed or the records were expunged). The victim, Doe’s boyfriend at the time, went to court and secured a temporary domestic violence restraining order against her. That injunction was lifted two months later after a judge dismissed the matter.