Original subtitles

They told me that we were flying

to Jeffrey's island in the Caribbean.

I definitely had to do some self-talk that...

what if he tries to hurt me?

I thought, "Well, this time, I'll be better prepared,

and I'll be able to say no."

You know, I had this blind hope

that he just wouldn't do it again,

that he wouldn't hurt me.

Individuals who've been sexually abused

as a child, of course you'd expect them to go back.

They were called over for a massage.

It became a sexual assault.

You know, what else is new? This is what men do.

It was gorgeous.

I mean, it was stunning, you know,

overlooking the Caribbean sea.

I felt like I was in a dream.

That night, myself, Ghislaine, Jeffrey, Sarah Kellen,

we all sat around this beautiful table outside,

and the chef made this delicious dinner for us.

After dinner, I went back into my villa

reveling in the fact that

my bed had been turned down for me,

and the candles were lit, and, like,

there was a book on my nightstand,

mosquito net drawn around my bed.

I had never been taken care of as a kid.

Like, I never had, you know,

a mom that did any of those things for me,

so what was exciting me was the care involved.

I just remember feeling like a princess.

It was like a fantasy land, almost.

In 1998, Jeffrey Epstein bought his own private island

in the Caribbean in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

It was known as Little St. James,

but he liked to call it Little St. Jeff's.

There was a swimming pool.

There was sort of an area for his private chef

to prepare meals.

There was a screening room, a library.

He also had this kind of weird

temple building with a gold roof.

He used to patrol around in an ATV,

and girls were asked to either wear no clothes or go topless.

I mean, he literally shaped the island to his whims.

He could sort of indulge himself

in his own universe,

away from the watchful eyes of anyone.

It's also where some of the most disturbing allegations

of abuse have surfaced.

I think the darker part of what he liked

and his friends liked was

taking shape at that point.

It was a place for him to get away

with whatever he wanted to get away with.

Anything and everything did happen on the island.

That night in my villa,

I laid down on the bed and started reading.

Before long, a little knock came at my door.

Sarah Kellen popped her head in

and said that Jeffrey's ready for his massage now.

Immediately, I was sick to my stomach.

This just did not feel right. It was the middle of the night.

I thought we were all going to bed,

but, again, like, you know, what was I gonna say?

No?

I was there to be hired, I thought, as their masseuse,

so I couldn't say, "No, I'm not gonna go massage him."

So she led me to Jeffrey and Ghislaine's villa.

The massage table was set up already.

You could hear the waves crashing

against the rocks outside.

I kept thinking, like, you know,

because this is a room that he's sharing

with Ghislaine, maybe she's close by.

Maybe she'll come in. Maybe she... you know.

Maybe he won't do anything

because, you know, she's right there.

You know, I genuinely thought

that she really did care about me.

And so he comes in, throws off his robe,

gets on the table, and, you know,

looked very smug and happy.

I didn't get very far into the massage

before he grabbed my wrists and tugged me towards the bed

and pulled me on top of him.

I wanted to scream out for someone to,

you know, come help me.

There was people just on the other side of the door...

like, women just on the other side of the door.

I couldn't find my words.

I just remember saying, "Please, no."

And I realized very quickly

that the more I kept trying to resist,

the more fun he was having.

You know, he proceeded to force himself on me,

and I just waited for it to be over.

You know, it was over very quickly,

and he jumped up and got to the shower,

and I threw my shorts back on and ran out of the room

without my shoes and ran all the way back on the rocks

towards my villa.

My feet were bleeding by the time I got back

to that villa, and I was crying,

and I just basically, like, just got into bed

and cried myself to sleep.

And I genuinely felt very isolated.

I really felt like this was all only happening to me,

and, for whatever reason, this was my problem.

There wasn't even a thought going through my head

that I was going to say something.

There was no way.

Sorry.

Yeah, no, there was no way

I was gonna say anything, you know?

Just, like, what was I gonna say?

Being on Jeffrey's island

was like being on a deserted island.

Jeffrey knew that he wasn't gonna get caught,

and so a lot more abuse happened at the Virgin Islands

because of the isolation.

Jeffrey had the ability to bring in young girls

to that private island under the radar

and abuse them there without many people

knowing about it.

That was where a lot of the abuse

of young, foreign girls transpired, unfortunately.

This was really where some of the most shocking

and disturbing parts

of his sex trafficking operation took place.

It was really global in scale.

Epstein's aircraft, known as "The Lolita Express"

allowed him to carry on his sex trafficking operation

outside of the view of the authorities.

- Do you know a man named - Jean-Luc Brunel?

Can you spell it?

He was at your house last week.

What's the purpose for you asking me to spell his name?

Are you acting like you don't know him?

Form, move to strike... argumentative.

Jean-Luc Brunel was a very prominent figure

in the modeling scene.

He traveled the world looking for young women to recruit.

Jeffrey had the type of relationship with him

that Jean-Luc was feeding him women.

It's this match made in heaven.

It's Jeffrey Epstein constantly looking

for young, beautiful women,

and Jean-Luc Brunel having young, beautiful women

at his fingertips.

I'm sure it was pretty hush, hush

that he brought in loads

of Eastern European fashion models.

They wanted a visa to live in the country and work.

Jean-Luc Brunel's girls are very vulnerable girls.

They can't speak a word of English.

They think they're getting a modeling job,

and instead, they're getting abused.

And you can see the fear in some of these girls' eyes.

You can feel it.

Some of Epstein's victims have talked about

having their passports confiscated

when they've been to the island,

and orgies taking place there with Eastern European women,

which Epstein directs.

I asked him how am I supposed to participate,

you know, in sexual acts if they don't speak English?

And he said, "Use hand gestures,"

and, you know, like, he goes, "And it's much easier.

"It's better that they don't speak English.

Then we don't have to listen to them talk."

The island was my jail.

You literally are stuck with adults

who don't care about you,

adults that are there to purely use you

for their sexual advantages.

I never got to say no.

And I had these two people making my life choices for me

every minute of every day that I was with them.

It's like this really effed up family

where one minute we're watching "Sex and the City,"

and the next minute, Ghislaine tells us

to strip down and start, you know,

performing sexual acts on Jeffrey Epstein

or her or both.

She was just as exhausting as he was.

Eventually, Epstein and Maxwell

started sending me to people,

started literally trafficking me.

And there was times that he'd send me on, like,

a commercial flight to go meet the people

I'm being trafficked to, saying,

"I want you to take care of them

"and report back to me what they liked,

what you did for them."

The person I was trafficked to

would either, you know, say that, you know,

they were happy with the experience,

and then I would get, like, a pat on the back

from Ghislaine or from Epstein.

You know, like, with Prince Andrew.

I'm happy to talk about him because he abused me.

He participated in a sex trafficking operation

with one of the most prolific sex trafficking operators

in the world of modern time.

Prince Andrew's not the prince

from the fairy tale stories you read.

Andrew deserves to be outed.

He deserves to be held accountable.

He's an abuser.

The connection between Prince Andrew

and Jeffrey Epstein is Ghislaine Maxwell.

Ghislaine and Prince Andrew had known each other

for many years.

I remember one day,

I was walking up Madison Avenue,

and I ran into Ghislaine Maxwell

who was with Prince Andrew,

and she introduced me to him.

He told me that he was staying at Jeffrey's townhouse.

That kind of fascinated me.

I mean, it just seemed like a kind of perfect instance

of the kind of people that Jeffrey

was hanging out with.

Jeffrey definitely enjoyed

the idea of being friends

with the queen's son,

and Prince Andrew just gone through a divorce,

has this American, you know, billionaire

that wants to, like, fly him around the world

and introduce him to people,

and it was probably an escapism really for him.

The most explosive claims about Prince Andrew

were made by Virginia Roberts Giuffre...

that she was, you know,

loaned out to Andrew for sex three times.

The first time, Epstein flew her to London

where they went out dancing at a nightclub called Tramp

with Prince Andrew.

They went back to Ghislaine Maxwell's house

in London, and there she was essentially

given to Andrew, and they had sex.

Before he abused me, when we just met, you know,

Ghislaine does this guessing game.

He guessed right.

I was 17, and he compared me to his daughter, saying,

"Oh, my daughters are a few years younger than you."

The next encounter

supposedly happened a few months later

at Epstein's mansion in New York,

and then there was a third time,

Virginia said, on Epstein's island

in the Caribbean where, again, she and Andrew had sex.

The duke has strongly and repeatedly denied this.

I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady.

It didn't happen.

She said she had sex with you three times.

No.

- No to all of it? - All of it.

Absolutely no to all of it.

What makes it difficult for Andrew

is that there's a photograph of him and Virginia.

She was 17 years old at the time,

and they're in Ghislaine's house.

Andrew's standing there grinning like a Cheshire Cat

with his arm around Virginia Roberts,

and Ghislaine stands in the background

like this kind of puppet master figure

sort of grinning broadly.

I never met Prince Andrew through Jeffrey,

but I had a few friends that did.

Most of the girls didn't speak about

what happened with Prince Andrew,

but I had one very good friend that confided in me

about her experience with him.

She told me that Jeffrey

kind of instructed her to go into a room

and to have sex with Prince Andrew.

She told me Jeffrey's not really who he says he is.

I asked him about it.

He didn't wanna talk about it a lot

because it was a very important person

that it happened with, but he just mentioned

that he needs to have something on people.

Once he gets somebody to accept having sex

with an underage kid, it gives him some power

over the individual when the individual accepts.

- The stories - I kept on hearing

were that in every guest bedroom

in Jeffrey Epstein's house, there were hidden cameras,

and that part of Jeffrey's ability

to manipulate people was that he had this video

of powerful men having sex with underage girls

and that these recordings were held in a safe

that Jeffrey was using as a power tool

to manipulate wealthy guys

to make them do whatever he wanted.

He thought of these girls as commodities.

He gave them out the same way he'd give out

a good bottle of wine or a trip on his boat

or a flight to somewhere.

They were nothing more than objects to him.

When you start sending a victim to get abused

by more and more and more people,

it makes it so much more detrimental

on your health, on your psyche.

Cages come in many forms,

and I can tell you my cage might've been a golden cage,

but it was a cage nonetheless.

I was very alone, you know?

Like, there was just no way out.

Virginia was in a circumstance where

she really wanted to be able to build a different life.

She knew what was happening to her was very wrong,

and she wanted out, but again,

these people are incredibly powerful,

incredibly intimidating, and you don't cross them.

Two to three months before my 19th birthday,

I was on the island with Jeffrey Epstein

and Ghislaine Maxwell.

You know, I said, "I still haven't gotten

"my massage certificate that you guys promised me,

"and, you know, I really wanna have that massage certificate

"to be a real masseuse one day, you know,

so I can take care of myself."

And for my birthday,

they got me tickets to Thailand.

They booked me into a Thai massage course.

But they asked me to get another girl

to bring over from Thailand, right?

So it's never just doing something nice for you.

That's not how they worked.

It's always an exchange for something.

So I was like, "This is an opportunity.

This is a chance."

If I find that chance, I'm taking it.

I put it out there in the universe,

and the universe answered.

I met my husband Robert Giuffre.

He was the first person I told everything

about what I had gone through.

He said to me, "You don't have to go back.

You can come to Australia with me."

He literally got on his knees and said, "Let's get married."

I'm like, "I'm starting a new life.

Like, I don't have to go back."

So the day I got married to Robert,

I said, "I gotta do this now.

"I've gotta call Jeffrey Epstein.

This is my final step."

So I called him, and I said, "I'm not coming back."

You could tell he was pissed off

by the tone of his voice, and he said,

"Have a good life," and he clicked the phone up.

That was the last time I had heard from Epstein

until 2007.

Epstein calls me, and he goes,

"There's this stupid investigation

"going on about me, you know,

"and are you gonna talk to people about it?

Have you talked to people about it?"

I was... oh, my God.

Like, I couldn't sleep for days.

It was... I was just living in constant fear.

I was just so scared.

The federal authorities in Florida

began an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein's dream team of lawyers

realize this is bad news because once you start

getting the FBI involved, the potential penalties

for their client are much more serious.

They start negotiating a plea deal in secret

with Alex Acosta, who is the man in charge

of the federal prosecution.

This goes on without the victims knowing.

All the victims know is that the FBI's

looking into the case.

I fear that there's a secret deal being constructed

between the federal government and Jeffrey Epstein,

and that they're working with him

behind my clients' backs.

Jeffrey Epstein went to jail

just before 10:00 this morning.

He pleaded guilty in open court.

After 18 months

in the Palm Beach detention facility,

Epstein will serve another 12 months house arrest

at his Palm Beach home.

- In summer, 2008, - Epstein signed a plea deal

under which he would plead guilty to two charges...

solicitation of prostitution

and soliciting of minor for prostitution.

A guy who had dozens and dozens

of potential victims

and had been operating this pyramid scheme

was only gonna serve 18 months in state prison

and, not only that,

the federal investigation was gonna go away.

That's the most extraordinary part of this.

I didn't even understand

what happened in the courtroom,

and Brad's like, "Courtney,

you wouldn't believe what they're doing."

Like, they are literally doing a secret plea agreement.

Like, this is done. He already pleaded out.

The women's voices were not heard

even though they all gave this very powerful testimony

in the police report over and over and over again

telling the same story.

Jeffrey Epstein got off with basically a slap on the wrist.

I just couldn't wrap my head around this whole thing.

It was just very mind-blowing.

I had dealt with my mom going to jail,

so, you know, they were a lot tougher on her

than they were, you know, Epstein.

Me and Brad, we all just find

all this information out together,

and we're like, "What?"

This is impossible.

I mean, this has to be "The Twilight Zone."

This doesn't make any sense.

Nobody gets this type of treatment.

Who is this person?

I was so angry.

I'm thinking that Jeffrey Epstein

is gonna get away with this.

He is gonna get away with molesting me

and all my friends,

and I'm a victim, and I wanna take this guy down.

I want him to be accountable for what he did to me.

So me and Brad kind of make a pact.

We're like, "Okay, so we're in this to the end."

I said, "I promise you we are going to fight this,

"and, one way or the other, we are going to fix

"the injustice that was caused and that Jeffrey Epstein

was not going to get away with this."

The government did not want to let the victims know

the substance of the non-prosecution agreement,

so we sued the United States Government

so that we could learn what exactly the deal was.

Months later, we finally learn the federal government

had identified approximately 40 minor victims

and instead of prosecuting Jeffrey Epstein,

gave him immunity for all federal sex crimes

that he had committed,

and additionally provided immunity

for all of Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirators,

and all of this was done in secrecy

behind the victims' backs.

The extent of the cooperation between

the federal prosecution and Epstein's lawyers

would only become apparent when e-mails between them

were made public.

The emails are artily damning.

It feels like the prosecutors are asking Epstein's defense,

"What would your client like, sir?

What would be okay for him to plead to?"

It shows that they worked basically hand in glove

to fashion this deal with Alex Acosta,

the top federal prosecutor

for the Southern District of Florida.

He got away with the sweetheart deal.

If that doesn't prove he had friends in high places,

then I don't know what else does.

A few steps, a smile,

and a wave to the deputy at the door.

We watch Jeffrey Epstein walk out of jail,

but only his attorneys heard from him.

He's very happy that his jail sentence is over

and he can begin a new chapter in his life.

Epstein was supposed to serve 18 months,

but he only served 13 months.

When he comes out of prison in 2009,

Jeffrey Epstein is a registered sex offender.

So Epstein embarks on this extraordinary attempt

to rehabilitate his image.

He realizes that a way to sanitize your name

and manage your reputation is to become a philanthropist,

someone who's donating money to worthy causes,

a thinker.

Epstein was rubbing shoulders with Jeff Bezos from Amazon,

Sergey Brin from Google, and Elon Musk.

Because Epstein was rich, because he was able to donate,

people looked the other way,

and in the case of MIT,

he wanted to mix with the world's intellectual elite.

When I started working at MIT,

my job was to take a look at our top-rated donors.

I did come across Jeffrey Epstein

amongst the disqualified donors.

I came to learn that they had found a workaround,

that Epstein's associates would give to MIT instead

in their name anonymously.

This is a $2 million gift from Bill Gates

directed by Jeffrey Epstein.

"For gift recording purposes,

"we will not be mentioning Jeffrey's name

as the impetus for the gift."

The relationship with Jeffrey Epstein

had become an open secret amongst people at the lab.

Female employees raised issues,

but our complaints fell on deaf ears.

I was told we needed to keep all of this information quiet.

We began arranging for Jeffrey Epstein

to visit the lab.

I was told that Jeffrey doesn't go anywhere

without two female assistants at his side.

That was another red flag in my eyes.

Jeffrey came in very confident,

and the two women appeared young.

They were Eastern European.

Very beautiful... they looked like models.

No part of me fully believed that they were his assistants.

We were concerned that maybe they were being trafficked.

My male colleagues

just saw what they wanted to see with Jeffrey Epstein.

I think if you're relying on money from him,

it was very easy to turn the other way.

Being affiliated with MIT

helped Jeffrey Epstein rebuild his reputation,

to just slip back into his life

that he had before being convicted.

There were multiple victims

that were still being victimized.

He was such a significant perpetrator of these crimes

that he would never stop until stopped.

Girls that I have talked to

who have been trafficked as teens,

there's always an environment that normalizes it.

The normalcy explains why

people who otherwise would have been shocked

and horrified didn't act.

All these high, official people allowed him

to continue doing what he was doing.

To this day, it just makes... it gives me, like, anxiety.

It makes my heart race.

Courtney was very damaged by what Jeffrey Epstein did.

You know, she would have these up and down periods

where she was constantly trying to deal with

all of the emotional trauma from her life,

and there were very low moments.

It's such a dark story,

but I just know other people can relate to it.

My life goes just, like, downhill.

I basically turn into a drug addict.

I end up going to prison for three years for drugs.

So, this is... makes me emotional.

You know, Brad sticks by my side

and he writes me letters and says,

"Hey, Courtney, you're one of

the most powerful people I've ever met."

And something just clicked when I was in prison

that, you know, I didn't want to live like that anymore.

And then it brought me to...

I'm gonna fight until somebody brings Jeffrey down,

and I'm just gonna keep on speaking the truth

because I'm done with you, you know?

I had my daughter in 2010,

and it just hit me all at once.

Now I've got this little girl in my arms.

We gotta protect her.

It was like looking at her, and it clicked,

and it was like, you know, it is time to speak out.

Naming someone like Prince Andrew,

all of a sudden the world cared, right?

People wanna hear those kind of stories.

But the first story that came out

was almost like a salacious sex story.

It took away from the fact that

this is a sex trafficking operation.

She has now gone public

with some of the key allegations

about the abuse that she suffered

and the people who were involved in that abuse.

Her allegations had included

people like Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz.

The last day of 2014, false story was told

by Virginia Roberts about having had sex with me

on six different occasions on Jeffrey Epstein's island

and his ranch and on the airplane.

Totally made-up stories.

What followed her allegations was

an absolute tirade by Dershowitz in the media.

The story is totally, completely fabricated

from top to bottom.

It was a time when the media,

unfortunately, was very victim-blaming.

Everybody, from a media perspective,

was really attacking the victim, Virginia,

at that point.

- She's an admitted prostitute. - She's a serial liar.

I can tell you she is still a prostitute.

She is selling false stories now for money about me.

I mean, I was called a bad mother,

a serial liar, a serial prostitute.

Like, the names were horrible, you know?

And I've got three kids, and they, you know,

they see the news channels, and, you know,

"Mommy, why are they calling you a prostitute?

What is a prostitute?"

But I just kept telling 'em,

"Mommy's fighting the bad guys."

She was being attacked in a very significant way,

and that's when I was brought into the case

to help her in that circumstance.

She wanted to have established on the record

what had happened to her and try to stop

the individuals who were involved.

She didn't have a lot of options

because the statute of limitations,

which is the time period within which

a victim can bring a civil suit had already run.

So we, very creatively, came up with a strategy

where she can sue on the basis of things

that were being said about her in a defamation claim

saying, "I'm not a liar

because this abuse actually happened to me."

We ended up filing a single count defamation suit

against Ghislaine Maxwell.

Ghislaine had been one of the people

who had come out and called Virginia a liar

and had said, "No, she's lying

about these sexual abuse claims."

Since Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her

and also participated in the abuse of her,

working hand in hand with Epstein

to perpetrate those crimes,

it was a perfect way to be able

to get at both of them at the same time.

I was vilified for a very long time,

and I still am being vilified.

You know, I'm still being called a liar,

and the truth has a funny way of showing its head,

and I'm not stopping till it does.

One of the things that allows predators

to continue to prey upon vulnerable individuals

for a long period of time

is a culture in which they are working.

I think that sexual predators

find an environment

that is tolerant of sexual offending,

and that tolerance can be a fraternity.

It can be a neighborhood.

It can be a crowd of people.

Hundreds and hundreds of young females

were victimized, and what we've seen

is just a fraction of them coming forward.

Even though they were manipulated in a masterful way,

they still struggle with making public what happened to them

because there is so much shame involved.

It's really difficult as a victim to come forward

and say, "I was one of them. It happened to me too."

- It happened to me too. - Me too.

It happened to me too.

No justice!

I'm in prison, and I'm watching

all this stuff happen on the TV,

watching the Me Too Movement.

I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, these girls are coming out,

and people are believing them."

Survivors are sharing their personal stories

of harassment and assault online.

In terms of believing the victims

and believing survivors,

I think the pendulum swung.

Bound up in that was Me Too.

We believe Christine Ford!

Kavanaugh is not welcome here!

I was watching the Supreme Court hearings

with Brett Kavanaugh,

and I remember just looking at the TV

and thinking, "God, I cannot wait

for my day to expose Jeffrey Epstein."

I receive a letter from "The Miami Herald."

It's a reporter. Her name is Julie Brown.

And she's been investigating my case,

and she knows all about it, and she's so sorry

for what happened.

So I write her back, and I tell her

that I want everybody to know who I am,

and I want everybody to know

that I'm a victim of Jeffrey Epstein

I was so filled with, like,

rage and madness and hurt.

I was like, "I want to tell her my story."

"The Miami Herald" was able to identify

nearly 80 girls who were molested by Epstein.

This case has been around for many years.

A lot of reporters have followed it

and done some very good work on this,

but it is now a decade later, and at some point,

I thought the real story is the criminal justice system

and how it failed these girls.

I think Alex Acosta being nominated

to be Trump's labor secretary spurred Julie Brown

to do her investigation.

Acosta, as labor secretary,

was overseeing human trafficking.

A guy who'd given a sweetheart plea deal

to arguably the worst human trafficker

in American history really set Julie Brown off.

Julie Brown also shed new light

on the plea deal that Jeffrey Epstein agreed to.

It was signed by Alexander Acosta...

then a federal prosecutor,

now the U.S. Secretary of Labor.

- You have - Alex Acosta's involvement

in the Florida non-prosecution agreement being exposed.

"The Miami Herald" was the first publication

to say, "We're not gonna back down to the bad guys.

We're gonna actually report what happened."

I hoped that my story was going to make some waves.

I really was hoping.

Did I think it was gonna happen?

Not at all.

I thought Epstein was gonna get away with this.

- During the summer, - I'm at a friend's house.

I get a phone call from Brad.

You know, he's like,

"Courtney, are you sitting down?"

I'm like, "Uh, yes, why?"

"'Cause Jeffrey Epstein was just arrested.

We got him. They definitely got him."

I don't believe it, you know?

I don't believe it.

- I'll never forget - July 2019.

I get a call,

and it's from one of my best friends,

and she's like, "He's been arrested!"

And I'm like, "What?"

So I'm in the middle of the street screaming.

It was, like, one of the best days of my life.

I had been at work at church by myself,

and I got a text message saying that he was arrested,

and I literally just started crying,

and I was like, "They're listening to us."

On July the sixth, 2019,

he had boarded a flight on his private jet

from Paris to a private airport in New Jersey.

As soon as Epstein got off the jet,

he's surrounded by a joint task force

of the NYPD and the FBI.

He's put in handcuffs, and he's led away.

All the signs are that he had no idea this was coming.

I was amazed that Epstein didn't know

that an arrest was imminent.

If he had, he might've stayed in France.

Maybe he would've been extradited.

Maybe he wouldn't have been extradited,

but I think the arrest caught him by surprise.

Of course, it caught all of us by surprise.

We thought the case was over.

Federal agents storming

into Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion.

The FBI raid Epstein's mansion

and take material from his home

that evidences the sexual trafficking

that had been taking place including photographs

that they found of young girls,

a false passport that he could presumably use

to escape or get out of the country

if there was a problem.

Our office began cooperating

with the Southern District of New York

because we've got, you know, a decade worth

of investigated materials.

Today we announce the unsealing

of sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein is charged in a two-count indictment...

first, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking,

and second, the substantive crime

of sex trafficking of underage girls.

Jeffrey Epstein's first appearance in court

on the following Monday,

there were dozens and dozens of TV crews outside.

It was a complete zoo.

You okay, Courtney?

I managed to get into the court, and I got a seat.

I was actually sitting in the row

in front of Courtney Wild and Brad Edwards.

I wanted to go to New York.

I'm not this troubled, young girl anymore,

and I want to face him,

and I talk to the federal prosecutors,

and they're like,

"He's not gonna get away this time."

Epstein walks in.

He looked a little disheveled,

but he still had a little bit of a swagger to him.

It was very much a feeling of

this is Jeffrey Epstein in court in handcuffs...

I mean, is this real?

To see him finally in that seat

kind of brought me back to, like, that 14-year-old girl.

It's emotionally, mentally stressful

because it brings you back to that point in time

when, you know, everything wasn't so happy.

He was asked how he wanted to plead.

He said, "Not guilty, your honor."

The bail hearing happened shortly afterwards.

Epstein's lawyers argued that he'd been "disciplined,"

you know, since his 2008 plea deal,

and they offered a bail package

of his mansion in New York...

you know, nearly $100 million worth

of property, and they essentially said

he'd be willing to go under house arrest in New York

and, basically, whatever it takes,

you know, he'll do it.

He's a billionaire, so he clearly has

the ability to get away if he needs to,

and that was the concern that the government brought up

during those hearings.

Judge Richard Berman who is presiding over the hearing

took the unusual step of asking if there were

any victims in court who wanted to speak.

I was able to get up and say,

"Please do not give this man a bond."

With me, like, standing up to him,

I just wanted him to know, like...

I don't care.

I don't care how much money you have.

You know, I'm not a young girl anymore.

I'm 31, and I'm gonna fight back,

and it's not okay to sexually abuse anybody.

The entire time that Courtney

was addressing Jeffrey Epstein,

he stared straight ahead.

I don't think that he could face her.

Watching Courtney speak...

she had the power over him.

You know, she took back from him

what he had taken from her all of those years ago.

It was the most incredible thing

I have ever seen anybody do.

My name is Courtney Wild, and I was sexually abused

by Jeffrey Epstein as a child.

As long as the victims speak up,

he isn't going to get away this time.

Calling him a threat to the public,

Judge Richard Berman ordered Jeffrey Epstein,

accused of sex trafficking young girls,

held in jail until trial.

Berman said part of the reason he denied bail

was the testimony of two women who said Epstein abused them.

Such powerful testimony from the victims

I think really influenced the judge's decision

to deny bail and to ensure that Jeffrey Epstein

was not free to get away and escape.

Brad looked at me the day that Jeffrey Epstein's bond

was denied and said, "We got him.

He is going to jail, and it's real this time."

I started thinking

that this might actually fricking happen

and we might actually have our day in court,

and he's gonna fricking fry.

Epstein is being held here

at the federal jail in Manhattan.

Now, while a court date has not yet been set,

if convicted, he faces up to 45 years in prison.

On August the ninth,

we got a massive dump of documents...

new flight logs, new depositions, you know,

new records, and there was a slew of famous people

who were implicated in this.

Interest in this case was already enormous.

This kicked it up another notch.

The next day, August the tenth,

at 6:30 in the morning, Epstein's guards

went to his cell to check on him,

and what they saw was shocking.

They saw Epstein with what seemed to be

a noose around his neck.

Guards attempted to revive him

while saying, "Breathe, Epstein, breathe."

It appeared that he had hung himself in his cell.

I had no emotion tied to him killing himself.

I guess if anything, it was, like, good.

Good.

I was just really, really angry.

Really angry at how this could have happened...

and who was responsible for letting this happen?

When I found out,

I collapsed on the ground.

I was hysterically crying,

hyperventilating.

I had worked myself up into such a frenzy

with my stomach and reacting to the news the way that I had,

I started vomiting blood,

and I spent two days in a hospital

just trying to stop the vomiting,

and it's been a little over two months now...

And I've been to the hospital five times since.

His death has retraumatized me all over again

and maybe more so than it ever had before.

Honestly, when I first heard about it,

and I know this sounds crazy to so many people, you know,

I was sad. I was upset.

And then it changed from, like,

empathy to just anger 'cause I'm like,

"This guy has never been held accountable

for anything he's done."

I don't know.

I just don't see him committing suicide.

I just don't.

I think he was too important to too many people.

He held all of the secrets of so many people,

and he always said that.

He was like... would joke about it,

and, like, kind of...

like, they think that they're getting something out of him,

but he is the one that had everything on them.

It's Jeffrey Epstein's private island

in the Caribbean.

New York Police and FBI agents raiding the place yesterday.

Seen clearly through the window,

computers packed in red bubble wrap

ready to go... evidence freshly gathered.

- The FBI raided - Epstein's island

in the Caribbean two days after his death.

Killing himself allowed Jeffrey Epstein

to, in a final way, say, "Screw you,

I get the last laugh."

It just fits with everything we know about him

to maintain control right till the end.

You know, that final twist of the knife, you know?

"I'm not gonna let you get what you want,

which is seeing me in court."

Jeffrey Epstein was a master manipulator.

He was making adjustments to his will

just days before he was found dead in prison.

That impacted how his assets were handled.

He changed it so that all of his

500 odd million dollar fortune

would go to a trust in the U.S. Virgin Islands,

which made it far more secretive,

and it meant that we didn't know

who the benefactors were.

For all we know, he could still be paying

his co-conspirators.

He could be giving Ghislaine an allowance.

But Epstein's intention with doing what he did

was to screw the victims

and make it harder for them to get any money.

Now he's dead,

but because I remained silent for so long,

the statute of limitations ran out,

so I'm still, like,

you know, stuck in a position where this person's, like,

completely ruined my life.

And, like, I can't even do anything to fix it.

Every single day that I struggle with something

in regards to this, whether it's financially

or physically or emotionally,

you know, he wins every time.

It took so long for me to speak up

and find my voice and to talk about this,

and to become so public with it...

it was something I didn't wanna share with anybody ever.

I'm starting to feel sick.

But...

it doesn't matter how powerful somebody appears to be.

If they are hurting you in any way,

they are not powerful.

No matter where you come from

and no matter what background you have

or what idea you have in your head

about who you are,

you always have a voice.

It makes me sick to my stomach that there's perpetrators

out there that obviously helped him in many ways

for a very long time, and they're still out there

- with no punishment. - Right.

Ghislaine Maxwell is a defendant

in a number of cases that have been filed

by victims who were abused by her.

She is very actively using her team of lawyers

to fight against that information

being revealed to the public.

She was a key conspirator.

It took many people to make sure

that this sexual trafficking operation

ran smoothly and in such a sophisticated nature.

The hope is, amongst all the victims,

that the government will continue to pursue

their investigation and hold her accountable.

- Even after - I left the situation,

even after I'd cut off communication,

I still really believed that Ghislaine cared about me.

This was Ghislaine in the hotel room

in Africa unpacking her stuff.

I was in desperate search for that motherly love

or that female figure in my life

to be there for me and to have feelings

invested in how my life turned out.

Kind of a silly moment for everybody.

Everyone was just kind of laughing and joking.

I genuinely thought that she really did care about me,

and so it was another just giant blow

to learn that she was in on all of it.

That's it.

In Epstein's absence,

I think Ghislaine is the number one target.

If Epstein was still alive,

they may well have just not bothered

with Ghislaine because Epstein,

he would've been the head on the stick.

Now Ghislaine may well be the head on a stick.

Not that she wouldn't deserve it,

but it would be kind of ironic, you know,

that by killing himself,

Epstein may have sealed Ghislaine's fate.

We'd all love to hear from Ghislaine

her side of the story,

but what could it be except spin

given the incredibly shocking sort of details

that these girls have reported?

I mean, Jeffrey Epstein, he is where he belongs.

He would have never stopped.

And Ghislaine Maxwell,

I hope your freedom's taken away.

I hope you fall very, very, very far down

from that pedestal that you've put yourself on.

The world knows who you are.

I know who you are,

and you're going down, mate.

You're on a sinking ship.