Full Text
Page 94
1 asking me, I believe started in the 2000s.
2 TODD BLANCHE: In the 2000 time period?
3 GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Yeah. 2000.
4 TODD BLANCHE: Why do you -- why do you think --
5 GHISLAINE MAXWELL: 2000.
6 TODD BLANCHE: Like what -- what in your mind makes you think that that's the time that it started?
7 GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I think because in December of 2001, he met DOJ REDACTION And I think DOJ REDACTION was responsible for that in its entirety.
8 And the reason I believe that, so this --
9 she -- she was a self-confessed having been sexually abused as a young girl, and was trained -- her words I'm quoting now, not mine, in all the arts of whatever that is, the sex program by a man called Ron Eppinger, who was her pimp from when she was 14, I believe, or 15, I don't know.
10 And in her book describes him training her to be what every man wants in all its manners, fellatio and everything else. I believe that then what happened was that he met her, and she came as a masseuse to his house, in December of 2001 is when I
Page 95
1 think it started.
2 Now, what their relationship was or what happened with them in that early period of time, I cannot say. What I can say is that he liked her and she started to travel with him at that time period.
3 I believe -- I know, then, what happened was that she -- when she first started to see him or first came into his orbit as his masseuse or whatever, she was engaged to be married and wearing an engagement ring, and was living with her fianc?, and took up with the local drug dealer. So let's say after four or five months of -- in the time period when she was seeing Epstein, let's say we're now May, June of 2002 or is it 2000. I can't remember.
4 From whenever she hits the -- whatever that is if that's 2000. I think it's 2000. I'm sorry. I think it's when she met him. December of 2000. So -- so then you go through -- I don't remember. You'll have to look.
5 TODD BLANCHE: Okay. I'm not holding you to exact dates. I'm not --
6 GHISLAINE MAXWELL: No. I mean, I'm just trying to -- I'm giving the --
Page 96
1 TODD BLANCHE: -- I appreciate.
2 GHISLAINE MAXWELL: So then I think -- so she -- she takes up with the local drug dealer and she becomes druggie, druggie. Like, you know, how druggies -- well, maybe you don't. I live with a lot in Tallahassee. They become even more unreliable than normal.
3 And at some point, she's now working somewhere else. He stopped seeing her, because he doesn't like people who do drugs. And I think that not seeing her lasted five or six months. And in that period of time, she got arrested for theft, and she had a warrant out for her arrest.
4 Now, this I've pieced together because this piece I didn't know. She then called Epstein to -- to have help avoiding the warrant for her arrest, and he sent her to Thailand to get a massage therapy license. This is the bit that I guess. This is the bit that I extrapolated.
5 In the period of time from when she came back to when she left, he asked her to replace herself as his masseuse or whatever -- whatever she was doing, and she brought the first replacement for her. That would've been one of the accusers in my case, I think, would've been DOJ REDACTION
Page 97
1 And that -- and then everyone who came subsequent to DOJ REDACTION or simultaneously, if she wasn't the first, I don't know. Everyone -- every single person who came to his house, came through and her boyfriend, Tony, and then whoever else underneath her. And that is how it started.
2 TODD BLANCHE: So before her --
3 LEAH SAFFIAN: Tony Figueroa.
4 GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Tony Figueroa is her boyfriend.
5 TODD BLANCHE: Before her -- so now going back in the '90s. You don't believe that Mr. Epstein was abusing masseuses?
6 DAVID MARKUS: Underage?
7 TODD BLANCHE: Or over age? I mean, I think -- well, I'm using abuse in the broadest sense of word, because I'm assuming that you -- you -- you said that you have no idea of the year -- you-- you always assumed the masseuses were over age, right?
8 GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I did.
9 TODD BLANCHE: So when I'm talking about abuse, I'm even talking about an adult masseuse who comes in to give a massage and is told to take off their clothes, told they're not going to get paid if
25 (Pages 94 to 97)