One by one, with many in tears, the women described how Epstein manipulated, coerced, threatened, and sexually abused them when they were just teens.
Denied their chance at true justice upon his death, some of these women at least got that day in court on Tuesday. In formally closing the case against Epstein, Judge Richard M. Berman took the unusual step of inviting the women to speak, thinking it important they should at least be given the opportunity to tell their stories.
And so one by one, with many in tears, the women stood before the judge and described how Epstein manipulated, coerced, threatened, and sexually abused them when they were just teen girls in the early 2000s. Many of them said Epstein paid them to give him nude "massages," then violently raped them.
Some of the women used their names. Many didn't, instead going by "Jane Doe." A number of them had their lawyers read statements they'd written.
Here are some of their most powerful words.
Courtney Wild
"Jeffrey Epstein robbed myself and all the other victims of our day in court to confront him one by one, and for that he is a coward."
Jane Doe #1
"I still feel like I am learning the ways that he's impacted me.
"Even though Jeffrey Epstein brought it to a grand scale, on some level, a lot of girls could relate to the trauma we are talking about."
Jane Doe #2
"I think each of us has a different story and different circumstances for why we stayed in it, but for me, I think he was really strategic in how he approached each of us. Things happened slowly over time. It was almost like that analogy of a frog being in a pan of water and slowly turning the flame up.
"A lot of us were in very vulnerable situations and in extreme poverty, circumstances where we didn't have anyone on our side."
read more