New York – The FBI investigated Jeffrey Epstein’s Bank records and emails. It searched his houses. It spent several years interviewing his victims and investigating their connections to some of the most influential people in the world.
But while investigators collected substantial evidence that Epstein sexually abused underage girls, they found little evidence that the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of Interior Justice Department records shows.
A prosecutor wrote in a 2025 memo that videos and photographs seized from Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands did not show his abuse of victims or implicate anyone else in his crimes.
Another internal memo in 2019 said that an examination of Epstein’s financial records, including payments made to entities linked to influential figures in education, finance and global diplomacy, found no links to criminal activity.
While one Epstein victim made a highly public claim that he “loaned her out” to his wealthy friends, records state agents could not confirm it and no other victim could tell a similar story.
Summarizing the investigation in an email last July, agents said that “four or five” Epstein accusers claimed that other men or women had sexually abused them. But, agents said, “there was not enough evidence to federally charge these individuals, so the cases were referred to local law enforcement.”
And other media organizations are still reviewing millions of pages of documentsMany of them were previously confidential, released by the Justice Department under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and it is possible that those records contain evidence overlooked by investigators.
But the documents, which include police reports, FBI interview notes and prosecutor emails, provide the clearest picture to date of the investigation – and why US authorities ultimately decided to close it without additional charges.
The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported that she had been molested at the millionaire’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Police would identify at least 35 girls with similar stories: Epstein was paying high school-age students $200 or $300 to give erotic massages.
After the FBI joined the investigation, federal prosecutors drafted an indictment to charge Epstein and some of the personal assistants who arranged for the girls’ trips and payments. But instead, then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to make a deal Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution of an underage girl. Epstein was freed in mid-2009 after being sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted New York federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the charges.
Epstein was Arrested in July 2019. A month later, he killed himself In his jail cell.
A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein’s longtime confidant, Ghislaine MaxwellStating that she had recruited many of her victims and sometimes engaged in sexual abuse. Maxwell, convicted in 2021, is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Prosecutorial memos, case summaries and other documents made public in the latest release of the department’s Epstein-related records show that FBI agents and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential conspirators. Even seemingly bizarre and incomprehensible claims that were called into the tip line were investigated.
Some allegations could not be verified, investigators wrote.
Interviewed by investigators in 2011 and again in 2019 Virginia Roberts Giuffrewho accused Epstein in lawsuits and news interviews of arranging to have sex with multiple men, including Britain’s former prince andrew.
Investigators said they confirmed that Giuffre was sexually abused by Epstein. But other parts of his story were problematic.
Prosecutors wrote in a 2019 internal memo that two other Epstein victims whom Giuffre claimed had also “lent out” money to powerful people told investigators they had no such experiences.
“No other victim described being explicitly directed by Maxwell or Epstein to engage in sexual activity with other men,” the memo said.
Giuffre admitted to writing a partially fictional memoir of her time with Epstein that described things that did not happen. She also offered changing accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote, and “engaged in a steady stream of public interviews about her accusers, many of which included sensational if not patently false accounts of her experiences.” Those inaccuracies, he said, included false accounts of his conversations with the FBI.
Nevertheless, US prosecutors attempted to arrange an interview with Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He refused to make himself available. Giuffre settled a lawsuit Mountbatten-Windsor in which she accused him of sexual misconduct.
In a memoir Published after she killed herself last year, Giuffre wrote that prosecutors told her they did not include her in the case against Maxwell because they did not want her allegations to distract the jury. She insisted that her accounts of being trafficked to elite men were true.
Investigators seized numerous videos and photographs from Epstein’s electronic devices and homes in New York, Florida and the US Virgin Islands. They found CDs, hard copy photographs, and at least one videotape containing nude photographs of women, some of whom looked as if they were minors. One device contained 15 to 20 images depicting commercial child sexual abuse material – images investigators said Epstein had obtained on the Internet.
Then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen Comey wrote in an email to FBI officials last year that none of the videos or photos showed Epstein sexually abusing any of his victims, none showed a man with a naked woman, and none contained evidence involving anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell.
If they existed, the government would “pursue any leads they generate,” Comey wrote. “However, we did not find any such video.”
Prosecutors wrote that investigators who examined Epstein’s bank records found payments to more than 25 women who appeared to be models — but no evidence that he engaged in prostituting the women to other men.
In 2019, prosecutors considered the possibility of charging one of Epstein’s longtime assistants, but decided against it.
Prosecutors concluded that while the assistant was involved in helping Epstein pay for girls for sex and knew that some were underage, she herself was a victim of his sexual abuse and manipulation.
Investigators examined Epstein’s relationship with French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who once had an agency with Epstein in the US, and who was charged in a separate case of sexually assaulting women in Europe. brunei killed himself in prison While awaiting trial on rape charges in France.
Prosecutors also considered whether to charge one of Epstein’s girlfriends who participated in sexual acts with some of his victims. Investigators interviewed the girlfriend, who was 18 to 20 years old at the time, “but determined there was not sufficient evidence,” according to the summary provided. FBI Director Kash Patel last July.
Days before Epstein’s July 2019 arrest, the FBI strategized to send agents to serve grand jury subpoenas on people close to Epstein, including his pilot and longtime business client, retail mogul Les Wexner.
Wexner’s lawyers told investigators that neither he nor his wife had knowledge of Epstein’s sexual misconduct. Epstein had managed Wexner’s finances, but the couple’s lawyers said he alienated her in 2007 when he learned she had stolen from them.
“There is limited evidence regarding his involvement,” an FBI agent wrote about Wexner in an August 16, 2019 email.
In a statement to , a legal representative for Wexner said that prosecutors had informed him that he was “neither a conspirator nor a target in any way,” and that Wexner had cooperated with investigators.
Prosecutors also investigated the accounts of women who said they had massaged guests at Epstein’s home who tried to turn the encounter into a sexual one. A woman accused private equity investor Leon Black of initiating sexual contact during a massage in 2011 or 2012, causing her to flee the room.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office later investigated, but no charges were filed.
Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich, said he had paid Epstein for estate planning and tax advice. She said in a statement that Black was not involved in misconduct and had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities. Lawsuits from two women who accused Black of sexual misconduct were dismissed or withdrawn. One is pending.
Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News in February 2025 Epstein’s never-before-seen “client list” is “sitting on my desk right now.” A few months later, he Claims the FBI was reviewing Epstein’s “thousands of videos” were “with children or child porn.”
But FBI agents wrote to superiors saying the client list did not exist.
On December 30, 2024, about three weeks before President Joe Biden left office, then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbott reached out through subordinates to ask “whether our investigation to date indicates the ‘client list,’ as it is often referred to in the media, exists,” according to an email summarizing his question.
A day later, an FBI official responded that the case agent had confirmed that no client list existed.
On February 19, 2025, two days before Bondi’s Fox News appearance, an FBI supervisory special agent wrote: “While media coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein case references a ‘client list,’ investigators found no such list during the course of the investigation.”
Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
___ is reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department with the assistance of reporters from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC. Journalists from each newsroom are working together to investigate the files and share information about what they contain. Each outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
