One of Jeffrey Epstein’s many sexual abuse victims said the financier often had her followed and was so controlling that she felt she could not break free, according to a recently unsealed deposition in a now-settled class-action lawsuit against J.P. Morgan Chase.
Excerpts from testimony by the woman identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe 1, who served as the lead plaintiff in the litigation filed on behalf of hundreds of sexual abuse victims, were unsealed on Wednesday after a motion by The New York Times to Judge Jed Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan.
“I was leaving and another girl would be arriving,” Jane Doe 1 testified in March 2023. “Like it depended on his wants and needs on a weekly basis. I could be there every single day or go there twice in one day. We were coming and going and overlapping. There were girls there all the time.”
J.P. Morgan, the nation’s largest bank, agreed to settle the lawsuit last year and paid $290 million in compensation to nearly 200 women who had been sexually abused by Mr. Epstein, many of them teenagers at the time.
The lawsuit against J.P. Morgan, filed in 2022, accused the bank of ignoring repeated red flags about Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking operation for more than a decade because he had been a lucrative client. In settling the lawsuit, the bank said at the time that the settlement was “in the best interests of all parties.”
Mr. Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019. He died a month later of an apparent suicide while in federal custody in Manhattan.
The woman said in the deposition that she had agreed to serve as the lead plaintiff in that lawsuit out of a “duty” to other victims. She said she was one of about a dozen victims who spoke anonymously at a court hearing in federal court in Manhattan just weeks after Mr. Epstein killed himself.
The excerpts contain descriptions of Mr. Epstein paying her $300 for sexual encounters and in a few cases as much as $800. The testimony also reveals details about Mr. Epstein’s emotional abuse of victims.
The woman testified that Mr. Epstein had sexually abused her too many times to remember. “There were a lot of threesomes that I was forced to participate in,” she said.
She testified that she had needed the cash payments, and that Mr. Epstein had her followed when she wasn’t visiting his Manhattan mansion.
“I was so hungry and so financially burdened that you’re desperate in those times,” she said during the deposition. “And although I didn’t want to talk to him again, I didn’t have a choice.”
She testified that Mr. Epstein had once been upset with her for not informing him about a trip. It’s unclear from her testimony what the consequences were.
“I didn’t realize that I was basically on call,” she said. “I was not allowed to go anywhere without his permission.” She added, “He kept tabs on me, he had me followed.”
Last month, Judge Rakoff ordered about 40 pages of her deposition unsealed. The real names of Jane Doe 1 and other victims were redacted.
In the class-action complaint, lawyers said Jane Doe 1 was a ballet dancer in New York and was living with her mother in 2006 when she met Mr. Epstein. The complaint said she had been recruited by another female victim.
In her deposition, the woman said that the first time she went to Mr. Epstein’s, she thought it was to give him a traditional massage. But over a series of visits, the massages became more sexual. She said she later confronted the victim who had introduced her to Mr. Epstein and the woman apologized and they eventually became friends.
Jane Doe 1 said that she had also reluctantly introduced at least one woman to Mr. Epstein.
Judge Rakoff declined to unseal three other excerpts requested by The Times, citing privacy concerns.
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