Photograph Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Each day Beast/Gov Handout
At Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal trial—the place the previous girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein was convicted on 5 counts associated to little one sex-trafficking—a sufferer named Carolyn testified that a second girl additionally organized for her to be molested by the perverted multimillionaire.
Sarah Kellen, a former assistant to Epstein, scheduled a few of her “therapeutic massage” appointments at his Palm Seaside lair, despatched for vehicles to select her up and as soon as took nude pictures of her for the pedophile, Carolyn stated. “[Kellen] referred to as and stated she was calling with regard to Mr. Epstein,” she testified, “and that I might receives a commission $500 to $600 if she might take footage of me.”
Kellen “knew what was occurring,” Carolyn later added. “She was older than me, so she was an grownup. She knew what was taking place.”
Certainly, Kellen was a part of Epstein’s inside circle for greater than a decade and named amongst 4 “potential co-conspirators” within the financier’s lenient plea deal in Florida in 2008. That yr, a number of teenage victims, together with Carolyn, filed lawsuits in opposition to Epstein in addition to Kellen, with one criticism describing Kellen as his “lieutenant” who “served as each his scheduler and a recruiter/procurer of the women.”
Now, within the wake of Maxwell’s responsible verdict, Kellen is certainly one of Epstein’s longtime associates who might nonetheless face a legal indictment.
Requested why Kellen wasn’t charged alongside Maxwell, victims’ lawyer Brad Edwards stated, “I believe that’s in all probability phrased extra precisely as why she wasn’t charged but.”
“The best way that I see it's: Sarah has been given dozens if not lots of of possibilities to probably reposition herself on this narrative,” Edwards instructed The Each day Beast. “You’re both on the aspect of the victims or the opposite aspect, which is the aspect of the unhealthy guys.”
Kellen and her representatives declined to remark for this story.
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All through Maxwell’s trial in Manhattan federal court docket, Kellen was talked about dozens of occasions as a key worker in Epstein’s world, one who answered telephones at his Florida mansion, scheduled his massages, referred to as his pilots to rearrange flights on his personal jets, and despatched packages to Carolyn. Prosecutors entered a handful of pictures of her into proof—one exhibiting her in Epstein’s embrace as they stood earlier than a non-public airplane, two of her smiling subsequent to Maxwell, and a fourth posing at what seems to be certainly one of Epstein’s properties.
In closing arguments, the protection tried to shift blame to Kellen when it got here to Carolyn’s accusations of abuse. “Now, the federal government needs you to consider that as a result of Ghislaine Maxwell traveled to Palm Seaside … and helped to handle Epstein’s properties, she was the one orchestrating massages, even supposing you’ve seen no proof of that, no message pads, no telephone data, nothing,” lawyer Laura Menninger instructed jurors. “You’ve seen Sarah Kellen was there.”
Regardless of her identify haunting the proceedings, Kellen wasn’t referred to as to testify and the federal government didn’t grant her immunity. The protection, at a Dec. 18 convention, recognized Kellen as certainly one of a number of witnesses they have been unable to name as a result of they'd have invoked their Fifth Modification proper in opposition to self-incrimination.
The Manhattan U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace declined to touch upon why Kellen, now 42, wasn’t granted immunity to testify in opposition to Maxwell.
However Kellen might have one other likelihood to cooperate ought to Maxwell be granted a retrial. Final week, the socialite’s legal professionals requested for a do-over after a jurorgave a flurry of media interviews detailing how he shared his personal expertise with little one sexual abuse throughout deliberations to sway different skeptical jurors. The juror, recognized by his first and center names Scotty David, reportedly didn't disclose this on his jury questionnaire, elevating questions on whether or not the panel that discovered Maxwell responsible was neutral.
One month after Epstein’s loss of life in August 2019, Kellen got here ahead as a sufferer herself. Her spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has stated that she was 22 when Epstein and Maxwell recruited her as an assistant for the British heiress. On the time, she’d been “solid out of the Jehovah’s Witness group by which she had been born and raised” and divorced by a person she married at age 17, Schmaler stated. “Very quickly after Sarah was introduced into Epstein’s world,” she added, “he started to sexually abuse her, and this abuse went on for years.”
“Sarah was focused by Epstein and Maxwell when she, like a lot of their victims, was extraordinarily weak—struggling financially and emotionally,” Schmaler stated in statements offered to the media. The spokeswoman added that Kellen was “sexually and psychologically abused by Epstein and Maxwell.”
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“She was certainly one of dozens of assistants who labored for Epstein and Maxwell through the years,” Schmaler stated. “One among her many duties included scheduling numerous appointments for them—together with massages. At no time did Sarah recruit younger ladies for Epstein or Maxwell.”
In March 2020, a lady whose story is strikingly related to Kellen’s filed a lawsuit in opposition to Epstein’s property beneath the pseudonym Jane Doe, alleging she “was a naïve and uniquely weak 22-year outdated when Epstein and Maxwell first preyed upon her.”
The criticism stated Epstein exploited Doe “over the course of a few years” and that he knew she was “an especially emotionally weak younger girl who, on the time she met him, had been completely deserted by her group, associates, and household which enabled him to seduce her into his world of horrific abuse.”
“Each side of her life was managed by Epstein,” the swimsuit alleged. “He dominated her psychologically. Jane Doe was continuously emotionally bullied and coerced by Epstein, together with being required to undergo his fixed sexual abuse.”
The criticism added that Doe’s “identify and repute has been ruined,” and “she is nearly bankrupt, having been compelled to spend most of her sources defending herself in opposition to false accusations, all of which stem from Epstein’s crimes.”
In a submitting final July, Doe’s lawyer Daniel Kaiser stated that regardless of the abuse Doe suffered, “there are some who've mercilessly disparaged Jane Doe and even threatened her with loss of life.” (Kaiser didn't return a message looking for remark.)
Court docket papers reveal Doe submitted a declare to the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program victims’ fund however didn’t obtain a settlement supply or in any other case settle for one. At a listening to final August, Kaiser stated Doe’s declare “was not profitable” and that this system’s administrator “was very specific with me on the telephone how politics, , restrained her and entered into what she did or didn’t do with my shopper.”
Data present that weeks earlier than Maxwell’s trial kicked off on Nov. 29, Doe settled her lawsuit with Epstein’s property.
Edwards stated that Kellen utilized to the victims’ compensation fund however nonetheless hasn’t come ahead to assist different victims of the financier’s sexual pyramid scheme.
“She’s been given ample alternative to assist victims and flat out refused,” Edwards instructed us. “If she instructed the reality and offered proof, then it might destroy Ghislaine. There is no such thing as a assist in any way that she might ever present Ghislaine.”
In response to Edwards, Kellen has “extra proof and data of who the unhealthy guys all have been and what their conduct was that might help the prosecutors, that might help all the victims, and that might assist to carry closure to lots of if not a thousand victims.”
Within the Maxwell prosecution, Kellen might have made the selection to “cooperate with the federal government utterly, inform them all the things that , and help in prosecution of their case with out having any deal on the desk—however simply figuring out it’s the suitable factor to do and hope that the extent of considerable help that you simply present is nice sufficient the place they may present lenience or mercy.”
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Had she carried out so, Edwards stated, he is aware of victims who would have come to court docket and requested prosecutors to indicate “extraordinary leniency” for lastly serving to them.
Edwards views Kellen as somebody positioned one rung beneath Maxwell within the Epstein trafficking operation. “There got here a time limit when Ghislaine acquired smarter and began placing buffers up and one of many buffers she put in place was Sarah.”
“Sarah is the simplest particular person to get whether or not she testifies or not, and but she’s holding out hope that someone will overlook about her,” Edwards added. “To me, one of the best ways for her to be forgotten is to be remembered as the one that grew a conscience sooner or later in time and rotated and helped.”
Edwards stated that whereas Kellen has by no means aided victims’ civil lawsuits, he plans to file new ones and she's going to quickly have a chance “to determine the place she needs to be aligned—both with the victims or in opposition to them.”
“Whereas she needs to stake out some center floor, there simply isn’t one,” he stated.
For her half, Kellen has by no means spoken publicly about her time in Epstein’s orbit. In 2013, she married 38-year-old NASCAR driver Brian Vickers, whose Instagram web page confirmed the couple touring in Italy, Greece, Austria and Japan, and whose racing web site says he helps a bunch referred to as Households Towards Cult Teachings and Abuses.
Data present the couple has properties in Miami Seaside, Florida, and Manhattan, New York. When a reporter approached her outdoors her $4-million luxurious pad in December 2020, Kellen stated, “I’ve been made out to be such a monster—however it’s not true. I’m a sufferer of Jeffrey Epstein.” She added, “I used to be raped and abused weekly.”
As The Each day Beast beforehand reported, a number of survivors of Epstein’s trafficking operation have filed lawsuits lately naming Kellen as one assistant who would summon them to the sex-offender’s bed room to be sexually abused.
And, virtually 20 years in the past, Palm Seaside police practically charged Kellen in connection to Epstein’s intercourse crimes. A assessment of a 2006 possible trigger affidavit signifies that cops have been ready to cost her with two completely different felonies: 4 counts of first-degree illegal sexual exercise with a minor, and one depend of lewd and lascivious molestation.
The affidavit stated that when younger victims arrived at Epstein’s Florida house, they have been first launched to Kellen, “Epstein’s assistant, who in flip would report their phone numbers and identify.” Victims described following Kellen upstairs to a therapeutic massage room, the place she’d arrange a desk with sheets and oils and knowledgeable them Epstein can be in quickly.
Kellen additionally referred to as the women to guide them for “therapeutic massage” appointments when Epstein was on the town, throughout which they have been molested or raped and afterward handed just a few hundred dollars.
At Maxwell’s trial, Carolyn stated she visited Epstein’s mansion beginning when she was 14 in 2001 till she turned 18 and have become “too outdated” for him. She testified that throughout the first yr or two, Maxwell would name her to schedule the abuse. Finally Kellen would telephone her or she’d contact Epstein’s property herself, “as a result of I used to be younger and $300 was some huge cash to me.”
Lately, different victims have pegged Kellen as a recruiter.
Teresa Helm, who was 22 when Epstein assaulted her in 2002, instructed The Each day Beast that Kellen was the primary particular person she met from Epstein's world. Then a therapeutic massage scholar in California, Helm took a stroll with Kellen close to the Santa Monica Pier and the assistant provided her the prospect to turn out to be a rich particular person’s touring masseuse. “I used to be a human baton and Sarah had the most important hand in passing me alongside to Ghislaine,” Helm stated.
Helm says Kellen organized for her to fly to New York to satisfy Maxwell, who then despatched her to Epstein’s New York townhouse to offer him with a “therapeutic massage.”
“It’s facilitating the abuse,” Helm stated of Kellen. “Chances are you'll as effectively be an abuser when you're figuring out it’s taking place and doing nothing. Will they go after her? Is she subsequent?”
“For me personally, she is No. 1 on my ‘subsequent’ record.”
Helm is among the many refrain of survivors asking for Kellen to be held accountable.
Marijke Chartouni, a former mannequin who says Epstein assaulted her in New York in 2000 when she was 20, stated that his and Maxwell’s “lieutenants carry their share of accountability in perpetrating these numerous intercourse trafficking crimes.”
What diploma of accountability they carry, she added, has but to be decided. “Is it the identical as Maxwell? Epstein? Or have been they themselves in such a controlling surroundings that they turned blind to the morals that that they had put aside?” she stated.
“The one technique to reply these questions is to sunlight the information and let these individuals be tried,” she added. “Sarah Kellen, and all her co-conspirators, have to be dropped at trial, for her sake, and the sake of her victims. With out this, it's inevitable that this kind of abuse will proceed.”
Kellen isn’t the one alleged co-conspirator accused of enabling Epstein. Victims have filed lawsuits naming Lesley Groff, a 55-year-old former govt assistant to the financier, as somebody who booked their journey or appointments with Epstein. She has denied any wrongdoing in connection to her erstwhile boss.
Groff’s identify additionally surfaced just a few occasions on the Maxwell trial—together with throughout the testimony of Epstein’s pilots, who stated she scheduled flights—however she wasn’t referred to as to the stand. Her spokeswoman instructed The Each day Beast she had been cooperative with prosecutors.
After the Maxwell verdict, Groff’s legal professionals launched a press release claiming Manhattan federal prosecutors wouldn't file an indictment in opposition to her. In addition they stated that two accusers had dropped lawsuits naming her as an enabler of Epstein’s abuse.
“After a greater than two-year investigation by the Division of Justice into Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct, which included prolonged interviews of witnesses and a radical assessment of related communications, we've got been knowledgeable that no legal costs will likely be introduced in opposition to Lesley Groff,” the attorneys Michael Bachner and Jon Whitcomb stated.
“As a part of Epstein’s skilled workplace workers,” they concluded, “Lesley by no means witnessed something improper or unlawful.”