I was abused by Jeffrey Epstein. Why is Trump silencing me?
Danielle Bensky, 38, who was abused by Epstein when she was a teenage aspiring ballerina in 2004, said the decision left her feeling like she was on a 'first-class flight on a refurbished Lolita Express', using the nickname for Epstein's private jet, which ferried victims around the financier's various homes.
'It feels like the current cabinet is essentially erasing our voices after years of bravery and work to find our way out of silence,' Bensky told The Times. 'It's actually worse than silencing — it's rewriting a narrative as if none of us existed in the first place.
'What does this teach our children? That if you are wealthy and powerful enough, you can make anything disappear, or play the blame game and create conspiracy theories?'
Bensky accused Epstein of using her mother's brain-cancer diagnosis as leverage to repeatedly sexually abuse Bensky when she was 18, threatening to withhold treatment if she told anyone.
'Epstein told Bensky that he knew the best surgeons in New York, but that if Bensky wanted Epstein to help her mother then she would have to recruit other girls for him,' her lawyers alleged in a lawsuit filed last year.
The US justice department and the FBI announced last week they had found no evidence that Epstein had blackmailed powerful people or kept a 'client list', and reiterated that he died by suicide in his prison cell in 2019.
On Monday night Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against attaching a Democratic amendment to another piece of legislation that would force the justice department to release 'the Epstein files'.
The measure would have forced Pam Bondi, the attorney-general, to publish all documents related to the convicted sex offender within 30 days.
• Pam Bondi said Epstein client list was 'on her desk'. What happened?
'Are you on the side of the rich and powerful, or are you on the side of the people?' Ro Khanna, the California Democrat proposing the measure, said before the vote, promising to introduce the amendment 'again and again and again'.
Bensky said it was 'deplorable' the victims' wishes had been ignored. 'For victims, it isn't political. Those documents hold and represent the fragmented pieces of our teenage selves that we have desperately been trying to glue back together for two decades.'
Bensky has only recently returned to professional dancing after years of counselling. She said memories of the abuse 'eat at us in the dark corners of our minds, long after politicians go to sleep at night … I thought that we were in an era of shedding light, so that those fragmented pieces could finally become a mosaic. We will never be the same, but at least we could feel whole. The shutdown undermines all of that.'
The only one of Epstein's associates to face criminal charges is Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of the British media magnate Robert Maxwell, who was convicted of sex-trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
• Ghislaine Maxwell refused appeal on sex-trafficking verdict
The victims allege their abuse, however, was enabled by people in his inner circle, as well as associates who have 'never been held to account'.
Last year Bensky sued two of Epstein's closest advisers in Manhattan federal court. She alleged in her suit that Darren Indyke, Epstein's longtime personal lawyer, and his accountant, Richard Kahn, helped the financier create a complex web of corporations and bank accounts that let him hide his abuses and pay off victims and recruiters, while leaving them 'richly compensated' for their work.
'Epstein did not act alone and the breadth and depth of Epstein-related information that the government is withholding is profound,' said Bensky's lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, managing partner of Boies Schiller Flexner.
McCawley said the government had yet to disclose information collected from Epstein's computers during raids of his homes in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, as well as financial records that may shed light on how he accrued his vast wealth.
'The government has failed these survivors time and time again,' she said. 'The public should demand nothing less than full accountability for all that were involved irrespective of title, wealth or social status.'
Daniel Weiner, Indyke and Khan's lawyer, said in response that neither had 'ever been found in any forum to have committed any misconduct, and they emphatically reject the allegations of wrongdoing contained in the complaint'.
Another victim, Maria Farmer, sued the justice department and the FBI last month, claiming they 'chose to do absolutely nothing' after she brought sexual abuse claims against Epstein to an FBI agent in 1996.
According to Farmer's lawsuit, she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell while she stayed at Epstein's estate as an 'artist-in-residence' in 1996. She also accused them of abusing her sister Annie, who was 16. Annie was one of the four victims who testified against Maxwell during her federal trial.
While reporting her concerns to the FBI, Farmer said the agency hung up on her and failed to follow up or properly investigate, and she accused the agency of violating its manual for investigative operations and guidelines, which tasks the FBI with investigating violations of federal law.
Farmer alleges that Epstein got away with a 'wide-ranging sex trafficking venture' and was able to do so because the FBI and justice department 'failed to listen to or protect his sex-trafficked, sexually abused and sexually exploited victims'.
The FBI declined a request for comment, citing its standard practice of not commenting on ongoing litigation.
'The government had so many missed opportunities to protect victims,' Jennifer Freeman, Farmer's lawyer, told The Times. 'Had the FBI listened to Maria's complaints about Epstein starting in 1996, nearly 25 years of Epstein's abuse of victims could have been avoided as well as additional years of trying to figure out how and why the US government failed to stop Epstein.'
Freeman believes a civil lawsuit may be one of the last remaining avenues the victims have to force the justice department to release the findings of the bureau's investigation.
'The one bright spot for victims is the FBI's statement in its recent memorandum: 'One of our highest priorities is combating child exploitation and bringing justice to victims',' Freeman said. 'We will press Maria Farmer's case forward — and hold the US government to its word.'
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