Disappointed. Frustrated. Suspicious.
Several of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims said Friday that Justice Department failed them with its partial release of files related to the federal investigations into Mr. Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of teen girls and young women. They said the release of thousands of pages of photographs and heavily redacted documents did little to shed new light on the investigations and the scope of Mr. Epstein’s crimes or conspirators.
“They are proving everything we have been saying about corruption and delayed justice,” said Jess Michaels, one of the earliest known victims of Mr. Epstein. “What are they protecting? The coverup continues.”
Ms. Michaels has said she was sexually assaulted by Mr. Epstein in 1991 when she was 22 years old and training to be a dancer. She was among the victims who lobbied for the bipartisan law that directed the Justice Department to release virtually everything it had gathered during its sex trafficking investigations of Mr. Epstein and one of his main enablers, Ghislaine Maxwell.
But the more than 13,000 files released on Friday were heavily redacted and not easily searchable.
“If everything is redacted, where is the transparency?” said Marijke Chartouni, who has said she was sexually abused by Mr. Epstein when she was 20 years old.
Among the tens of thousands of pages was one document that did provide a long-sought window into the F.B.I.’s handling of Mr. Epstein’s case: The file showed that Maria Farmer, another of Mr. Epstein’s earliest victims, filed a federal “child pornography” complaint against him in 1996. But investigators did not begin to thoroughly scrutinize Mr. Epstein until about a decade later.
Ms. Farmer, who fought for years to get the F.B.I. to make public her complaint, said she felt “vindicated” to finally see the document but also was heartbroken at the knowledge that the F.B.I. did not act on her complaint.
“It’s a tremendous relief that she doesn’t have to continue to fight to prove her truth,” said Ms. Farmer’s sister, Annie Farmer. She noted, though, that she was disappointed by the general lack of transparency with Friday’s release.
“So many of the photos are irrelevant,” said Marina Larcerda, who has said Mr. Epstein sexually abused her when she was 14. She was an important witness in the 2019 federal investigation that led to the filing of sex trafficking charges against Mr. Epstein. But she only recently went public with her story.
“We have been let down,” Ms. Larcerda said. “We waited for this day to bring these other men who have been protected to justice.”
Matthew Goldstein is a Times reporter who covers Wall Street and white-collar crime and housing issues.
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