Some Jeffrey Epstein stories are horrifying. This one is just deeply uncomfortable.
Newly released documents tied to the late sex offender have resurfaced a bizarre anecdote, reported by TMZ, involving a friend of Donald Trump and his then-wife, Marla Maples.
The allegation closely echoes a notorious shoe fetish scandal from the 1990s, though it remains unclear whether the incidents involve the same person.
In a 2016 email to author and new age guru Deepak Chopra, unsealed as part of the Justice Department’s latest document dump, Epstein claims Maples could recount “the story of her friend who was caught having sex with her shoes.”
When Chopra asks whether Maples was wearing the shoes at the time, Epstein clarifies that she was not. Instead, he alleges the man had cut holes into the backs of Maples’s high heels and was caught engaging in a sexual act with them.
Epstein does not name the individual or explain how he knows the story. He simply drops it as gossip—something Maples herself, he suggests, could confirm.
The claim closely resembles a real and widely reported case from the early ’90s involving Maples’ former publicist, Chuck Jones, who was convicted after dozens of her shoes went missing.
At trial, Jones admitted to having what he described as a “sexual relationship” with Maples’ shoes.
According to contemporaneous reporting, Maples testified that Trump’s organization installed a hidden security camera in her apartment after her footwear repeatedly disappeared.
On July 13, 1992, the camera reportedly captured Jones rummaging through her closet. When confronted, he allowed a search of his office, where investigators discovered more than 70 pairs of Maples’ shoes.
“We really felt like he needed help,” one juror told The New York Post after convicting Jones of burglary, describing him as “obsessive” and “not normal.”
Jones himself testified that he was sexually aroused by “the imprint of the foot inside” a shoe.
The New Yorker captured the surreal tone of the trial in a 1994 “Talk of the Town” column, describing a witness brought in solely to assess the value of the seized shoes.
As she examined pair after pair on the stand, the judge interjected, “Next case. Er, next shoe.”
The magazine reported that Jones had slashed Maples’ boots “to better see the imprint of her foot.”
Epstein’s email does not reference Jones, the trial, or the earlier reporting. Whether he was referring to that same incident, a different individual, or simply repackaging a well-known scandal as insider gossip remains unclear.
What is new is Epstein’s retelling—years later—as proof of his proximity to Trumpworld intimacy.
Trump and Maples were married from 1993 to 1999, overlapping with Trump’s well-documented social relationship with Epstein.
While the shoe story is among the stranger claims to resurface in the files, it fits a familiar pattern: Epstein trading in secrets, rumors, and grotesque anecdotes to present himself as a knowing insider to people who would later insist they barely knew him.
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