…
I gave it back before I graduated. It got too—it got too sticky for me. He wanted more than I was willing to give. I didn’t wanna—I didn’t want to, um, suck his dick. I didn’t want to have sex with him. I never did that, and I wanted to be able to walk away from this saying that I—saying that I never did that. And I’m glad that I did.
…
But I lied to him when I gave it back. I didn’t want to burn my bridges, because he was a spectacular connection to have. Spectacular. Even if I didn’t—even when I didn’t work for him. Until this day, he is so aw—he is so—I haven’t talked to him in, like, a couple months, but if I called him today he would give me as much money as I asked him for. He doesn’t know that I hate him the way I do. I kept that connection. I figured he used me, I’d be able to use him. Um, I hate to say that, but I figured if I wanted to use him I could.
D:Okay. Let me bring you back a little bit.
V:Sure.
D:When did things start to escalate as far as things happening when the massages were given?
V:They escalated whenever he wanted. I don’t clearly understand the question.
D:Okay. The first time you went, you were naked—
V:Are you asking for a date?
D:Oh, no, no, no—
V:…and the little steps that things progressed?
D:Right.
V:Well, I went and I wouldn’t take off my panties at first. And then he got me to get naked. Then he got me to let him rub me. Then he got me to let him stick his fingers in me. Then he got me to let him go down on me. Then, um—that was pretty much the gist of it, except this one time, where he bent me over the table and put himself in me. Without my permission. And I flipped out. I’m sorry, I didn’t ask you, but I don’t count that as me having sex with him…. ’Cause I just told you that I never had sex with him. I never did. Even though, I don’t know what you’d consider that. But he then—I go, “What are you doing?” He goes, “Oh, I just wanted [redacted] to see this.”
D:Okay. Let me back you up. When you were completely naked, the same things happened? You went in, you massaged him?
V:Sometimes I didn’t even do that. Sometimes he just asked me to take off my clothes and—he’d have to do work, he’d be sitting at his desk or something, and I’d just be naked there, watching television or reading a book, but I’d be naked. Or, um, sometimes he wanted to just watch TV or read, and he’d lay in his bed and ask me to take my clothes off and lay with him. And that’s it. Not touch him or anything….Sometimes he’d just invite me over for breakfast, for dinner, or just to use the swimming pool, and I’d get paid for that, too. I’d get paid just to hang out with him. That’s it. And if the money wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have ever been in that house.
D:Okay. When he started to touch you—
V:I have a question. Before I say anything else. Um, is there a possibility that I’m gonna have to go to court or anything? Like, that’s a possibility, right?
D:Well, here’s the thing: When this is all said and done, we’re going to sit down, we’re going to discuss this. I mean, what he did to you is a crime. I’m not gonna lie to you.
V:Would you consider it rape? Like, would you consider that to be rape, what he did?
D:If he put himself inside you, without permission—
V:I didn’t say that, or anything. I was standing up and the table is about, like, my hip length—he just put me down—
D:That, that is a crime. That is a crime.
V:I don’t want my family to find out about this. My family doesn’t know any of this. My mom thinks I was his secretary, for two years, or however long—a year and a half. My mom thinks I made phone calls for him and that’s how I was making my [unintelligible] money. That’s it. I don’t want her to know anything.
D:Well, you’re an adult. You’re an adult now….When we’re done with this interview, we’ll discuss this further and we’ll decide the best course.
V:’Cause Jeffrey’s gonna get me. You guys realize that, right? He’s gonna find—he’s gonna figure this out. And he’s gonna—I’m not safe now. You understand that, right? I’m not safe.
D:He is not this person that he is portraying himself to be—
V: Well—
D:Why do you say you’re not safe? Has he said he’s hurt people before?
V:Well, I’ve heard him make threats to people on the telephone, yeah. Of course.
D:You’re gonna die? You’re gonna break your legs? Or—
V:All the above! But that’s not the point.
D:Who’s he talking to?
V:I don’t know. I don’t know, I heard those conversations, I mean, I’ve been in the room when he was on the phone and [unintelligible] threatened. Like, I witnessed lots of things. I just don’t know what, specifically, you all [want to know].
D:Everything.
V:I used to go there every day, like I w—I don’t, I don’t know how many other girls he was saying, “You’re my favorite, and I want you to live with me” to, but I was in about as deep as you can get.
D:He had quite a few girls he would say that to.
…
D:Do you have any formal massage training?
V:[Giggles.] Hell, no.
D:All right, I was just asking.
…
V:He would kiss me and stuff, too. I remember that. And when he kissed me, if he was jerking off he would, like, rub himself on my breasts. And I…I was extremely uncomfortable. I would maneuver myself away from that activity. I’d get up and I’d move somewhere else, or I’d—I don’t even remember. I would stop whatever was going on without saying, “Can you get the fuck off me?” I would stop it without saying stuff like that.
D:Okay.
…
V:I wouldn’t let him put anything in me until one day he did just out of nowhere. And I said, “Wait a second: my boyfriend, you know, we had this thing, you can’t do that. You know, I’m—I’m allowed to work here as long as you don’t do that.” And he said “okay.” Well, a couple months later I guess he assumed me and my boyfriend had broken up, and he just did it one day; he just did it without asking or anything. And then I said, “What are you doing?” I said, “You know that’s not cool,” and he goes, “Oh, I thought we did that last time.” And I said, “No, we did not do that last time.” And then he goes—uh, and then he just offered me more money. He’s like, “Well, why don’t I just give you something extra, and we can try this out?” And I was like [sigh], “All right.” Very hard guy to say no to. I don’t know if any of you guys ever talked to him….
…
Oh, yeah. Well, if you talk to him, I mean, he straight up tries to control the situation. Every—every word that comes out of your mouth, it seems like, he knows what you are going to say. Like, that’s his job; that’s how he made his money is knowing what people are gonna say and what people are gonna do.
D:What did he tell you he does for a living?
V:Well, there’s a couple of things. Things that I found for myself, things I looked up on the Internet. What he specifically told me when I asked him the first time was, “Oh, I’m a brain scientist.” And I said, “What the fuck is a brain scientist?” I was like, “That’s not a real job—tell me the truth.” But anyway…his explanation was, “It’s my job to know how people’s brains work.” And I said, “Whatever the fuck that means. Whatever. You’re like some old guy who [unintelligible….]” You know what he promised me? Here’s the reason I held on so long is, he promised me that I would get into NYU. That I would get into NYU and he would pay for it. And I waited, and I waited, and I scored great on my SATs, I would get 4.0—like, I did great in school. I filled out my application and he told me that it wasn’t good enough. So I filled it out again, and it was like three times. So I’m pretty sure he wasn’t checking into it, he was just telling me that he was. But I think that had a lot to do with the reason I stayed there so long, ’cause my dream was right in front of me, you know? And it’s
so far….
D:Aside from having been with [redacted], was there anybody else that you brought to the house?
V:I brought a few people….Because it got out that I did this. Like, everyone at school knew. You know, everyone talks—
D:It was a circle, and—
V:It was a little circle, yeah….Not that I would want anybody to get involved….I brought girls I didn’t like and, frankly, did not give a shit about. Girls that I knew were skanks. That would do anything. Girls that would just, like, suck dick in the bathroom at school. Like, not even people I was friends with. I’d just hear a rumor about a girl and be like, “Hey, I know a way you can make two hundred dollars. How about…” I would tell them flat out, like, “This is what you’ve got to do. Are you cool with this? ’Cause I’m not gonna take you if you’re not.” So I told them. They all know that I got paid to bring them. It was actually [redacted]. She took off her shirt. She was a little overweight, so he didn’t want anything to do [with her]. She was my best friend. But, you know, she was another story. I did care about her. But, um, she lost her house and stuff and really needed money. She had—she was homeless, she had nowhere to go. So she did it out of desperation.
…
D:Did he ever hurt you?
V:Sometimes he got violent, yeah.
D:Violent as in what? As in—
V:He pulled my hair a lot harder than it should have been pulled. Like, he—okay, I can understand having sex, and you’re all, like, not—not that we were having sex, but I mean, like, if you’re all into it and you pull hair a little bit, like, my ponytails—just like a little bit, whatever. But he would pull it to where it would rip my hair out. It would rip my hair, and then sometimes he would pick me up and, like, throw me whichever way he wanted me, and then he would just like use a toy or, like, his hand or whatever. Never his penis, though, ever. I never had sex with him. But um—I’m little, so he could pick me up. Like, if you pick me up and throw, obviously it’s gonna hurt….
…
I mean, there’s been nights that I walked out of there barely able to walk, um, from him being so rough. But nothing really—nothing specific that he really got violent with. Like, I can’t really recall.
…
Nothing that I went to the doctor for, no. I mean, I remember getting tore up a few times, but it was nothing that—
…
D:This is getting real personal, but were you active before him?
V:What, like, had I had sex? Yeah [laughs].
D:Okay.
V:Um. But honest, I mean, I’m not—I’m not a ho. I’ve had only three steady boyfriends, and those are the only three that I’ve ever done anything with. And they were all with me for over a year. So it’s not like I just go and hook up at parties.
…
Like, I’ve gotten thousands of dollars’ worth of shit. Man, the underwear I’m wearing right now he gave me. Like, I’d—I’d go over there and there’d be a bag of Victoria’s Secret underwear, like, waiting for me, like, talking, like, fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of stuff. I got a plane ticket from him once. I got a car, I got Christmas bonuses, I got movie tickets. Like, he’d buy me movie tickets—like, he’d say, “Hey, have you gone to the movies lately?” I’d be like, “I dunno, oh—not really,” [and] he goes, “Do you want to go?” He’d give me, like, eight movie tickets. I got show tickets; I went and saw, like, David Copperfield. I had, like, VIP tickets or something like that.
…
I need to show you, like, what I’m talking about, like, the positioning that we were—it was like, okay, here’s the thing: there’s the, like, little flower thing, then here’s the massage table. I was right here, he was right here, [and] she was here. Um. And I was standing up, and he just pushed me over the table, and he did his thing with me.
D:Okay. Were you facing the table? Were you?
V:I was. I was facedown on the table. Like, facedown, hands, like, on my head, holding—I don’t, I don’t mean—I wasn’t fighting, really. So I don’t know if he was holding me down to kinda stop me from fighting or what he was doing. He’s just a really weird—he’s into really weird stuff. Like, I was just bent over, and my face was on the table. I was facedown on the table. And then he did his thing. So. But anyway, [redacted] was right here, and I’m pretty sure she was naked, and the couch is, like, right behind, but, um, that’s how it happened….He was only in me for, like, a minute or two. I don’t even know if you could say that long. He put it in, did a couple of pumps, or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, and I was like, “What are you doing?” [giggles] I go, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “Oh, I just wanted [redacted] to see this.” Then that was that.
CHAPTER 13
Wendy Dobbs: October 3, 2005
Every chance he gets—and he gets lots of chances—Chief Reiter drills the same thing into his investigators’ heads: they need to be careful. Patient. Methodical. Strategic. Or Epstein’s lawyers will eat them for lunch.
Inch by inch, they move their case toward the goalpost. But in October, Detective Recarey and his coworkers catch a break that moves the ball several yards down the field.
On the first Monday of that month, they pick Wendy up at her house and, down at the police station, she starts to sing—like a bird.
The detectives can hardly believe it or get it all down fast enough. Later on, in a probable-cause affidavit, Detective Recarey will write:
Approximately two years ago, just after she turned 17 years of age, [Wendy] was approached by a friend named Molly at the Canopy Beach Resort in Riviera Beach. [Dobbs] was asked if she wanted to make money. She was told she would have to provide a massage and should make $200. [Dobbs] thought about the offer and agreed to meet with Jeffrey.
Molly (Unknown last name) and Tony (Unknown last name) picked [Dobbs] up and she was taken to Epstein’s house. Upon her arrival to the house she was introduced to Epstein in the kitchen of the house. She was also introduced to a white female known to her as Sarah. She was led upstairs to the main bedroom known to her as Jeff Epstein’s bedroom.
Sarah arranged the massage table and covered the table with a sheet. She brought out the massage oils and laid them next to the massage bed. Sarah then left the room and informed [Dobbs] Jeff would be in, in a minute. Jeff entered the bedroom wearing only a towel.
He removed the towel and laid nude on the massage table. He laid on the table onto his stomach and picked a massage oil for [Dobbs] to rub on him.
“He tried to touch me, and I stopped him,” says Dobbs.
I asked how he tried to touch her. [Dobbs] stated that Epstein grabbed her buttocks and she felt uncomfortable.
“I’ll massage you,” Dobbs had told Epstein. “But I don’t want to be touched.”
[Dobbs] stated she performed the massage naked. At the conclusion of the massage, Epstein paid [Dobbs] $200.
After the massage Epstein stated to [Dobbs] that he understood she was not comfortable, but he would pay her if she brought over some girls. He told her the younger the better. [Dobbs] stated she once tried to bring a 23-year-old female and Epstein stated that the female was too old. [Dobbs] stated that in total she only remembers six girls that she brought to see Epstein. Each time she was paid $200. [Dobbs] said at the time she brought these girls to Epstein’s house they were all 14 through 16 [years] of age.
Wendy Dobbs keeps talking. What she says about Mary’s visit lines up neatly with what Mary’s already told the police. Wendy’s own experience with Epstein syncs up, too. But Wendy’s not a victim, as Mary is. After all, she’s been playing on Epstein’s team. Team predator.
A police sergeant enters the room. What he wants to know is, does Wendy realize that she’s implicated herself in Epstein’s crimes?
Beads of sweat form on Wendy’s forehead, and now the police know they’ve really got her. She gives them phone numbers to go with the young girls she’s named. She provides addresses. But no, Wendy doesn’t quite get it. On the way home, in a police c
ar, she brags in the backseat:
“I’m like a Heidi Fleiss,” she tells the escorting officers.
CHAPTER 14
Wendy Dobbs, interview with Detective Recarey and Sergeant Frick, October 3, 2005, transcribed from video (excerpts)
RECAREY: Okay. Your Pepsi’s coming, my Pepsi’s coming. First of all, I know you’re freaking out. Don’t freak out, just relax. Okay? I want to thank you for coming. All right? Though the door’s closed, you’re free to go at any time. You’re not here—you know, it’s only closed for our privacy.
DOBBS: That’s fine.
RECAREY: I understand that you may have information on a case that we’re looking into, okay? That’s the reason why I brought you here today. All right? And again, you’re here voluntarily. You agreed to come back with us and talk to us. But I do want to talk you about Jeff Epstein, and the whole…thing.
DOBBS: And I don’t need a lawyer, right?
RECAREY: It’s up to you. If you wanted one, you can have one. I can’t tell you yes or no on that. That’s totally [up] to you, I’m only—
DOBBS: I’m not gonna get in trouble for anything I say, right?
RECAREY: Right now, you’re just a witness. I’m talking to you as a witness….That’s totally up to you. You wanna talk to me?
DOBBS: I have no problem telling you everything I know. I’m a very cooperative person.
RECAREY: Okay. How did you first meet, um—
DOBBS: I first met Jeffrey—I was at a beach resort on Singer Island, and I was approached by this girl I went to school with. Her name was [redacted]. And she was asking me, you know, “Oh, you need extra money, I know this guy….” I thought about it and I finally gave her a call, and her and her friend [redacted] met up with me. I actually picked them up and we drove down to Jeffrey’s house. She introduced me, whatever.
RECAREY: Okay. Now, what [do] you mean by making money, how do you make money with Jeffrey?