House Democrats release 200 images and videos of Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Pedophile Island’

First, there were 10 photographs and four videos, made public for the first time. Hours later, there were another 200 files. The two batches consisted of interior and exterior shots of a property in Little St. James, one of two private islands in the Caribbean owned by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. They were released Wednesday by House Democrats on the Oversight Committee as Washington anxiously awaits the Justice Department’s legally mandated release of the Epstein files.

There, in a sinister corner of the Virgin Islands that locals dubbed “Pedophile Island,” he committed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of the crimes for which he was going to be tried when he died in 2019 in a maximum-security cell in what the coroner determined to be a suicide, alleged to be the leader of a child sex trafficking ring.

The first of the released batches includes images of the mansion’s garden and a “No Trespassing” sign, snapshots of two different bedrooms, a bathroom, another bathroom inside what appears to be a storage room, and a living room decorated in questionable taste, as well as two close-ups: one of a telephone with the speed dial keys crossed out, and another of a chalkboard with enigmatic words scrawled on it (“power,” “deception,” “plants”). Perhaps the most unsettling photo is of what appears to be a dental office with several masks of men’s faces hanging on the walls. According to The New York Times, it might have been used by Epstein’s last girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, who “was a dentist who shared an office on St. Thomas with Mr. Epstein’s shell company.”

Many of the images in the second cache look like advertising material for a real estate platform. There are images of other rooms in the house and statues scattered throughout, as well as paintings and photos in which, in one case, Epstein is seen alongside Ghislaine Maxwell, his procurer and accomplice, at a reception with Pope John Paul II.

As for the videos, there are two taken outside the mansion: one is a walk through the garden that ends at a swimming pool; the second lingers on the sea with palm trees swaying in the wind, whose sound dominates the recording. The other two are inside two bedrooms, and in one of them, a man, whose face has been covered, is seen guiding the viewer through the en suite bedroom.

The material is, according to a message on X from the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, “a disturbing look behind Epstein’s closed doors.” In reality, there is not much to discover for those who have been following the case for years: documentaries and journalism investigations conducted during this time had already released images of the island.

The images and videos were received from Epstein’s heirs, the same source that, in recent months, also provided, under court order, tens of thousands of private emails and the 50th birthday book of the pedophile financier. That book includes a lewd drawing by Donald Trump, which he denies is his, dating back to the time when the two were friends.

Democratic Representative Robert Garcia explained in a statement Wednesday that the committee he is a member of has also received records from J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank, two banks that Epstein worked with, and that members of his party plan to release those files “in the coming days” after reviewing them.

The Justice Department has until December 19 to comply with the obligation to release the files it holds on Epstein, established by a law passed by an overwhelming majority in both Houses and later signed by the president.

Bondi’s role

The Epstein Files Transparency Act mandates that Attorney General Pam Bondi release unclassified documents related to the millionaire sex offender. Bondi reversed her decision in July after months of promising to release the material.

According to the law, this disclosure must be “systematic” and include all documents held by the Department of Justice. It is a vast and varied collection of files, numbering in the millions, including flight logs, personal communications, internal reports, metadata, immunity agreements, contracts with the financier’s employees, and emails with his inner circle.

The law also requires that published material be easily accessible and downloadable. It authorizes the Department of Justice to redact information that could be compromising to victims, materials describing child sex abuse, graphic images, or data that could jeopardize an ongoing investigation. Bondi is required to justify these actions, and Congress is required to submit an additional report detailing the redacted content within 15 days of publication.

All these exceptions have caused unease among the victims, who fear that this new declassification could become yet another chapter in the story of accumulated disappointments for those who want to clear up once and for all how far Epstein’s sex trafficking network reached, and which rich and powerful men participated in it or, at least, had knowledge of the crimes of Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

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