{"id":74135,"date":"2025-07-19T01:34:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T01:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/74135\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T01:34:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T01:34:20","slug":"epstein-victims-say-the-trump-administrations-handling-of-the-case-adds-to-their-anguish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/74135\/","title":{"rendered":"Epstein victims say the Trump administration’s handling of the case adds to their anguish"},"content":{"rendered":"

They feel, as one of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s victims put it, like they\u2019re \u201cbeing erased.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a civil war rages in MAGA world<\/a> over President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to disavow conspiracies that his most ardent supporters stoked about Epstein being part of a deep state sex trafficking cabal, the women who were victimized by the billionaire say their suffering is being sidelined by raw politics.<\/p>\n

Four Epstein victims who spoke with NBC News say the Trump administration should be exposing any powerful men who shared Epstein\u2019s penchant for vulnerable young women, not putting the brakes on any future prosecutions. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou never really heal,\u201d said Danielle Bensky, 38, who was a budding ballerina when she said Epstein abused her two decades ago. \u201cAnd with what\u2019s happening now, it feels like we\u2019re being erased. All the brave women who came forward \u2026 all the work that we did to tell the world what happened to us, it\u2019s all being erased.\u201d<\/p>\n

The victims spoke with NBC News recently as Trump tried to mollify supporters angered by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi\u2019s announcement that the \u201cclient list\u201d she claimed to have on her desk did not exist, and that Epstein\u2019s death in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges was a jailhouse suicide and not a murder to silence him, as many believe.<\/p>\n

Faced with what critics and allies are calling a severe threat to his presidency<\/a>, Trump has alternately dismissed the furor as a \u201choax\u201d ginned-up by Democrats and ordered Bondi to release \u201cpertinent\u201d grand jury transcripts and other documents that could shed more light on the scandal.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal<\/a> reported that Trump wrote a bawdy birthday letter for Epstein more than two decades ago. NBC News has not seen the original letter, and Trump has called it \u201ca fake thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bensky said her heart sank earlier this month when Bondi, who had amplified Trump\u2019s campaign promises to \u201cdemolish the deep state,\u201d released a two-page memo<\/a> stating there was no evidence of an \u201cincriminating client list\u201d of men who had sex with young women procured by the financier and that her office would not prosecute anyone else in the case.<\/p>\n

\"DanielleDanielle Bensky.Courtesy Danielle Bensky<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt a wave of sadness,\u201d Bensky said. \u201cAll those years of trying to gain justice just negated. It was just two pages saying they were done investigating with no details about what happened to all of us. It\u2019s like we never existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

For other victims, Epstein\u2019s reappearance in the news is like tearing the scab from a wound.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is, trauma is never a one and done,\u201d Epstein victim Teresa J. Helm said by email to NBC News. \u201cIt\u2019s complex. It can take a lifetime to repair oneself. Various things can initiate a trauma response, and that\u2019s just daily life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helm, who said she was hired to give Epstein massages and was sexually assaulted by him in the early 2000s, now works with sexual assault victims for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. She said whatever hope she had for getting a measure of justice is now gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a person\u2019s abuser(s) are repeatedly flashed in view at any given moment, and especially when promises of justice, and promises of structures of power finally being held to account \u2014 to then essentially have the door shut in your face and no longer open for business \u2014 then what?\u201d Helm wrote in her email.<\/p>\n

\"TeresaTeresa Helm arrives at court during the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in New York in 2021. Carlo Allegri \/ Reuters<\/p>\n

Attorney David Boies represented one of Epstein\u2019s best-known accusers, the late Virginia Giuffre, who claimed in a 2016 deposition that Epstein and his now-imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a> forced her to have sex with several powerful men, including Prince Andrew<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The British royal acknowledged associating with Epstein and agreed to a settlement with Giuffre but denied the allegations.<\/p>\n

Maxwell has filed a petition <\/a>with the Supreme Court to vacate her 2021 conviction for recruiting and grooming teenage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.<\/p>\n

Boies said Trump, Bondi and others in the administration have only themselves to blame for reviving the Epstein saga.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s coming up now because the administration made such a big deal that they were going to release a list of clients and, all of a sudden, they did a 180-turn saying we will not release anything,\u201d Boies said. \u201cIf they never said anything there would have been only middling interest and conspiracy thinking. It\u2019s the inconsistencies that fueled things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boies said that as far as he knows there was no document in the raft of evidence he reviewed that was labelled a \u201cclient list.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they ought to release the material after promising, and if they don\u2019t, people will believe they are hiding something and that cannot be tolerated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Alicia Arden was a 27-year-old model and aspiring actress when Epstein assaulted her in 1997 at a hotel in Santa Monica, California, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get upset when I hear his name,\u201d Arden said of Epstein.<\/p>\n

Arden said Epstein had identified himself as a talent scout for Victoria\u2019s Secret and she wanted to meet him. Epstein was a top adviser to former Victoria\u2019s Secret CEO Les Wexner but was not a talent scout for the retailer.<\/p>\n

\"AliciaAlicia Arden delivers a statement at the Allred, Maroko & Goldberg law offices in Los Angeles in 2020.Chris Pizzello \/ AP<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to be in the Victoria\u2019s Secret catalog,\u201d said Arden. \u201cBut then he grabbed me, tried to tear off my clothes, and said he wanted to \u2018manhandle\u2019 me. I ran out of there and he chased after me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arden, who filed a police report after the encounter with Epstein, said she supports Trump but believes \u201cthere\u2019s a cover-up of some kind going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPam Bondi was saying back in February there was a list and then she said the list was on her desk and now there is no list,\u201d said Arden, who lives in Santa Monica. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want something to come out and I don\u2019t understand why. Maybe the list is more horrifying than we think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another victim, who has spoken publicly about how Maxwell recruited her to give Epstein erotic massages, told NBC News she was \u201cterrified\u201d when Bondi announced there was no \u201cclient list\u201d and that she would not prosecute anyone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, I was out there talking about what happened, and now I don\u2019t want my name out there in connection with anything to do with Epstein because I\u2019m afraid of what they could do to me and my family,\u201d said the woman, who agreed to speak to NBC News on the condition her name not be used because she fears retribution from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not surprised Trump is now saying we should stop talking about Epstein,\u201d she said. \u201cThese people are trying to protect themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bensky said that what\u2019s happening now is like \u201cGround Hog Day for the #MeToo Movement\u201d and threatens the strides all victims have made in confronting their abusers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need transparency and accountability for the sake of our daughters and future generations of young girls,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now a choreographer who works with teenage dance troupes, Bensky said she has for many years found solace by using \u201csome of the same tools I use in my choreography to get into a meditative state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf late, I\u2019ve been working with a group of young dancers in Hawaii and I sometimes think about how there are so many girls out there being victimized,\u201d Bensky said. \u201cI find myself thinking, how do I tell my students that the world isn\u2019t always dark and painful? Because I sat in sadness for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They feel, as one of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s victims put it, like they\u2019re \u201cbeing erased.\u201d While a civil war…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-74135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114877331104327110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}