Outspoken survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse say Justice Department officials have not taken meaningful steps to follow up on their meeting with Todd Blanche in the weeks since he became attorney general.
Blanche sat down with them at DOJ headquarters in July, when his Senate confirmation hung in the balance, in what was described as an “initial” effort to hear their concerns. The survivors say the lack of communication from officials since then has only reinforced their belief that a Blanche-led department has no intention of pursuing the issues they brought to him.
“There’s just not an interest,” Annie Farmer, one of the survivors, said in an interview. “They want to move on and turn the page.”
Even a general commitment to following new leads, interviewing new witnesses or investigating potential suspects in Epstein’s vast network of rich and powerful men would be seen as a positive sign, survivors said.
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So would a promise to address what survivors said were errors in the release of files from the Epstein case, including a failure to redact their personal information and withholding the names of possible co-conspirators and other important details.
“Literally, you could take any avenue and just say, ‘Good, we will move on this one thing and start there,’” said Dani Bensky, a survivor who testified at Blanche’s confirmation hearing. “I think any of us would have been like, ‘OK, at least they’re doing something, and at least we were heard,’ instead of this defensive, gaslighting experience.’”
The Justice Department declined to answer questions about its interactions with survivors, the status of investigations related to Epstein and staffing of Epstein-related inquiries. An unsigned emailed statement from the department said, “We have responded to all requests for meetings w/ victims and/or their advocates.”
Epstein died in federal custody in 2019 while facing federal sex-trafficking charges in what authorities ruled a suicide. His longtime accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of helping him groom, abuse and traffic underage girls and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
The survivors had spent months pushing for a meeting. They hoped Blanche, who in the department’s No. 2 role had overseen the release of Epstein records under a law passed by Congress, would offer some reassurance that the DOJ would take seriously their demands for greater accountability and transparency around the late sex offender’s case.
The meeting came together hastily on the second day of his confirmation hearing to lead the Justice Department. Blanche had initially resisted pressure from lawmakers to sit down with survivors. But Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) threatened to hold up Blanche’s nomination in the Judiciary Committee unless he spoke face-to-face with a group of survivors who had traveled to Washington to attend the proceeding.
Bensky had testified that morning, recounting to lawmakers how the department had failed to redact her personal information from three batches of files and criticizing Blanche for ignoring repeated requests for an in-person discussion.
Soon after the hearing adjourned, Bensky said, a Justice Department staffer pulled her aside and proposed a meeting with Alessandra Serano, a longtime sex crimes prosecutor whom Blanche had recently appointed to lead the DOJ’s anti-human-trafficking efforts.
Bensky said she told the staffer: “We’re not meeting with anybody but Blanche.”
After a scramble to coordinate schedules, Bensky and others were summoned to a 4:30 p.m. meeting at department headquarters. About half a dozen survivors attended. Joining virtually were their lawyers and advocates from the anti-trafficking organization World Without Exploitation, which represents many Epstein survivors. Blanche, Serano, FBI agents and other DOJ officials were present.
In a statement, a Justice Department spokesperson called the meeting a “productive, initial discussion.” Blanche had walked the participants through what was needed for investigations to proceed and encouraged victims to meet with FBI investigators as a next step, according to the statement.
Survivors, however, came away feeling deflated and dismissed.
With little time to prepare for the meeting, Bensky said the group had decided to focus on a few key issues, including the Justice Department’s decision not to follow up on certain investigative leads and the process for redacting survivors’ information from the Epstein files.
They also asked Blanche to explain why the Justice Department had transferred Maxwell to a minimum-security prison camp during the height of uproar over the release of the files last year, according to Bensky.
Blanche bristled at many of their questions, survivors said, leaving them with the impression that he was interested in little more than shoring up support for his nomination.
Tillis, satisfied that the meeting had taken place, later voted to confirm Blanche. A spokesperson for the senator didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In the weeks since, survivors and their representatives say they’ve come to view Blanche’s suggestion that they go to the FBI as particularly problematic. Many survivors have already spoken with FBI investigators, some of them years ago when the most critical details of their abuse were fresh in their minds, they said.
Some worry they could undermine investigations if they were to sit for new FBI interviews and their recollections don’t line up perfectly with their original reports.
“To ask them to go back to the FBI is very disingenuous,” said Rebecca Zipkin, the policy director at World Without Exploitation and a former sex crimes prosecutor in Brooklyn. “Appropriate procedure would be for them to be reviewing all of the original FBI reports, seeing who was never followed up with, who should be followed up with, and assigning prosecutors and FBI agents who already were involved with this case.”
At the same time, Blanche’s elevation of Serano, whose mandate involves coordinating efforts to stop child exploitation and human trafficking, has brought the group some cautious optimism. Serano spent nearly two decades focusing on trafficking and sex-crime cases as a federal prosecutor, winning national recognition for her prosecutions. Zipkin said she held her work in high regard.
But Serano’s specific responsibilities with respect to the Epstein case aren’t clear, according to Zipkin.
Zipkin described a conversation with Serano on Zoom on July 20 as respectful and constructive overall, but she said Serano was limited in what she shared about the Justice Department’s plans.
“We were hoping that her position would be to work on opening investigations,” Zipkin said. “I didn’t get confirmation on that either way.”
The Justice Department did not respond to questions seeking to clarify Serano’s duties or make her available for an interview.
Zipkin and survivors noted that, despite an exodus of highly experienced DOJ attorneys and investigators, many staffers with deep knowledge of the Epstein case remain. They questioned why Justice Department leaders appeared not to have tapped those officials for roles similar to Serano’s.
Ideally, Zipkin said, they want to see a coordinated effort among federal prosecutors’ offices in New York, New Mexico, Florida and the Virgin Islands — places where Epstein is known to have committed crimes — to open investigations into people named in the files who had been closely involved with Epstein.
They’re also seeking accountability — or at least an explanation from justice officials — for the department’s years of failure to act on reports of Epstein’s abuse, including a 1996 complaint by Farmer’s sister that went uninvestigated for decades.
Farmer, whose sister was among the first people to report Epstein’s crimes to the FBI, said there’s precedent for such a move. In 2021, justice officials probed the mishandling of FBI reports related to serial sex abuse by Larry Nassar, the doctor for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team.
“I think that some people don’t appreciate the fact that, for my sister, their refusal to even acknowledge that her report had been made for so many years and silence on the issue was very damaging,” Farmer said. “Why wouldn’t you do what you’ve done in the past?”
Absent DOJ action, survivors say they are putting their faith in Congress and state authorities to probe many of the leads they say the federal government should have already taken up.
They lauded the House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer for listening to survivors, interviewing key witnesses in Epstein’s network and referring two Epstein associates to the Justice Department for investigation. Comer signaled last month that the committee may soon make criminal referrals in the case.
Benksy and Farmer said they were also encouraged by the New Mexico Department of Justice’s recently renewed investigation into alleged crimes at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County.
State authorities sued Blanche and the Department of Justice last month, seeking unredacted Epstein case files they say may help identify victims, witnesses and previously unexamined crimes at the 8,000-acre property. The Justice Department said last month that it was not required to turn over the documents.
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