On Saturday, billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for alleged sex trafficking of dozens of minors between 2002 and 2005. On Monday, charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking were unsealed and new evidence of what appears to be child pornography presented following the raid of his New York City mansion. On Wednesday, NBC News published accusations from a new accuser, who says that Epstein and one of his female “recruiters” lured her in when she was just 14 years old — and Epstein “forcefully raped” her when she was 15.
“Jennifer Araoz says she was 14 years old when a young woman approached her outside her New York City high school in the fall of 2001,” NBC News reports. “The woman was friendly and curious, asking Araoz personal questions about her family, her upbringing, their finances. Soon she began talking to Araoz about a man she knew who was kind and wealthy and lived nearby. His name, the woman said, was Jeffrey Epstein.”
“I was kind of a lost kid and she sensed it,” Araoz told NBC. The woman, whom she described as a brunette in her 20s, told her that Epstein just wanted to help people and was supporting her and her family. Araoz said the woman described him as “almost like a fatherly figure to her, which had meaning for me at that time because I was maybe longing for that.”
Convinced by the unnamed woman to visit Epstein’s Manhattan mansion, Araoz, now 32, said initially all he wanted to do was talk, the “recruiter” always accompanying them. Among the things they discussed were her dreams of becoming a Brodway actress and the tragic passing of her father, who died of AIDS two years before. She said he made sure to mention that he had donated money to AIDS charities and said he believed she could be a model. Each time she left, he handed her $300, she said. – READ MORE