Twelve Jeffrey Epstein victims filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for allegedly allowing and concealing the sex trafficking crimes committed by the businessman, who died in 2019. They allege that the FBI failed to take proper responsibility when investigating the case.
"As a direct and proximate cause of the FBI’s negligence, Plaintiffs would not have been continued to be sex trafficked, abused, raped tortured and threatened," the plaintiffs wrote. " Jane Does 1-12 bring this lawsuit to get to the bottom--once and for all--of the FBI’s role in Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking ring."
FBI ignored evidence starting in 1996
The victims allege that, in 1996, the FBI became aware of Epstein's criminal behavior after evidence was reported. However, according to the plaintiffs, the agency ignored them and decided not to carry out an investigation until a decade later, when Epstein admitted his guilt in a prostitution crime in Florida, for which he was sentenced to 18 months in prison:
During the FBI investigation, the FBI was complicit in permitting Epstein and coconspirators to continue to victimize Jane Does 1-12 and other young women. The FBI had photographs, videos and interviews and hard evidence of child prostitution and failed to timely investigate and arrest Epstein in deviation from the FBI protocols. ... The FBI had a non-discretionary obligation, governed by established policies, procedures, rules, and protocols, to handle and investigate tips concerning potential and ongoing underage child erotica, rape, sex with minors, and sex trafficking in a reasonable manner and to act against Epstein and to prevent him from committing repeated crimes. Yet, contrary to its own established rules, the FBI failed to take appropriate action and botched and covered up investigations for years.
After Epstein pleaded guilty, the FBI continued to receive tips and allegedly continued to ignore them, as explained by the 12 victims in the lawsuit, until he was arrested and imprisoned in 2019, shortly before committing suicide. Now, the plaintiffs are demanding compensation.
