Six years after Jeffrey Epstein's death, hundreds of women push for justice

Lisa Phillips felt sick to her stomach.

She stood on the east side of the U.S. Capitol on a clear fall day as one woman after another described how Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused them.

They were groomed as teenagers and young women under the guise that they would just be providing massages to an older man. They said they were scared of saying anything for years.

Phillips looked down at her phone, then across the way at her friends, then back to her phone. She took deep breaths. She adjusted her shirt, moved her shoulders back, and stood up tall. Finally, she stepped to the podium.

“I stand here today for every woman who has been silenced, exploited and dismissed,” Phillips said. “We are not asking for pity. We are here demanding accountability, and I’m demanding justice.”

Phillips set aside the speech she'd prepared.Instead, she would take back power for herself, the women who spoke before her, and the women who would come after her. They had spent years finding their voices, and this was the first time so many had come together in person as a united force against the late financier and convicted sex offender.

“I would like to announce here today us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list,” she said. “We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know.”

Six years after Epstein's death, there are hundreds of these women. They call themselves Survivor Sisters, and they're the driving force behind the renewed public pressure to identify Epstein associates they say assaulted them or participated in his trafficking ring. Epstein's estate did not respond to requests for comment. Before he died in 2019, he pleaded not guilty to related charges.

President Donald Trump, who was friends with Epstein in the 1990s, has reneged on previous promises to release the Epstein files, and top officials in the Department of Justice have denied that certain records exist and said they are unable to obtain others. A bill to force the Department of Justice to release the documents is stalled in Congress. But the issue is unlikely to go away given the unabating public interest.

The Survivor Sisters credit their success to Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the woman who took on not just Epstein but his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and Britain's Prince Andrew. Roberts Giuffre died by suicide in April, months before the publication of her book describing years of abuse. The Sisters say she showed them how to stand up for themselves.

“Virginia Roberts Giuffre is an American hero,” her lawyer, Brad Edwards, said at the event on Capitol Hill as dozens of Epstein accusers behind him nodded. “She is somebody without whom we would not be able to have this voice.”

In the weeks since that gathering on Capitol Hill, USA TODAY spoke with three women who recounted being abused when they were younger across multiple states and territories over a period of many years at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein.

This is their story.

A sisterhood is born

Phillips, who is based in the Los Angeles area, is now a full-time advocate for women's rights in the entertainment industry. She says she knew dozens of other Survivor Sisters from her time as a model in New York City in the early 2000s, the period when she says Epstein was simultaneously abusing her and championing her career. But she said the women didn’t talk about the abuse allegations then.

“We were in denial, and we didn’t really talk about it so much 20 years ago,” Phillips told USA TODAY. “We didn’t really know how to define it or talk about it or what to do about it.”

In the fall of 2019, Phillips was in her living room watching the news when she saw Roberts Giuffre making allegations that Epstein trafficked her to former Prince Andrew. Phillips, who had never publicly discussed her experiences with Epstein, picked up the phone and called Edwards.

“I said, ‘I know she’s telling the truth,’” Phillips said. “Because I had a girlfriend that was really similar to her – a young blonde girl who was friends with Jeffrey – and she had told me one night that she was (also) abused by Prince Andrew.”

At first, Buckingham Palace denied such allegations. However, the 65-year-old brother of King Charles, who will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, was stripped of the title "prince" on Oct. 31 out of deference to victims of abuse. He previously denied similar accounts.

Other women began to speak out six years ago as a rapid-fire series of events made the news in the federal case against Epstein. In July 2019, federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein with sex trafficking. About a month later, he was found dead of apparent suicide in his jail cell. In Phillips' view, Epstein's death opened the floodgates.

“There’s something that happens when your abuser dies,” Phillips said. “You’re free.”

Four days after Epstein's death, New York State opened a temporary window for sexual abuse survivors to bring claims against their abusers that otherwise would have been barred by the statute of limitations. Roberts Giuffre wrote in her book that many of her Survivor Sisters filed claims during this period.

And when prosecutors requested to dismiss the charges after Epstein’s death, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman said the victims needed a chance to tell their stories in court. So the government flew survivors who wanted to provide victim impact statements to New York for a hearing on Aug. 27, 2019, Roberts Giuffre wrote in her book published on Oct. 21.

That courthouse is where Marijke Chartouni, who now lives in Seattle and works in a law office, said Roberts Giuffre sat down next to her. They got to know each other after the hearing, when the two of them and a handful of other women went with their shared lawyer to the U.S. Open in Queens and then had dinner together.

“She had this amazing authenticity about her,” Chartouni told USA TODAY. “She was just so herself and just so approachable.”

Champagne, WhatsApp and a trip to Aspen

Survivor Sisters remember Roberts Giuffre as nurturing, kind and very funny. They say she had an outgoing energy and always offered to pay for the champagne at dinner. She was also a leader and a teacher to them.

“She wanted to have a good time, but she brought a lot of humor to the table,” Rachel Benavidez, a survivor from Albuquerque, New Mexico, told USA TODAY. “And I don’t know if maybe that was a coping mechanism.”

Benavidez, a trained massage therapist who now works as a hospice nurse, couldn’t make the August hearing. She said she met Roberts Giuffre in New York later in 2019 when they appeared on Dateline NBC and were interviewed for an article in Glamour. “(It was) a whole two days I spent with her,” Benavidez said.  

They talked with each other about their time at Zorro Ranch, Epstein’s property in New Mexico, where both women say they were abused, and wondered why they never ran into each other. They talked about Maxwell’s participation in their abuse, her personality, and her dog, Max.

Maxwell's lawyer did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.

Knowing each other helped them piece together their stories, but also helped them feel less alone.

“To be an Epstein survivor is very isolating,” Benavidez said, her voice cracking. “Nobody can really understand except all of my other Survivor Sisters.”

Phillips said survivors often lose support from their family members after they speak publicly about being abused. Sometimes their partners don't want them to speak, either.

Roberts Giuffre started a WhatsApp chat for her Survivor Sisters, she wrote in her book. “I felt as if, despite our differences, I could tell these women anything,” Roberts Giuffre wrote in her book.

Chartouni said Roberts Giuffre, who spoke openly about her mental health and addiction issues in media interviews, had told her about two times she tried to end her own life, but not about the extent of the alleged domestic violence she was experiencing, which her family members spoke about after her death. A lawyer for Roberts Giuffre’s husband called the allegations “unsubstantiated.”

Chartouni recalled that she and Roberts Giuffre, who lived in Australia, discussed motherhood because their kids were around the same age.They bonded about having kids on the autism spectrum. They shared photos of their pets – Roberts Giuffre had a French bulldog and a bird – and would “just both complain about trying to get our sons off the Xbox.”

“I know she had asked me to come to Australia a few times,” Chartouni said. “And she always wanted us all to get together, because I think that’s where she felt most comfortable is having us all talk.” 

Roberts Giuffre wrote in her book that she tried to arrange a trip to Aspen, Colorado, and offered to buy plane tickets for her friends. But she said the coronavirus pandemic forced her to cancel.

'I'm taking my power back'

Months after her death, on Sept. 3, Roberts Giuffre's wish that the women would get together came to fruition. Dozens of Epstein accusers went to Capitol Hill for a rally and a news conference, backed by members of Congress, to advocate for the release of the FBI’s documents on Epstein.

Nine women told their stories and urged members of Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would require the Justice Department to publish all documents and materials related to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Republican and close ally to Trump, hasn’t agreed to hold a vote on the bill; however, a coalition of mostly Democratic and a handful of Republican lawmakers is seeking to force one. They need one more signature, and the lawmaker they know will grant it is waiting to be sworn in.

Chartouni said the Capitol Hill event came together somewhat chaotically. It was "a little hush-hush," and at times she wondered if it would even happen. But she said survivors who had never come forward before showed up of their own accord, and they got to meet each other.

Marina Lacerda told her story publicly for the first time. She said she was an unnamed victim in Epstein’s 2019 federal indictment and credited the women standing behind her at the podium for helping her find the strength to come forward. She said all of them would continue to strengthen Roberts Giuffre’s voice.

Phillips stood in the background as Jena-Lisa Jones detailed how Epstein pressured her to bring high school girls to his house.

“It was really hard for me to find my voice and to become strong enough to speak about my abuse,” Jones said. “I didn’t come forward until 2019, and even then, it was like I was afraid of a ghost.”

Phillips spoke next. She said in an interview that she imagined Epstein’s unnamed alleged accomplices – many of whose names she says she knows – sitting at home watching the news conference. She said she wanted to send a message to them. 

“I really had another speech prepared like the other survivors,” she said. “In the five minutes (before I spoke), I changed my mind, and I was like, ‘You know what, I’m taking my power back. This is bulls---.’”

Keeping in touch

These days, Phillips said she spends four hours a week doing trauma-focused therapy, covered under a settlement that JP Morgan Chasereached after survivors sued the bank in federal court in New York for its role in handling Epstein’s finances. 

She also hosts a podcast interviewing women who report being abused by serial predators. She says these offenders often know each other and will groom women to pass them around to their friends.

“When it comes to serial predators and why women go back – or why they’re stuck being abused by these powerful men – it’s just a totally different power dynamic,” she says.

Benavidez, from New Mexico, said she and Chartouni, from Seattle, call each other at least once a month. They talk about their kids, their jobs, their relationships. Benavidez talks with the women who have more recently shared their stories. In chats, she makes a point to use a blue butterfly emoji, the symbol of the nonprofit Roberts Giuffre founded.

“I know that when I’m having a tough day and dealing with this and feel like nobody can understand it, I can actually reach out to them, and they will be there for me,” Benavidez said.

One of those bad days for survivors came Oct. 21, the day Roberts Giuffre's book, “Nobody’s Girl,” hit bookstores. The book immediately made Amazon’s bestseller list. It also dredged up the past.

Roberts Giuffre left a note in the front of the book: “Dedicated to my Survivor Sisters and to anyone who has suffered sexual abuse.”

Her Sisters aren't letting up in their quest for justice against sexual abuse. It's what Roberts Giuffre would've wanted.