A dozen victims of Jeffrey Epstein filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing the FBI of covering up its failure to investigate the late financier, enabling his sex trafficking to continue for more than 20 years.The victims, using Jane Doe pseudonyms, said the FBI received credible tips as early as 1996 that Epstein trafficked young women and girls, yet failed to interview victims or share what it knew with federal and local law enforcement.Victims said the FBI finally began a probe in 2006, but ended it two years later after Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida prostitution charge, and kept ignoring tips until his July 2019 arrest. Epstein committed suicide a month later.\u201cAs a direct and proximate cause of the FBI\u2019s negligence, plaintiffs would not have been continued to be sex trafficked, abused, raped, tortured and threatened,\u201d the complaint said.\u201cJane Does 1-12 bring this lawsuit to get to the bottom \u2014 once and for all \u2014 of the FBI\u2019s role in Epstein\u2019s criminal sex trafficking ring,\u201d it added.The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Wednesday\u2019s complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan seeks damages from the U.S. government, the only defendant.It cited a Dec. 5, 2023, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where FBI Director Christopher Wray was asked why the FBI didn\u2019t do more. He promised to \u201cget with my team and figure out if there is more information we can provide.\u201dThe number of Epstein\u2019s victims is believed to be well over 100.Victims previously reached approximately $500 million of settlements, before deducting legal fees and costs, with a program funded by Epstein\u2019s estate and with two of Epstein\u2019s banks, JPMorgan Chase JPM.N and Deutsche Bank DBKGn.DE.It is unclear whether the 12 plaintiffs received compensation from those settlements. Their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The case is Doe 1 et al v United States, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 24-01071.(Reuters)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A dozen victims of Jeffrey Epstein have filed a lawsuit accusing the FBI of covering up its failure to investigate the late financier, allowing his sex trafficking to continue for over 20 years. The victims claim that the FBI received credible tips as early as 1996 but failed to interview victims or share information with law enforcement. The FBI began a probe in 2006 but ended it two years later after Epstein pleaded guilty to a prostitution charge. The victims argue that the FBI’s negligence allowed them to be sex trafficked, abused, and threatened. The lawsuit seeks damages from the U.S. government. The number of Epstein’s victims is believed to be over 100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[232,611,279,3,835,415,582,591,148,393,836,544,18],"class_list":["post-3027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus","tag-arrest","tag-banks","tag-comment","tag-cyprus","tag-epstein","tag-government","tag-justice","tag-lawyers","tag-local","tag-new-york","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-united-states","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n