Latest / Beyond The Horizon / Gretchen Rhodes Tells Her Story Of Abuse At The Hands Of Maxwell And Epstein (Part 1)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles.
- 0:04Speaker 1: Today we're going to hear from another survivor of Ghislaine
- 0:08Speaker 1: Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein and this survivor's name is Gretchen Rhodes.
- 0:16Speaker 1: Today's article is from iNews and it's relatively lengthy so
- 0:21Speaker 1: we're just going to dive right in. Headline. Ghislaine Maxwell's
- 0:25Speaker 1: survivor reveals for first time her abuse on Jeffrey Epstein's
- 0:30Speaker 1: island and jet. Isn't that the jet that all of
- 0:33Speaker 1: his friends like to ride on? You know, Bill Clinton
- 0:36Speaker 1: rode on it, Bill Gates, all of them. Oh yeah,
- 0:38Speaker 1: that's right, that's the same jet. The author of this article,
- 0:43Speaker 1: Rob Hastings. Gretchen Rhodes was a 24-year-old massage therapist when
- 0:50Speaker 1: Ghislaine Maxwell walked into her life and changed it forever.
- 0:55Speaker 1: It was 2001, and Rhodes was working in a spa
- 0:58Speaker 1: on the Caribbean island of St. John, when the socialite, co-conspirator,
- 1:03Speaker 1: general around Scuzzbag, fellow child abuser, and bipedal serpent, entered
- 1:07Speaker 1: the room, spotted her, and made a beeline for her target.
- 1:12Speaker 1: She had a proposal. Clearly attracted by Rhodes' good looks,
- 1:16Speaker 1: or rather, knowing they would appeal to her partner Jeffrey Epstein,
- 1:21Speaker 1: Maxwell wanted this young woman to work for her as
- 1:24Speaker 1: a personal masseuse. And we've seen this how many times?
- 1:28Speaker 1: This was the MO. Look, massage was critical to them.
- 1:32Speaker 1: It was a crucial function of everything that was going
- 1:35Speaker 1: on within the Epstein organization. And they would go out
- 1:39Speaker 1: and recruit these massage therapists and they'd bring them in
- 1:42Speaker 1: under the guise of them being, you know, a masseuse.
- 1:45Speaker 1: But the reality is once they got on scene, the
- 1:48Speaker 1: abuse would begin. And it's also laughable that anyone would
- 1:54Speaker 1: think that Virginia Roberts at 16, who is working not
- 1:59Speaker 1: as a masseuse at the time, by the way, would
- 2:01Speaker 1: be recruited as a masseuse. If you have all the
- 2:04Speaker 1: money that Epstein and Maxwell has, why would you be
- 2:07Speaker 1: recruiting a masseuse off the street or in a towel
- 2:11Speaker 1: room when you could pay for top of the line
- 2:16Speaker 1: massage therapists from anywhere in the world? It doesn't make
- 2:20Speaker 1: any sense, unless, of course, you have other desires. Rhodes
- 2:26Speaker 1: felt uneasy and politely turned her down. But Maxwell handed
- 2:31Speaker 1: over her business card and returned to the salon several
- 2:34Speaker 1: times over the next few weeks. She was persistent. She
- 2:38Speaker 1: was intense. She was going to get what she wanted,
- 2:41Speaker 1: and she wanted Rhodes. Again, this is part of the grooming, right?
- 2:45Speaker 1: This is all part of the reason why Ghislaine Maxwell
- 2:47Speaker 1: is in prison. Oh, well, she was being tried for
- 2:51Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. She's the one out here recruiting these girls.
- 2:54Speaker 1: She was the one who walked them directly into the
- 2:57Speaker 1: pit of the viper. So don't tell me she's being
- 3:02Speaker 1: held as some sort of scapegoat. That is so weak
- 3:05Speaker 1: when people say stuff like that, and it shows how
- 3:07Speaker 1: little they understand about what truly went on here. The
- 3:13Speaker 1: Kansas born aspiring singer who had trained in massaging to
- 3:17Speaker 1: pay to pay her bills eventually gave in. And it
- 3:21Speaker 1: was exciting, she admits, to be picked up by boat
- 3:24Speaker 1: and taken on the 15 minute voyage to Epstein's private
- 3:27Speaker 1: island of Little St. James. You look. If you don't
- 3:31Speaker 1: know what's going on, right? Say you're just some young
- 3:34Speaker 1: massage therapist or young man or woman, whatever, and you
- 3:38Speaker 1: have this opportunity to go and work with these super
- 3:40Speaker 1: rich people and perhaps launch your career into the stratosphere,
- 3:44Speaker 1: that's a big deal. And I know a lot of
- 3:47Speaker 1: you out there have been in positions like that before.
- 3:49Speaker 1: You've been on the cusp of breaking through in your industry.
- 3:52Speaker 1: You get invited to a party maybe with colleagues and boom,
- 3:56Speaker 1: before you know it, you made some contacts and you're
- 3:59Speaker 1: off and running. And a lot of these girls who
- 4:02Speaker 1: were over here as massage therapists and from broken homes,
- 4:06Speaker 1: that was the original intent. They thought they were going
- 4:08Speaker 1: to have a better life because of the circumstance of
- 4:11Speaker 1: meeting Maxwell or Epstein. But the reality is it made
- 4:14Speaker 1: their lives a lot worse. Only now does Rhodes finally
- 4:21Speaker 1: feel able to publicly disclose the sexual abuse that followed.
- 4:25Speaker 1: And again, this is one of the unnamed girls we
- 4:27Speaker 1: talk about all the time. Now, Miss Rhodes is coming
- 4:30Speaker 1: out and bravely telling her story and adding her voice
- 4:34Speaker 1: to the chorus of those who have had enough. But
- 4:38Speaker 1: how many other women like Miss Rhodes are there out there?
- 4:42Speaker 1: My guess is hundreds, folks, if not thousands. I'm a
- 4:48Speaker 1: victim and they are predators, she tells I speaking on
- 4:52Speaker 1: a video call from Italy. They manipulated me and they
- 4:55Speaker 1: did all these things to make me feel like this
- 4:58Speaker 1: stuff was normal. It was not normal and it should
- 5:01Speaker 1: not have ever happened. I should never have been put
- 5:03Speaker 1: in that position. I went through something horrific. These people
- 5:07Speaker 1: targeted me. And look, how many times have I told
- 5:10Speaker 1: you that the whole point is for them to try
- 5:13Speaker 1: and normalize this behavior? And when it's normalized, then it's
- 5:17Speaker 1: a lot easier for the girls that they're just bringing
- 5:20Speaker 1: in to get groomed and molded in the correct way.
- 5:24Speaker 1: Because if everybody else is doing it around you, you think, hell,
- 5:28Speaker 1: this is the way the rich people live. I got
- 5:30Speaker 1: to get on board. How many of you would know
- 5:33Speaker 1: the protocol if you were at some soiree on the
- 5:36Speaker 1: Upper East Side of New York? Not many of us.
- 5:39Speaker 1: First of all, I wouldn't even be invited. I wouldn't
- 5:42Speaker 1: get by the guards because I'm showing up in a t-shirt,
- 5:44Speaker 1: probably a rancid t-shirt, maybe a bad religion t-shirt, a
- 5:48Speaker 1: pair of jeans and some Chuck Taylors. That's how I'm
- 5:51Speaker 1: showing up. So I'm not even getting through the front door.
- 5:57Speaker 1: On Maxwell's sentencing last week for five counts of trafficking,
- 6:01Speaker 1: the countless girls and young women she tricked and groomed
- 6:04Speaker 1: into becoming Epstein's victims, Rhodes says, in my eyes, honestly,
- 6:08Speaker 1: 20 years is being let off. That's nothing. I was
- 6:11Speaker 1: really upset about it. I was very angry. And look,
- 6:15Speaker 1: every single one of these women who were abused are
- 6:18Speaker 1: going to have their own emotions about this. They're not
- 6:21Speaker 1: just one group you could paint with a broad brush
- 6:24Speaker 1: and say, well, all of the survivors feel one way
- 6:27Speaker 1: or the other. That's not the case. Everybody's a unique individual.
- 6:31Speaker 1: Everybody experienced their own pain and suffering, and everyone's going
- 6:35Speaker 1: to look at the situation differently. But I tend to
- 6:38Speaker 1: agree with Ms. Rhodes. 20 years is certainly not enough
- 6:41Speaker 1: in my opinion, especially when you understand that she's going
- 6:44Speaker 1: to be able to scooch and scotch. Opening up more
- 6:51Speaker 1: than two decades after first encountering the couple, Rhodes is
- 6:55Speaker 1: preparing for her life to change again. She is among
- 6:58Speaker 1: the survivors revealing what happened to them in the new
- 7:01Speaker 1: Channel 4 documentary series, Ghislaine Maxwell, Making of a Monster,
- 7:06Speaker 1: which begins tomorrow night. I need to concentrate on speaking out,
- 7:10Speaker 1: the documentary being out, doing interviews, and then I can
- 7:15Speaker 1: see what the next phase is. I would love to
- 7:17Speaker 1: be able to start a non-profit for all the people
- 7:20Speaker 1: that go through this and don't have a voice, she says.
- 7:24Speaker 1: And I would think as a survivor of this sort
- 7:28Speaker 1: of horrible abuse, it would be very cathartic to do
- 7:30Speaker 1: something like that. Start a non-prof to help other people,
- 7:34Speaker 1: help battered women, children, boys, whatever, but trying to give
- 7:38Speaker 1: back because you know what this pain is like, right?
- 7:42Speaker 1: You know what it is. And unfortunately, if you're someone
- 7:46Speaker 1: who has been abused, you're part of a club nobody
- 7:48Speaker 1: ever wants to be a part of. But the reality
- 7:51Speaker 1: is there's a lot of people who have been abused
- 7:54Speaker 1: and there's a lot of people who are suffering trauma
- 7:56Speaker 1: because of it. It's about empowering people for the future.
- 8:03Speaker 1: Even if I just help one person to be able
- 8:05Speaker 1: to have the confidence and the love and the worth
- 8:08Speaker 1: and the value for themselves to be able to get
- 8:11Speaker 1: themselves out of a really terrible situation. If I bring
- 8:14Speaker 1: that to just one person, then this will have been
- 8:17Speaker 1: worth everything. Look, very brave. I don't know how many
- 8:21Speaker 1: times I can say it, this is some of the
- 8:23Speaker 1: bravest shit you can do, putting yourself on display for
- 8:26Speaker 1: the whole entire world to dissect you. Certainly not easy,
- 8:30Speaker 1: and especially if you've suffered trauma, because you're reliving it
- 8:33Speaker 1: every time you talk about it. What happened to Gretchen Rhodes?
- 8:40Speaker 1: For the first three or four months that Rhodes worked
- 8:42Speaker 1: on Little St. James, she was solely asked to massage Maxwell.
- 8:46Speaker 1: Once she was considered trustworthy and ready, the British woman
- 8:50Speaker 1: let her down to Epstein's room and instructed that whatever
- 8:53Speaker 1: happened next must remain confidential. Epstein entered and laid down.
- 8:59Speaker 1: Maxwell stripped naked to change her clothes while Rhodes tried
- 9:02Speaker 1: not to look. And then she was left alone with
- 9:06Speaker 1: the millionaire in need of a rubdown. You mean the
- 9:08Speaker 1: pedophile animal who was in need of a rubdown, right?
- 9:12Speaker 1: It still amazes me that they call him, you know,
- 9:14Speaker 1: the millionaire or the financier. Bro was one of the
- 9:17Speaker 1: sickest fucking dudes in the history of the world. Let's
- 9:20Speaker 1: call him what he is. What followed on this occasion
- 9:24Speaker 1: was just a regular massage, like so many others were.
- 9:28Speaker 1: While the situation on Little St. James was creepy, Rhodes
- 9:32Speaker 1: was reassured that before I started massaging Jeffrey, he had
- 9:35Speaker 1: a 65-year-old dude massaging him, which made me feel very safe.
- 9:40Speaker 1: Looking at the harmless older man she was replacing, it
- 9:43Speaker 1: was hard to believe anything bad would happen to her.
- 9:47Speaker 1: And again, look, you gotta remember, we're looking at this
- 9:50Speaker 1: as people who have the knowledge of what happened, of
- 9:53Speaker 1: who Epstein was, of who Maxwell was. These girls didn't
- 9:56Speaker 1: know that. They thought they were getting the opportunity of
- 9:58Speaker 1: a lifetime, and instead... that opportunity was flipped on its
- 10:01Speaker 1: head and turned into a life shattering situation. And what
- 10:08Speaker 1: about Epstein himself? What was he like? Oh, my God.
- 10:12Speaker 1: He was so engaging, she tells me. He was enjoyable
- 10:16Speaker 1: to be around, which is so fucked sounding. When he
- 10:19Speaker 1: wanted to talk, he wanted to know everything about everything.
- 10:23Speaker 1: Everything about music, because he was a pianist. He wanted
- 10:26Speaker 1: me to sing for him. He wanted to know everything
- 10:29Speaker 1: about my family. He wanted to know about how I
- 10:32Speaker 1: was living on a sailboat. Then, he would talk about
- 10:35Speaker 1: himself too. He would talk about how much he loved
- 10:38Speaker 1: his mother, how he had bought her a bionic heart,
- 10:41Speaker 1: and it would probably last for longer than her body.
- 10:45Speaker 1: There was a big conversation about Mensa, and being involved
- 10:48Speaker 1: in all of these scientific foundations and projects. He was
- 10:52Speaker 1: articulate and extremely smart. He was good at making me
- 10:56Speaker 1: feel like I wanted to be around him, and that
- 10:58Speaker 1: certainly was part of his charm, right? The dude had
- 11:00Speaker 1: some charm, there's no doubt. As far as being smart,
- 11:03Speaker 1: I find that laughable at best, but the charming part?
- 11:08Speaker 1: There's no doubt that he had some charisma, and that
- 11:11Speaker 1: people wanted to hang out with him. I don't know
- 11:14Speaker 1: if that's just the money or if the dude actually
- 11:17Speaker 1: had a bit of charm. I've never met the guy.
- 11:19Speaker 1: But the fact is, everybody tells the same story. He
- 11:22Speaker 1: was an engaging guy, and most of these scumbags are, right?
- 11:26Speaker 1: They'll get you to lower your guard. You'll get comfortable
- 11:29Speaker 1: around them. Oh, this is just a nice old guy. Look,
- 11:32Speaker 1: he loves his mom. And before you know it, he's
- 11:34Speaker 1: engaging in all kinds of abuse. She recognizes now how
- 11:40Speaker 1: his energetic charm contributed to a Stockholm Syndrome kind of feel,
- 11:44Speaker 1: leading her to stay working for the man who became
- 11:47Speaker 1: her abuser on this sordid island for five years. She
- 11:52Speaker 1: lived on the island of St. Thomas and would be
- 11:54Speaker 1: picked up whenever Maxwell and Epstein were staying on Little St. James.
- 11:58Speaker 1: In between their visits to Florida, New York, London, and
- 12:02Speaker 1: wherever else their glamorous lives took them. Let's not forget
- 12:05Speaker 1: Zorro Ranch. Guess what? I am never going to stop
- 12:09Speaker 1: talking about Zorro Ranch. Sorry, it's just never going to stop.
- 12:13Speaker 1: Until something happens about Zorro Ranch, until someone raids the place,
- 12:18Speaker 1: until there's an actual investigation about what went down there, Sorry,
- 12:23Speaker 1: I'm going to keep talking about it. Because what secrets
- 12:27Speaker 1: does Zorro Ranch continue to hide? It was Epstein's interest
- 12:32Speaker 1: in Rhodes' dreams of singing for a living that led
- 12:35Speaker 1: to the first violation. With seemingly limitless connections, the financier, pedophile,
- 12:42Speaker 1: offered to fly Rhodes to New York on his private jet,
- 12:45Speaker 1: dubbed the Lolita Express, to meet with executives from the
- 12:48Speaker 1: music labels EMI and Universal. Oh, that's nice. Record execs
- 12:54Speaker 1: being used as parts and pieces of Jeffrey Epstein's plots
- 12:58Speaker 1: and schemes. You know what's so funny about that? If
- 13:01Speaker 1: your friend was engaging in a criminal conspiracy and he
- 13:05Speaker 1: got slapped with Rico, and you were setting up meetings
- 13:09Speaker 1: and being involved in business with them, you'd be part
- 13:11Speaker 1: of that RICO case. But if you're the head of,
- 13:14Speaker 1: you know, EMI or Universal or anybody else who has
- 13:18Speaker 1: a little bit of a sway, forget it. That doesn't
- 13:20Speaker 1: apply to you. And it's very transparent at this point
- 13:26Speaker 1: that that's the reason RICO wasn't used. They didn't want
- 13:29Speaker 1: the wide-ranging scope. They wanted it to be narrow in
- 13:32Speaker 1: scope so they can act like, hey, look, we gave
- 13:35Speaker 1: you guys a little bit of a victory here. Let's
- 13:37Speaker 1: move on. But the fact is this, that's not going
- 13:40Speaker 1: to happen. Sure, it's a good victory. It's nice to
- 13:42Speaker 1: have Maxwell locked up forever or hopefully close to forever,
- 13:46Speaker 1: but it's not over. What about all these other scumbags?
- 13:51Speaker 1: On the flight back with Maxwell and a group of scientists,
- 13:54Speaker 1: among her fellow passengers, Rhodes was told to give Epstein
- 13:58Speaker 1: a massage. I had to massage his nipples while he masturbated,
- 14:02Speaker 1: she reveals in the Channel 4 documentary, looking like she
- 14:05Speaker 1: can barely find it within herself to say the words.
- 14:08Speaker 1: I mean, for real, bro? You're on your plane, and
- 14:13Speaker 1: you have to have this girl touch you while you
- 14:17Speaker 1: diddle your own nipples? It just shows you the sort
- 14:20Speaker 1: of sick duty is. You know, most people can hang
- 14:23Speaker 1: on and wait till they get home, have their wife
- 14:25Speaker 1: or their girlfriend, you know, get down with whatever they
- 14:27Speaker 1: want to get down with. Like I said, whatever you
- 14:30Speaker 1: do in your bedroom with your wife, your husband, your girlfriend,
- 14:33Speaker 1: any consenting adult, I do not care. If you want
- 14:36Speaker 1: to rub your nipples in honey and run around the
- 14:39Speaker 1: house and call yourself Scott, go for it. Not my business.
- 14:43Speaker 1: But when these sick bastards like Jeffrey Epstein prey on
- 14:47Speaker 1: these young girls and do all this disgusting shit, it
- 14:50Speaker 1: just goes to show you the sort of people that
- 14:53Speaker 1: they really were. And the fact that some people are
- 14:56Speaker 1: still refusing to believe the scope of what went on
- 14:59Speaker 1: here is just beyond me. Shocked at what was going on,
- 15:07Speaker 1: she asked herself, what the fuck is happening right now?
- 15:12Speaker 1: She tried to avert her eyes. I just wasn't looking
- 15:15Speaker 1: at his face. I was looking beyond him, trying to
- 15:18Speaker 1: separate myself, take myself out of my body. It was
- 15:21Speaker 1: my payment from having been flown up from New York
- 15:26Speaker 1: and given these opportunities on such a high and then
- 15:29Speaker 1: such a low. And it's the thousand yard stare. How
- 15:33Speaker 1: many people come home from war and they have something
- 15:36Speaker 1: called the thousand yard stare where they just basically stare
- 15:39Speaker 1: through people. And a lot of that has to do with,
- 15:42Speaker 1: you know, trauma that was suffered while in the war.
- 15:46Speaker 1: And it's no different here. When you suffer this kind
- 15:48Speaker 1: of trauma, there is no doubt the gigantic toll it's
- 15:52Speaker 1: going to take on you for the rest of your life.
- 15:55Speaker 1: And unfortunately, we're seeing that with Gretchen here, with Miss Rhodes.
- 16:00Speaker 1: She is certainly, certainly going to feel this for the
- 16:04Speaker 1: rest of her life and have to deal with these
- 16:06Speaker 1: emotions and feelings. And it's all because Jeffrey Epstein and
- 16:11Speaker 1: Ghislaine Maxwell were allowed to continue their spree of crime, disgustingness,
- 16:16Speaker 1: human trafficking, rape, and the rest of it right under
- 16:20Speaker 1: the noses of the SDNY. You know, the same jerk-offs
- 16:24Speaker 1: who get on Twitter all the time or on the
- 16:26Speaker 1: TV and start running their mouths about this, that, or
- 16:29Speaker 1: the other thing when they let one of the most
- 16:32Speaker 1: prolific human trafficking rings of all time just run rampant
- 16:37Speaker 1: in their district? So when I bag on the SDNY,
- 16:41Speaker 1: that's why I do it. This stuff was happening right
- 16:45Speaker 1: under their eyes, right under their noses, and they didn't
- 16:48Speaker 1: do a thing about it. All right, folks, that's going
- 16:51Speaker 1: to end Episode 1, Part 1 for this two-part story.
- 16:58Speaker 1: Part 2 is certainly on its way. If you'd like
- 17:01Speaker 1: to contact me, you can do that at bobbycapucci at protonmail.com.
- 17:06Speaker 1: That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I at protonmail.com. You can also find me on
- 17:13Speaker 1: Twitter at B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I. The link that I discussed
- 17:20Speaker 1: can be found in the description box. All right, folks,
- 17:23Speaker 1: like I said, part two on its way.