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How Was The Epstein Survivor Compensation Fund Administered? · The Vault: The Epstein Files

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles.
0:04
Speaker 1: For the past couple of days, we've been discussing juror
0:07
Speaker 1: number 50, Scotty David, and the situation that has unfolded
0:13
Speaker 1: after he gave his interview to the media. Now the
0:17
Speaker 1: question has been, did he lie during that questionnaire or not?
0:21
Speaker 1: That's really the only question that matters. And unfortunately... There
0:27
Speaker 1: are reports coming out now from very reliable sources that
0:32
Speaker 1: he did in fact lie on that questionnaire. So, if
0:37
Speaker 1: that is the case, and he lied on that questionnaire,
0:40
Speaker 1: you can almost guarantee Ghislaine Maxwell is going to get
0:46
Speaker 1: another trial. Now, as much as that is painful to say,
0:54
Speaker 1: you can't have a juror engage in behavior such as this.
0:58
Speaker 1: And even though she's a monster, even though I don't
1:03
Speaker 1: really like to use the word hate in just about
1:06
Speaker 1: any circumstance, but when it comes to these people, I
1:09
Speaker 1: truly hate them. And that hatred burns like a thousand suns.
1:14
Speaker 1: But she still deserves to have a fair trial. And
1:18
Speaker 1: for those of you who have listened to me for
1:19
Speaker 1: a long time, you know that's been one of the
1:22
Speaker 1: big points that I've always tried to make. You know,
1:25
Speaker 1: it's all fine and well when we say, oh, I
1:27
Speaker 1: hope this person rots in prison forever. And some people
1:30
Speaker 1: do deserve that, right? People like Elaine Maxwell. But there
1:34
Speaker 1: are people who are in the prison system for crimes
1:37
Speaker 1: much less than this who are really not getting a
1:41
Speaker 1: fair shake. And the prison system in general, the for-profit
1:46
Speaker 1: prison system here in the United States, is a big problem.
1:51
Speaker 1: They don't care about rehabilitation for the most part. They're
1:54
Speaker 1: looking to keep that workforce nice and plump. And when
1:59
Speaker 1: you look at the whole entire thing, meaning the whole
2:02
Speaker 1: entire Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, it's rather
2:06
Speaker 1: obvious to anybody but the most stuck-in-the-water partisan at this
2:12
Speaker 1: point that all of these institutions are dumpster fires. So...
2:19
Speaker 1: When you have a situation such as this, and there
2:22
Speaker 1: was germ misconduct, I can't sit here and act like
2:26
Speaker 1: that shouldn't make a difference, because it should. So if
2:30
Speaker 1: it does come out that he lied on that questionnaire,
2:33
Speaker 1: like the reports are saying right now, buckle up, folks,
2:36
Speaker 1: because this is all going to start from the beginning.
2:40
Speaker 1: The whole trial process, all of that stuff, that's going
2:43
Speaker 1: to happen all over again. And these survivors are once
2:49
Speaker 1: again going to have to be forced to relive all
2:52
Speaker 1: of this trauma being dragged through the mud and all
2:55
Speaker 1: of the rest of it because this guy thought it
2:58
Speaker 1: would be a good idea to not answer honestly when
3:01
Speaker 1: asked questions to get onto the jury. And I'll never
3:05
Speaker 1: understand the psyche of people. And I guess maybe I'm
3:08
Speaker 1: not supposed to. I'm not a trained psychologist or anything
3:11
Speaker 1: like that. So I'll never understand why somebody would want
3:14
Speaker 1: to cause these kinds of waves. Like, just be honest
3:19
Speaker 1: on the questionnaire, homie. There's many of other people out
3:22
Speaker 1: there who would have filled the spot as a juror
3:25
Speaker 1: and had no issues. But there's always somebody who wants
3:29
Speaker 1: to be the hero of the story, isn't there? Always
3:31
Speaker 1: somebody with these goddang delusions of grandeur. And if it
3:36
Speaker 1: comes out and it's confirmed what we're hearing right now,
3:39
Speaker 1: literally as I'm recording this episode at 3.54 p.m. Pacific time, then...
3:46
Speaker 1: It's obvious that this dude was up to who knows
3:51
Speaker 1: what and why, but the ramifications of his decision are
3:56
Speaker 1: going to loom large. And again, I am not a
4:01
Speaker 1: lawyer or anything like that, but looking at it, you
4:05
Speaker 1: would have to think that it's almost a slam dunk
4:08
Speaker 1: that this will be ruled a mistrial if it's found
4:12
Speaker 1: that he did lie. So I'm guessing we're going to
4:14
Speaker 1: hear a lot more about that very, very soon. But tonight,
4:18
Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about until we get some
4:21
Speaker 1: more information about that, I think we've covered all of
4:24
Speaker 1: our bases so far in the last couple of days
4:26
Speaker 1: with the information available. I'm not going to speculate much
4:29
Speaker 1: further than we have on that issue. And tomorrow morning,
4:33
Speaker 1: I'm guessing we'll have some more information about it and
4:36
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it on the morning update. Tonight, what
4:39
Speaker 1: we're going to do is we're going to talk about
4:42
Speaker 1: the compensation funds. And Insider has a pretty good article
4:45
Speaker 1: by Jacob Shamsian that goes into, you know, some of
4:50
Speaker 1: the particulars from the compensation fund. Now, this has always
4:55
Speaker 1: been a hot button issue as far as the survivors
4:59
Speaker 1: go and people following the case. I've always took the
5:02
Speaker 1: position that it's really not up to me what people
5:07
Speaker 1: accept as far as their compensations. right? It's not my business.
5:11
Speaker 1: If the survivor and their lawyer are happy with the
5:15
Speaker 1: compensation offered to them and they accept it, then great.
5:17
Speaker 1: If they're not happy with it, then I understand that
5:20
Speaker 1: as well. My point is, I'm not the person who
5:23
Speaker 1: was abused, right? So I'm not going to sit up
5:25
Speaker 1: here and talk about, oh, she should do this or
5:27
Speaker 1: she shouldn't accept this because I don't know what they're
5:31
Speaker 1: going through, what sort of hurdles have been thrown at
5:34
Speaker 1: them in their lives and how this money can change
5:36
Speaker 1: things for them. So that has always been my position
5:40
Speaker 1: with the compensation fund. Now, as far as how it
5:43
Speaker 1: was managed and, you know, the way the executors had
5:47
Speaker 1: a little bit of too much of a say-so in
5:49
Speaker 1: my opinion, I've been very critical of that aspect of it.
5:54
Speaker 1: And I remain critical of that aspect. I think that
5:56
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein's money should have been brought to these survivors.
6:00
Speaker 1: They should have gathered all of them somewhere, 225 of them.
6:04
Speaker 1: In like a park or something. And then they should
6:06
Speaker 1: have just backed up Brinks trucks full of money. And
6:09
Speaker 1: gave it to the survivors. Not one dollar of this
6:11
Speaker 1: money should have went anywhere else. And that goes for
6:14
Speaker 1: the United States government too. The government should have said
6:18
Speaker 1: you know what. We're cool. Let all these girls get
6:21
Speaker 1: paid out. And then whatever's left over after everybody's been
6:24
Speaker 1: fairly compensated. Then we'll take that as our cut as
6:28
Speaker 1: far as his taxes or whatever. Obviously, government never does that,
6:33
Speaker 1: but that would have been the right thing to do,
6:36
Speaker 1: considering how much money was kiped from this compensation fund
6:42
Speaker 1: via taxes. And we still know that there's unsold land.
6:47
Speaker 1: The Zorro Ranch, the Virgin Islands hasn't been sold. You know,
6:51
Speaker 1: what about all of this money? Where's that going to
6:52
Speaker 1: go now that the compensation fund has winded down? Let
6:55
Speaker 1: me guess, Jeffrey Epstein's brother? Let me guess, Darren Indyke
6:58
Speaker 1: or Richard Kahn? pretty amazing to me. I would think
7:05
Speaker 1: that every single dollar would have been drained from this
7:07
Speaker 1: account and given over to the survivors. But I guess
7:11
Speaker 1: that's not how it works, right? I guess everybody else
7:14
Speaker 1: has to wet their beak as well. Now, the way
7:19
Speaker 1: it was facilitated and the people who facilitated it, I
7:23
Speaker 1: am not really big fans of their work with the
7:25
Speaker 1: 9-11 fund either. But at the same time, It's got
7:30
Speaker 1: to be a difficult job, right? A messy ass job.
7:32
Speaker 1: It's easy for me to sit here and criticize how
7:35
Speaker 1: it's put into effect and how they administer it from
7:40
Speaker 1: my studio here in Las Vegas. But as an outside observer,
7:45
Speaker 1: I think that there were a few things that could
7:47
Speaker 1: have been done differently, right? So why don't we jump
7:52
Speaker 1: into this article, like I said, from Jacob Shamsian over
7:54
Speaker 1: at Insider.com. And let's take a look at what he
7:58
Speaker 1: has to say about the compensation fund and the way
8:02
Speaker 1: it was administered. Headline. Inside the messy effort to compensate
8:09
Speaker 1: 225 Jeffrey Epstein accusers. You mean survivors, right? If they
8:13
Speaker 1: got compensated, that means that the estate took responsibility for
8:18
Speaker 1: what occurred, for what happened to them, for what they
8:21
Speaker 1: were accusing Epstein of. If they weren't accepting responsibility, why
8:27
Speaker 1: would they be paying all this money out? Wouldn't they
8:29
Speaker 1: be fighting this in court? If they were so confident
8:32
Speaker 1: that Jeffrey Epstein was such a great guy and didn't
8:34
Speaker 1: do any of this, don't you think the estate would
8:37
Speaker 1: have fought it in court instead of setting up a
8:39
Speaker 1: compensation program? So they're not accusers anymore, right? They're survivors.
8:45
Speaker 1: Give them the moniker that they deserved. I mean, their
8:49
Speaker 1: victories are fleeting when it comes to this case. We
8:52
Speaker 1: should at least acknowledge who they are and what they are.
8:55
Speaker 1: Accuser means somebody who hasn't had their accusations proven yet, right?
9:00
Speaker 1: Or proved yet. But that's obviously not the case here,
9:03
Speaker 1: considering they got paid out. Jordana Feldman, like many Americans,
9:09
Speaker 1: lived through a pandemic defined by hundreds of Zoom meetings.
9:12
Speaker 1: Unlike many Americans, she held meetings from June 2020 to
9:15
Speaker 1: August 2021. With 200 women who were all there to
9:21
Speaker 1: talk about the same subject. Sexual abuse at the hands
9:25
Speaker 1: of Jeffrey Epstein. Now think about that number for a minute, folks.
9:28
Speaker 1: 200 women? 225 women received compensation from this fund. How
9:35
Speaker 1: many more are out there that we never heard about?
9:40
Speaker 1: How many more? Now, I wish I had an answer
9:43
Speaker 1: to that question. There's not even a way to begin
9:47
Speaker 1: to try and track that down. I call them the
9:49
Speaker 1: unknown girls and the unknown women. And it's pretty frightening
9:54
Speaker 1: to think how many could possibly be out there. Feldman
10:00
Speaker 1: was the administrator of the Epstein Victim's Compensation Program. Announced
10:04
Speaker 1: in November 2019, the fund served two purposes. It would
10:08
Speaker 1: offer some form of justice for survivors of the well-connected financier, pedophile,
10:13
Speaker 1: who killed himself in jail, allegedly, while awaiting trial on
10:17
Speaker 1: federal sex trafficking charges. And it would protect Epstein's estate
10:21
Speaker 1: from an avalanche of lawsuits brought by accusers who wanted
10:25
Speaker 1: a piece of the $ 630 million in assets he left behind.
10:30
Speaker 1: And that figure is way off, by the way. Can
10:33
Speaker 1: I prove that? I cannot. But we all know this
10:36
Speaker 1: dude was working overseas, making moves. He had all his
10:40
Speaker 1: own little bank set up shop in Virgin Islands. He
10:43
Speaker 1: had all kinds of stuff going on. So you really
10:45
Speaker 1: think this dude didn't have money stashed offshore somewhere? A
10:49
Speaker 1: dead man's account? 100%. And once again, can we get
10:54
Speaker 1: a full-on forensic investigation, a financial forensic investigation into all
11:00
Speaker 1: of this? What are they waiting for? Oh, that's right.
11:05
Speaker 1: If they dig into the financials, we all know how
11:08
Speaker 1: that goes. What's the saying on the street? Follow the money, right?
11:12
Speaker 1: Get yourself to the drug dealer. Well... In politics and
11:16
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, you follow the money and you
11:18
Speaker 1: wind up in a politician's office. So that's why they're
11:21
Speaker 1: not digging deeper. The compensation program, the thinking went, was
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Speaker 1: a clean way to secure a good outcome for everyone involved.
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Speaker 1: Epstein's accusers could seek compensation without the messiness of a
11:35
Speaker 1: public lawsuit. Epstein's longtime attorneys, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn...
11:40
Speaker 1: Richard Kahn is an accountant, not an attorney, just to
11:43
Speaker 1: be clear. I mean, didn't act in that capacity for
11:46
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein anyway. Darren Indyke was his in-house attorney. He
11:50
Speaker 1: was his, you know, the guy that was there when
11:55
Speaker 1: everything was going on. You know, all of the nonsense,
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Speaker 1: the checks being signed, paying people off. It was his
12:01
Speaker 1: in-house lawyer, right? His Tom Hagen. Epstein's longtime attorneys, Darren
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Speaker 1: Indyke and Richard Kahn, who'd been busy trying to liquidate
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Speaker 1: Epstein's vast estate while fending off the Attorney General in
12:17
Speaker 1: the U.S. Virgin Islands, could resolve the claims more quickly
12:21
Speaker 1: outside the court system. Oh, I'm sure. Of course they can, right?
12:25
Speaker 1: And who knows what other kind of nonsense they were
12:28
Speaker 1: up to. You know, you really think these guys were
12:31
Speaker 1: playing by the rules? Feldman had to figure out how
12:35
Speaker 1: to put a dollar amount on the sexual assaults of
12:37
Speaker 1: a couple of hundred women and make sure the estate's
12:40
Speaker 1: co-executors didn't meddle too much. She failed there, by the way,
12:43
Speaker 1: in my opinion. She would also have to persuade the women,
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Speaker 1: many of whom were already jaded after the Justice Department
12:50
Speaker 1: kept them in the dark while making a secret plea
12:52
Speaker 1: deal with Epstein in 2007, that the program was worth
12:55
Speaker 1: the emotional cost of baring their souls. And that's the
12:59
Speaker 1: thing we have to keep in mind here. These ladies
13:02
Speaker 1: have been absolutely treated like trash by the federal government.
13:08
Speaker 1: The actual law that was put on the books, the
13:11
Speaker 1: people who wrote the law, they filed an amicus brief
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Speaker 1: on the half of the survivors over the Victim's Rights Act.
13:19
Speaker 1: The people who actually wrote the law. And the courts
13:22
Speaker 1: still saw it a different way. So if that doesn't
13:24
Speaker 1: tell you that these judges... Look at their courtrooms like
13:28
Speaker 1: their own little fiefdoms. I don't know what will. The
13:31
Speaker 1: people who actually wrote the law are telling you that
13:36
Speaker 1: you're not applying it correctly. And still they go on
13:39
Speaker 1: to apply it the way they want. Feldman's process was secretive.
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Speaker 1: She wouldn't explain how she arrived at her dollar amounts.
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Speaker 1: The women would sign a document guaranteeing they'd drop any
13:51
Speaker 1: claims against Epstein they'd made since the beginning of the world,
13:55
Speaker 1: and they'd cede the right to file lawsuits against Epstein's
13:58
Speaker 1: alleged accomplices, including Ghislaine Maxwell, who was found guilty last
14:03
Speaker 1: week of trafficking girls for Epstein to sexually abuse. How
14:07
Speaker 1: hard could it all be? And I never liked the
14:10
Speaker 1: secretive aspect of this from the beginning, but again... It's
14:15
Speaker 1: really not, you know, my place to dive in there. Like,
14:18
Speaker 1: when it comes to these girls getting paid out, I
14:20
Speaker 1: really don't have an opinion one way or the other.
14:23
Speaker 1: You know, that's their decision, depending on whatever their circumstances are.
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Speaker 1: Compensation funds gained popularity as an alternative to court litigation
14:33
Speaker 1: after 9-11, when Congress established a fund for families who
14:37
Speaker 1: would have otherwise sued airlines into bankruptcy. Oh, yeah, you know,
14:41
Speaker 1: the whole too big to fail. The funny part is
14:43
Speaker 1: they'd sue those airlines into bankruptcy, right? But other companies
14:47
Speaker 1: would pop up in their place. Basically, what they were
14:50
Speaker 1: scared of is their big donors at these companies, these
14:56
Speaker 1: airline companies, not giving them their bag anymore, not donating
15:00
Speaker 1: to their cause. So, oh, let's just set up a
15:02
Speaker 1: fund instead. The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund was overseen
15:08
Speaker 1: by Kenneth Feinberg, an attorney whose work was dramatized last
15:11
Speaker 1: year in a Netflix movie starring Michael Keaton, who had
15:15
Speaker 1: taught Feldman in law school. Feldman was working at a
15:19
Speaker 1: firm a few blocks from the World Trade Center when
15:21
Speaker 1: the towers fell. When she learned her former professor would
15:24
Speaker 1: run the compensation program, she wanted to get involved. Over
15:28
Speaker 1: the next two decades, the 9-11 Fund became a model
15:31
Speaker 1: for compensation programs everywhere. Feldman worked with Feinberg to establish
15:36
Speaker 1: and administer funds for people who suffered health problems from
15:40
Speaker 1: asbestos and breast implants and for victims of sexual abuse
15:44
Speaker 1: within the Catholic Church. So this is like a cottage
15:47
Speaker 1: industry to them. And remember, they look at this as
15:50
Speaker 1: like a business, right? I highly doubt they're sitting around
15:53
Speaker 1: and they're really concerned about the people they're trying to
15:55
Speaker 1: get this money for. It might be a cynical way
15:58
Speaker 1: to look at it for me. And again, I don't
16:00
Speaker 1: know Ms. Feldman as far as I can throw her.
16:03
Speaker 1: But it would seem to me that this is, at
16:05
Speaker 1: the end of the day, let's remember, a business to
16:07
Speaker 1: these people. They're not doing it for free. After Epstein
16:12
Speaker 1: died in jail in August 2019, the financiers, two private jets, pedophile,
16:17
Speaker 1: two islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands, real estate holdings,
16:20
Speaker 1: and many other assets had to be liquidated to pay
16:23
Speaker 1: a $ 190 million tax bill. Indycan Khan, the estate's executor's,
16:29
Speaker 1: also had to address litigation from Epstein's many accusers, who
16:33
Speaker 1: were bereft of the opportunity to face him in court.
16:36
Speaker 1: Once he was in the grave, even more women stepped forward. Well,
16:40
Speaker 1: that's how it usually works when you have a powerful
16:42
Speaker 1: person die, who was up to no good. People aren't
16:45
Speaker 1: scared anymore, or as scared anymore, to come forward and
16:48
Speaker 1: tell their story. So you saw a lot of that
16:51
Speaker 1: in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein's death. So Indyk and
16:54
Speaker 1: Kahn called Feinberg. The program they ultimately established for Epstein's
16:59
Speaker 1: survivors promised a measure of justice that had eluded them
17:03
Speaker 1: in court, the attorney Gloria Allred said. It took a
17:07
Speaker 1: great deal of courage for the survivors to share the
17:09
Speaker 1: details of how Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficked or sexually victimized them. Allred,
17:15
Speaker 1: who represents 20 of Epstein's survivors, told Insider, many of
17:19
Speaker 1: them are suffering from what he did to them many
17:21
Speaker 1: years ago. And there has been little or no justice
17:24
Speaker 1: for them in the criminal justice system. Amen. There really hasn't.
17:28
Speaker 1: It's very rare that you're going to hear me agree
17:30
Speaker 1: with Gloria Allred and her culture vulture kind of nonsense.
17:35
Speaker 1: But she's right here. There has been no justice in
17:39
Speaker 1: the system for these survivors. They have been absolutely treated horribly.
17:46
Speaker 1: And how many people have lost their job in the
17:48
Speaker 1: federal government because of it besides Acosta? The one scapegoat?
17:55
Speaker 1: The protocols for the compensation program were negotiated between November
17:59
Speaker 1: 2019 and February 2020 over a series of meetings between
18:04
Speaker 1: the Epstein Estates lawyers, Feinberg and Feldman, victims' attorneys, and
18:09
Speaker 1: the Office of the U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General, which
18:13
Speaker 1: still has its own legal claims over the estate. Now, remember...
18:17
Speaker 1: Denise George, the Attorney General down there, has a SECO case,
18:20
Speaker 1: which is a civil RICO case going against the estate.
18:26
Speaker 1: Several of the meetings were held in the Manhattan office
18:29
Speaker 1: of David Boies, the legendary attorney whose firm offered pro
18:32
Speaker 1: bono representation for several women in some of the longest
18:36
Speaker 1: court battles against Maxwell, Epstein, and Epstein's former friends, Alan
18:41
Speaker 1: Dershowitz and Prince Andrew. Feinberg arranged other meetings with the
18:45
Speaker 1: accuser's lawyers, At a neutral location. So we know that
18:49
Speaker 1: David Boies. Has been at the forefront here. Taking on Epstein.
18:54
Speaker 1: And Epstein's group of brutes. Throughout this whole entire thing.
18:58
Speaker 1: And again. I'm not a huge fan of lawyers in general.
19:01
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to sit here and tell you.
19:03
Speaker 1: David Boies is this great guy. Because he's a great character.
19:07
Speaker 1: But in this instance. Him and his office. Did the
19:11
Speaker 1: right thing. Taking these cases pro bono for sure. Now,
19:15
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they're not going to benefit from it.
19:17
Speaker 1: Of course they are. They're going to increase their profile,
19:20
Speaker 1: probably get book deals, whatever it may be. Survivors could
19:24
Speaker 1: participate in the program even if they had settled with
19:27
Speaker 1: Epstein's estate years earlier, or their claims would otherwise be
19:31
Speaker 1: outside of the statute of limitations. Feldman would independently administer
19:36
Speaker 1: the program so that Indyk and Kahn would be kept
19:38
Speaker 1: at arm's length, and survivors would deal with someone they trusted,
19:43
Speaker 1: That's debatable if they trusted Ms. Feldman. And again, I
19:46
Speaker 1: don't know Jordana Feldman. I don't know if she... a
19:50
Speaker 1: nice person or not. All I can go by is
19:52
Speaker 1: from what I've heard. The claims would be processed within
19:58
Speaker 1: 90 days, making things faster for survivors who would otherwise
20:02
Speaker 1: dangle for years in court. Eric Fodali... a partner at
20:06
Speaker 1: the Bloom firm who represents eight survivors, negotiated some of
20:10
Speaker 1: the compensation fund's protocols. Why shouldn't that not shock any
20:14
Speaker 1: of us? Figures Lisa Bloom's firm has somebody involved in it.
20:20
Speaker 1: Talk about showing up and just waiting to pick at
20:23
Speaker 1: the carcass. That's the kind of lawyers Allred and Bloom are,
20:27
Speaker 1: some of the most, man, detestable, in my opinion. He
20:35
Speaker 1: told Insider he made sure that the women wouldn't be
20:38
Speaker 1: penalized for waiting until after Epstein's death to come forward.
20:41
Speaker 1: Epstein instilled fear in all of them, Faduli said. He
20:45
Speaker 1: would show them pictures with him and these really important people.
20:49
Speaker 1: We heard a lot of important names in the trial already.
20:52
Speaker 1: And go as far as actually making physical threats, coded threats,
20:56
Speaker 1: and sometimes just outright threats against them and their families.
21:00
Speaker 1: We know he wasn't above that. We know he was blustery.
21:04
Speaker 1: And he loved to flex and loved to show all
21:07
Speaker 1: of the power he had when he had a 15
21:09
Speaker 1: or 16 year old girl from the hood over at
21:11
Speaker 1: his house. Yeah, real big, powerful, tough guy, huh? The
21:17
Speaker 1: programs began accepting applications in June 2020. Survivors or an
21:21
Speaker 1: attorney representing them had to fill out a questionnaire, give
21:24
Speaker 1: their personal information and a summary of their experience with Epstein,
21:28
Speaker 1: and offer supporting documentations. According to Feldman, more than 90%
21:33
Speaker 1: of the approximately 225 claimants who came forward requested an interview,
21:38
Speaker 1: which was optional. So I'm guessing a lot of these
21:41
Speaker 1: survivors wanted to tell their story and wanted to make
21:44
Speaker 1: sure they saw who was administering this face-to-face when they're
21:48
Speaker 1: talking about how they're going to be compensated. Allred told
21:53
Speaker 1: Insider that in these interviews, her clients laid out in
21:56
Speaker 1: detail their background, what their life was like before they
21:59
Speaker 1: met Epstein, and how Epstein had damaged them. Many of
22:03
Speaker 1: my clients found the courage and the compensation process to
22:06
Speaker 1: bear their souls to us and the administrators of the fund,
22:09
Speaker 1: Allred told Insider, and recount the details of what was
22:13
Speaker 1: done to them, even though it was very painful for
22:16
Speaker 1: them to recall what they were forced to suffer. And
22:19
Speaker 1: reliving that kind of stuff is never a good feeling,
22:21
Speaker 1: I'm guessing. I've never suffered trauma like that, so I
22:24
Speaker 1: won't even sit here and make pretend I know what
22:26
Speaker 1: it's like. But I have, you know, bad memories of
22:29
Speaker 1: times that weren't fun in my life, and I know
22:32
Speaker 1: I'd like to forget those memories. I can't even imagine
22:35
Speaker 1: a traumatic experience like this where you're forced to relive
22:38
Speaker 1: it multiple times. Feldman said Epstein's survivors found the interviews
22:44
Speaker 1: to be a form of catharsis. It's very enervating for
22:48
Speaker 1: these victims, Feldman said. It took so much out of them.
22:52
Speaker 1: We would hear stories of survivors who slept for 24
22:56
Speaker 1: hours after the meetings. And I know that I've had
23:00
Speaker 1: some stressful meetings before, you know, when Carrie was sick,
23:03
Speaker 1: going to doctor's appointments. And I felt like I've wanted
23:06
Speaker 1: to sleep for days on end. So I can only
23:09
Speaker 1: imagine what it must have been like after baring your
23:12
Speaker 1: soul and draining yourself spiritually, physically, emotionally, you name it,
23:17
Speaker 1: to tell your story. Feldman had expected to host many
23:23
Speaker 1: of the meetings in person, but the coronavirus pandemic forced
23:26
Speaker 1: the process to unfold on Zoom. It was an unexpected benefit,
23:30
Speaker 1: she said. Each survivor could be heard in a space
23:33
Speaker 1: of their choosing, without fear that their identity would be
23:36
Speaker 1: exposed if they were spotted walking into an office building.
23:40
Speaker 1: And that's how scummy Epstein's people have and always will be.
23:45
Speaker 1: You think they're above doing surveillance on these gals as
23:47
Speaker 1: they're going to talk to lawyers or funds or whatever
23:50
Speaker 1: so that they can try and demean their credibility? That's
23:53
Speaker 1: the kind of people we're dealing with here. From her
23:57
Speaker 1: home office in New York, Feldman steeled herself for each interview,
24:01
Speaker 1: drawing from her experience listening to 9-11 victims' families. She
24:05
Speaker 1: conducted all the interviews herself, offering the option for Marcy Hamilton...
24:09
Speaker 1: an advocate for victims of child sex abuse, who was
24:13
Speaker 1: recommended by attorneys representing Epstein's accusers to be on each
24:17
Speaker 1: call as well. In addition to whatever therapeutic value the
24:21
Speaker 1: interviews offered accusers, Feldman found they gave color, context, and
24:25
Speaker 1: dimension that became useful in crunching the numbers for what
24:29
Speaker 1: each survivor would receive. And again, this is an issue
24:33
Speaker 1: that some of the survivors definitely have brought up, that
24:36
Speaker 1: they feel, you know, some people have been compensated in
24:39
Speaker 1: more of a large manner than other people, and you
24:42
Speaker 1: know how it goes. The meetings are at the heart
24:46
Speaker 1: of the program, Feldman said. You can only capture so
24:49
Speaker 1: much in a paper filing when you're talking about harm
24:52
Speaker 1: like this. Fidali said many of his clients had withdrawn
24:56
Speaker 1: into a fragile emotional estate before making their claims. The interviews,
25:00
Speaker 1: he said, transformed them. They were finally getting closure to
25:04
Speaker 1: this Epstein nightmare, Faduli said. This was the beginning of
25:07
Speaker 1: a new chapter of their lives that Jeffrey Epstein was
25:10
Speaker 1: no longer a part of. And that's for sure. It
25:13
Speaker 1: definitely had to be a close the door moment for
25:15
Speaker 1: some of these gals. You know, you've never received any
25:19
Speaker 1: kind of recognition for your claims. You've never had anybody
25:24
Speaker 1: respond to your claims in a positive manner. And then finally,
25:27
Speaker 1: after all of this, after all of these years, finally,
25:33
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein is being held responsible at the very least
25:36
Speaker 1: in death. And for some of these survivors, that did
25:40
Speaker 1: have to be a bit cathartic, right? Now, I get it.
25:43
Speaker 1: It's a consolation prize. Dude going to prison for the
25:46
Speaker 1: rest of his life, that's the grand prize. Unfortunately, that
25:50
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Unlike litigation, the interviews were non-confrontational. Lisa Bloom,
26:00
Speaker 1: who represented eight accusers along with Fidale, said the way
26:03
Speaker 1: Feldman treated the women was a far cry from how
26:06
Speaker 1: Maxwell's attorneys grilled accusers on the stand in her trial.
26:10
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons that a fund like this,
26:12
Speaker 1: one of the positives, right, a check in that category,
26:16
Speaker 1: because they're not going to be opened up to the
26:19
Speaker 1: blistering cross-examination of people like Menninger or Sternum in an
26:25
Speaker 1: environment such as this. The claims administrators were respectful and
26:33
Speaker 1: very fair in the way they asked the questions, Bloom said.
26:36
Speaker 1: It's a world of difference between the cross-examination that you
26:39
Speaker 1: see in the trial. Feldman didn't keep records or transcripts
26:43
Speaker 1: of each meeting. She did take notes, which she and
26:46
Speaker 1: her staff of about 10 people used to help to
26:48
Speaker 1: determine how much compensation each survivor's experience demanded. That was
26:53
Speaker 1: a unique challenge, Feldman and Allred said. You can't exactly
26:57
Speaker 1: punch someone's experience with sex trafficking into a calculator and
27:01
Speaker 1: accept the number it spits out. You can plug it
27:04
Speaker 1: in and say, okay, here's what happened. Therefore, you're entitled
27:07
Speaker 1: to this much, Allred said. And again, I don't think
27:10
Speaker 1: I'm qualified enough to even dive into that. I would
27:14
Speaker 1: think that the people who were abused the longest should
27:17
Speaker 1: probably get the lion's share. But everybody should get a
27:20
Speaker 1: fat payday. Anyone who was abused by this scumbag son
27:24
Speaker 1: of a bitch and his friends... should be getting that
27:26
Speaker 1: Brinks truck backed up to him. More than twice as
27:31
Speaker 1: many claimants stepped forward as Feldman had expected. The police
27:36
Speaker 1: in Palm Beach, Florida, who first investigated Epstein, had identified
27:40
Speaker 1: 34 survivors by 2006. Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter,
27:46
Speaker 1: whose perversion of justice series led to the federal sex
27:49
Speaker 1: trafficking charges against Epstein, said she identified about 80 survivors.
27:54
Speaker 1: Feldman expected about 100 women to make claims to the fund.
27:57
Speaker 1: That was the original number that they were throwing around,
28:00
Speaker 1: like 125. And then obviously it bloomed as more survivors
28:05
Speaker 1: came forward to tell their story. Of the approximately 225
28:12
Speaker 1: claimants who came forward by the March 2021 deadline, Feldman
28:16
Speaker 1: identified about 150 who would be eligible to receive compensation.
28:21
Speaker 1: She turned some claimants away after determining they couldn't substantiate
28:25
Speaker 1: their relationship with Epstein. Other claimants may have had decided
28:29
Speaker 1: to continue fighting the Epstein estate in court or declined
28:33
Speaker 1: to sign the estate's release form. In the end, 136
28:37
Speaker 1: accusers accepted the money. The fund paid out about $ 125
28:42
Speaker 1: million in total. The amount dispensed for each accuser varied wildly.
28:47
Speaker 1: And here's my biggest problem. How is the federal government
28:50
Speaker 1: getting $ 190 million and the survivors are only piecing up $ 1. 25?
28:57
Speaker 1: How is that fair? How is that right? Especially considering
29:01
Speaker 1: the government was in on it. You know, at least
29:04
Speaker 1: certain elements. No justice, providing protection, enabling the whole nine.
29:10
Speaker 1: So they should have foregone their cut and pieced it
29:14
Speaker 1: off to these survivors because that's ridiculous. Even if we
29:18
Speaker 1: say his estate was worth the $ 634 million that they
29:21
Speaker 1: say it was worth. How do the survivors only get
29:25
Speaker 1: $ 125 million? You can't just piece off another couple hundred
29:30
Speaker 1: million here. Where's the rest of this money going? Where
29:34
Speaker 1: is it gone? How much of it did Indyke and
29:36
Speaker 1: Kahn receive? Maxwell. child sex trafficking trial dispelled some of
29:42
Speaker 1: the secrecy around the compensation process. Before each of the
29:46
Speaker 1: trial's four accusers testified in court, Maxwell's attorneys subpoenaed material
29:50
Speaker 1: from the program and entered into evidence filings showing how
29:54
Speaker 1: much money Feldman had offered them. One of the accusers
29:57
Speaker 1: received $ 5 million from the Epstein Fund, while the other
30:00
Speaker 1: three received between $ 1. 5 million and $ 3. 25 million. Those numbers
30:06
Speaker 1: suggest that some other claimants received compensation in the low
30:10
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some Epstein survivors and their attorneys,
30:14
Speaker 1: watching the proceedings in overflow rooms from the Manhattan Federal Courthouse,
30:18
Speaker 1: grumbled about the gap in the numbers. And look! There's
30:23
Speaker 1: a legitimate gripe here. You imagine being abused by Jeffrey
30:26
Speaker 1: Epstein and you only get pieced off a couple of
30:29
Speaker 1: hundred grand? Meanwhile, there's another, what, some 400 million floating
30:33
Speaker 1: around somewhere, just, I guess, flying around in outer space.
30:37
Speaker 1: I'm sure our buddies in the CIA will get their
30:39
Speaker 1: hands on it at some point. The Compensations Program Protocol
30:44
Speaker 1: document doesn't reference Maxwell. But in closing arguments at the trial,
30:48
Speaker 1: the defense attorney, Laura Menninger, argued that Maxwell's accusers' lawyers,
30:52
Speaker 1: who helped shape the program, had embellished the women's stories
30:55
Speaker 1: to get more money from the fund. Every accuser who
30:59
Speaker 1: testified against Maxwell flatly denied that suggestion. And it was
31:03
Speaker 1: just BS on their lawyer's part, right? Throwing it against
31:06
Speaker 1: the wall. Let's see what we can come up with.
31:10
Speaker 1: And since the program closed in August, there is no
31:13
Speaker 1: longer any mechanism to pay out more money in compensation.
31:17
Speaker 1: David Boies, who represents 14 Epstein accusers, including Annie Farmer
31:21
Speaker 1: who testified against Maxwell in the trial, said Menninger's claims
31:25
Speaker 1: about the compensation fund made no sense. The survivors were
31:29
Speaker 1: compensated out of the compensation fund for the abuse they suffered,
31:33
Speaker 1: Boies told Insider. They were not compensated for cooperating with
31:36
Speaker 1: the government or doing anything else. And that's a fact.
31:41
Speaker 1: Two separate issues here. They just were running concurrently. These
31:46
Speaker 1: girls deserve even more money than they got. I'll take
31:50
Speaker 1: that to my grave. That's one thing I've been saying
31:53
Speaker 1: from the beginning. I'm not going to get down into
31:55
Speaker 1: the particulars about who should deserve what or anything like that.
31:58
Speaker 1: But I think that the Brinks trucks need to be
32:01
Speaker 1: backed up. Because when you're talking about only $ 125 million
32:05
Speaker 1: going out to these girls and... You look at where
32:10
Speaker 1: all that other money is, it's a what-the-hell-is-going-on-here kind of moment. Bloom,
32:16
Speaker 1: who has one client who made claims against Maxwell, said
32:20
Speaker 1: the human trafficker, not socialite, wasn't a factor in the
32:24
Speaker 1: compensation process. Our eight survivors, who we took through this
32:28
Speaker 1: process every step of the way, there was never any
32:31
Speaker 1: suggestion that they would get more money if they cooperated
32:34
Speaker 1: with the government or if they named Ghislaine Maxwell, she said.
32:38
Speaker 1: Feldman said that cooperating with law enforcement made no difference
32:41
Speaker 1: in how much money was given to the accusers. As
32:44
Speaker 1: the administrator of the program, who oversaw every aspect of
32:48
Speaker 1: the program, implemented the terms of the protocol, participated in
32:52
Speaker 1: every communication with counsel, reviewed every claim and made every
32:56
Speaker 1: determination that is misinformed, Feldman said of Maxwell's defense, that
33:01
Speaker 1: is wrong. And that's, everyone knows that, right? Again, You
33:06
Speaker 1: gotta take it with a grain of salt when you
33:08
Speaker 1: have lawyers like Maxwell's going ham in a courtroom. They're
33:12
Speaker 1: doing everything they can to punch holes into the stories
33:15
Speaker 1: of these survivors, and if they can have a money
33:18
Speaker 1: angle on that, so much the better. The Epstein Victim's
33:22
Speaker 1: Compensation Program didn't have a fixed pot of money to
33:25
Speaker 1: split among accusers, and Feldman said there wasn't some grand
33:28
Speaker 1: matrix or algorithm she used to calculate the amount of
33:32
Speaker 1: money each woman would receive. She and her staff used
33:35
Speaker 1: other programs, including the 9-11 Fund and the Catholic Church
33:39
Speaker 1: Sex Abuse Fund, as frames of reference. What was the
33:43
Speaker 1: age of the victim at the time of the abuse?
33:45
Speaker 1: How severe was the abuse? How frequent? What impact did
33:49
Speaker 1: it have on the claimant? What's the extent of corroboration
33:53
Speaker 1: and then the overall credibility of the claims? Those were
33:56
Speaker 1: among the driving factors in the evaluation, she said. There
34:00
Speaker 1: is a certain level of objectivity and it's coupled with
34:03
Speaker 1: a subjective assessment of the facts and circumstances presented in
34:07
Speaker 1: each claim, she added. It's a judgment call based on
34:10
Speaker 1: experience and the totality of information. So basically what she's
34:14
Speaker 1: saying is she was the grand poobah of all of this.
34:18
Speaker 1: She's the one who decided who got what, when they
34:21
Speaker 1: got it, and how they got it. So you can
34:25
Speaker 1: take that for what you will. And I know that
34:28
Speaker 1: the opinions as far as this compensation fund are all
34:31
Speaker 1: across the board, depending on who you speak with. Feldman
34:36
Speaker 1: was reticent in describing just how the amounts were determined.
34:40
Speaker 1: Survivors submitted materials similar to what you'd expect in a
34:43
Speaker 1: lawsuit or journalistic expose, diary entries, calendars, and statements from
34:49
Speaker 1: friends or family members describing accounts. Some programs, it might
34:54
Speaker 1: be more like, check the box here, Feldman said. It's
34:57
Speaker 1: obviously more narrative-driven in a case like this. Yeah, you think?
35:01
Speaker 1: The story needs to be told. That's the whole point.
35:04
Speaker 1: These ladies were never allowed to tell their story. The
35:07
Speaker 1: scoundrels in the legacy media never picked up the mantle.
35:12
Speaker 1: Nobody at the big networks cared. So these ladies took
35:16
Speaker 1: the story to social media. They took it to you.
35:22
Speaker 1: Feldman's team cross-referenced that information with other material to evaluate
35:26
Speaker 1: each survivor's credibility and determine how much money they should receive.
35:31
Speaker 1: Feldman also paid attention to academic literature on trauma and memory.
35:35
Speaker 1: Sexual abuse survivors, or any survivors of traumatic events, often
35:40
Speaker 1: have very vivid recollection of certain things and very hazy
35:44
Speaker 1: recollection or mixed-up time frames with others, she said. I'm
35:48
Speaker 1: looking at all of these things holistically. And she's not
35:52
Speaker 1: wrong about that. As we heard in the trial and
35:55
Speaker 1: we've heard elsewhere when you're doing research about this thing,
35:58
Speaker 1: the core memories remain. It's the other things that get
36:01
Speaker 1: a bit hazy. Some attorneys who represented multiple claimants inferred
36:06
Speaker 1: some patterns and principles for how Feldman's team determined compensation.
36:11
Speaker 1: Boyes observed that his clients who had lengthy abusive experiences
36:14
Speaker 1: with Epstein were granted more money than those who immediately
36:18
Speaker 1: escaped his grasp. There were women... who were sort of
36:21
Speaker 1: forced on one occasion to give him a massage that
36:24
Speaker 1: did not end with a sex act, who were treated
36:27
Speaker 1: somewhat differently than those who were forced into sex acts,
36:30
Speaker 1: he said. The overall principle was try to assess the
36:33
Speaker 1: extent of the abuse, both in terms of its nature
36:36
Speaker 1: and duration. And I think that ultimately came down to
36:40
Speaker 1: judgment that was somewhat subjective. And again, we're talking about
36:44
Speaker 1: judgment calls here. I'm not privy to all of the
36:48
Speaker 1: information that Jordana Feldman had, but I think it's kind
36:53
Speaker 1: of BS to use that approach, if I'm being honest.
36:58
Speaker 1: We should be looking at things like age and all
37:01
Speaker 1: kinds of other things, but I think that the whole
37:06
Speaker 1: way that it was administered probably could use some work.
37:12
Speaker 1: Feldman's wishy-washy explanation of the compensation accounts didn't sit well
37:16
Speaker 1: with every survivor. To them, her process was a black box.
37:21
Speaker 1: All she gave the women was a dollar figure with
37:23
Speaker 1: the opportunity to take it or leave it. See, I
37:25
Speaker 1: don't dig that either. I need context. As you all
37:28
Speaker 1: know by now, I'm big on context. And if this
37:31
Speaker 1: was me and I was trying to get a settlement,
37:34
Speaker 1: I'd want to know all the particulars. So I think
37:37
Speaker 1: it's kind of whack that they weren't able to dig
37:40
Speaker 1: in deeper like that. Things like the age and the circumstance,
37:47
Speaker 1: but no real specifics or nuances about why they arrived
37:51
Speaker 1: at certain numbers, Fudali said. Allred said the reaction among
37:54
Speaker 1: her clients to the amounts Feldman offered was mixed. Some
37:58
Speaker 1: of them were satisfied with the award, Allred said. There
38:01
Speaker 1: were others who felt that they were not fairly compensated
38:04
Speaker 1: for what Epstein did to them and the harm that
38:06
Speaker 1: they suffered. which they felt had been proven. I know
38:10
Speaker 1: I'd be pissed. Someone else is getting five, six, seven million,
38:13
Speaker 1: and they piece you off 200 grand? Yeah, I probably
38:16
Speaker 1: wouldn't be too happy about that either, to be honest
38:18
Speaker 1: with you. There was no way to appeal Feldman's compensation offer.
38:23
Speaker 1: Feldman herself sometimes reconsidered her judgment, but only if the
38:27
Speaker 1: accusers offered new information. If a survivor didn't like her
38:30
Speaker 1: offer and her claims weren't outside the legal statute of limitations,
38:34
Speaker 1: she could reject the offer and file a civil lawsuit,
38:37
Speaker 1: an option that wasn't typically available in other compensation programs,
38:41
Speaker 1: including the 9-11 Survivors Fund. Some victims did pursue litigation.
38:47
Speaker 1: That's a fact. There are some survivors who said to
38:50
Speaker 1: hold the compensation program. And for whatever reason, whatever circumstances
38:55
Speaker 1: that they might be living in, they were able to
38:57
Speaker 1: avoid getting the payout here. And they said, you know what?
39:00
Speaker 1: We're going to go to the mattresses. We're going to
39:02
Speaker 1: take this all the way. And we're going to see
39:04
Speaker 1: you in court. One of Allred's clients, a Russian national
39:10
Speaker 1: who filed her lawsuit under a pseudonym, sued the Epstein
39:13
Speaker 1: estate in October, alleging Epstein had repeatedly raped her for
39:17
Speaker 1: years up until his arrest in 2019. Two of Boyd's
39:22
Speaker 1: clients thought civil lawsuits would be their best chance at justice,
39:26
Speaker 1: and Bloom and Fudali had three clients who opted to
39:29
Speaker 1: keep their lawsuits going and ultimately settled with the estate.
39:34
Speaker 1: There are several other ongoing lawsuits against the estate, including
39:38
Speaker 1: one from a woman who alleged Epstein threatened to feed
39:41
Speaker 1: her to alligators if she told anyone about him sexually
39:44
Speaker 1: abusing her. I mean, these are the lengths that people
39:47
Speaker 1: like Epstein would go to. Now again, Why should anyone
39:51
Speaker 1: be shocked that somebody like Epstein would threaten somebody in
39:54
Speaker 1: such a manner? Allred said she found the total amount
39:59
Speaker 1: of money granted by the compensation fund particularly baffling. The
40:03
Speaker 1: program's protocol documentation says it had no cap or limitation
40:07
Speaker 1: on the aggregate amount of funds available. At one point,
40:10
Speaker 1: litigation in the U.S. Virgin Islands did lead to liquidity
40:15
Speaker 1: issues that forced the fund to pause. but the $ 125
40:19
Speaker 1: million the fund meted out was a fraction of the
40:22
Speaker 1: estate's value, and this is what I was talking about
40:24
Speaker 1: earlier here. It's a bunch of BS, in my opinion.
40:27
Speaker 1: When you have that kind of dough, and only one-sixth
40:30
Speaker 1: of it goes to the survivors, how is that fair?
40:34
Speaker 1: Given that the estate at one point was valued at
40:38
Speaker 1: $ 634 million, this seems, in my opinion, to be a
40:41
Speaker 1: very small amount paid to survivors for the harm that
40:43
Speaker 1: they suffered, Allred said. It's my opinion that survivors should
40:47
Speaker 1: have been compensated with a much larger share of Epstein's
40:51
Speaker 1: estate and that the amount awarded to many of them
40:54
Speaker 1: was insufficient and undervalued the sexual abuse that they suffered. Again,
40:59
Speaker 1: I hate to agree with Gloria Allred, but she's on
41:02
Speaker 1: to something here, folks. How is it that every penny
41:06
Speaker 1: of this wasn't doled over? Feldman said the amount she
41:14
Speaker 1: awarded reflected an individual and bottom-up, claim-by-claim approach based on
41:19
Speaker 1: her team's experience with other compensation programs. Boyce, Fudali, and
41:24
Speaker 1: Bloom told Insider that while the amounts Feldman granted were
41:27
Speaker 1: in line with what would be expected from a court settlement,
41:30
Speaker 1: they believe the estate should have doled out more. I'm
41:34
Speaker 1: of the opinion every single penny in the Jeffrey Epstein
41:37
Speaker 1: estate should have gone to the survivors, Fudali said. There
41:40
Speaker 1: should not have been a single cent left over for
41:42
Speaker 1: anything but compensation to the survivors. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
41:48
Speaker 1: and yes. Why isn't that the case? Where's the investigation
41:51
Speaker 1: into where all this other money has gone? There was
41:55
Speaker 1: one last step to take for survivors who wanted to
41:58
Speaker 1: accept the compensation program's offer, and it was outside Feldman's control.
42:03
Speaker 1: The women had to sign a release form that required
42:06
Speaker 1: them to promise not to sue Epstein's estate and to
42:09
Speaker 1: drop any lawsuits they may have against the estate or
42:14
Speaker 1: its administrators. This is how Indyk and Khan protected themselves.
42:18
Speaker 1: These two scuzzballs definitely need to be sat down and
42:23
Speaker 1: given some hard questions under oath. Are these two clowns
42:27
Speaker 1: for real? The provision was binding, including any cause or
42:36
Speaker 1: thing whatsoever from the beginning of the world through the
42:40
Speaker 1: date of this general release. The release form also included
42:44
Speaker 1: protections for anyone who had been employed by, worked in
42:47
Speaker 1: any capacity for, or provided any services to Mr. Epstein.
42:52
Speaker 1: That includes, in Daikin-Kan, the administrators, for whom prosecutors in
42:57
Speaker 1: the U.S. Virgin Islands have accused of facilitating Epstein's abuse, and...
43:03
Speaker 1: It includes Glenn Maxwell. You see how the estate was
43:06
Speaker 1: able to manipulate things here? And one thing that I've
43:09
Speaker 1: never liked from this is that the estate had any
43:12
Speaker 1: kind of control. They should have been told, look, you
43:14
Speaker 1: bunch of idiots, here's the deal. Either you give over
43:18
Speaker 1: full control to this fund or you're going to get
43:21
Speaker 1: sued into oblivion and you can guarantee that it's going
43:24
Speaker 1: to cost more than $ 125 million. Survivors had the opportunity
43:30
Speaker 1: to carve out certain individuals from the release form, preserving
43:34
Speaker 1: the right to sue them in court. Virginia, for example,
43:37
Speaker 1: reserved the right to sue Prince Andrew. Her sexual abuse
43:40
Speaker 1: case against him is ongoing. Andrew has strenuously denied Virginia's
43:45
Speaker 1: allegations of sexual abuse and has asked a judge to
43:48
Speaker 1: dismiss the lawsuit. The Epstein estate determined whether to approve
43:53
Speaker 1: the carve-outs, with Feldman acting as a liaison to the
43:56
Speaker 1: survivors' attorneys. So, again, when it comes to Indyke and Khan,
44:04
Speaker 1: and the way the agreement was penned, I am not
44:09
Speaker 1: really a fan, and I don't think that it was proper,
44:12
Speaker 1: to be honest with you. When survivors' attorneys asked to
44:17
Speaker 1: reserve the right to sue Maxwell, the estate rejected them.
44:20
Speaker 1: The estate also refused to permit carve-outs for Sarah Kellen
44:25
Speaker 1: or Leslie Groff, two other women accused of aiding Epstein
44:29
Speaker 1: and sexually abusing girls themselves. Indyk, Kahn, Kellen, and Groff
44:34
Speaker 1: have all denied wrongdoing. You see how they protect themselves?
44:37
Speaker 1: You see how they protect each other? They knew in
44:39
Speaker 1: Daikin Khan that if Kellen and Groff were brought before
44:45
Speaker 1: investigators or interrogators, the whole jig was up and they'd
44:48
Speaker 1: rat out in Daikin Khan. So what do they do?
44:51
Speaker 1: They get this compensation fund cooked up and then that
44:54
Speaker 1: offers them protection. And what they can say is, well,
44:57
Speaker 1: we're doing it because we want to move the process along.
45:00
Speaker 1: Really what they were up to is protecting themselves. Daniel
45:05
Speaker 1: Wiener An attorney for Indyke and Kahn, fitting name for
45:08
Speaker 1: someone who's defending those two guys, told Insider that Epstein's
45:11
Speaker 1: estate had to protect Maxwell because if it didn't, Maxwell
45:15
Speaker 1: would keep suing the estate for legal fees. In a
45:18
Speaker 1: lawsuit filed in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Maxwell said Epstein
45:21
Speaker 1: and Indyke promised to cover her legal costs, including the
45:25
Speaker 1: cost of fighting federal prosecution. The estate's executors have moved
45:29
Speaker 1: to dismiss the lawsuit. And Maxwell had said that Epstein
45:33
Speaker 1: had promised this a long time ago. And I believe
45:36
Speaker 1: he had even put it on paper or on a
45:39
Speaker 1: napkin or something like that. Something crazy. It would make
45:48
Speaker 1: no sense for the estate and would be inconsistent with
45:50
Speaker 1: the co-executor's fiduciary duties to the estate, including its creditors
45:55
Speaker 1: and remaining claimants. to pay out over $ 120 million in
45:58
Speaker 1: awards under the Epstein Victims' Compensation Program and then risk
46:03
Speaker 1: being dragged back into litigation, Wiener wrote in an email. Oh, please,
46:07
Speaker 1: stop it. This is all so that they could squirrel
46:10
Speaker 1: away a little bit more dough and not pay it
46:12
Speaker 1: out to the survivors. While Maxwell's trial had no effect
46:17
Speaker 1: on the compensation program, her inclusion in the release form did.
46:21
Speaker 1: Since accusers waive the right to sue the Epstein associates
46:24
Speaker 1: protected by the release, Feldman took credible accusations against those
46:28
Speaker 1: associates into account when determining how much money to award claimants,
46:32
Speaker 1: she said. Oh, well, isn't that nice? I mean, thankfully
46:36
Speaker 1: you're taking that into account, Ms. Feldman. We did consider
46:40
Speaker 1: the underlying allegations regarding the nature and extent of others,
46:44
Speaker 1: including Maxwell's involvement in facilitating, normalizing, or participating in the abuse,
46:49
Speaker 1: Feldman said. And I found those allegations to be credible.
46:53
Speaker 1: That was factored into the compensation determination. Again, we have
46:59
Speaker 1: to take her word for it and take her word
47:02
Speaker 1: for it that she did all of this in good faith.
47:05
Speaker 1: And I guess it's up to you to decide if
47:08
Speaker 1: this fund was administered correctly, if the payouts were given correctly.
47:12
Speaker 1: I know I'm of the mind of the fund as
47:16
Speaker 1: a whole. I don't really care for it. But I
47:19
Speaker 1: do like the fact that it basically is them taking
47:23
Speaker 1: responsibility for what Epstein did. So I think that's a
47:26
Speaker 1: big deal, right? Boyce said Maxwell's protection from civil litigation
47:34
Speaker 1: raised the stakes for the criminal case against her. The
47:37
Speaker 1: inability to hold Maxwell civilly accountable, it's frustrating, Boyce said.
47:42
Speaker 1: I think that has, in the survivors' minds, made accountability
47:45
Speaker 1: through the criminal process even more important. 100%. That's why
47:50
Speaker 1: it's so huge that Maxwell goes to prison here. And
47:54
Speaker 1: now that we have to deal with what is probably
47:56
Speaker 1: going to be a mistrial, it has really become a
47:59
Speaker 1: gigantic shit sandwich. The guilty verdict rendered last week was
48:05
Speaker 1: in Feldman's eyes vindication for the women who'd made the
48:08
Speaker 1: courageous decision to go public with their claims. Like the program,
48:12
Speaker 1: this is another independent body, the jury, that evaluated the
48:16
Speaker 1: testimony and other evidence present at the trial and concluded
48:20
Speaker 1: that the survivors were credible, the case was compelling, and
48:24
Speaker 1: the legal redress was appropriate and justified, Feldman said. And
48:28
Speaker 1: that's huge too, right? Now you have a jury and
48:31
Speaker 1: you have the compensation fund both saying that this stuff
48:35
Speaker 1: did occur, these girls were abused, can we stop calling
48:38
Speaker 1: them accusers, please? So there's a look at the compensation fund, folks,
48:45
Speaker 1: and a little bit of a behind the scenes on
48:47
Speaker 1: how it was administered. Now, again, I don't understand how
48:55
Speaker 1: there could be $ 634 million in the kitty and only
48:59
Speaker 1: $ 125 million goes to survivors. And I don't understand how
49:04
Speaker 1: there weren't more gigantic payouts. But one thing I will
49:08
Speaker 1: say is, at the very least, They had to take
49:13
Speaker 1: responsibility for what Epstein did here after they paid this
49:16
Speaker 1: money out. So that goes a long way for the survivor.
49:20
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. But I really think. That
49:25
Speaker 1: backing the Brinks truck up here. Would have been the
49:29
Speaker 1: right move. Alright folks. That's going to do it for
49:33
Speaker 1: us tonight. And like I said tomorrow morning. I'm guessing
49:36
Speaker 1: we're going to have more information. On Scotty David. and
49:40
Speaker 1: the situation surrounding the juror's conversation with the media and
49:46
Speaker 1: his alleged lying on the questionnaire. So we'll dig into
49:49
Speaker 1: that tomorrow as long as there's some more information on it.
49:52
Speaker 1: But either way, we'll be back tomorrow morning with the
49:55
Speaker 1: morning update and we'll see where we're at then. Until then,
50:01
Speaker 1: you can expect a couple of more context episodes and
50:04
Speaker 1: another That's Wild. So until then, folks, I hope all
50:07
Speaker 1: of you have a great night. If you'd like to
50:10
Speaker 1: contact me, you can do that at BobbyCapucci at ProtonMail.com.
50:14
Speaker 1: That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I at ProtonMail.com. You can also find me on
50:22
Speaker 1: Twitter at B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I. The link that we discussed
50:29
Speaker 1: can be found in the description box.