Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Lesley Groff and the Administrative Backbone of Epstein’s World (Part 3) (6/1/26)

Transcript

Lesley Groff and the Administrative Backbone of Epstein’s World (Part 3) (6/1/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
0:03
Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to get right
0:06
back to the article about Leslie Groff that was published
0:10
in The Guardian, and the author is Sophie Elmhurst. The
0:15
first time that Groff's name appeared in legal documents connected
0:18
to Epstein's crimes was in the secret plead deal he
0:21
made with the State Attorney's office in South Florida in
0:24
return for federal immunity and immunity for various assistants, including Grof.
0:30
Epstein agreed to plead guilty in two thousand and eight
0:33
to two low level state charges, which included the charge
0:36
of solicitation of miners to engage in prostitution. And she
0:40
still kept working for him after all that, So please
0:43
spare me to the nonsense. It's one thing to try
0:46
and tell us that you had no idea who he
0:48
was or what he was, and then it's the whole
0:50
last other thing to keep working for him when that
0:53
mask has already been ripped off. And I think that's
0:55
the biggest problem for people like Grof, Kellen Vickers and
0:59
Adriana Ross. I mean, it's a big deal. When I
1:05
asked Groff's lawyer Michael Backner, about her knowledge of the
1:08
two thousand and eight conviction, He replied, after Epstein's arrest
1:11
in two thousand and eight, he continuously lied to Leslie
1:14
and other members of the staff, insisting that he had
1:17
been blackmailed and set up. He angrily said that the
1:20
allegations against him were simply false and he had no
1:23
idea that the prostitute he had contact with was a minor.
1:28
In Leslie's mind, that was the reason that he was
1:31
treated so leniently by law enforcement before and after he
1:35
was sentenced. Oh well that is pretty convenient, huh. And
1:38
have you noticed everybody's just blaming Epstein now that he's dead.
1:42
They have no problem pointing the finger at Epstein when
1:45
he was alive, though nobody said shit, nobody had the
1:47
courage to come forward then. But now, well, I don't
1:51
want to get in trouble, So it was him, not me.
1:54
And it's the same kind of defense that Sarah kellen
1:57
Vickers is trying to use. Over the subsequent years, Groff
2:01
has continued to work for Epstein. She was made aware
2:04
of the controversy around the Plea deal's terms on March
2:07
twenty fifth, twenty eleven, her husband Ike emailed her a
2:10
link to a story in The Daily Beast Jeffrey Epstein
2:13
how the hedge fund mogul pedophile got off easy. Graff replied, Yeah,
2:18
he told me yesterday this would be in the Daily Beast.
2:21
And one thing I'll say about the Deli Beast is
2:24
that they continuously reported on Epstein even before it was
2:27
popular to do so. So certainly a tip of the
2:30
cap to them for that. Now, does that mean everything
2:32
they do I agree with, of course not. But when
2:35
it comes to their Epstein reporting, especially Kate Bricklett, they
2:39
did a really good job. And when other outlets were
2:42
running from this story, the Dealy Beast was running stories
2:46
about it, and they were also calling out Epstein at
2:48
the time, which a lot of other people weren't willing
2:51
to do. Then, in twenty seventeen, a case was brought
2:56
by the author Sarah Ransom, who alleged that she had
2:59
been abused by Epstein and this abuse had been facilitated
3:02
by Maxwell Groff and two other staff members. Later that year,
3:07
Ransom withdrew the case against Groff and the other staff
3:11
and reached the settlement with Epstein and Maxwell. The following year,
3:15
and that's how it always worked out, always the settlement,
3:18
never discovery, and never any real evidence being produced. And
3:22
that was all by design, all of that, and that's
3:25
why when Maxwell ended up going to discovery with Virginia,
3:29
I was blown away. I was honestly shocked that it
3:33
progressed that far. But I think at the time Maxwell
3:36
was between a rock and a hard place. She had
3:38
said for so long that Virginia was a liar she
3:41
had to put up. But her lawsuit with Virginia led
3:45
directly to Maxwell being convicted, and it also opened the
3:48
door for everything we're seeing now. Groff continued to work
3:53
for Epstein until his arrest in twenty nineteen. In his will,
3:57
written two days before his death on August tenth, nineteen,
4:01
he put his estate into a trust to be distributed
4:04
among various friends and relations, with most fifty million dollars
4:08
going to his last partner, Karnashuliac. Smaller sums were assigned
4:12
to Maxwell ten million, his brother, his pilot, and various
4:16
other staff members. Groff was listed in a clause under
4:19
the subheading after my death, I forgive any loans which
4:24
I made to the following individuals or entities, Leslie Katherine Groff.
4:31
After Epstein's death, Groff was named in several lawsuits, including
4:35
those brought by anonymous victims in twenty nineteen and twenty
4:38
twenty one, that were later dismissed. As a condition for
4:43
receiving money from the Epstein Victims Compensation Program, survivors were
4:47
barred from pursuing any legal action against Epstein's estate or
4:51
former employees. By the time it closed in twenty twenty one,
4:55
the program had awarded one hundred and twenty one million
4:58
to one hundred and thirty five survivors. Now, think about that,
5:02
not even a million each. Now, of course some people
5:06
got more and some people got less. But Jeffrey Epstein's
5:10
fortune was what, five hundred and forty something million, and
5:14
you're only doling out a fifth of that to the
5:17
people who were harmed the most. I thought it was
5:19
disgusting then, and I still think so now. And I
5:22
got to tell you, I would have never accepted that
5:25
offer ever. If I was somebody who was abused, No
5:28
fucking way I would have went to the mattresses, especially
5:32
after finding out that the Virgin Islands, the US Virgin Islands,
5:36
got more money than all the girls together combined. Imagine
5:39
that shit. They were allegedly culpable for helping Epstein. So
5:45
they ate at one end of the table, and then
5:47
after dinner was done, they went and ate at the other.
5:50
But these survivors have been maligned and said they're just
5:53
chasing a payday. Not really the kind of payday that
5:57
people are thinking here. Grop's name also appeared in FBI
6:01
interviews conducted in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one. In
6:04
the twenty twenty one interview, the victim, who was under
6:07
eighteen at the time, described how Groff arranged her appointments
6:11
with Epstein, which were massages that turned sexual right away.
6:15
She thought it was pretty obvious leslie knew what was
6:18
going on, though she never said anything to Groff about
6:20
the massages. And look, I've heard that from several different people,
6:25
but it's very hard to prove. And unless you're charging
6:28
Rico here, then I don't think you have enough to
6:30
go on, certainly not enough to get a conviction. She
6:33
would tell Groff if a friend couldn't make it and
6:35
suggest other girls. Groff, she said, also arrange payment from
6:39
Epstein to cover an abortion and payments to cover accommodation
6:43
when she was staying at hotels. She said that Groff
6:47
told her that she couldn't get an apartment as she
6:49
was not yet eighteen, so Groff knew she was underage,
6:53
sending her to go get abortions. All kinds of shit. Really,
6:57
and you have no idea, you have no culpability. Sorry,
7:01
I don't buy it. The most prominent of the cases
7:05
naming Groff was a civil suit brought by Jennifer ARREOs
7:08
against Epstein's escape after his death. Aarreo said that she
7:12
had been abused and raped by Epstein in his own
7:15
when she was fourteen and fifteen years old. In her complaint,
7:19
Arreo's attorney, Daniel Kaiser, claimed that miss Groff directly facilitated,
7:24
as well as conspired with Epstein and other co conspirators
7:28
to make possible and otherwise facilitate, the sexual offenses committed
7:32
against minor plaintiff, Miss ARREOs. And that's the rico, right.
7:36
You have all these people working in coordination to commit crimes,
7:40
and those crimes are benefiting Jeffrey Epstein directly, and from
7:44
there it all rains down on everybody else. This is
7:48
not that difficult, but the whole entire point was never
7:52
to charge this as a criminal enterprise. They always wanted
7:56
to piece it off. They wanted to go after Epstein
7:59
as a singular do that way they can have a
8:01
nice storyline for us about how he was just a
8:04
sick guy with proclivities and all the other stuff was
8:07
just a bunch of bs. In response, Groff's lawyers, John
8:10
Whitcomb and Michael Backner argued that Areos had confused Groff
8:14
with someone else. The alleged crimes had been committed at
8:17
Epstein's house at a time when Grof wasn't based there.
8:21
Groff's job, they said, did not include arranging sexual liaisons
8:24
with underage girls. In fact, they argued, Groff was an
8:28
innocent party who had been wrongfully maligned for years based
8:32
upon sheer, speculation, conjecture, and innuendo. If she were for
8:36
Jeffrey Epstein, she ipso fact though, must have known he
8:39
was abusing teenage girls and must have participated Therein they
8:43
emphasized one key point, she didn't know. Well, look, I'm
8:48
not saying she abused anybody physically. I've never seen that evidence.
8:52
I'm saying she's part of the problem, part of the machine,
8:56
part of the RICO organization that Epstein was running. On
9:03
December one, twenty twenty, the case was dismissed. Areos had
9:07
withdrawn because of the condition set by the compensation program,
9:10
declared her lawyer. We're not surprised that the civil case
9:13
has been dropped since Leslie found out about these inexplicable
9:16
crimes when the rest of the world did, said Bagner
9:19
at the time. As a wife and a mother, Leslie
9:22
remains heartbroken for Jennifer and all the victims, added Whitcomb.
9:26
So heartbroken, she never came forward, so heartbroken. She never
9:30
rat it on Jeffrey Epstein. But don't worry everybody, Leslie Groff,
9:34
she was heartbroken. When I asked Backner about the allegations
9:39
in all the civil suits naming Groff, he said that
9:42
they were simply wrong, confused, and devoid of any facts
9:45
establishing that she had any idea of Epstein's horrible and
9:49
nefarious conduct. In fact, in some instances, the conclusiony conduct
9:53
alleged against her occurred years before Leslie was even employed
9:57
by mister Epstein. That every civil case against Leslie was
10:02
dismissed and she never paid a cent towards the settlement. Cool,
10:06
So she'll have no problem removing herself from the NPA right,
10:11
go to the lawyers, go to the court and say, look,
10:14
I don't need that protection of the NPA. Drop it.
10:18
I want to tell my story. Doubt she's going to
10:21
do that. Although all the civil cases were dropped, Groff
10:26
was still under criminal investigation. But in December of twenty
10:29
twenty one, whit Common Backner stated that after a two
10:32
year investigation, federal prosecutors had decided not to bring any
10:36
charges against her because Epstein was dead. They couldn't go
10:40
any further. What are they going to do If you
10:43
don't have Epstein, you don't have anything. In her lawyer's depiction,
10:50
Groff did nothing, saw nothing, and knew nothing. Her ignorance
10:54
was so total that it seemed to take on solid
10:56
form in closing her like a reinforced ill chamber built
11:00
to withstand attack. Yeah, that sounds about right. Simplicity is
11:06
elusive and slippery, not easily witnessed or proved. The accomplice
11:10
is not the leading actor, but a figure in the shadows.
11:13
In his book Implicit, the Berkeley professor of law Christopher
11:16
Cutz describes how an individual can only be charged with
11:20
a crime of complicity, co conspiracy or aiding and a
11:23
betting say if their actions independently meet criteria of criminality.
11:27
Prosecutors have decided that Groff's actions were not crimes in
11:31
themselves because they didn't charge Rico. How do you miss that?
11:36
Did mister Cuts not talk about that in his book?
11:40
If Groff's simplicity is no longer a criminal matter, it
11:43
remains an ethical one. Groff and the team of pilots, drivers, lawyers,
11:47
and accountants allowed Epstein machine to run with frictionless continuity.
11:51
Every individual involved in his life, however small, their tasks,
11:55
contributed to its operation and its effects. The concept of
11:59
individual more all, accountability is too limited, rights Cuts when
12:03
so many serious harms are brought about by multiple people
12:06
working together, But that doesn't absolve the individual. Something being
12:11
a collective responsibility does not entail that it's not an
12:14
individual responsibility. Well, no, they all had their role to play.
12:18
They all played their roles, they did it well, and
12:20
they all did it in furtherance of the criminal enterprise.
12:24
And if that's not Rico, I have no idea. What
12:26
is Graff then, was one of many enablers of Epstein
12:30
enabling abuse is not a crime, but Amos Gooria, a
12:34
law professor at the University of Utah, is now lobbying
12:37
multiple countries to make it one. Gloria is the son
12:41
of Holocaust survivors. His first book was about the concept
12:44
of the bystander, the person who watches a crime take
12:47
place in front of them and does nothing, such as
12:50
those who taunted his father with water while he was
12:54
on a death march in the former Yugoslavia. We already
12:57
have these laws. I don't know what this author is
12:59
talking about, Rico, that's what it was created for. Look
13:03
up the statutes police. In his second book, Armies of Enablers,
13:07
he wrote about how those enabled the sexual abuse perpetrated by,
13:11
among others, the United States national team gymnastics coach Larry
13:15
Nasser at Michigan State University, and Catholic priests in Boston.
13:19
In every case, there were people who allowed the abuse
13:22
to continue, either by protecting the abuser, the institution, or
13:26
ignoring victim's reports. They knew what was happening, even if
13:30
they never witnessed it taking place and did nothing. For
13:34
Goerra Groff is a classic case. If she was making
13:37
appointments and booking flights. She was enabling all this shit
13:41
can't happen without her. In that sense, she was very
13:43
like the leaders in Catholic Church or the university administrators
13:47
who put their loyalty to their institutions over the duty
13:50
to a victim. This is all incorrect. Those were institutions right.
13:55
Epstein was running a criminal enterprise. It wasn't the Catholic Church.
13:59
Everything that was happening was benefiting Epstein directly, and all
14:03
these lieutenants and all these people play their part to
14:05
make that happen. No different from the mafia. The only
14:12
difference was that in Groff's case, said Gioria, her institution
14:16
was Jeffrey Epstein. When asked what Groff knew of Epstein's crimes,
14:19
Backner said, it's our strong position that Epstein purposely kept
14:23
Leslie isolated from his criminal conduct, since he had no
14:26
reason to confide in her and every reason to lie.
14:29
Epstein lived in two worlds, one legitimate and the other not,
14:33
and made sure they did not collide. Leslie now realizes
14:37
that Epstein made her a face of his legitimate world.
14:40
It's no wonder she was included on so many emails. Yo.
14:44
These people are seriously demented. Leslie Groff is no victim here.
14:48
I'm sorry she is not. For some of Epstein's victims,
14:52
Groff's behavior speaks for itself. She was the person who
14:55
arranged their appointments, booked their flights, and paid their money.
14:59
They were all deeply involved. Rinad O told me they
15:02
can't deny they were enabling. Juliette Bryant wondered if Groff
15:06
and her colleagues convince themselves that the girls were models
15:09
visiting from overseas rather than entertain the idea that Epstein
15:13
had constructed a system of international sex trafficking more likely.
15:17
She thought Groff knew something was going on, but chose
15:20
not to think about it. A lot of people don't
15:22
ask questions. Does it mean you're not culpable? Is your
15:26
name on it? Did you send the emails? Did you
15:28
set the girls up? Sorry? Culpable? Among Graff's emails are
15:32
hundreds between her and Dike, which reveal a wholesome domestic life,
15:36
far removed from the incessant demands of her work. They
15:39
planned dinners and discuss house renovations, the bank loan, and
15:42
decisions about pain colors and windows styles. They figure out playdates,
15:47
football practice timings, and summer camps for their son, and
15:50
worry about how much time he's spending on social media.
15:54
Groff comes across as a mother devoted to her child
15:57
in the ordinary consuming way, and that makes it work.
16:00
In my opinion. Your kid gets doted on while other
16:03
kids were abused. Way to go mom. She worked from
16:06
home when she could to have more time with them,
16:08
and made sure she was home for the day that
16:10
he started the third grade. In an email to a
16:13
pregnant former colleague, Groff tells her to enjoy every minute
16:17
as it was the best, best, best part of my life.
16:20
Time passed so quickly, and she found herself crying when
16:23
she looked at photos of her son when he was little.
16:26
Having a child was, she wrote, the most amazing thing
16:29
you will ever experience. Hey, Leslie, quick question. Do you
16:33
think that the families, the parents of the survivors felt
16:36
any different? Maybe you should have thought about those kids
16:39
when your boss was doing what your boss was doing.
16:43
After a while, clicking on email after email, I felt
16:45
I was reading things I shouldn't. I found myself in
16:48
the private enclosure of Groff's mind, her family and home.
16:52
The details of a life she kept separate from her job,
16:55
the train she was going to take home, the burger
16:57
she'd make, the voluntary work she wanted her son to
17:00
take part in. And yet reading these intimacies also reveal
17:04
the extent to which someone can divide their life in two.
17:08
It's possible to have everyday concerns, to care deeply for
17:11
the people you love, and to willingly work for a
17:14
terrible man who does terrible things. There was nothing exceptional
17:18
or particular about Groff that made her able to do this.
17:21
Anyone could have had their cv plucked from a pile
17:24
and done exactly as she did. We like to think,
17:27
from the safety of not being in her position, that
17:29
we would have done things differently, but the capacity to
17:32
close our eyes the horror is surely near universal. The
17:36
fuck it is. I've spent every day for the last
17:39
seven years railing about this, and I promise you I'm
17:42
not making money, not like Leslie Groff, So save the
17:45
every woman act for somebody else. That's a bunch of bs.
17:50
And yet there's still the question of why she did
17:52
it for so long. When I put this question a backner,
17:55
he replied. Although Leslie considered resigning Epstein like to manipulate,
18:00
and he persuaded her less stay. She was awestruck by
18:04
the quality of the company that continued to surround Epstein
18:07
after his conviction, including heads of state, philanthropists, scientists, philosophers,
18:12
past and president elected officials, and men of women of
18:15
universal approbation. That's always the excuse. Everybody else was doing it,
18:20
so I might as well too. I don't buy that either,
18:24
garbage save it. Regrettably, Leslie, like so many others, was
18:28
misled by Epstein and those complicit with him. Later in
18:32
the statement, Bagner added, Leslie wishes she had never met
18:35
Epstein and that she had resigned instead. Her life has
18:38
been turned upside down, including being viciously threatened simply for
18:42
doing her job as a secretary for a conman who
18:45
intentionally misled her and kept her isolated from his criminal conduct. Listen,
18:50
nobody should be threatening Leslie Groff or anybody else. The
18:53
idea is to force the government into action. That's the idea.
19:00
Whatever Groff knew, it seems she seriously questioned what Epstein
19:03
was doing or her part in it. Perhaps, as Groff
19:07
performed her role as social prestices, she felt her actions
19:11
no longer belonged to her, but were simply an execution
19:14
of his will. It didn't matter what she thought about
19:17
what she did, because it was not her job to think,
19:20
only to enact as desires. This is not to excuse
19:23
what she did or didn't do, but an attempt to
19:26
understand how someone can split themselves between two moral planes.
19:30
To understand how someone who worries about the amount of
19:33
time their child spends on their phone might spend years
19:36
arranging girls to see a man convicted of abusing children,
19:40
And to understand why in all that time she didn't
19:42
walk away. Are you for real? Let me help you out. Money.
19:47
That's why. Money, That's what it all comes down to.
19:52
When Graff goes to Washington on June ninth, she will
19:55
not be the first of Epstein's former employees to appear
19:58
in front of the House Committee. His account Richard Kahn
20:01
and lawyer Darren Endyke were both interviewed in early March.
20:04
Cohn said he made the wrong decision in continuing to
20:07
work for Epstein after two thousand and eight, but there
20:10
was a financial crisis and he had a family to support.
20:13
Money like usual, That's what the lall say. Money, money,
20:16
money money in Dyke said he had no knowledge whatsoever
20:23
of Jeffrey Epstein's wrongdoings while he was working for him.
20:26
Khan also spoke of the toll it had taken on
20:28
his family, said his reputation had been dragged through the mud,
20:32
a situation that did not seem to elicit great sympathy.
20:36
A Democratic representative, James Walkinshaw hughes Khan of being wilfully ignorant. Well,
20:42
that's being nice, that's being nice. I'm sorry you can't
20:46
be as close to Epstein as Indike and con were
20:49
and not know. I'm climbing all the way to the
20:52
top of Mount Everest and screaming bullshit for that one.
20:55
The interviews offered no great revelation or a catharsis, but
20:58
they did paint a picture of the awe suspended existence
21:01
of all those closely connected to Epstein who have evaded
21:04
formal accountability. They might never be found guilty of a crime,
21:09
but they can't escape the shadow of association with the man.
21:12
They live instead in the purgatory of undefined suspicion, where
21:17
the best that can be hoped for is the impossible,
21:20
a life out of sight, their name forgotten, the past rewritten,
21:24
or maybe just come forward and tell everybody what you'd know.
21:29
It's wild that they think anyone's going to feel sorry
21:31
for these people. During her last weeks of working for Epstein,
21:37
Groff handled the usual range of tasks. Flights were booked
21:40
four redacted from San Francisco to Hong Kong, or propane
21:44
delivery at Epstein's island needed chasing. There was a back
21:47
and forth on who was keeping a copy of some boatlogs.
21:50
Groff wasn't sure of the necessity of this, but the
21:53
fact Jeffrey asked about it means something. On July fifth,
21:56
twenty nineteen, Groff emailed Epstein and various colleagues about a
22:01
man called Pokey who was supposed to have arrived on
22:04
the island. He said he could be there seven am
22:07
last we heard. She wrote, can you confirm? Epstein? Meanwhile,
22:11
email Groff and others complaining about malfunctioning windows which were
22:15
meant to swovel past each other, so the entire window
22:18
is open. The next day, Epstein would fly on his
22:21
private jet from Paris to Teterborough, New Jersey, where he
22:24
was arrested on charges of sex trafficking miners. There was
22:28
no sign in the emails. As Groff worried about Pokey's
22:31
no show that our boss, entire criminal edifice was on
22:34
the verge of collapse. It was just another day with
22:38
a mixture of administrative demands and the endless effort to
22:41
make one man's life unfold minute to minute exactly as
22:45
he wished. Another employee replied to say that Pokey wasn't
22:49
answering his phone. Groff, not one to back down from
22:52
pressing tasks in front of a Roboss, issued an instruction
22:56
keep trying. So look, folks, I get it. Leslie Groff
23:00
certainly wasn't abusing anybody, and I've never thought that, but
23:04
if you look at it through the lens of Rico,
23:07
there is no doubt that she was complicit. But unfortunately
23:10
this is not a Rico case, and considering that, I
23:13
don't see how they could charge Leslie Groff with anything really.
23:16
So it's going to be interesting to see what she
23:18
has to say when she appears before Congress. But I
23:21
just don't know how far they're going to be able
23:23
to get when it comes to trying to get to
23:25
the bottom of what was going on. So it's going
23:28
to be interesting to see what she has to say
23:30
when she makes her appearance before Congress, and like usual,
23:34
we'll be right here every step of the way. All
23:37
the information that goes with this episode can be found
23:40
in the description box