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

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

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  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
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  Epstein Chronicles. When it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, nobody was
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  closer to him as far as assistants go than Leslie Groff.
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  And she was somebody that Jeffrey Epstein said was indispensable
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  to him. He even called her his brain. Now, for
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  her part, Leslie Groff says she had no idea what
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  Jeffrey Epstein was up to, and that she was only
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  somebody that was involved in logistics, answering the phone set
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  in the schedule, things like that. And look, she has
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  not been accused of any kind of abuse. Leslie Groff
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  has not been accused of any of that. But does
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  that mean she had nothing to do with what Epstein
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  was up to? Does that mean she's innocent? Not in
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  my opinion. Now, remember I look at this case through
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  Rico Lenz. I'm not looking at it as one person
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  doing this or one that It's all connected. So if
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  you're part of the criminal enterprise, you're liable for every
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  single crime that the enterprise commits, even if you're somebody
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  that's just involved in logistics. And in my opinion, the
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  whole lot of these people from the pilots on down
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  were part of a criminal enterprise. So today we have
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  an article from The Guardian which is pretty long, so
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  we're going to eat it up in a couple of pieces,
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  but it digs deep into leslie Groff and her relationship
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  with Jeffrey Epstein. So with that said, let's just dive
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  right in. This article was published by The Guardian and
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  the headline seriously the best boss Ever Inside the world
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  of Jeffrey Epstein's assistant. This article was authored by Sophie Elmhurst.
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  Leslie Groff, longtime executive assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, has always
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  claimed that she knew nothing of his crimes. Simplicity requires knowledge.
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  To be legally implicit in a crime, you have to
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  know you're helping to commit it. To be morally complicit,
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  the bar is lower. You don't even have to play
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  an active part. To have knowledge of the crime and
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  do nothing is enough. But how do we know what
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  someone knows? And you see right away, miss Elmhurst is
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  not looking at it through the right lens. This should
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  be a Rico lens. And that's because all these crimes
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  were committed at the behest of Jeffrey Epstein. He was
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  the head of the organization. No different than Al Chopo,
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  no different than John Gotti, same shit, different crimes. I
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  think of all the times I've closed my eyes or
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  shut down a thought, or turned away from something wrong,
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  large or small, a planet level ecological harm, or a
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  subfiver theft in the supermarket right in front of me. Surely,
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  I say to myself, someone else will do something. It's
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  not my fault or my responsibility. I'm too inconsequential to
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  make a difference here. Somewhere in the course of those thoughts,
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  I decide not to let my knowledge of what I've
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  seen or heard or inferred take up residence in my mind.
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  In this way, over time, I found that it's much
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  easier to live with what I know if I do
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  not admit what I know, even to myself. Kind of
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  a weird analogy. You know, you're talking about people that
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  are stealing things from a store, a corporation and you're
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  not getting involved, and comparing that to what was going
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  on with Leslie Groff, that seems a bit weird. Leslie
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  Groff never planned to be an assistant. After college at
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  the University of Texas and Dallas, she moved to New
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  Jersey with her first husband, worked for an office supply
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  company for nine years. Divorced, worked as a salesperson at
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  the department store in Nordstrom met her second husband at
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  a triathlon and then decided she wanted to try to
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  find work as an events planner on Wall Street. In
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  two thousand and one, a headhunter found a resume on Monster,
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  a job's listing site, and set up Groff, then in
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  her mid thirties, with an interview to be an assistant
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  to a wealthy financier. And by two thousand and one
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  Epstein was already abusing people. Remember this man was already prolific.
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  For the interview, Groff went to Epstein's house on the
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  fourth floor of four point fifty seven Madison Avenue, part
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  of the Villard Houses, a set of elegant nineteenth century
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  brownstone residences built around the courtyard, also home to a
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  luxury hotel. These people belong in the Gilded Age, not
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  amongst us a bunch of weirdos. She met with Glenn
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  Maxwell and Epstein, whose phone kept ringing during the interview.
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  He would talk briefly, then hang up, and Graff came
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  away with the impression of a vibrant, hectic workplace. And look,
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  I'm sure the first interview she didn't know what Epstein was.
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  But she was with Epstein for all those years, heard
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  all the stories, saw all those girls coming in and out,
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  had no idea. Okay, let's give her the benefit of
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  the doubt. How does that explain all of the logistics
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  that she set up though, for all the girls that
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  were traffic I mean, if she was booking rooms, if
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  she was setting up flights, doing any of that. Congratulations,
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  you're a part of the investigation and you're culpable. Once
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  she got the job, Groff was given her own office
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  and worked alongside Epstein's team of assistants, lawyers, and a trader,
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  who together managed his money and his life. Some years later,
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  she moved to work from his home, a seven story
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  townhouse on E seventy first Street near Fifth Avenue, where
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  a life sized sculpture of a woman in a white
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  wedding dress clutching a rope hung in the central hallway. Ah,
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  nothing weird there, normal stuff, right, just normal rich people shit.
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  Groff was in charge of Epstein's calendar, making his appointments
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  and setting up his calls. When she started the job,
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  Maxwell told her that Epstein had a massage every day.
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  Epstein would call Groff in the morning or to her
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  to call X and see if she can do a
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  massage at four, and then continue to call her every
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  fifteen minutes until it was fixed. If Groff was unable
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  to get X, he'd tell her to call why. In
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  response to the questions about these appointments, her lawyer Michael
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  Backner wrote, during her employment, Leslie never witnessed or was
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  told of anything illegal related to those massages. Maybe the
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  next mob guy who gets Nell could say the same thing. Yo.
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  I had no idea. I was just making phone calls
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  and driving the car. Groff worked for Epstein for eighteen years,
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  from two thousand and one until his arrest in July
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  of twenty nineteen. But she had no idea, huh after
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  the first arrest, after all the allegations, after what everybody
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  was saying after Virginia came out, Leslie Groff was none
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  the wiser, had no idea what Epstein was. If you
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  want to believe that, you go right ahead, me. I
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  don't believe that for a second. Since Epstein's death in
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  August twenty nineteen, Grof has remained almost invisible and spoken
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  only through her lawyers. Recent photographs have shown her going
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  to plates or walking her dog near her home in Connecticut,
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  off duty and low key. Compared to the royals, politicians, billionaires,
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  and professors who have featured in the Epstein files, Groff
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  is low status, a non celebrity with no public reputation
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  to lose. But when you search for her name in
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  the files, you received more than one hundred and sixty
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  thousand results, more than anyone else. I've read perhaps ten
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  thousand of these a fraction. No one was more regularly
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  in contact with Epstein day to day, and that's true.
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  Epstein was very clear, Groff is his brain. He said
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  that how many times throughout the years, Well, he thought
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  he was kidding. Dude had to melt down when she
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  had to go out for a paternity leave. After the
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  release of the Epstein files, the US Congress Committee on
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  Oversight and Government Reform decided to review the possible mismanagement
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  of the federal government's investigation int Abstein and Maxwell's crimes.
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  On March third, twenty twenty six, they sent a letter
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  to Grof asking her to attend an interview in Washington.
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  On June ninth, the committee believes you have information that
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  will assist in its investigation. They believe, in other words,
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  that Graff knows more than she has ever said that
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  she knows. Well. That's because, in my opinion, she does.
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  And I think it's damning that she went back to
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  work for the dude even after his first arrest. How
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  can you say you have no idea what he was
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  or what he was doing when he's already been arrested
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  on similar charges. So the whole I had no idea
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  thing really just doesn't hit. To be a good executive
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  assistant is an act of immersion. The job requires the
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  management of minutia, dates, times, appointments, travels, meals, gifts, emails, calls,
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  but it also requires the anticipation of these things, to
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  know what's desired before it's desired. To do this, the
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  assistant must be familiar with the inside of their boss's mind.
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  In a healthy arrangement, the relationship is close but boundaried.
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  She almost always she can tell her boss what she
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  thinks or say no. Victoria Robin, the founder of the
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  Executive Assistants Organization, described it as kind of a work marriage,
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  no other professional relationship. She told me requires the same
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  degree of trust or intimacy. Her old boss used to
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  tell her that she knew more about him than his
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  wife and can run him in five minutes. And that
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  is pretty true and pretty common. These executive assistants, they
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  know a lot. They're the ones that are there day
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  to day. They see the people coming in, they see
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  the people leaving. They know the phone calls, the emails,
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  the meetings, they know all of it. While an assistant
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  might have the power that comes from knowledge, it's not
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  a marriage of equals. If you're committed, you sell your
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  soul to that person, said Robin in a less professional dynamic.
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  The assistant so crucial to her boss daily existence and
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  so completely in his power that she becomes a voiceless functionary.
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  Rowena Cheu, briefly an assistant to Harvey Weinstein, compared her
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  role to that of a butler in downtown abbey, where
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  the chief requirement were it to do as you were
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  told and remain invisible. Chu, who says she was sexually
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  assaulted by Weinstein, was often told she could be replaced
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  in an hour. She would hear Weinstein on the phone
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  bawling out an a list director and think if he
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  can do that to them, what can he do to me?
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  She was, she said, anet on an elephant. And look,
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  there's no doubt about that a lot of these people,
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  like Harvey Weinstein are abusive. But that wasn't the case
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  with Leslie Groff. She wasn't being abused by Jeffrey Epstein.
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  There is zero reports of him sexually assaulting her or
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  anything close to that. She was there because she was
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  getting paid and she was willing to look the other way,
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  and my opinion, because she was making a bunch of dough.
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  That's what it really boils down to. Over the years,
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  Epstein had several assistants, but Groff was the most senior
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  and longest serving. As I read her emails, I was
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  initially struck by the extent to which he marshaled his
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  time and his movements, or acted as his gatekeeper, But
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  in reality she was more like a well trained avatar.
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  In a two thousand and five New York Times article
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  about executive assistants on Wall Street, in which both Groff
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  and Epstein were interviewed, Epstein described as assistant as an
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  extension of my brain and a social prosthesis, not as
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  separate individuals, but as part of his mind and his body,
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  and that's how he looked at her. She was indispensable
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  to Jeffrey Epstein. Groff's task was to ensure that Epstein's
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  life ran according to his precise preference. Jeffrey's requested that
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  he pleased not be disturbed while in the gym working out,
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  even if a guest is here waiting. She emailed her
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  colleagues in twenty twelve, when Jeffrey is waiting for something,
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  and you know the urgency with a package, you should
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  give it to him right away, if at all possible.
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  She wrote about a two hour delay in the delivery
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  of some pastries. In twenty fifteen, he called me asking
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  where's Canoli's are? On any given day, Groff would move
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  from having a towelrell fixed. Can we please get someone
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  on top of this? To working out how to respond
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  to Epstein's allergic reaction it's apparent that his face is
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  not right to ensuring Steve Bannon how to receive Depstein's
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  gift of an Apple Watch? Can you confirm Steve has
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  his watch? I need to get back to Jeffrey. Sorry
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  for being such a pain, and look. A lot of
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  her tasks were mundane. There is zero doubt about it,
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  and I don't put as much responsibility on her as
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  someone like Sarah Kellen Vickers. But just because you answered
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  the phone and did logistics doesn't mean that you're not culpable.
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  You are. She was good at her job, quick, polite,
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  and relentlessly positive, even when her task tended towards the obsurdes,
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  as when she had to deal with two monster vacuum
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  pack stakes left beyond on Epstein's plane, or when she
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  was trying to figure out how to transport three tubs
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  of Oreo ice cream, Jaye's favorite, from New York to
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  another of his properties without it melting. She wrote emails
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  bursting with exclamation marks, emoticons, particularly the smiling wink, and
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  expressions of elation, tremendous, super terrific. When Jonathan Farkas, a
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  New York businessman, told her that her efficiency was the
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  envy of the German army, Groff sent the email to
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  her husband like think I should forward to je Ike
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  replied that she should save it in her files in
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  case she ever needed another job. Epstein knew Groff was competent,
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  but his email's rarely recognized her efforts. Beyond an occasional
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  Kurt thanks. Instead, he showed his appreciation with money. In
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  the New York Times interview, he revealed that when Groff
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  announced she was pregnant in two thousand and four, he
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  offered to pay for a nanny and bought her a
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  car to ease her commute from Connecticut. There's no way
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  I could lose Leslie to motherhood, he said. According to
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  a payroll document, she also doubled her salary from sixty
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  thousand in two thousand and four to one hundred and
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  twenty thousand in twenty twenty five. There were perks. In
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  twenty fourteen, Epstein email Groth offering a Florida holiday, My Style, please,
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  five star hotel. The whole works. Groff's husband, Ike, forwarded
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  the email to someone else. Seriously, the best boss ever?
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  Oh yeah, asked those girls that were getting abused how
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  great he was. On Valentine's Day in twenty eighteen, Epstein
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  bought her and some other assistants glam squad appointments, where
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  stylists would come to their home to do their hair
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  and makeup. Too sweet, wrote Groth. Once in twenty fifteen,
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  she got to tour his private plane ride on his
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  helicopter and take a boat to his private Caribbean island,
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  Little Saint James, before staying at a luxury hotel. The
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  helly was one of the best parts, she wrote in
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  a group email to her family, who were duly impressed.
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  I didn't know he had a helicopter too, wow, said
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  one Not a boring job, rote Grob's mother. Yeah, I
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  would say so. Now, let me ask you, is all
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  of that worth what she's dealing with now? Not my opinion.
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  All right, folks, we're gonna wrap this one up right here,
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  and in the next episode we're gonna pick up where
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  we left off. All the information that goes with this
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  episode can be found in the description box.