That was a comment to a YouTube segment with an Epstein/Maxwell survivor.

I am slowly making my way through the late Virginia Roberts Guiffre’s memoir, published posthumously last month.  Early on in the book it becomes clear to me (and I admit I have biases different than the average reader) that she was forced into silence by at least two of the predators who raped and sexually assaulted her and that she was legitimately fearful of many more.  The machine behind one of these men, and the evil litigiousness of another, I believe forced her into an arrangement where she ultimately said “no, nothing to see here.  Perfect gentlemen.  I was mistaken.”

I’m sure many threats were made by Epstein and his predatory participants to try to ensure silence.  The fact that Epstein ended up “suicided” in the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center was a clear a sign as any that anybody could be quieted.

As Giuffre’s collaborator/ghost writer Amy Wallace explains in the opening note, “several of the characters in these stories were among the wealthiest and most powerful in the world.”  Some of them “had already threatened Virginia to keep her quiet,” and the book had to be written in a way “to protect her from those who would have preferred she stayed silent.”

Guiffre explains of the men she was trafficked to:  “I saw these men–endured them–up close.”  (p. xxiii)  A name that comes up with fair regularity is that of Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz.  This piece in Substack by Ellie Leonard addresses what I have long suspected–that Guiffre was forced to “forget” a few of these men.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-179920517

I doubt very much Guiffre committed perjury, or was “mistaken,” as alleged by Dershowitz.  But we are to believe he was just a criminal defense attorney providing someone their constitutionally guaranteed right to counsel and keeping his underpants on during massages.  Let’s hope so–the alternative is too disgusting to ponder.

But again I come back to the men who flew to Frank Shelden’s N. Fox Island when “boys nature camp” was in session.  How many of them were up there to hunt deer and have lively discussions with the brilliant Frank and his sidekick/gym teacher Gerald Richards?  “Hey, I think I’ll turn in early, leave my underwear on, and do a little reading so I can get up early to shoot deer.  See you in the morning.”

No amount of “financial gain” could restore to these survivors what was taken from them, compensate for the damage inflicted, or fully quell the constant fear from threats to self and family if they talk.  These types and their attorneys will always use the same old playbook to disparage and undermine survivors, but it’s good to see it being exposed in the Epstein/Maxwell case for the uninitiated and the disbelievers to try to understand how these predators are almost always protected.

When a survivor identifies a predator, odds are pretty goddamn good they have the image burned in their brain.  And if you happen to look a little odd or different, in addition to being gross, it’s easier to pick you out of the line up or to remember.

No one knows a rapist, right?