Years before Epstein came under investigation in Palm Beach, local police got tip about Maxwell
"Maxwell said she needed young … women to answer phones," per the report.
Nearly four years before Jeffrey Epstein came under investigation for allegedly luring minor girls to his Florida home for illicit massages -- a local police report was opened to investigate claims that Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell was recruiting young women from a nearby college to answer phones at Epstein's house, according to a police report newly disclosed by the Department of Justice.
"They are paid $200.00 per day for htis [sic] service. It is unclear what is occurring in the residence," reads the opening entry in the Town of Palm Beach Police Department report, dated Dec. 6, 2001.
The report goes on to detail claims that three "female college students ... were approached by an English woman who identified herself as Maxwell."
"Maxwell said she needed young, beautiful unmarried women to answer phones and do office work at her home in Palm Beach," reads a Dec. 10, 2001, entry.
The report goes on to say that one of the college women went to the house on several occasions and described the telephone calls as "men call in saying when they were going to drop off particular girls."
Three of the college "girls" -- as the report describes them -- said that Maxwell and Epstein "were secretive about what was going on at the house," and that "at least two of the girls complained about Epstein touching them inappropriately."
They also related to the police that Maxwell had asked for a list of other girls who could work on short notice and explained that she needed a "large pool of girls" because she did not know how many she would need at any given time.
The document appears to be the first public indication of the 2001 investigation.
Its existence represents another missed opportunity to potentially halt Epstein's exploitative behavior much sooner.
After receiving the reports from the college students, officers noted that they had difficulty reaching them again to follow up. They did, however, continue their investigation of the reported activity at Epstein's house.
They pulled items from trash bins, which they say included listings for massages in New York, and lists of females with ages, descriptions and "what they do." The investigators also researched phone and business records for Epstein and Maxwell. They tracked down other students who said they'd been approached by Maxwell and who told police there was something "weird" about Epstein and Maxwell, but that they hadn't seen anything illegal, according to the report.
Another student interviewed, according to the report, told officers that there were "women running around the pool area topless, and the people were always getting massages."
Ultimately, the four-page report indicates that the investigation was closed after a determination that no crimes had occurred.
"Although it appears as though usual [sic] activity is occurring at this residence, at this time, no illegal activity has been reported or detected," reads the report's final entry on April 25, 2002.
Three years later, the family of a 14-year old girl contacted the Town of Palm Beach police to report that she had been offered $200 by an older female acquaintance to massage an older guy named "Jeff." That call launched three years of investigation by local and federal authorities which eventually ended in Epstein's controversial non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in 2007.
Epstein served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a Palm Beach County Jail.
He was indicted by a grand jury in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy before being found dead by suicide in his jail cell awaiting trial.
Maxwell was charged in 2020 with conspiring to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking of a minor and other offenses. She was convicted in 2021 on five of six counts and is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Texas.
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