FBI concluded Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t running a sex trafficking ring for
powerful men, files show
[February 09, 2026]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, DAVID B. CARUSO and LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI pored over Jeffrey Epstein’s bank records and
emails. It searched his homes. It spent years interviewing his victims
and examining his connections to some of the world’s most influential
people.
But while investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually
abused underage girls, they found scant evidence the well-connected
financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated
Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.
Videos and photos seized from Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida and
the Virgin Islands didn’t depict victims being abused or implicate
anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.
An examination of Epstein’s financial records, including payments he
made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and
global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another
internal memo in 2019.
While one Epstein victim made highly public claims that he “lent her” to
his rich friends, agents couldn’t confirm that and found no other
victims telling a similar story, the records said.
Summarizing the investigation in an email last July, agents said “four
or five” Epstein accusers claimed other men or women had sexually abused
them. But, the agents said, there “was not enough evidence to federally
charge these individuals, so the cases were referred to local law
enforcement.”
The AP and other media organizations are still reviewing millions of
pages of documents, many of them previously confidential, that the
Justice Department released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act and
it is possible those records contain evidence overlooked by
investigators.
But the documents, which include police reports, FBI interview notes and
prosecutor emails, provide the clearest picture to date of the
investigation — and why U.S. authorities ultimately decided to close it
without additional charges.
Dozens of victims come forward
The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a
14-year-old girl reported she had been molested at the millionaire’s
home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Police would identify at least 35 girls with similar stories: Epstein
was paying high school age students $200 or $300 to give him sexualized
massages.
After the FBI joined the probe, federal prosecutors drafted indictments
to charge Epstein and some personal assistants who had arranged the
girls’ visits and payments. But instead, then-Miami U.S. attorney
Alexander Acosta struck a deal letting Epstein plead guilty to state
charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Sentenced to
18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.
In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted
New York federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the accusations.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019. One month later, he killed himself in
his jail cell.
A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein’s longtime confidant,
Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she’d recruited several of his victims and
sometimes joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving
a 20-year prison term.
Prosecutors fail to find evidence backing most sensational claims
Prosecution memos, case summaries and other documents made public in the
department’s latest release of Epstein-related records show that FBI
agents and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential
coconspirators. Even seemingly outlandish and incomprehensible claims,
called in to tip lines, were examined.
Some allegations couldn’t be verified, investigators wrote.
In 2011 and again in 2019, investigators interviewed Virginia Roberts
Giuffre, who in lawsuits and news interviews had accused Epstein of
arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous men, including
Britain’s former Prince Andrew.
Investigators said they confirmed that Giuffre had been sexually abused
by Epstein. But other parts of her story were problematic.
Two other Epstein victims who Giuffre had claimed were also “lent out”
to powerful men told investigators they had no such experience,
prosecutors wrote in a 2019 internal memo.
“No other victim has described being expressly directed by either
Maxwell or Epstein to engage in sexual activity with other men,” the
memo said.
Giuffre acknowledged writing a partly fictionalized memoir of her time
with Epstein containing descriptions of things that didn't take place.
She had also offered shifting accounts in interviews with investigators,
they wrote, and had "engaged in a continuous stream of public interviews
about her allegations, many of which have included sensationalized if
not demonstrably inaccurate characterizations of her experiences." Those
inaccuracies included false accounts of her interactions with the FBI,
they said.
Still, U.S. prosecutors attempted to arrange an interview with Andrew,
now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He refused to make himself
available. Giuffre settled a lawsuit with Mountbatten-Windsor in which
she had accused him of sexual misconduct.
In a memoir published after she killed herself last year, Giuffre wrote
that prosecutors told her they didn't include her in the case against
Maxwell because they didn't want her allegations to distract the jury.
She insisted her accounts of being trafficked to elite men were true.
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Documents that were included in the U.S. Department of Justice
release of the Jeffrey Epstein files are photographed Friday, Jan.
2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
Prosecutors say photos and videos don't implicate others
Investigators seized a multitude of videos and photos from Epstein’s
electronic devices and homes in New York, Florida and the U.S.
Virgin Islands. They found CDs, hard copy photographs and at least
one videotape containing nude images of females, some of whom seemed
as if they might be minors. One device contained 15 to 20 images
depicting commercial child sex abuse material — pictures
investigators said Epstein obtained on the internet.
No videos or photos showed Epstein victims being sexually abused,
none showed any males with any of the nude females, and none
contained evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and
Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an
email for FBI officials last year.
Had they existed, the government “would have pursued any leads they
generated,” Comey wrote. “We did not, however, locate any such
videos.”
Investigators who scoured Epstein’s bank records found payments to
more than 25 women who appeared to be models — but no evidence that
he was engaged in prostituting women to other men, prosecutors
wrote.
Epstein's close associates go uncharged
In 2019, prosecutors weighed the possibility of charging one of
Epstein’s longtime assistants but decided against it.
Prosecutors concluded that while the assistant was involved in
helping Epstein pay girls for sex and may have been aware that some
were underage, she herself was a victim of his sexual abuse and
manipulation.
Investigators examined Epstein's relationship with the French
modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who once was involved in an agency
with Epstein in the U.S., and who was accused in a separate case of
sexually assaulting women in Europe. Brunel killed himself in jail
while awaiting trial on a rape charge in France.
Prosecutors also weighed whether to charge one of Epstein's
girlfriends who had participated in sexual acts with some of his
victims. Investigators interviewed the girlfriend, who was 18 to 20
years old at the time, “but it was determined there was not enough
evidence,” according to a summary given to FBI Director Kash Patel
last July.
Days before Epstein’s July 2019 arrest, the FBI strategized about
sending agents to serve grand jury subpoenas on people close to
Epstein, including his pilots and longtime business client, retail
mogul Les Wexner.
Wexner’s lawyers told investigators that neither he nor his wife had
knowledge of Epstein’s sexual misconduct. Epstein had managed
Wexner's finances, but the couple's lawyers said they cut him off in
2007 after learning he'd stolen from them.
“There is limited evidence regarding his involvement,” an FBI agent
wrote of Wexner in an Aug. 16, 2019, email.
In a statement to the AP, a legal representative for Wexner said
prosecutors had informed him that he was “neither a coconspirator
nor target in any respect," and that Wexner had cooperated with
investigators.
Prosecutors also examined accounts from women who said they'd given
massages at Epstein's home to guests who'd tried to make the
encounters sexual. One woman accused private equity investor Leon
Black of initiating sexual contact during a massage in 2011 or 2012,
causing her to flee the room.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office subsequently investigated,
but no charges were filed.
Black's lawyer, Susan Estrich, said he had paid Epstein for estate
planning and tax advice. She said in a statement that Black didn't
engage in misconduct and had no awareness of Epstein's criminal
activities. Lawsuits by two women who accused Black of sexual
misconduct were dismissed or withdrawn. One is pending.
No client list
Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News in February 2025 that
Epstein’s never-before-seen “client list” was “sitting on my desk
right now.” A few months later, she claimed the FBI was reviewing
“tens of thousands of videos” of Epstein “with children or child
porn.”
But FBI agents wrote superiors saying the client list didn't exist.
On Dec. 30, 2024, about three weeks before President Joe Biden left
office, then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate reached out through
subordinates to ask "whether our investigation to date indicates the
‘client list,’ often referred to in the media, does or does not
exist,” according to an email summarizing his query.
A day later, an FBI official replied that the case agent had
confirmed no client list existed.
On Feb. 19, 2025, two days before Bondi’s Fox News appearance, an
FBI supervisory special agent wrote: “While media coverage of the
Jeffrey Epstein case references a ’client list,' investigators did
not locate such a list during the course of the investigation.”
___
Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
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