After nearly three decades of silence, dozens of victims of Jeffrey Epstein and their supporters massed at the foot of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, demanding the release of all government records pertaining to Epstein as well as others involved in his sex trafficking crimes.

The survivors tearfully recounted stories of sexual abuse at the hands of Epstein, his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, and the other powerful men they were trafficked to.

They spoke despite their fears, trauma and anxieties. Some of them said they had been silenced by Epstein and Maxwell, who had in the past threatened them and their families.

The survivors spoke for those who were too afraid to be there — and for those victims who couldn’t be there, their lives cut short as a result of drug overdoses, suicide and trauma-related mental illness.

More urgently, they denounced those in the U.S. justice system who continue to cover up Epstein’s crimes, allow his conspirators to go unpunished and ridicule the survivors, as if the Epstein case never happened.

“It is time for us to see behind the curtain, why Jeffrey Epstein was so protected, who is still being protected, and who protected them all,” said Courtney Wild, who said she was was 14 years old when she was introduced to Epstein.

This is not a hoax, Marina Lacerda, another of the survivors, said.

“The days of sweeping this under the rug are over. We the survivors say ‘no more,” she said.

And they revealed they are planning to build their own “client list” of names.

“We know the names,” said Lisa Phillips, an Epstein survivor who hosts a podcast that tells stories of sexual abuse victims. “Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world.”

The survivors’ shout to release files became a roar as they were joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and hundreds of demonstrators who gathered around them, waving signs of supporting and echoing the demand for transparency.

Many supporters held signs and shouted “We hear you, we hear you!” while listening to the speakers. The event was broadcast live on YouTube, and groups of people sat on the grassy lawn in front of the Capitol huddled together around their phones, listening to the survivors, whose voices echoed across the wide square.

The event — a rally, followed by a bipartisian congressional press conference — drew more than 200 people to the Capitol.

Among those who spoke were the brothers of the late Virginia Giuffre, one of the most vocal activists — she was abused by Epstein, Maxwell and other men starting at the age of 16 and sued Epstein and Maxwell in her pursuit of justice. Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year.

“Virginia fought for truth. She fought to expose a system that allowed the wealthy, the connected and the powerful to exploit and abuse girls and young women without consequence,” said Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts.

The survivors and their families gathered as part of a pressure campaign on lawmakers to support a measure that would require the U.S. Justice Department to release all of the information from its investigations into Epstein.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., are leading the charge on the bill.

“I found out something today that happened that I wasn’t expecting,” Massie said of the survivors. “They persuaded me to fight even harder. I’m not going to give up.”

Maxwell’s moves

The events in Washington come as Epstein’s accomplice, Maxwell, appears to be angling for a presidential pardon from her 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges. In July, she was interviewed by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and was subsequently moved from a maximum federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a minimum-security prison in Texas. The U.S, Justice Department released transcripts from the interviews in late August.

Many of the survivors expressed anger at the way Blanche interviewed Maxwell in prison. A transcript of his interviews, released last month, showed an, at times, jovial conversation between Maxwell and Blanche. One of the victims on Wednesday publicly noted that Maxwell’s manipulative interview with Blanche reminded her of the way Maxwell preyed on young girls — convincing them that they had met someone who would help them with their schooling or their careers.

“She got air time. She got a platform,” Epstein survivor Teresa Helm said of Maxwell. “Her voice was elevated way before our voices were today.”

Helm said that Blanche gave no push back to any of Maxwell’s claims, calling it “repulsive.”

Several of the survivors expressed dismay that Maxwell was transferred to a lower-security prison and were in agreement she should be returned to a maximum security facility.

The survivors were also adamant that President Donald Trump not give Maxwell a pardon.

Trump called the matter a “Democratic hoax.”

“From what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given, but it’s really a Democrat hoax, because they’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president,” he said.

But the survivors asked for his help.

“President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation, please use that influence and power to help us, because we need it now and the country needs it,” said Anouska de Georgiou, a survivor of Epstein’s abuse.

“The only motive for opposing this bill would be to conceal wrongdoing,” she said. “Accountability is what makes a society civilized.”

But some want the files released for personal reasons.

“They have documents with my name on them that were confiscated from Jeffrey Epstein’s house that could help me put the pieces of my own life back together,” Lacerda said, noting she was speaking for the first time public.

She was 14 when she first met Epstein and said she was “Minor Victim 1” in the 2019 federal indictment.

“I had no way out until he told me I was too old.”

Only about a third of the Justice Department files on the case have been made public. And they haven’t quieted down conspiracy theories about the case, including talk of a “client list” and questions about Epstein’s death.

Even though the survivors said they are making their own list of names, that too, may remain out of the public eye.

Phillips and an attorney for several of the victims clarified there is no current plan to make the survivors’ list public, although survivors intend to share with federal authorities.

“Most of these individuals, the victims, are very scared to say these names, because they could get sued. They’re going to get attacked, and nobody protected them the first time,” said attorney Brad Edwards, who represents dozens of Epstein survivors.

Phillips pointed out the government already knows the names.

Others noted Epstein bragged about his connections to the rich and the powerful.

“The truth is, Epstein had a free pass. He bragged about his powerful friends, including our current president, Donald Trump,” Chauntae Davies, one of the survivors said.

But when asked her message for Trump, Davies replied: “I don’t want to send a direct message to him. I’m already scared enough.”

The full reach of Epstein’s operation has yet to come to light.

It wasn’t a list but a “complicated scheme,” Edwards said of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring. Edwards maintains that Epstein’s organization was focused on preying on girls for his own personal abuse and that only a fraction of the victims who were recruited were trafficked to other men.

“He farmed out certain of the women that he was exploiting to. But that wasn’t the primary purpose of that scheme, and I don’t think he wrote the names of those people down. There’s not a list of, hey, here’s all of the people that I sent females to. That’s just not how that organization worked,” Edwards said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who spoke at the news conference, said she would be happy to work with Epstein’s survivors to make the list public.

“It’s a scary thing to name names, but I will tell you, I’m not afraid to name names. So if they want to give me a list, I will walk in that Capitol on the House floor, and I’ll say every damn name,” said Greene. “I can do that for them.”

Speeches on the House floor are protected speech and Taylor could not be sued for anything she said.

One survivor who did name one of those she accuses of being involved is Annie Farmer. Farmer, who testified during Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking trial, suggested that Les Wexner, the former CEO of the Limited and Victoria’s Secret, should be held accountable for his involvement with Epstein. Wexner has in the past always denied he knew about or was involved in Epstein’s crimes.

Congressional efforts

Massie said he would forge ahead with a discharge petition to force the release of the Epstein files, despite that fact that the House Oversight Committee released 33,000 pages of files on Tuesday afternoon. Those files, reviewed by The Miami Herald, appeared to be court records and reports that had already been made public years ago.

But Republican leaders are hoping that document release and a vote on an alternative symbolic measure will head off Massie’s efforts to get his bill to the House floor. Massie and Khanna’s resolution, if it passes the House, would then have to be passed by the Senate before going to Trump for his signature. It’s unclear how quickly Senate Republicans will want to bring the matter to the floor and whether Trump would sign it.

In recent weeks, the Oversight committee have issued subpoenas to prosecutors and other former government officials who they want to question about the various investigations into Epstein, who sexually abused more than one hundred girls and women over two decades starting in the mid 1990s.

Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has sought to demonstrate his extensive efforts to retrieve any new information on the case. On Sunday, he asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to produce any Suspicious Activity Reports tied to Epstein and his sex trafficking network. The department is in charge of investigating the financial aspect of sex trafficking.

Over in the Senate, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has long been investigating Epstein’s finances. He maintains that the Trump administration has been thwarting his effort to obtain evidence from the Treasury Department.

Wyden wrote to Bessent on Tuesday, renewing his demand for the department to produce files to the Senate Finance Committee. He also named several dozen individuals and entities with documented Epstein ties, seeking all files related to transactions with Epstein and any co-conspirators. He said Bessent has repeatedly refused to provide these records to the Finance Committee, and has accused him of being “a willing participant in the Trump administration’s Epstein cover-up.”

The deadline for the documents to be turned over is Sept. 15 and Comer said they were tied to the panel’s investigation of the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Epstein and Maxwell.

A New York financier whose source of wealth has always been shrouded in mystery, Epstein was first arrested in 2006 on allegations that he had sex with underage students from a Palm Beach, Florida, high school. He ultimately pleaded guilty to minor solicitation charges and served a 13-month jail term in Palm Beach. In 2019, he was rearrested on new charges in New York, following the publication of a Herald investigation, “Perversion of Justice,” which detailed how Epstein and his lawyers successfully lobbied federal prosecutors to give him a secret plea deal, minimizing his crimes and providing unusual immunity to others involved in his sex trafficking operation.

After Epstein’s death, Maxwell, a British socialite who worked for Epstein, was indicted and convicted on sex trafficking charges. She is appealing her conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Epstein case has garnered worldwide attention in part because of widespread conspiracy theories promulgated by Trump supporters and other social media influencers who claim there is “an Epstein list” of wealthy and powerful people who were involved in Epstein’s crimes.

Trump, who initially favored releasing the files, has faced a backlash from his supporters after Attorney General Pam Bondi abruptly announced in July that there was no list and the files would remain sealed.

This came after she had promised supporters In February that the files were on her desk, then gave a group of social media influencers about 200 pages of documents that were of old material, long in the public domain.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman rejected a Justice Department request to unseal grand jury records involving the Epstein federal cases. Berman noted that the grand jury files represented a distraction from the real issue — which is that the Justice Department has the power to release all the relevant material involving Epstein to the public.

©2025 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.