Jeffrey Epstein demanded young girls show school IDs to prove they were underage. Photo / Getty Images
Jeffrey Epstein demanded that young girls show their school IDs to prove they were underage.
Marina Lacerda, who was abused by Epstein from the age of 14, said the paedophile was “furious” when an 18-year-old was brought to him, immediately sending her away.
Lacerda, now 37, was forced to recruit other victims, and told the Telegraph that Epstein instructed her to only present him with girls who had a student school ID.
Brazilian-born Lacerda said Epstein stopped abusing her when she was 16 or 17 because he thought she was too old and she was not bringing him girls who were young enough.
“I did bring him somebody at the age of 18, and he booted her out ... He just looked at her and knew she wasn’t the age of 14, 15, or 16. And he really, he was like, ‘Get the f*** out’ ... he was aggressive,” Lacerda said.
“He turned to me, and he was like, ‘I’m done.’ He’s like, ‘You need to start bringing me IDs when you bring girls here ... I want school IDs.’”
After the partial release of the Epstein files, Lacerda accused the United States Government of orchestrating a “cover-up” by redacting swathes of documents and failing to release everything it held to “protect” powerful men.
The US Justice Department released thousands of files on Friday and Saturday, but hundreds of pages were heavily redacted, and a huge tranche of documents is yet to be released.
Lacerda’s testimony about being subjected to years of abuse was critical in securing the 2019 charges against the paedophile months before he died in jail.
She is referred to as “Minor-Victim 1” in the 2019 indictment and spoke publicly for the first time in September to call for the release of the Epstein files.
She said she had looked through some of the recently released files and saw notes about Epstein demanding to see girls’ IDs, information that appeared to be from her interview with the FBI in 2019, two months before Epstein’s arrest.
At the weekend, she also said the paedophile would “brag” to his powerful friends that he was being massaged by a “beautiful girl” while on a call and make her say hello to them.
“We did speak to a lot of people on the phone who were, you know, politicians, some were princes ... [they] were very important people,” she told the Telegraph.
He would “make it clear that he knew everybody and he owned everybody ... he manipulated us,” she said.
After lying down for a massage, Epstein would ring his contacts to “talk business and would always bring up the fact like, ‘oh, you know, I have this nice, young, beautiful girl giving me a massage.’”
He would hand her the phone and tell her to “just say hello”, Lacerda said. She would tell the men something like “Hey, how are you?” but would not discuss anything “deep”.
Lacerda said Epstein never explicitly told the powerful men that she was underage.
She met one Hollywood star she had spoken to on the phone in person, but was not abused by them or anyone else, other than Epstein.
Lacerda is one of a number of Epstein’s survivors who have been calling for the full release of the files, believing there is information about men in his orbit that has not been disclosed.
Only a fraction of the Government’s files on the paedophile have been released, some of which have been heavily redacted, prompting bipartisan outcry about an alleged cover-up.
At least 16 files, including one photograph of Donald Trump, the US President, were also deleted from the Justice Department website after being published on Friday.
In the latest release, dozens of photographs of Bill Clinton, including one of the former US President topless in a hot tub, were published for the first time, as well as pictures showing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor sprawled over the laps of five women with Ghislaine Maxwell grinning behind him at the Royal family’s Sandringham retreat.
“There’s a reason why everything’s redacted,” Lacerda said, adding that it was “100% a total cover-up”.
“It’s almost like a joke, right? Like, we have to look at it as it’s like, this has to be a comedy show. Like, why did you even put out all these files?”
She added: “Who are we really trying to protect? Are we protecting survivors, or are we protecting these powerful men? ... We’re tired of it. It’s [got] to the point where, you know, we’ve protected these powerful men for a long time.”
There is no suggestion Clinton has done anything wrong.
The former President, who admits travelling on Epstein’s private plane, wrote in his memoir that he had “stopped contact” with Epstein before he was first arrested in 2005, for soliciting a child for prostitution.
He said that he always thought Epstein was “odd” but “had no inkling of the crimes he was committing”.
Mountbatten-Windsor was ordered to leave Royal Lodge, his residence in Windsor, following weeks of scrutiny over his links to Epstein and Virginia Giuffre, his accuser. He has always denied the claims and any other wrongdoing.
Lacerda met Epstein in 2002 when she was recruited by a friend, who did not give her details other than that she could make money massaging someone.
Lacerda, a Brazilian immigrant, was sharing a single bedroom with her mother and sister at the time and saw it as an opportunity to support her family.
“It got to the point where I think I got really desperate for money,” she said.
However, she could not face working for him any more after being forced to recruit young girls.
She said: “I didn’t want to bring any more underage girls, being 17 and having some knowledge of what was really going on there.
“You had no choice but to bring him somebody because he’s so persistent and just he wanted to have, you know, a new face, a new girl.”
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