NEW YORK — Jeffrey Epstein had a surveillance room set up in his opulent New York mansion where hired goons kept constant tabs on all of his victims and guests, according to a disturbing new lawsuit filed by two of the sick pedophile’s accusers.
The pedophile financier would also give his sexual abuse victims car services and cellphones so he could track their every move, would dig up dirt on them and offer hundreds of dollars in “hush money” to buy their silence, court papers allege.
The result was a “cult-like life” for the teens and young women who were roped into Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, according to the suit.
The details were laid bare in the new civil suit — filed in Manhattan federal court — that alleges the “complex, sophisticated sex-trafficking venture” Epstein was able to operate for years wouldn’t have been possible without two of the disgraced financier’s closest advisers: personal lawyer Darren Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn.
Epstein accuser Danielle Bensky (above) and another woman, only identified as Jane Doe 3, filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court last week. (Photo by: Matthew McDermott)
Epstein accuser Danielle Bensky and another woman, identified only as Jane Doe 3, filed a complaint against the two men on Friday, alleging they helped build the “complex financial infrastructure” that Epstein relied on to sexually abuse hundreds of teens and young women.
The two accusers claim Indyke and Kahn, who were both on the sex trafficker’s payroll for years and currently serve as executors of his estate, were “well aware” of Epstein’s crimes and that they “knowingly and intentionally personally benefited” from the operation.
“Knowing that they would earn millions of dollars in exchange for facilitating Epstein’s sex abuse and trafficking, Indyke and Kahn chose money and power over following the law,” the suit says.
“Indyke and Kahn’s knowing facilitation, participation, and concealment of Epstein’s illegal conduct allowed Epstein to successfully rape, sexually assault, and coercively sex traffic Danielle Bensky and Jane Doe 3.”
Indyke and Kahn hit back at the claims on Wednesday, saying via a lawyer that they were “extraordinarily surprised and disappointed” by the new lawsuit — and called the claims “factually baseless and legally frivolous.”
“Neither Mr. Indyke or Mr. Kahn has ever been found in any forum to have committed any misconduct, and they emphatically reject the allegations of wrongdoing contained in the complaint,” their lawyer, Daniel Weiner, said in a statement obtained by The Post.
The lawsuit doesn’t address what happened to any potential surveillance footage — or whether Epstein kept tapes of his famous pals’ activities inside his mansion. However, questions about possible Epstein blackmail footage have swirled for years.
One accuser, Sarah Ransome, claimed she had copies of recordings of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and British business magnate Richard Branson having sex with one of Epstein’s trafficking victims. She later recanted those claims and said she “invented” the tapes.
Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew and Branson have all denied involvement with Epstein’s sex-trafficking.
The lawsuit sheds renewed light on the inner workings of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation — including the extreme lengths the pedophile allegedly went to to monitor his victims and to buy their silence.
Bensky was an aspiring ballerina in the Big Apple in 2004 when she was first recruited by a woman to give Epstein a one-time massage at his Upper East Side mansion in exchange for $300, the suit says. During the initial massage, Benksy alleges, Epstein ordered her to strip naked while he masturbated on the massage table.
“Afterwards, Bensky was called several times by Epstein’s employees and associates to return for additional massages,” the court papers allege. “Having been in awe of Epstein’s mansion and Epstein’s wealth and power, Bensky was terrified of what would happen to her if she refused.”
At some point during her interactions with Epstein, Bensky said, her mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor — a piece of information that the billionaire ended up using to coerce her into recruiting more victims for him, according to the suit.
“Over the next year, Epstein threatened Bensky in many ways including threatening that if she did not abide by his demands, her mother would not get the medical treatment she needed for her brain tumor,” the court filing said.
Epstein, who indoctrinated his victims into believing the abuse was normal, also regularly exposed
the girls to nudity and sex to normalize his perverse sexual preferences, according to the suit.
The walls of his homes — including in New York and Palm Beach, Fla. — were lined with photographs and paintings displaying nude females.
“A search of his Palm Beach mansion revealed that Epstein kept soap in the shape of penises and vaginas in multiple bathrooms,” the suit says.
“The Palm Beach police also found numerous sex toys in the trash and around the mansion as well as an Amazon receipt for the purchase of three sex slave books about erotic servitude that Epstein likely kept in plain view for the girls to see.”
Like Bensky, Jane Doe 3 — a European Union citizen — claims she, too, was “coerced into a cult-like life” controlled and manipulated by Epstein and those who did his bidding, allegedly including Indyke and Kahn.
The latest lawsuit, filed by Boies Schiller Flexner on behalf of the accusers, comes just months after the firm secured two multimillion-dollar settlements from JPMorgan ($290 million) and Deutsche Bank ($75 million) over lawsuits alleging the banks ignored red flags about Epstein’s sex-trafficking while generating big fees from him.
By PRISCILLA DeGREGORY and EMILY CRANE/New York Post
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