April 12, 2022 • 44 mins
Vicky Ward is a New York Times bestselling author, investigative reporter, and magazine columnist. Her work has been featured in The Independent, HuffPost and Vanity Fair, and focuses on the intersection of money, power and corruption. She has reported on Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell for two decades, an undertaking that culminated in dispatches from the Ghislaine Maxwell trial through her Substack newsletter “Vicky Ward Investigates,” and the Chasing Ghislaine podcast and documentary series, of which Ward serves as host and producer. Ward has also authored books on the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the world of New York real estate and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s path to the White House.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Alec. We all love true crime podcasts, but
perhaps you're looking for something a little different, less murder,
more intrigue. I invite you to check out a new
podcast I just released called Art Fraud. It's the true
story of one of New York City's oldest and most
trusted galleries dealing in world class art, and how its
(00:23):
doors would close forever in the wake of an unprecedented scandal.
The art market is ripe for cons because it's inherently subjective.
I just couldn't even look at it because it was
so garish and so not by Rothcoe. We're talking about
(00:44):
eighty million dollars in fake paintings, or more precisely, forgeries.
All episodes of Art Fraud are available right now. Okay,
here's our show. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening
to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. In the
aftermath of Jeffrey Epstein's death, the world turned its attention
(01:09):
to the trial of his associate, Gilain Maxwell. Maxwell, it seems,
is the last hope for resolution and accountability in a
case with so many missing pieces. My guest today, Vicky Ward,
is the perfect person to shed some light on the
questions that remain. She's a New York Times bestselling author
(01:30):
and investigative reporter who has covered Jeffrey Epstein and Gilain
Maxwell since two thousand two. Ward has a long history
as a columnist and feature writer at The New York Post,
Huff Post, and Vanity Fair. She's written books about New
York real estate, the financial sector, and most recently, the
White House and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's path to
(01:54):
occupying it. Last year, she reported from the Maxwell trial
in her sub stack News that of Vicky Ward Investigates,
and now she brings us up to speed on the
results of two decades of reporting as the host and
producer on Chasing Gillaine, a podcast and documentary series on Discovery.
Vicky Ward and I spoke about her entry point into
(02:17):
the world of Jeffrey Epstein, long before the world would
come to know his secrets. Well, it actually is twenty
years only because I began reporting on him in the
fall of two thousand and two, and the reason for
that was actually because I was pregnant with twins and
(02:38):
it was a high risk pregnancy, and I had been
doing a lot of work on the West Coast. Actually
prior to that, but my doctors didn't want me flying
too much. And Jeffrey Epstein's name came up in page
six of the New York Post. And this was a
man who, despite the fact that he lived in what
(03:00):
was said to be the biggest town house in New York,
he was known by then to have his own island
and the Caribbean, known to have a big ranch. Nobody
knew anything about him. No one knew how he had
made his money. He wasn't someone whose name appeared in
the financial press. He was like Gatsby. He was a
(03:22):
mystery figure. So Graydon Carter said to me, you know,
I've heard about this guy for years. I have no
idea where all his money came from. He's an enigma.
He lives in New York. You live in New York,
you're pregnant. This is the perfect moment. Go find out
how he made his money. And that's how it all began. Now,
(03:43):
when you approach him, what was the template for what
you wanted to do in the beginning. So I absolutely
reached out to him straight away, not least because you
know one of the differences, but acute twenty years ago
at it. When you report for Vanity Fair as opposed
(04:04):
to same reporting for The New Yorker or the New
York Times is that pictures really matter. And as reporters
for Anti Fair, we were all trained to sort of
remember that if you had great words and no great photographs,
that's a New Yorker article you may not run in
(04:25):
Vanity Fair. And so access is really critical. So absolutely
I reached out to him. You know, I did a
clipping search on him. There was almost nothing. He was
like the invisible man, and so I knew that my
best bet initially was to try and charm him, try
(04:48):
and persuade him to answer my questions, and at the
very least, because he was reluctant, was to get from
him a list of people who he thought might wanted
to talk about him and might say whatever it is
he wanted to say about himself. It was. It was
a start. The man of mystery who there's almost there's
(05:09):
little to know record of him, but a man who
was this type of cipher if you will, What pitch
did you make? How did you get him to come
out of his shell and talk? Wow? It was so
I perhaps had an advantage in that he did some
homework on me, and I think what he found out
(05:32):
about me frightened him. I mean, he told me that
he had a dossier on me and my then husband,
and in some ways I wasn't a complete stranger to
his world. My then husband's boss and step uncle was
someone who knew Jeffrey, who knew Gillen Maxwell pretty well.
(05:56):
I knew Gillen Maxwell socially, but not well. So you know,
I had a reputation back then as being the kind
of journalist that if they came knocking on your door,
it probably wasn't because I wanted to write a puff
piece about you, and so I think he gathered that
quite quickly. The reason I say that to you is
(06:17):
one of the first things he said to me was, Okay,
you know, let's let's play chess. You'd be white, you
get the first move. I mean, he was ready to
do battle. And also at the very beginning, I ran
into Gillen Maxwell at a baby shower on the Upper
East Side of New York and I had heard I've
(06:38):
done enough reporting to know that they were in some
sort of bizarre relationship that she was supposed to be
obsessed with him. It was not reciprocated I didn't know
much more than that, but I didn't think that point
in my reporting that a piece about Epstein's money would
(07:00):
involve her. She studiously avoided me at that baby show,
but I think she had to walk past me on
her way out, and I said, I'm sure you've heard.
I'm doing this fancy fair piece on on Jeffrey and
his money, but as of yet, I found no reason
to call you. And she started to cry. That was
(07:25):
totally bewildering to me, and sort of still crying, she
left the room. And I did wonder at that point
what on earth that was all about. But you know,
it was quite clear that Jeffrey Epstein viewed me as
a sort of hostile incoming missile. And then, you know,
the next bizarre thing that happened was that James Caine,
(07:48):
who's just died, the CEO of bear Sterns. Then an
investment bank, phoned me at home on my landline. And
I hadn't yet reached out to Jimmy Caine. He was
on a list of people that I wanted to speak
to you, because what was known about Jeffrey Epstein is
that he had worked for I think from memory six
(08:08):
or seven years at bear Sterns and then abruptly left,
and that there was a bit of a mystery as
to why he had left, but that you know, Jimmy
Caine was somebody he got very very close to whilst
at that bag. So when Jimmy Caine phones me up
and says, can you come and see me this afternoon, unprompted,
you know, that was a sign that sort of Jeffrey
(08:30):
Epstein was was going on the offensive here. You know,
it's not normal for the CEO of an investment back
to phone a channelist unsolicited and say can you get
over here, and then spend all afternoon trying to tell
me what an amazing guy Jeffrey Epstein was, you know,
so something was clearly really wrong now to get to
Gillen for a moment. It seems that everywhere you look
in the in the Epstein case, people are being threatened.
(08:53):
There's threats. You were threatened. And when I'm wondering, is
did Maxwell even attempt to make that defense ins the
Epstein threatened her if you don't go out and recruit
these girls from me, you're going to be taken down
and somebody there was none of that. There wasn't Alec. Actually,
that's the big question mark that was left hanging over
that trial. You know, I was in the courtroom every
(09:15):
day of testimony and in some pre trial hearings. You know,
we didn't get to hear the Gillen Maxwell story. And
if what you say were to be true, you would
have thought that that's a that's a pretty good defense, right,
But they kept very far away from the narrative that
she was any kind of victim of his. Her narrative
(09:37):
was that she's not guilty. And I think what you
start saying, well, I'm a victim, then you're admitting some
kind of guilt. And the two very big question marks
that came out of that trial regarding her was why
did he wire her approximately thirty million dollars over a
period of time. It's a huge amount of money for
(09:58):
someone to work someone they're not married to, not related to.
And why did she stay with him for over a
decade in a relationship that clearly was at times unkind
and cruel. I mean we heard how he treat you,
cheated on her, how the butler in Palm Beach took
(10:19):
down photographs of her when he had other women coming
to stay to me Epstein threatening people. It seemed likely
that she could turn over that card in court because
that's consistent behavior for Epstein. It was documented that Epstein
threatened people, bribed people, that he would go to many
lengths to cover up his tracks. And as you just said,
(10:41):
to say I was a victim is to admit I
did something. I did something under duress. And she tried
to say something. If I'm following you correctly, she tried
to say in court I didn't do anything. Is that
what was that the case? That is exactly what she said.
I I am completely innocent. I didn't do anything. And
you know, I think that although obviously the defense is
(11:04):
not obliged to put her on the stand, it's up
to the government. They have the burden of proof. Nonetheless,
I think that there just were too many question marks
in a way that were left hanging there for the
jury to not quote unquote use their common sense, which
(11:25):
is what Maureen Comey, the lead prosecutor, told them to do.
And she said, look at that money. Who gets paid
thirty million dollars and look at the fact that this
woman sticks with this man. And you could see from
the photographs that were shown the sort of the aging process,
how they aged, and and so even though you heard
(11:47):
these stories the sort of poor behavior by Epstein as
a boyfriend to Maxwell, she's still there. And you know,
I think for the jury to have swung to her favor,
she actually needed to tell a story that was believable,
and she didn't. Now, of course, my friends, a couple
in particular, the word they coined for me is conspira noiak.
(12:10):
They say that I'm a conspira noiak. I'm very keen
on a handful of really what I consider great conspiracy theories.
And the first thing I thought to myself when Epstein
turned up dead, the one thing that is just like
a light pulsing in the in the distance all the
time that never goes off, is what happened to all
the material that was in his town house, or in
(12:31):
his Palm Beach house, or in any of his holmes,
that were the CDs and the recorded material. If any
of these people of his guests quote unquote having sex
in his house with these underaged people, are these recruited people. Now,
so he turns up dead. You know, the FBI had
rated that house in New York, and I'm sure I'm
sure if there's anything to be had there, they've got it.
(12:53):
Where is it? Do you believe there is such stuff?
And where is it? So, first of all, there are
a lot of people who think that the circumstances under
which Jeffrey Epstein died, including his own defense team. You know,
I don't think we've heard the last of that. I
don't think you're a conspiraoid to suggest something strange went on,
(13:15):
and I think we have not heard the last of that.
And I don't say that based on speculation. I say
that based on something I know, the question of tapes.
Where are they? So one of the really I found
shocking moments of testimony in the Maxwell trial was actually
from the FBI who raided Epstein's house in New York.
(13:40):
Because what happened, I mean they described it to us.
They went in around five o'clock in the afternoon, they
spent all night, they took pictures of everything, they had
it all labeled, and then they left it there. And
they left it there. They're killing me, I'm not. I
think it was absolutely astonishing because they didn't have the
(14:05):
right warrant to take it out. So three days goes
by before they return, Oh, it's not there. That would
be a great scene, would be a great scene in
the movie, is there's a guy that's like, there's a
guy that's a property manager. He's there in the vestibule
of the house. And the FBI says, now, whatever you do,
don't take your eyes off these boxes. We've got the
(14:27):
wrong warrant and we're gonna be back in a few
days with the right warrant. And if this stuff were
to disappear, it would have such a dileterious effect on
the case. It would ruin the case, our case against Epstein.
Whatever you do, don't remove these boxes that I mean,
how the hell does this happen? It was just remarkable
and would on the stat you know, the testimony was
(14:48):
given by the FBI agents. They go back, the stuff
is missing. They phone up Epstein's lawyers and say, could
you bring it back? Well, I mean, okay, the and
that that the lawyers bring it back and it's their
beliefs that everything was given back. But I mean, by god,
who the heck really does To the extent you can
(15:10):
say in your work covering Maxwell Uh covering Epstein years ago,
did he record people having sex in his house. According
to my sources, yes he did, and in the recording
of those and is that what got him killed? I mean,
this is an obvious question. I'm sorry to accellent tried question,
but I mean, does Epstein become somebody who everybody wants
(15:33):
them dead? Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter, and does Epstein becomes
somebody who it's better for a lot of people that
he's dead, famous people, Well, it's yes, and not necessarily
just Americans. I mean, I mean, you know, if you've
listened to the podcast or watch the documentary series in
there are all sorts of series that come out, and
(15:53):
I try and explain it why some sources are more
credible than others. There are a lot of people who
would have been glad to see jeff Re Epstein dead. Right. Absolutely,
the question of those tapes, you know, we have this
guy aribaminashe who's got credibility problems, saying he thinks the
Israeli government has them. I don't know. All I do
(16:13):
know is that that it's amazing to me that there
was a three day area between the FBI rated Jeffrey
Epstein's house when those tapes that got taken out and
supposedly put back. It's just astonishing. Do you think that
she has because she have a fear she's gonna get
killed in prison too? Because if because if that's the case,
(16:35):
if the FBI leaves the boxes in the hallway for
three days and they disappear, if Epstein's dead, she's one
of the last people with the real dope on Epstein.
And thus all the of Epstein's guests. I'm of the
belief that Epstein was murdered because he had information We're
going to bring down the high end the money on
both sides of the aisle. Does she you think she
(16:56):
has that fear and that that would be maybe speculation
on your part. And I wonder how someone who was
in prison guards against that no pun intended. How did
they communicate their lawyers saying this person needs special protection.
We don't want to end up like Epstein. You know
what I mean? Well, the only thing I mean, look
is that I have asked former assistant U S Attorneys
(17:18):
for the Southern District about this, and thereof the view
that what happened to Jeffrey Epstein was extremely unfortunate and
that the powers that be are going to go out
of their way to ensure that that doesn't happen again.
So I think she'll be very closely, really closely watched.
(17:39):
I mean, imagine if that was to happen again. Her
demeanor in court, it was really fascinating to behold. She
didn't look like somebody who was in the fight for
her life. She didn't look like somebody who thought she
was in the wrong. I mean, it was almost as
(18:02):
if this was her show and the rest of us
we're all in it. She was incredibly tactile with her lawyers,
who obviously had become extremely fond of her. You know,
she didn't come in with shackles or anything like that.
She had her bottle of Fiji water. She didn't look malnourished.
(18:24):
Her hair was dyed black and shoulder length, and you know,
when her lawyers had to leave the room for sidebars
with the judge, she would actually turn around a quite
brazenly stare at all of us. At one point she
sketched the court artist. This was a woman who seemed confident.
(18:45):
Maybe the wrong word, but she wasn't on the defensive.
Put it that way. She wasn't on the defensive. Whereas
you know, I was in court when Jeffrey Epstein was
sitting there and was denied bail, and his body language
was different. He was he was rattled journalist Vicky Ward.
(19:08):
If you enjoy conversations with tenacious journalists breaking the biggest stories,
check out our episode with Pulitzer Prize winning reporters Megan
Tooey and Jody Canter, who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
So when Megan and I were on the phone, she
suggested a kind of argument that she had used with
victims in the past, which is to say to them
(19:29):
very early in the conversation, look, I can't change what's
happened to you in the past, but if we work together,
maybe we can take the pain that you experienced and
put it to some constructive purpose that will help other people.
Because it's the best reason to talk to a journalist.
You are doing this to have a constructive impact on society.
(19:51):
It is. It may be very difficult, but our goal
is to do something that you can eventually feel very
proud of. To hear more of my converse station with
authors and New York Times journalist Megan Tooey and Jodie Canter,
go to our archives and here's the thing. Dot Org.
After the break, Vicky Ward shares with us the time
(20:13):
she felt her life was in danger from Jeffrey Epstein himself.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Many who watched the Gillain Maxwell trial felt a sense
(20:36):
of relief and closure from the guilty verdict, but following
the trial, when a juror disclosed the press that he
shared personal experiences of child sexual abuse with his fellow
jurors during deliberations, it throw open the possibility of a
potential mistrial. It is extraordinary, right, what's happened with this jura.
(20:58):
We don't yet know what Judge Nathan is going to do,
but it will be taken very seriously. And you know
what's interesting is that one of her lawyers, Christian ever Adele,
was the prosecutor who ultimately put away al Chapo. But
I believe in El Chapo that was also a mistrial
because of a juror who turned out to have made
(21:20):
a mistake. So the one thing, you know, how this
juror got through is a question we need to see unfold.
We need answers to if we can, and we ought
to get some I mean, I will say that Judge
Nathan ran that courtroom with an iron rod. She must
be furious that this has happened, but it was but
it was her. She didn't have to let the jurors
(21:42):
say anything. She's not obligated to do that. She chose
to tell the jurors that they could speak if they wished,
so to some degree, this is on her. It's like
it's like Robert Kraft going to his little stopping shop
and massage parlor there and being recorded and him being acquitted,
I believe, and the evidence destroyed. All the evidence. He's acquitted,
(22:06):
but the evidence of him doing what he's doing is destroyed.
It's interesting to me how the Maxwell case, the Epstein
case that eventually the women are heard. Let's give these
women their day in court, and and and they're heard,
and they're believed, and it leads to something. But one
thing that's going to lead to is we've got to
(22:26):
destroy this evidence. That Epstein and Maxwell are a prism
through which you can see this sort of behavior on
behalf of all these celebrities, or what happened. I mean,
I'm somebody who I had people. I mean, I I
endured online months of people writing to me online saying,
you know, you're in Epstein's book. You're a petto, You're
(22:48):
a peto. And I'm like, well, I'm in Epstein's book,
like his dry cleaner is in his book, like his
tree repair stories, and it I mean, I never met
Epstein in my life. And number he's got a number
which is what we call in my office, we called
the dummy line. That's the number we give and we
don't want you to have our number. And and people
(23:09):
go on from there. They're like, you know, you went
down to the island, you were on his plane. You
win his flight log. I'm like, no, actually, I wasn't
on the flight log. And then then we come to
where we are now where this this this ability of
them to protect his guests, to protect So that was
the big frustration of the trial, which is, you know,
(23:34):
where are all the men. There was a whole system
going on, and it was referred to sort of frustratingly
fleeting Lee when they talked about some of the names
on the planes and you know some of the people
that Jeffrey Epstein was photographed with. You know, I didn't
know that he had met with Fidel Castro. I have
(23:55):
to say that was new, and I didn't know about
the pope. That was a whole new one as well.
But the men who are presumably the ones on the
c ds have disappeared from this story. And without the men,
there would have been no enterprise because and I'm not
just talking about the sex. I'm talking about the money.
(24:17):
We still don't know where Jeffrey Epstein's money came from.
But what is you know, has always drupped me as
really interesting is that I have not found anyone who
knew Jeffrey Epstein in the nineteen eighties, when he had
relatively little money, lived in a studio apartment in New York,
(24:38):
that ever saw any evidence of this kind of behavior.
He had normal girlfriends of a normal age. I mean
they may have been in their twenties and sort of
model types, but there was nothing that unusual about that.
It's only when he gets all this money very quickly
and he builds the shangri las, these dens of iniquity,
(25:00):
and he stops going out and instead the world comes
to him. And it's not just the girls who come
to him, you know, these very powerful men. He holds
these salons inside his houses. He takes them on his planes.
It's all hidden from view. And you know, it seems
(25:20):
to be that the men and the money and the
money that propped up this massive In the end, it
was we know, it was a global enterprise. He had
pictures of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi, cried Prince on
the Wall. He talked about doing business with African dictators.
He had an apartment in Paris, which is where he
would meet with them. So that whole aspect of this
(25:41):
is still in the dark, and you know, it's to
me is a critical part of this. And what I'm
hoping is that the investigation that's going on the US
virgin Islands is investigating the Epstein estate, that that will
produce a money trail of sorts. I'm hoping that that
maybe some of the I mean, who knows what's going
(26:03):
to come out. If the Virginia Roberts Geoffrey suit gets
Prince Andrew goes forward, if anything will come out of that.
The other suit that might be very interesting is the
suit between David Boys and Alan Dershowitz, two legal titans
who have really looked heads on all of this and
are trying to get the each other and the and
(26:25):
the vice versa, and as of now they're headed to trial,
and Dershowitz certainly wants Leslie Wexner, who we know was
a patron of Jeffrey Epstein's, to take the stand. So
you know, again it's not over. I mean, I really
hope it's not over. Let me let me ask you
three quick questions, because I don't want to lose these topics. Now,
(26:47):
Epstein eventually threatens you. Correct, Yeah, I didn't take him
very long. How long after you've been talking to him
regularly for a couple of months? Correct, So he got
wind of the fact that I must have spoken to somebody.
I don't uh. What had actually happened was I went
to see Steve Hoffenburg, who was doing time in prison
(27:09):
in Devon's, Massachusetts, sentenced to twenty years for committing the
biggest Ponzi scheme in American history before Bernie made off. Now,
what Hoffenburg told me inside that prison was that, in fact,
it was Jeffrey Epstein's Ponzi scheme, and that Jeffrey had
(27:29):
very cleverly managed to manipulate the legal system that had
all fallen on Hoffenburg. He wasn't able to prove any
of this but he also explained to me where I
could find various sec depositions that Jeffrey had given that
would show me that he was not everything he pretended
(27:50):
to be, that he wasn't just this brilliant money manager
for billionaires that he had in fact had a very
checkered end to his career at best Terns. And Hoffenberg
also told me that he had leverage overs bear Sterns,
he knew various secrets. And so after that meeting, I
did go and I did pull an sec deposition of
(28:12):
that Epstein had given. I went and found another deposition
that he'd given in the archives of a law firm
in Pennsylvania. Because I was pregnant, I wasn't allowed ben Dover,
so I had to have an assistant from Fancy Fair
come with me. And we got very lucky because in fact,
what we found what we needed in the first box
that we came across, and we each had to we
(28:33):
weren't allow write anything down, We had to remember what
was in it. Well. I kept from Epstein until sort
of the the eleventh that was that I had met
these two sisters, Annie Farmer, who just gave testimony in
the Maxwell case, who said that she had been sixteen
when she'd had this absolutely horrible weekend stuck alone with
(28:55):
Epstein and Gillen Maxwell in New Mexico. A Maria Farmer,
her sister who had looked for Jeffrey Epstein for I
think nearly a year in her twenties before something also
completely horrible happened in Ohio. But I think once I
started to ask questions about the money, I sort of
(29:15):
waited till the end to ask him about the farmers,
he began to really really push back and go into
hyper gear about well, one with the threats. You know,
I've got this dossier. I'm going to sue you personally.
You know, I'm going to have my witch doctor place
(29:35):
a curse on your children, you know, asking me very
invasive questions about my body, where I was giving birth,
and who my doctors were, and but also then really
pushing it was at that point, you know, he wanted
me to speak to Les Wexner all of a sudden,
because he thought that the more famous or important people
(29:56):
he could get on the phone to me, the more
I would back down, that I would see that I
must be I must be out of my mind like
the bear Stearns phone call, right, you know, I just
I kept going. I mean, ultimately I got somebody who
had been on the executive committee at best Terns to
(30:18):
tell me to be confident in what I had from
the documents that in fact, Jeffrey Epstein had been up
to no good and as it turned out, so to
Jimmy Caine, and as Greenberg hadn't been spotless either, which
is why Jeffrey Epstein left and had some leverage over them. Now,
one other thing that occurred to me, and I want
(30:38):
to approach this with the proper amount of sensitivity to this,
which is not everybody who's making a charge of sexual
assault has created equal You have people who are making
a claim and they and they have a lot of evidence.
What is the young woman's namers have pronounced Giffrey, Virginia Roberts, Giffrey.
I'm wondering during the trial, during your coverage, did you
(31:02):
think for a moment it was ever suggested that all
of the grooming quote unquote that was alluded to and
was testified about, which is, you know, horrific, But was
it ever mentioned by the defense that these women specifically
I want to attribute this to the defense that these
women could have walked out the door at any given time.
(31:22):
None of them were held against their will. Were they
no or their families threatened if they left the compound
and didn't do what they were asked to do. No.
The defense's strategy was not to get into that, and
in fact, the prosecution even let the witnesses lean in
(31:43):
two the fact that they kept one they wanted to
come back. You know, one case Caroline, who was the
only accuser around whom the sex trafficking charges were based,
and the sex trafficking charges are carried the longest sentence,
She was very clear that she was so desperate financially,
(32:04):
so addicted to drugs. I mean, it was a tragic
story that she fact, the worst moment when she was
eighteen was when Jeffrey Epstein said, actually, we're too old
for me. She came back and back and back. So
I would say it was the reverse. What what the
defense tried to do and what made this trial very
different from the Harvey Weinstein trial, Bill Cosby, all the
(32:25):
all the sexual abuse trials that we've had recently, is
that because the FBI and prosecutors were initially not going
after Gillen, Maxwell they were focused on Jeffrey Epstein. These
women had all given interviews in the last three years
to the FBI about Jeffrey Epstein and the problem. And
(32:47):
what was useful for the defense was that they may
have either not mentioned Gillen Maxwell at all in those interviews,
or they may have not said they can't remember what
she was doing, or they may have said no, I
don't think she was in the room, because they were
focused on somebody else. And that's what complicated I think
(33:09):
this trial. The prosecution obviously pointed out, well, memories change.
These are not verbatim recordings their notes. But that's what
the defense lead into. What they didn't lead into was, um, yeah,
these these girls really really wanted the money. Yeah they didn't.
They didn't lead into that. If anything, the prosecution did
(33:29):
because they were they were children. I was working on
a film once. The director of the film, who was
an older man, he was he was older, he was
in the seventies, he employed two women as extras on
the set of the film, and they were prostitutes. It
really is the money. I mean, it's like shattering what
(33:50):
lengths they got for money. Well, when Caroline stood up
and gave her testimony. Her life story was I think
just tragic. Are just deep, deeply, deeply, deeply upsetting to
hear you a child at sixteen then having to work
off post Jeffrey Epstein as a stripper and an escort,
(34:12):
and you know she when she she fell apart under
aggressive defense cross examination. But I think that everyone in
that courtroom just felt so incredibly sorry that anybody should
have to be in that position that there's nothing left
to sell except their body. It was, it was awful.
(34:35):
Do you think Epstein killed himself? I think that whatever happened,
he had help. Whatever happened, he didn't do it by himself.
Vicky Ward, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on the
I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get
(34:57):
your podcasts. When we come back the key, Ward tries
to shed some light on Jeffrey Epstein's appeal to socialite
Gilain Maxwell. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear
(35:20):
the thing. Metropolitan Correctional Centered guards Toven Noel and Michael
Thomas discovered Jeffrey Epstein's unresponsive body. Their desk was fifteen
feet away from Epstein's cell, and they somehow missed their
rounds between ten thirty pm and six thirty am, leaving
Epstein alone for eight hours. It was revealed that the
(35:42):
guards had falsified records certifying they had performed their duties,
and yet charges against them were dropped. In December, Vicky
Ward shared her thoughts on this development. I have wanted
that I have said there and I were, But the
moment the Maxwell trial finished, I read a little tidy
(36:04):
story in the newspaper somewhere saying that all charges against
those guards had been dropped, like buried. To prosecute them
would invite more discovery material people want to keep secret. Right.
I do have a very reliable source on this, and
(36:25):
I think that that story is not it's not over right.
I mean, you know, I think what's so shocking about
this is that, you know, Maxwell, when you look at
her on the outside, you see pictures of her, she
seems very winning. She's this attractive. You know, at first
she's a very young woman and she's a bit older.
(36:47):
She's got her arm around Epstein, their dear friends, and
there's no way she could downplay her relationship with Epstein.
The photographic evidence is like a family album. She's hugging
him and rubbing up against him or what have you,
regardless of their relationship, and you look at her and
you think, how the hell did this woman with her
connections and her family. Yes, her father was a scoundrel
(37:11):
and he dies under these very h strange circumstances. But
you just need to yourself, how does someone like her?
How does she end up in this mess? How does
she end up her life being destroyed by this relationship
with this man? What did Epstein have? Was Epstein this
bon vivant, raconteur, elegant, sophisticated, funny. Why do you think
(37:37):
people were loyal to Epstein? Beyond blackmail? What did he have? Well,
it's interesting what you say about GILLN. Maxwell is completely true,
and it was funny. I was. I was taking an
interview with the BBC. A new Epstein accuser had just
come forward, and she was describing meeting Gilenn Maxwell, and
(37:57):
she described her as electrifying um and Gilen Maxwell was
electrifying and she was much I mean, she was everything
that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't. But I found Jeffrey at swe
crass vulgar, a bully, a thug, but he was rich.
And you know, many people who were at Oxford with
(38:18):
Gilen Maxwell have asked the same question, what on earth
was she doing with him? I do know that in
Britain they are now going back, certainly various documentary companies
and are going to really really dig into the life
of her father, because there's clearly something very messed up
(38:42):
about someone who you know, prizes money so much that
she's willing to do the kinds of things that we
heard in that courtroom, and that that was the story
that the prosecution laid out. And this was a woman who,
if anybody could have got out and made something of
(39:03):
themselves by themselves. She had the roller decks, she had
the ability. Why on earth, I have asked, did she
just not go out and get a job when her
dad died? But she had grown up spoiled, used to
all these trappings with money that was stolen, and you know,
when you have to remember that her father's you know,
(39:25):
millions were actually fraudulent. It was a facade right from
the beginning. And you know, I suspect that she very
cold bloodedly calculated that the route to power, particularly in
America is through money, and that's what Jeffrey Epstein had.
(39:47):
And also you see quite often people who have money
and lose money, they have to go back, well, they
have to, they have to go down a few natches.
I've seen this so often, and they sit there and
they go. You know, it's like Scarlett O'Hara, as God
is my judge, I'll never go hungry again. You know
these people, as God is my judge, I'll never live
(40:11):
off of less than eight figures again. You know that
once you have that level of wealth and privileges, private planes,
life is just so much easier. Life is just so
much more convenient. I'm not standing in line at the
airport of the baggage claimed with a bunch of trolls.
Once you have that and you lose it, you'll pretty
much go to any lengths to get it back. And
(40:33):
when you get it back, you're like, I'm never gonna
I'm gonna do whatever it takes to stay here now
because I went down to the basement and I hate it.
What are you working on next? Is it a book
or is it a podcast or is it a documentary?
Because have you fallen in love with the two latter formats.
Have you've grown fond of documentary filmmaking, I have. I'm
(40:54):
doing all three. I'm doing all three. And I've been
following this story in South Carolina about this family of
lawyers who have been running the low country in South
Carolina since and how there's been a series of tragedies
down there, culminating in the very mysterious murder. Yes, I
(41:17):
saw the articles along which which I'm The investigation into
that murder has also led to the investigation into other
murders that have happened down there. But the bigger picture
is it's it's really a story about corruption in the
law in South Carolina, and how right now you're seeing
(41:39):
one group of people being replaced by another group of people.
The question is is the new group any better than
the old? I don't know, That's what That's what I'm
going to go find out. The documentary you had on
about Maxwell was your first filmed piece. What would you
say are the advantages that books have over filmed reporting
(42:00):
and vice versa. What did you find was the advantage
to filming over writing? Well, it's interesting, you know, we
we also we filmed the making of the podcast, so
we did something unusual, so I was I was learning
how to do a podcast at the same time as
doing the film. There's great value in being able to
(42:21):
bring viewers into the room with you as you're asking
the questions, and for viewers to see people's faces, to
see their reactions very helpful, I think for viewers to
see me push back and say, well, you know, how
do you know this? Do you really know it? It
was a joy in a way for me to be
able to take viewers on the journey that I do
(42:43):
all the time, the journalistic journey. That was really fun.
It was really interesting to learn into in the podcasting
how telling a story for the ear is not the
same as writing that. You have to really write episodes
very thematically, and I learned to very great deal with that.
(43:06):
And I think, you know, I've come away with a
much clearer idea of what stories lend themselves to certain mediums,
and I think it will be very useful for me
going forward to be able to do all of them. Well,
let me just say, I live my life looking at
people and contemplating alternatives. Had they made a monest adjustment
(43:27):
this way or that way, had they not done this,
had they gone in this direction, their life would be
completely different, and they make the choices they make it
now Maxwell as poised to go to prison and maybe
dye in prison, be in prison for the rest of
her life, and that's just so, and you think to yourself,
Good God, it didn't have to be that way, you know.
I mean, I'm sympathetic to the victims, but I'm I'm
(43:50):
saddened for everyone who they allow their life to be
led in that direction. Do they allow them they destroy
their own lives that way. So anyway, thank you so much,
Thank you so much. Author and journalist Vicky Ward. You
can find her podcast Catching Gilaine on Audible and her
(44:11):
documentary series of the same name on Discovery. This episode
was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeese, and Maureen Hoban.
Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Hey, it's Alec. We all love true crime podcasts, but
perhaps you're looking for something a little different, less murder,
more intrigue. I invite you to check out a new
podcast I just released called Art Fraud. It's the true
story of one of New York City's oldest and most
trusted galleries dealing in world class art, and how its
(00:23):
doors would close forever in the wake of an unprecedented scandal.
The art market is ripe for cons because it's inherently subjective.
I just couldn't even look at it because it was
so garish and so not by Rothcoe. We're talking about
(00:44):
eighty million dollars in fake paintings, or more precisely, forgeries.
All episodes of Art Fraud are available right now. Okay,
here's our show. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening
to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. In the
aftermath of Jeffrey Epstein's death, the world turned its attention
(01:09):
to the trial of his associate, Gilain Maxwell. Maxwell, it seems,
is the last hope for resolution and accountability in a
case with so many missing pieces. My guest today, Vicky Ward,
is the perfect person to shed some light on the
questions that remain. She's a New York Times bestselling author
(01:30):
and investigative reporter who has covered Jeffrey Epstein and Gilain
Maxwell since two thousand two. Ward has a long history
as a columnist and feature writer at The New York Post,
Huff Post, and Vanity Fair. She's written books about New
York real estate, the financial sector, and most recently, the
White House and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's path to
(01:54):
occupying it. Last year, she reported from the Maxwell trial
in her sub stack News that of Vicky Ward Investigates,
and now she brings us up to speed on the
results of two decades of reporting as the host and
producer on Chasing Gillaine, a podcast and documentary series on Discovery.
Vicky Ward and I spoke about her entry point into
(02:17):
the world of Jeffrey Epstein, long before the world would
come to know his secrets. Well, it actually is twenty
years only because I began reporting on him in the
fall of two thousand and two, and the reason for
that was actually because I was pregnant with twins and
(02:38):
it was a high risk pregnancy, and I had been
doing a lot of work on the West Coast. Actually
prior to that, but my doctors didn't want me flying
too much. And Jeffrey Epstein's name came up in page
six of the New York Post. And this was a
man who, despite the fact that he lived in what
(03:00):
was said to be the biggest town house in New York,
he was known by then to have his own island
and the Caribbean, known to have a big ranch. Nobody
knew anything about him. No one knew how he had
made his money. He wasn't someone whose name appeared in
the financial press. He was like Gatsby. He was a
(03:22):
mystery figure. So Graydon Carter said to me, you know,
I've heard about this guy for years. I have no
idea where all his money came from. He's an enigma.
He lives in New York. You live in New York,
you're pregnant. This is the perfect moment. Go find out
how he made his money. And that's how it all began. Now,
(03:43):
when you approach him, what was the template for what
you wanted to do in the beginning. So I absolutely
reached out to him straight away, not least because you
know one of the differences, but acute twenty years ago
at it. When you report for Vanity Fair as opposed
(04:04):
to same reporting for The New Yorker or the New
York Times is that pictures really matter. And as reporters
for Anti Fair, we were all trained to sort of
remember that if you had great words and no great photographs,
that's a New Yorker article you may not run in
(04:25):
Vanity Fair. And so access is really critical. So absolutely
I reached out to him. You know, I did a
clipping search on him. There was almost nothing. He was
like the invisible man, and so I knew that my
best bet initially was to try and charm him, try
(04:48):
and persuade him to answer my questions, and at the
very least, because he was reluctant, was to get from
him a list of people who he thought might wanted
to talk about him and might say whatever it is
he wanted to say about himself. It was. It was
a start. The man of mystery who there's almost there's
(05:09):
little to know record of him, but a man who
was this type of cipher if you will, What pitch
did you make? How did you get him to come
out of his shell and talk? Wow? It was so
I perhaps had an advantage in that he did some
homework on me, and I think what he found out
(05:32):
about me frightened him. I mean, he told me that
he had a dossier on me and my then husband,
and in some ways I wasn't a complete stranger to
his world. My then husband's boss and step uncle was
someone who knew Jeffrey, who knew Gillen Maxwell pretty well.
(05:56):
I knew Gillen Maxwell socially, but not well. So you know,
I had a reputation back then as being the kind
of journalist that if they came knocking on your door,
it probably wasn't because I wanted to write a puff
piece about you, and so I think he gathered that
quite quickly. The reason I say that to you is
(06:17):
one of the first things he said to me was, Okay,
you know, let's let's play chess. You'd be white, you
get the first move. I mean, he was ready to
do battle. And also at the very beginning, I ran
into Gillen Maxwell at a baby shower on the Upper
East Side of New York and I had heard I've
(06:38):
done enough reporting to know that they were in some
sort of bizarre relationship that she was supposed to be
obsessed with him. It was not reciprocated I didn't know
much more than that, but I didn't think that point
in my reporting that a piece about Epstein's money would
(07:00):
involve her. She studiously avoided me at that baby show,
but I think she had to walk past me on
her way out, and I said, I'm sure you've heard.
I'm doing this fancy fair piece on on Jeffrey and
his money, but as of yet, I found no reason
to call you. And she started to cry. That was
(07:25):
totally bewildering to me, and sort of still crying, she
left the room. And I did wonder at that point
what on earth that was all about. But you know,
it was quite clear that Jeffrey Epstein viewed me as
a sort of hostile incoming missile. And then, you know,
the next bizarre thing that happened was that James Caine,
(07:48):
who's just died, the CEO of bear Sterns. Then an
investment bank, phoned me at home on my landline. And
I hadn't yet reached out to Jimmy Caine. He was
on a list of people that I wanted to speak
to you, because what was known about Jeffrey Epstein is
that he had worked for I think from memory six
(08:08):
or seven years at bear Sterns and then abruptly left,
and that there was a bit of a mystery as
to why he had left, but that you know, Jimmy
Caine was somebody he got very very close to whilst
at that bag. So when Jimmy Caine phones me up
and says, can you come and see me this afternoon, unprompted,
you know, that was a sign that sort of Jeffrey
(08:30):
Epstein was was going on the offensive here. You know,
it's not normal for the CEO of an investment back
to phone a channelist unsolicited and say can you get
over here, and then spend all afternoon trying to tell
me what an amazing guy Jeffrey Epstein was, you know,
so something was clearly really wrong now to get to
Gillen for a moment. It seems that everywhere you look
in the in the Epstein case, people are being threatened.
(08:53):
There's threats. You were threatened. And when I'm wondering, is
did Maxwell even attempt to make that defense ins the
Epstein threatened her if you don't go out and recruit
these girls from me, you're going to be taken down
and somebody there was none of that. There wasn't Alec. Actually,
that's the big question mark that was left hanging over
that trial. You know, I was in the courtroom every
(09:15):
day of testimony and in some pre trial hearings. You know,
we didn't get to hear the Gillen Maxwell story. And
if what you say were to be true, you would
have thought that that's a that's a pretty good defense, right,
But they kept very far away from the narrative that
she was any kind of victim of his. Her narrative
(09:37):
was that she's not guilty. And I think what you
start saying, well, I'm a victim, then you're admitting some
kind of guilt. And the two very big question marks
that came out of that trial regarding her was why
did he wire her approximately thirty million dollars over a
period of time. It's a huge amount of money for
(09:58):
someone to work someone they're not married to, not related to.
And why did she stay with him for over a
decade in a relationship that clearly was at times unkind
and cruel. I mean we heard how he treat you,
cheated on her, how the butler in Palm Beach took
(10:19):
down photographs of her when he had other women coming
to stay to me Epstein threatening people. It seemed likely
that she could turn over that card in court because
that's consistent behavior for Epstein. It was documented that Epstein
threatened people, bribed people, that he would go to many
lengths to cover up his tracks. And as you just said,
(10:41):
to say I was a victim is to admit I
did something. I did something under duress. And she tried
to say something. If I'm following you correctly, she tried
to say in court I didn't do anything. Is that
what was that the case? That is exactly what she said.
I I am completely innocent. I didn't do anything. And
you know, I think that although obviously the defense is
(11:04):
not obliged to put her on the stand, it's up
to the government. They have the burden of proof. Nonetheless,
I think that there just were too many question marks
in a way that were left hanging there for the
jury to not quote unquote use their common sense, which
(11:25):
is what Maureen Comey, the lead prosecutor, told them to do.
And she said, look at that money. Who gets paid
thirty million dollars and look at the fact that this
woman sticks with this man. And you could see from
the photographs that were shown the sort of the aging process,
how they aged, and and so even though you heard
(11:47):
these stories the sort of poor behavior by Epstein as
a boyfriend to Maxwell, she's still there. And you know,
I think for the jury to have swung to her favor,
she actually needed to tell a story that was believable,
and she didn't. Now, of course, my friends, a couple
in particular, the word they coined for me is conspira noiak.
(12:10):
They say that I'm a conspira noiak. I'm very keen
on a handful of really what I consider great conspiracy theories.
And the first thing I thought to myself when Epstein
turned up dead, the one thing that is just like
a light pulsing in the in the distance all the
time that never goes off, is what happened to all
the material that was in his town house, or in
(12:31):
his Palm Beach house, or in any of his holmes,
that were the CDs and the recorded material. If any
of these people of his guests quote unquote having sex
in his house with these underaged people, are these recruited people. Now,
so he turns up dead. You know, the FBI had
rated that house in New York, and I'm sure I'm
sure if there's anything to be had there, they've got it.
(12:53):
Where is it? Do you believe there is such stuff?
And where is it? So, first of all, there are
a lot of people who think that the circumstances under
which Jeffrey Epstein died, including his own defense team. You know,
I don't think we've heard the last of that. I
don't think you're a conspiraoid to suggest something strange went on,
(13:15):
and I think we have not heard the last of that.
And I don't say that based on speculation. I say
that based on something I know, the question of tapes.
Where are they? So one of the really I found
shocking moments of testimony in the Maxwell trial was actually
from the FBI who raided Epstein's house in New York.
(13:40):
Because what happened, I mean they described it to us.
They went in around five o'clock in the afternoon, they
spent all night, they took pictures of everything, they had
it all labeled, and then they left it there. And
they left it there. They're killing me, I'm not. I
think it was absolutely astonishing because they didn't have the
(14:05):
right warrant to take it out. So three days goes
by before they return, Oh, it's not there. That would
be a great scene, would be a great scene in
the movie, is there's a guy that's like, there's a
guy that's a property manager. He's there in the vestibule
of the house. And the FBI says, now, whatever you do,
don't take your eyes off these boxes. We've got the
(14:27):
wrong warrant and we're gonna be back in a few
days with the right warrant. And if this stuff were
to disappear, it would have such a dileterious effect on
the case. It would ruin the case, our case against Epstein.
Whatever you do, don't remove these boxes that I mean,
how the hell does this happen? It was just remarkable
and would on the stat you know, the testimony was
(14:48):
given by the FBI agents. They go back, the stuff
is missing. They phone up Epstein's lawyers and say, could
you bring it back? Well, I mean, okay, the and
that that the lawyers bring it back and it's their
beliefs that everything was given back. But I mean, by god,
who the heck really does To the extent you can
(15:10):
say in your work covering Maxwell Uh covering Epstein years ago,
did he record people having sex in his house. According
to my sources, yes he did, and in the recording
of those and is that what got him killed? I mean,
this is an obvious question. I'm sorry to accellent tried question,
but I mean, does Epstein become somebody who everybody wants
(15:33):
them dead? Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter, and does Epstein becomes
somebody who it's better for a lot of people that
he's dead, famous people, Well, it's yes, and not necessarily
just Americans. I mean, I mean, you know, if you've
listened to the podcast or watch the documentary series in
there are all sorts of series that come out, and
(15:53):
I try and explain it why some sources are more
credible than others. There are a lot of people who
would have been glad to see jeff Re Epstein dead. Right. Absolutely,
the question of those tapes, you know, we have this
guy aribaminashe who's got credibility problems, saying he thinks the
Israeli government has them. I don't know. All I do
(16:13):
know is that that it's amazing to me that there
was a three day area between the FBI rated Jeffrey
Epstein's house when those tapes that got taken out and
supposedly put back. It's just astonishing. Do you think that
she has because she have a fear she's gonna get
killed in prison too? Because if because if that's the case,
(16:35):
if the FBI leaves the boxes in the hallway for
three days and they disappear, if Epstein's dead, she's one
of the last people with the real dope on Epstein.
And thus all the of Epstein's guests. I'm of the
belief that Epstein was murdered because he had information We're
going to bring down the high end the money on
both sides of the aisle. Does she you think she
(16:56):
has that fear and that that would be maybe speculation
on your part. And I wonder how someone who was
in prison guards against that no pun intended. How did
they communicate their lawyers saying this person needs special protection.
We don't want to end up like Epstein. You know
what I mean? Well, the only thing I mean, look
is that I have asked former assistant U S Attorneys
(17:18):
for the Southern District about this, and thereof the view
that what happened to Jeffrey Epstein was extremely unfortunate and
that the powers that be are going to go out
of their way to ensure that that doesn't happen again.
So I think she'll be very closely, really closely watched.
(17:39):
I mean, imagine if that was to happen again. Her
demeanor in court, it was really fascinating to behold. She
didn't look like somebody who was in the fight for
her life. She didn't look like somebody who thought she
was in the wrong. I mean, it was almost as
(18:02):
if this was her show and the rest of us
we're all in it. She was incredibly tactile with her lawyers,
who obviously had become extremely fond of her. You know,
she didn't come in with shackles or anything like that.
She had her bottle of Fiji water. She didn't look malnourished.
(18:24):
Her hair was dyed black and shoulder length, and you know,
when her lawyers had to leave the room for sidebars
with the judge, she would actually turn around a quite
brazenly stare at all of us. At one point she
sketched the court artist. This was a woman who seemed confident.
(18:45):
Maybe the wrong word, but she wasn't on the defensive.
Put it that way. She wasn't on the defensive. Whereas
you know, I was in court when Jeffrey Epstein was
sitting there and was denied bail, and his body language
was different. He was he was rattled journalist Vicky Ward.
(19:08):
If you enjoy conversations with tenacious journalists breaking the biggest stories,
check out our episode with Pulitzer Prize winning reporters Megan
Tooey and Jody Canter, who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
So when Megan and I were on the phone, she
suggested a kind of argument that she had used with
victims in the past, which is to say to them
(19:29):
very early in the conversation, look, I can't change what's
happened to you in the past, but if we work together,
maybe we can take the pain that you experienced and
put it to some constructive purpose that will help other people.
Because it's the best reason to talk to a journalist.
You are doing this to have a constructive impact on society.
(19:51):
It is. It may be very difficult, but our goal
is to do something that you can eventually feel very
proud of. To hear more of my converse station with
authors and New York Times journalist Megan Tooey and Jodie Canter,
go to our archives and here's the thing. Dot Org.
After the break, Vicky Ward shares with us the time
(20:13):
she felt her life was in danger from Jeffrey Epstein himself.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Many who watched the Gillain Maxwell trial felt a sense
(20:36):
of relief and closure from the guilty verdict, but following
the trial, when a juror disclosed the press that he
shared personal experiences of child sexual abuse with his fellow
jurors during deliberations, it throw open the possibility of a
potential mistrial. It is extraordinary, right, what's happened with this jura.
(20:58):
We don't yet know what Judge Nathan is going to do,
but it will be taken very seriously. And you know
what's interesting is that one of her lawyers, Christian ever Adele,
was the prosecutor who ultimately put away al Chapo. But
I believe in El Chapo that was also a mistrial
because of a juror who turned out to have made
(21:20):
a mistake. So the one thing, you know, how this
juror got through is a question we need to see unfold.
We need answers to if we can, and we ought
to get some I mean, I will say that Judge
Nathan ran that courtroom with an iron rod. She must
be furious that this has happened, but it was but
it was her. She didn't have to let the jurors
(21:42):
say anything. She's not obligated to do that. She chose
to tell the jurors that they could speak if they wished,
so to some degree, this is on her. It's like
it's like Robert Kraft going to his little stopping shop
and massage parlor there and being recorded and him being acquitted,
I believe, and the evidence destroyed. All the evidence. He's acquitted,
(22:06):
but the evidence of him doing what he's doing is destroyed.
It's interesting to me how the Maxwell case, the Epstein
case that eventually the women are heard. Let's give these
women their day in court, and and and they're heard,
and they're believed, and it leads to something. But one
thing that's going to lead to is we've got to
(22:26):
destroy this evidence. That Epstein and Maxwell are a prism
through which you can see this sort of behavior on
behalf of all these celebrities, or what happened. I mean,
I'm somebody who I had people. I mean, I I
endured online months of people writing to me online saying,
you know, you're in Epstein's book. You're a petto, You're
(22:48):
a peto. And I'm like, well, I'm in Epstein's book,
like his dry cleaner is in his book, like his
tree repair stories, and it I mean, I never met
Epstein in my life. And number he's got a number
which is what we call in my office, we called
the dummy line. That's the number we give and we
don't want you to have our number. And and people
(23:09):
go on from there. They're like, you know, you went
down to the island, you were on his plane. You
win his flight log. I'm like, no, actually, I wasn't
on the flight log. And then then we come to
where we are now where this this this ability of
them to protect his guests, to protect So that was
the big frustration of the trial, which is, you know,
(23:34):
where are all the men. There was a whole system
going on, and it was referred to sort of frustratingly
fleeting Lee when they talked about some of the names
on the planes and you know some of the people
that Jeffrey Epstein was photographed with. You know, I didn't
know that he had met with Fidel Castro. I have
(23:55):
to say that was new, and I didn't know about
the pope. That was a whole new one as well.
But the men who are presumably the ones on the
c ds have disappeared from this story. And without the men,
there would have been no enterprise because and I'm not
just talking about the sex. I'm talking about the money.
(24:17):
We still don't know where Jeffrey Epstein's money came from.
But what is you know, has always drupped me as
really interesting is that I have not found anyone who
knew Jeffrey Epstein in the nineteen eighties, when he had
relatively little money, lived in a studio apartment in New York,
(24:38):
that ever saw any evidence of this kind of behavior.
He had normal girlfriends of a normal age. I mean
they may have been in their twenties and sort of
model types, but there was nothing that unusual about that.
It's only when he gets all this money very quickly
and he builds the shangri las, these dens of iniquity,
(25:00):
and he stops going out and instead the world comes
to him. And it's not just the girls who come
to him, you know, these very powerful men. He holds
these salons inside his houses. He takes them on his planes.
It's all hidden from view. And you know, it seems
(25:20):
to be that the men and the money and the
money that propped up this massive In the end, it
was we know, it was a global enterprise. He had
pictures of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi, cried Prince on
the Wall. He talked about doing business with African dictators.
He had an apartment in Paris, which is where he
would meet with them. So that whole aspect of this
(25:41):
is still in the dark, and you know, it's to
me is a critical part of this. And what I'm
hoping is that the investigation that's going on the US
virgin Islands is investigating the Epstein estate, that that will
produce a money trail of sorts. I'm hoping that that
maybe some of the I mean, who knows what's going
(26:03):
to come out. If the Virginia Roberts Geoffrey suit gets
Prince Andrew goes forward, if anything will come out of that.
The other suit that might be very interesting is the
suit between David Boys and Alan Dershowitz, two legal titans
who have really looked heads on all of this and
are trying to get the each other and the and
(26:25):
the vice versa, and as of now they're headed to trial,
and Dershowitz certainly wants Leslie Wexner, who we know was
a patron of Jeffrey Epstein's, to take the stand. So
you know, again it's not over. I mean, I really
hope it's not over. Let me let me ask you
three quick questions, because I don't want to lose these topics. Now,
(26:47):
Epstein eventually threatens you. Correct, Yeah, I didn't take him
very long. How long after you've been talking to him
regularly for a couple of months? Correct, So he got
wind of the fact that I must have spoken to somebody.
I don't uh. What had actually happened was I went
to see Steve Hoffenburg, who was doing time in prison
(27:09):
in Devon's, Massachusetts, sentenced to twenty years for committing the
biggest Ponzi scheme in American history before Bernie made off. Now,
what Hoffenburg told me inside that prison was that, in fact,
it was Jeffrey Epstein's Ponzi scheme, and that Jeffrey had
(27:29):
very cleverly managed to manipulate the legal system that had
all fallen on Hoffenburg. He wasn't able to prove any
of this but he also explained to me where I
could find various sec depositions that Jeffrey had given that
would show me that he was not everything he pretended
(27:50):
to be, that he wasn't just this brilliant money manager
for billionaires that he had in fact had a very
checkered end to his career at best Terns. And Hoffenberg
also told me that he had leverage overs bear Sterns,
he knew various secrets. And so after that meeting, I
did go and I did pull an sec deposition of
(28:12):
that Epstein had given. I went and found another deposition
that he'd given in the archives of a law firm
in Pennsylvania. Because I was pregnant, I wasn't allowed ben Dover,
so I had to have an assistant from Fancy Fair
come with me. And we got very lucky because in fact,
what we found what we needed in the first box
that we came across, and we each had to we
(28:33):
weren't allow write anything down, We had to remember what
was in it. Well. I kept from Epstein until sort
of the the eleventh that was that I had met
these two sisters, Annie Farmer, who just gave testimony in
the Maxwell case, who said that she had been sixteen
when she'd had this absolutely horrible weekend stuck alone with
(28:55):
Epstein and Gillen Maxwell in New Mexico. A Maria Farmer,
her sister who had looked for Jeffrey Epstein for I
think nearly a year in her twenties before something also
completely horrible happened in Ohio. But I think once I
started to ask questions about the money, I sort of
(29:15):
waited till the end to ask him about the farmers,
he began to really really push back and go into
hyper gear about well, one with the threats. You know,
I've got this dossier. I'm going to sue you personally.
You know, I'm going to have my witch doctor place
(29:35):
a curse on your children, you know, asking me very
invasive questions about my body, where I was giving birth,
and who my doctors were, and but also then really
pushing it was at that point, you know, he wanted
me to speak to Les Wexner all of a sudden,
because he thought that the more famous or important people
(29:56):
he could get on the phone to me, the more
I would back down, that I would see that I
must be I must be out of my mind like
the bear Stearns phone call, right, you know, I just
I kept going. I mean, ultimately I got somebody who
had been on the executive committee at best Terns to
(30:18):
tell me to be confident in what I had from
the documents that in fact, Jeffrey Epstein had been up
to no good and as it turned out, so to
Jimmy Caine, and as Greenberg hadn't been spotless either, which
is why Jeffrey Epstein left and had some leverage over them. Now,
one other thing that occurred to me, and I want
(30:38):
to approach this with the proper amount of sensitivity to this,
which is not everybody who's making a charge of sexual
assault has created equal You have people who are making
a claim and they and they have a lot of evidence.
What is the young woman's namers have pronounced Giffrey, Virginia Roberts, Giffrey.
I'm wondering during the trial, during your coverage, did you
(31:02):
think for a moment it was ever suggested that all
of the grooming quote unquote that was alluded to and
was testified about, which is, you know, horrific, But was
it ever mentioned by the defense that these women specifically
I want to attribute this to the defense that these
women could have walked out the door at any given time.
(31:22):
None of them were held against their will. Were they
no or their families threatened if they left the compound
and didn't do what they were asked to do. No.
The defense's strategy was not to get into that, and
in fact, the prosecution even let the witnesses lean in
(31:43):
two the fact that they kept one they wanted to
come back. You know, one case Caroline, who was the
only accuser around whom the sex trafficking charges were based,
and the sex trafficking charges are carried the longest sentence,
She was very clear that she was so desperate financially,
(32:04):
so addicted to drugs. I mean, it was a tragic
story that she fact, the worst moment when she was
eighteen was when Jeffrey Epstein said, actually, we're too old
for me. She came back and back and back. So
I would say it was the reverse. What what the
defense tried to do and what made this trial very
different from the Harvey Weinstein trial, Bill Cosby, all the
(32:25):
all the sexual abuse trials that we've had recently, is
that because the FBI and prosecutors were initially not going
after Gillen, Maxwell they were focused on Jeffrey Epstein. These
women had all given interviews in the last three years
to the FBI about Jeffrey Epstein and the problem. And
(32:47):
what was useful for the defense was that they may
have either not mentioned Gillen Maxwell at all in those interviews,
or they may have not said they can't remember what
she was doing, or they may have said no, I
don't think she was in the room, because they were
focused on somebody else. And that's what complicated I think
(33:09):
this trial. The prosecution obviously pointed out, well, memories change.
These are not verbatim recordings their notes. But that's what
the defense lead into. What they didn't lead into was, um, yeah,
these these girls really really wanted the money. Yeah they didn't.
They didn't lead into that. If anything, the prosecution did
(33:29):
because they were they were children. I was working on
a film once. The director of the film, who was
an older man, he was he was older, he was
in the seventies, he employed two women as extras on
the set of the film, and they were prostitutes. It
really is the money. I mean, it's like shattering what
(33:50):
lengths they got for money. Well, when Caroline stood up
and gave her testimony. Her life story was I think
just tragic. Are just deep, deeply, deeply, deeply upsetting to
hear you a child at sixteen then having to work
off post Jeffrey Epstein as a stripper and an escort,
(34:12):
and you know she when she she fell apart under
aggressive defense cross examination. But I think that everyone in
that courtroom just felt so incredibly sorry that anybody should
have to be in that position that there's nothing left
to sell except their body. It was, it was awful.
(34:35):
Do you think Epstein killed himself? I think that whatever happened,
he had help. Whatever happened, he didn't do it by himself.
Vicky Ward, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on the
I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get
(34:57):
your podcasts. When we come back the key, Ward tries
to shed some light on Jeffrey Epstein's appeal to socialite
Gilain Maxwell. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear
(35:20):
the thing. Metropolitan Correctional Centered guards Toven Noel and Michael
Thomas discovered Jeffrey Epstein's unresponsive body. Their desk was fifteen
feet away from Epstein's cell, and they somehow missed their
rounds between ten thirty pm and six thirty am, leaving
Epstein alone for eight hours. It was revealed that the
(35:42):
guards had falsified records certifying they had performed their duties,
and yet charges against them were dropped. In December, Vicky
Ward shared her thoughts on this development. I have wanted
that I have said there and I were, But the
moment the Maxwell trial finished, I read a little tidy
(36:04):
story in the newspaper somewhere saying that all charges against
those guards had been dropped, like buried. To prosecute them
would invite more discovery material people want to keep secret. Right.
I do have a very reliable source on this, and
(36:25):
I think that that story is not it's not over right.
I mean, you know, I think what's so shocking about
this is that, you know, Maxwell, when you look at
her on the outside, you see pictures of her, she
seems very winning. She's this attractive. You know, at first
she's a very young woman and she's a bit older.
(36:47):
She's got her arm around Epstein, their dear friends, and
there's no way she could downplay her relationship with Epstein.
The photographic evidence is like a family album. She's hugging
him and rubbing up against him or what have you,
regardless of their relationship, and you look at her and
you think, how the hell did this woman with her
connections and her family. Yes, her father was a scoundrel
(37:11):
and he dies under these very h strange circumstances. But
you just need to yourself, how does someone like her?
How does she end up in this mess? How does
she end up her life being destroyed by this relationship
with this man? What did Epstein have? Was Epstein this
bon vivant, raconteur, elegant, sophisticated, funny. Why do you think
(37:37):
people were loyal to Epstein? Beyond blackmail? What did he have? Well,
it's interesting what you say about GILLN. Maxwell is completely true,
and it was funny. I was. I was taking an
interview with the BBC. A new Epstein accuser had just
come forward, and she was describing meeting Gilenn Maxwell, and
(37:57):
she described her as electrifying um and Gilen Maxwell was
electrifying and she was much I mean, she was everything
that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't. But I found Jeffrey at swe
crass vulgar, a bully, a thug, but he was rich.
And you know, many people who were at Oxford with
(38:18):
Gilen Maxwell have asked the same question, what on earth
was she doing with him? I do know that in
Britain they are now going back, certainly various documentary companies
and are going to really really dig into the life
of her father, because there's clearly something very messed up
(38:42):
about someone who you know, prizes money so much that
she's willing to do the kinds of things that we
heard in that courtroom, and that that was the story
that the prosecution laid out. And this was a woman who,
if anybody could have got out and made something of
(39:03):
themselves by themselves. She had the roller decks, she had
the ability. Why on earth, I have asked, did she
just not go out and get a job when her
dad died? But she had grown up spoiled, used to
all these trappings with money that was stolen, and you know,
when you have to remember that her father's you know,
(39:25):
millions were actually fraudulent. It was a facade right from
the beginning. And you know, I suspect that she very
cold bloodedly calculated that the route to power, particularly in
America is through money, and that's what Jeffrey Epstein had.
(39:47):
And also you see quite often people who have money
and lose money, they have to go back, well, they
have to, they have to go down a few natches.
I've seen this so often, and they sit there and
they go. You know, it's like Scarlett O'Hara, as God
is my judge, I'll never go hungry again. You know
these people, as God is my judge, I'll never live
(40:11):
off of less than eight figures again. You know that
once you have that level of wealth and privileges, private planes,
life is just so much easier. Life is just so
much more convenient. I'm not standing in line at the
airport of the baggage claimed with a bunch of trolls.
Once you have that and you lose it, you'll pretty
much go to any lengths to get it back. And
(40:33):
when you get it back, you're like, I'm never gonna
I'm gonna do whatever it takes to stay here now
because I went down to the basement and I hate it.
What are you working on next? Is it a book
or is it a podcast or is it a documentary?
Because have you fallen in love with the two latter formats.
Have you've grown fond of documentary filmmaking, I have. I'm
(40:54):
doing all three. I'm doing all three. And I've been
following this story in South Carolina about this family of
lawyers who have been running the low country in South
Carolina since and how there's been a series of tragedies
down there, culminating in the very mysterious murder. Yes, I
(41:17):
saw the articles along which which I'm The investigation into
that murder has also led to the investigation into other
murders that have happened down there. But the bigger picture
is it's it's really a story about corruption in the
law in South Carolina, and how right now you're seeing
(41:39):
one group of people being replaced by another group of people.
The question is is the new group any better than
the old? I don't know, That's what That's what I'm
going to go find out. The documentary you had on
about Maxwell was your first filmed piece. What would you
say are the advantages that books have over filmed reporting
(42:00):
and vice versa. What did you find was the advantage
to filming over writing? Well, it's interesting, you know, we
we also we filmed the making of the podcast, so
we did something unusual, so I was I was learning
how to do a podcast at the same time as
doing the film. There's great value in being able to
(42:21):
bring viewers into the room with you as you're asking
the questions, and for viewers to see people's faces, to
see their reactions very helpful, I think for viewers to
see me push back and say, well, you know, how
do you know this? Do you really know it? It
was a joy in a way for me to be
able to take viewers on the journey that I do
(42:43):
all the time, the journalistic journey. That was really fun.
It was really interesting to learn into in the podcasting
how telling a story for the ear is not the
same as writing that. You have to really write episodes
very thematically, and I learned to very great deal with that.
(43:06):
And I think, you know, I've come away with a
much clearer idea of what stories lend themselves to certain mediums,
and I think it will be very useful for me
going forward to be able to do all of them. Well,
let me just say, I live my life looking at
people and contemplating alternatives. Had they made a monest adjustment
(43:27):
this way or that way, had they not done this,
had they gone in this direction, their life would be
completely different, and they make the choices they make it
now Maxwell as poised to go to prison and maybe
dye in prison, be in prison for the rest of
her life, and that's just so, and you think to yourself,
Good God, it didn't have to be that way, you know.
I mean, I'm sympathetic to the victims, but I'm I'm
(43:50):
saddened for everyone who they allow their life to be
led in that direction. Do they allow them they destroy
their own lives that way. So anyway, thank you so much,
Thank you so much. Author and journalist Vicky Ward. You
can find her podcast Catching Gilaine on Audible and her
(44:11):
documentary series of the same name on Discovery. This episode
was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeese, and Maureen Hoban.
Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Host
Alec Baldwin
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