Donald Trump is named as a possible witness to Jeffrey Epstein’s career of abuse by a woman who claims she was the pedophile’s ‘guinea pig’ in a case which closely resembles the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell.
The unnamed woman is suing Epstein’s estate claiming that when she was just 14, the billionaire took her to Mar-a-Lago where he showed her to Donald Trump.
Epstein, she claims, elbowed Trump ‘playfully’ and said: ‘This is a good one, right?’
There is no suggestion Trump knew she was underage or was involved in any abuse.
Her claims were made in a civil lawsuit – but aspects of her account closely resemble parts of the charges unveiled last week against Maxwell after her arrest at the luxury New Hampshire home she was hiding in.
Federal prosecutors have brought charges against Maxwell, 58, over a series of offenses including grooming three underage girls when they were as young as 14 and transporting them to be abused.
The three victims were sexually abused between 1994 and 1997, federal prosecutors allege. Maxwell is also charged with perjury for allegedly lying when she was questioned under oath in another civil court case.
The three are described as Jane Does 1,2 and 3 in court documents; all are now in their thirties.
The woman who mentions Trump in her case claims that she was a ‘guinea pig’ for Epstein and Maxwell’s abuse, and like the alleged victim Maxwell is charged over, says she was groomed by Maxwell and Epstein for almost a year, moved from her home state of Florida to New York, and that Epstein paid for her education.
An unnamed woman is suing Jeffrey Epstein’s estate and claims that he took her to Mar-a-Lago when she was 14 and was showed to Donald Trump. Trump, Melania, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are pictured at a party at Mar-a-Lago in 2000
In the civil case, the woman alleges that she was just 13 when she met Epstein and Maxwell at a camp for performing arts.
Epstein was a donor to the Interlochen Centre for Arts having previously attended the camp in Northern Michigan as a teenager.
Maxwell was said to have acted ‘like an older sister’ to the teenager, taking her to movies and shopping as part of the grooming process before she was repeatedly assaulted at his homes in New York and Florida.
In her statement filed in the Southern District of New York the girl said she was a student in the voice program. She was sitting alone on a bench when Epstein and Maxwell approached her and started asking about her family life.
The woman said she returned to her home in Florida and Epstein called her there, telling her mother he mentored young children and provided scholarships for the arts.
The documents say: ‘Over the course of the next several months, Epstein and Maxwell attempted to groom and mentor the 13-year-old Jane Doe.
‘Epstein have himself the name of Doe’s ‘godfather’ while Maxwell acted like an older sister to her. They took her to movies, went shopping with her and lounged around Epstein’s estate with her.
‘Epstein and Maxwell then started to make sexual references when they were with her.’
The girl said Epstein displayed his pedophile tendencies when they went shopping and insisted she buy children’s cotton underwear.’
When the teen expressed concern about the amount of time she was spending with the pair they threatened her and called her ‘ungrateful.’
The woman claims Epstein nudged Trump ‘playfully’ and said: ‘This is a good one, right?’ during the introduction. They are pictured at a party in 1992
In 1997 while at Epstein’s New York home she claims he raped her with the assaults continuing until 1999 when she moved to California, where she has since forced a new life, at one point working as a model.
‘Despite Doe’s physical escape from Epstein and Maxwell, the years of abuse and exploitation perpetrated against her by them cause her immeasurable pain and suffering every day,’ her lawyers say in their case against Epstein’s estate.
The court documents accuse the pair of sexual assault, sexual battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The document said sexual abuse would take place at Epstein’s New York townhouse and home in Florida. She would fly on his private jet known as the ‘Lolita Express,’ and says that he paid for her to attend an elite Manhattan school to continue his campaign of abuse.
Similar allegations are leveled at Maxwell in the federal indictment, including that Maxwell befriended the underage girl, moved her from Florida to New York, and paid for ‘educational opportunities.’
The reference to Trump hints at the friendship the two men had in the 1990s.
Footage resurfaced by NBC News in 1992 showed the two men partying at Mar-a-Lago with cheerleaders from the Buffalo Bills, with Trump saying: ‘Look at her… she’s hot.’
And in 1997, Trump flew from Palm Beach to Newark, New Jersey, on Epstein’s plan with Maxwell also aboard, while in subsequent years Epstein, Maxwell, Trump and his then girlfriend, now first lady, Melania Knauss were photographed partying together.
In 2002 he told Vanity Fair of Epstein: ‘He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.’
However the two fell out, apparently over property, in 2004, and more recently Trump has said he was ‘not a fan’ of Epstein, as well as casting doubt via Twitter on whether the financier really took his own life.