New York,US, Feb 14 (EFE) – Twelve victims of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, accused of child sex abuse and trafficking, sued the FBI on Wednesday for an alleged cover-up, arguing that the law enforcement agency failed to adequately investigate the allegations against him.
“For over two decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation allowed Jeffrey Epstein to engage in sex trafficking and sexual abuse of scores of children and young women by failing to do the job the American people expected it to do,” said the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.
“As a result of the FBI’s continued failures, Jane Does 1-12 bring this lawsuit to get to the bottom – once and for all – of the FBI’s role in Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking ring,” it adds.
The victims, who filed the lawsuit under the pseudonym Jane Doe to protect their identities, allege in the legal document that the FBI allowed Epstein to sexually exploit and abuse girls and young women for two decades.
“The FBI has turned its back on survivor victims, and this lawsuit seeks to hold the FBI responsible for failure to act when it absolutely should have,” said Jennifer Plotkin, an attorney with Merson Law, the firm that filed the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, the FBI received tips, reports, and complaints regarding Epstein’s activities from 1996 to 2006, but didn’t open an investigation until 2006, when Epstein was apprehended in Florida.
In 2008, in a secret deal with Florida prosecutors that was criticized years later by the Justice Department, Epstein pleaded guilty to the charges, served 13 months in prison, and registered as a sex offender in the state.
Epstein committed suicide in 2019 in a federal prison in New York, where he was awaiting trial for allegedly creating a sex trafficking network in his Manhattan, Palm Beach, and Florida mansions, and his private island in the US Virgin Islands near St. Thomas, Little St. James.
The alleged victims of Epstein’s network are believed to range from several dozen to more than a hundred, with the youngest being only 14 years old. EFE
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