An extraordinary thing happened Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill: Survivors of the sexual abuse, trafficking and anguish perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell over two decades finally had their voices heard.
“I have to use my voice, the voice that had been silenced by fear and shame for so many years,” said survivor Anouska de Georgiu. Another survivor, Marina Lacerda, spoke publicly for the first time. “Our government could have saved so many women, but Jeffrey Epstein was too important and those women didn’t matter,” Lacerda said. “Well, we matter now. We are here today, and we are speaking, and we are not going to stop speaking.”
The voice of one person coming forward can spur more to come forward.
The survivors made their remarks at a nonpartisan rally hosted by World Without Exploitation, an anti-trafficking organization. That was followed by a news conference by a bipartisan group of House representatives, with both events played live across major broadcast networks. The purpose was to pressure politicians to back the release of all the files in the government’s investigations of Epstein from the Justice Department and other agencies.
But Wednesday was so much more than a political event. It was a coming together of women and their families who have been repeatedly dismissed, ignored and lied to over decades by a government and justice system that should have protected them. According to Lauren Hersh, World Without Exploitation’s executive director, some survivors in attendance felt this was the first time they could talk about being exploited by Epstein. As survivor Liz Stein said, “We’re in a sorority that none of us asked to join, but we all stand here today, stronger together, because our collective voice is powerful.”
I saw Wednesday the same phenomenon I saw in the 20 years I was a federal and state prosecutor working with victims of abuse: The voice of one person coming forward can spur more to come forward. There is strength and safety in numbers that these women and their families have found. It helps survivors understand and internalize that it is not their fault and they are not alone. You could hear it in their cheers at calls of “no more” and see it in their supportive hugs and tears for one another. Their mission is not only to demand that the files in the government’s possession be released so that they can learn what is known about the abuse they suffered, but also more broadly to ask that Americans wake up to the alarming statistics about the sexual abuse of minors that prosecutors like me are all too familiar with.
This demonstration of political and personal unity was almost entirely brought on by the actions of the very same people — Trump and his allies — who are desperate for the issue to go away. This group of survivors felt demoralized and diminished after then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta inexplicably gave Epstein a slap on the wrist in 2008 (Acosta would later serve in the first Trump administration). And they have been treated with the same disdain by the current Justice Department.
The only sliver of justice the victims have seen was in 2021, when prosecutors in the Southern District of New York successfully prosecuted Maxwell on federal sex trafficking charges. Some of the survivors who spoke Wednesday (including de Georgiu) testified in that trial despite their fears. But now Trump’s Justice Department is reversing even that smallest of victories.
This is not a hoax. We are real human beings. This is real trauma.”
Epstein Survivor Haley Robinson
First, the lead prosecutor on the Maxwell team was abruptly fired in July. Then Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed Maxwell and subsequently published their sit-down, giving her a platform to lie about survivors’ courageous testimony. And Trump has not only refused to rule out a pardon for Maxwell; he has defended his “right to give pardons.”
On Wednesday, the survivors repeatedly talked about being pushed too many times and too far. Teresa Helm called Blanche’s interview “repulsive” and “triggering,” saying that Maxwell used the same voice for her “lies” in the interview that she did when trapping young women like Helm to join Epstein’s enterprise. Haley Robinson bristled at Trump’s repeated labeling of Epstein’s abuse as “a Democrat hoax,” stating plainly: “This is not a hoax. We are real human beings. This is real trauma.” Annie Farmer expressed the survivors’ outrage at finding out through press reports that Maxwell had been transferred overnight to a “spa” prison in Texas after her Justice Department interview.
For years, these survivors have been sidelined and silenced. But the shoves and insults from Trump and his DOJ were the final straw. As survivor Jess Michaels put it: “What once kept us silent now fuels that fire and the power of our voice. … We are not the footnotes in some infamous predator’s tabloid article. We are the experts and the subjects of this story. We are the proof that fear did not break us.”