Let’s be clear: the reason Trump has dragged this nation into war with Iran, against the will of the American people, is to distract from accusations that he raped a 13-year-old child.
That victim’s story appears in the Epstein files. Reporters from The Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, decided to investigate—and today, they published their findings: elements of the victims story do, in fact check out. Here is their reporting:
A woman who claims she was abused as a minor by both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump has given the FBI vivid accounts that include aspects of her life corroborated by the The Post and Courier through public records.
Her alleged encounter with Trump sometime around 1984 remains unproven, and the White House March 7 said there is “zero credible evidence” that the woman’s account is true.
Using archived government records and news accounts, The Post and Courier found that the woman provided verifiable details to agents about her family background and its legal entanglements. She offered the name of an Epstein business associate on Hilton Head Island who became a central figure in the drama, with specifics that are reflected in public records.
The accounts describe an early phase in the mid-1980s of potential criminal conduct by Epstein that involved sexual activities with minors on Hilton Head. The alleged victim told the FBI she was under constant pressure from him to recruit more girls there to “come party” with him and his “disgusting” older friends. The incidents almost always involved drugs and alcohol and turned violent with hair-pulling and beatings, according to the woman.
Epstein went on to command a global sex trafficking ring that roped in hundreds of woman, including many teenagers. He faced federal charges of sexually trafficking minors when he died in his federal prison cell in 2019.
In her account about Trump, she claimed that he forced her to commit a sex act on him sometime around 1984. But she provided foggy details to FBI agents, including that the alleged encounter with Trump happened when she traveled north to New York or New Jersey with Epstein, who was a fixture in elite society then. Decades before he sought the presidency, Trump had already become a prominent presence in the New York business and social scenes.
A friend of hers also reported the allegations about Trump to the FBI in 2019. The bureau cited her allegations in an email circulated within the agency and recently made public by the Justice Department. She asked that her friend be protected.
Of the details that The Post and Courier found supported by public records, none related directly to the alleged victim’s claims about Trump.
The Post and Courier is not identifying the woman in keeping with its policy on sexual assault victims. The woman did not respond to messages seeking an interview, and her attorney, Lisa Bloom, a leading sexual assault lawyer, declined comment.
To identify key players in the woman’s account and attempt to evaluate her claims, the newspaper scoured court records, police reports and old newspaper clippings in multiple states. It also deployed a reporter to the West Coast to retrace her steps in a journey that began on a tony resort island along the South Carolina coast.
The alleged victim claimed that Epstein had business contacts in Hilton Head and lived temporarily on the island in two residences. One associate, she said, was a businessman in Ohio who took over a small real estate company on Hilton Head that hired her mother as a broker in the mid-1980s. The associate, who commuted to the island from the Cincinnati area, dated her mother as well, she said.
Records show the woman’s mother bought property in Hilton Head in 1981 for $55,000. At one point, her address was steps from Coligny Beach, now the most popular oceanfront for visitors to the island beaches. She moved often, records show.
In local classified advertisements, the company that employed her mother marketed long-term rentals of homes and villas. It offered an array of lodging, from a seaside cabin to a fully furnished locale at the Four Seasons Resort, with access to a jacuzzi, tennis and handball courts.
Her mom rented one home to financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to the alleged victim. She told federal agents that her mother advertised in a flyer that she, then 13, could provide babysitting services. Epstein, the woman said, summoned her to the house where he began his pattern of abuse.
The Ohio associate who hired her mother also had sex with the teen several times and physically abused her, she told agents. She described him as a man with grey hair and “big ears.” She told agents she believed he was affiliated with a Cincinnati-based college. The Post and Courier confirmed that he was a board member of the for-profit school.
Local newspaper accounts from that time described problems with drug use among the young who were hanging out on Hilton Head’s beaches. The alleged victim said Epstein, who provided marijuana, cocaine and pills to her and others, brought “fat” older men to a pool gathering at a resort hotel.
She only recalled encountering Epstein once in a non-sexual situation, telling agents she bumped into him at a Rick James concert in Savannah, Ga., when she was around age 15. She said he got her drunk. Newspaper records show the “Super Freak” musician performed regularly in the Savannah area at the time.
At one point, her mother became aware that Epstein had nude photos of the teen from their sexual encounters and was demanding money to keep them hidden, the woman told the FBI. The victim said she had seen the photographs in his bedstand, leading to a violent encounter when he discovered her snooping.
She said his extortion demand caused her mother to steal funds from her real estate company.
Epstein had departed investment and trading company Bear Stearns in 1981 after an internal investigation of his trading practices. Around the time of the allegations, he was operating a company he founded in New York. Epstein worked as a troubleshooter for wealthy clients, advising them on issues like corporate embezzlement and offering investment strategies.
The alleged victim said her mother’s boss — the Epstein associate from Ohio — and his company accountant helped the mother fix the books so she could pay off Epstein. The alleged victim told agents that the episode was so stressful her mother began drinking again. Her mother later went to prison near Columbia, the woman told agents.
Records confirm that her mother was implicated in such a crime around this time.
In October 1985, the S.C. Real Estate Commission froze her business escrow account and temporarily suspended her license, according to a local newspaper accounts.
A commission spokesperson, responding to a Post and Courier request, said the records were not immediately available. But other documents show the mother’s boss at the real estate firm sought criminal charges against the mother the following year. She was accused of stealing $22,000 from the escrow account, records show.
Months later, she was charged with six counts of forgery for writing bad checks, a crime she had been accused of in the past as well. Signing off on the charges was then-Solicitor Randolph “Buster” Murdaugh Jr., the grandfather of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh.
Lawyers who represented the mother either declined to comment or did not recall the case. A deputy who transported her from Sumter to Beaufort County after her arrest told The Post and Courier he did not remember picking her up.
The mother ultimately pleaded guilty to all charges, was sentenced to probation and ordered to make monthly $150 restitution payments until she paid off the debt.
She failed to make those payments, and the daughter told the FBI she tracked down her mother’s old boss to ask him for help. She said the Epstein associate coldly told her not to call again and he did not care if she “ended up in the gutter.”
In 1990, a court in Charleston found that the mother violated parole by traveling abroad without permission and by failing to meet the payment schedule.
The alleged victim told the FBI her mother was sent to a state prison near Columbia. State officials confirmed details of the mother’s incarceration.
By that time the daughter was 17 or 18 years old and had moved to Summerville. She left Hilton Head High School before graduating. Records confirm that she attended the school, and it appeared that FBI agents had obtained a copy of its yearbook, “The Halcyon.”
The mother and her daughter remained physically close over the years, living near one another at various times.
Records show that her mother was accused by a Charleston woman of breaking and entering her home in 1996, and sued for eviction by a landlord in Washington state in 1998. She and her daughter eventually both ended up out west. And there, the daughter would level the accusations that have now placed her at center stage in the Epstein saga.
Years after the events on Hilton Head, the woman said both she and her mother felt that Epstein was tracking their movements. Both faced suspicious calls and frightening incidents.
In addition to detailing her abuse at Epstein’s hands, the woman offered vague details across three interviews about her encounter with Trump. She said the incident occurred when he was a leading developer with a new casino in Atlantic City. She said she was led to Trump in a “very tall building with huge rooms.” The future president instructed others to leave the room, she said, and allegedly told her, “Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be.”
She said he unzipped his pants and forced her to perform a sex act. The alleged victim told the FBI she “bit the (expletive) out of it,” causing Trump to slap her across the face and curse at her.
It is unclear from the interview records how long she stayed in the New York area, but she had family connections in the state.
In her talks with the FBI, the woman also detailed calls to her mother at an assisted living facility on the West Coast, where both of them had settled. The Post and Courier verified that the mother used a private nursing care home as an address in her declining years. A death record matches the mother’s age and name, but Washington state does not publicly release other identifying details.
It is common for sexual trauma victims to have trouble recollecting specifics of abusive incidents, according to experts. The FBI recognized this during its decades-long Epstein investigation and provided free counseling services to victims.
One agent involved in the woman’s interviews with the FBI was a psychologist, trained in victim trauma. Critical elements of the woman’s story are difficult to verify without the ability to call witnesses, conduct sworn interviews and subpoena financial records. It is unclear whether the FBI attempted such an investigation.
The woman repeatedly told FBI agents she believed it served no purpose to tell her story because the events occurred so long ago. Trump had also been elected president in 2016. She informed agents in August, 2019 that she wanted them to know she had sued Epstein’s estate, in case it posed a conflict with their investigation.
In a statement to The Post and Courier, Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the allegations “baseless accusations from decades ago’’ that “are backed by zero evidence or facts.” She described the alleged victim as "a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history."
After her time with Epstein, the alleged victim accumulated a record of criminal charges, drug dependency and domestic turmoil. She had a daughter and was prosecuted for filing false claims for food stamp applications. The alleged victim avoided prison by completing a drug diversion program.
The alleged victim had a turbulent domestic life, with three marriages including one that lasted only a few weeks. Her mother shows up in court records as a witness in a violent domestic incident between her daughter and her first husband, who declined to speak when a reporter approached him at his door.
The alleged victim eventually returned to the East Coast and lived with relatives in Georgia, developing a romantic relationship with a terminally-ill man who was saving money for his funeral.
She stole an envelope filled with cash from him and spent a year in the county jail for it. Her public defender told The Post and Courier that she described her life to him as having been permanently scarred by her experience with Epstein.
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