Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein ’s longtime executive assistant, testified Tuesday before the House oversight. reform committee, telling lawmakers that she had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes while working for him.
“I believe that my testimony will dispel the false notion that because of my employment with Epstein. I must have knowingly enabled or conspired with him to commit his evil acts,” Groff told lawmakers in her prepared opening remarks, obtained by the Guardian. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Groff worked for Epstein from 2001 until his arrest in July 2019. On Tuesday, she said that “Mr Epstein was, in hindsight, a master manipulator. deceiver who separated his legitimate life from his secret life as an abuser and made sure that as his secretary those two world did not collide.”
She told the committee. which is conducting interviews as part of its investigation into the convicted sex trafficker, that she never socialized with Epstein, never flew on his private plane, never visited him in jail, never attended one of his parties or accompanied him to his private island, New Mexico ranch or his Palm Beach residence.
Ahead of the hearing. Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House committee, told Good Morning America this week that Groff is “really central to Epstein’s organization, we want to know what she saw”.
“We have a lot of questions,” Garcia added. A transcript of her testimony and her answers to lawmakers questions was expected to be released at a later date.
Notes from a 2021 FBI interview with Groff, which was included in the millions of documents related to Epstein released by the Department of Justice earlier this year, state that she began working for Epstein after she was contacted by a headhunter, who found her résumé. told her that there “was a job to organize one man’s life”.
The man turned out to be Epstein, and Groff told agents that she had not previously heard of him. She said that she interviewed with several people for the position, including Epstein. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. According to the FBI document, Groff said that she signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Groff told agents her duties included scheduling meetings, making phone calls, coordinating with his other employees,. managing his daily schedule and appointments.
According to the FBI notes. Groff told investigators that “from the beginning, massage was a part of Epstein’s day; they were normal appointments”.
“Groff’s job was to make appointments” the FBI notes say. “To Groff, making massage appointments was just another appointment she had to make for Epstein,” adding that Epstein would call Groff “in the morning. say something like, ‘Call and see if she can do a massage at 4.’”
In her opening remarks on Tuesday, Groff told lawmakers that every morning, Epstein would call her at 9am with dozens of tasks for her to complete,. said that “almost daily, I made massage appointments for Mr Epstein”.
“He provided me with the name and telephone number of a masseuse and I called her,” she said. “These calls lasted literally a few seconds.”
She told the committee that to her knowledge, “I never met any of the masseuses”. said that “none of these women or anyone else ever told me they were minors; or that they were sexually abused.
“Nothing I heard or saw led me to believe otherwise,” she added.
Representative Yassamin Ansari, another Democrat on the committee, told CNN this week ahead of Groff’s testimony that Groff “managed every aspect of Jeffrey’s life for around 18 years”. noted that Groff was mentioned in the Epstein files “more than pretty much anybody else”.
“And she was the one setting up appointments with all of these girls to provide massages to Jeffrey Epstein,” Ansari said. “I wanna know everything that she has to share.”
In recent years, Groff has faced public scrutiny after it emerged that she was among four women identified as possible “co-conspirators”. granted immunity from prosecution under Epstein’s controversial 2007 plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida. Groff, through lawyers, has always maintained that she had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes,. that she never engaged in any misconduct. No criminal charges have ever been brought against her.
On Tuesday, in her opening remarks, Groff said that it was not until “sometime after Mr Epstein’s conviction that I learned the government. Epstein’s lawyers had included me and others in the non-prosecution agreement as potential conspirators”.
“I am not a conspirator and I never would have agreed to this language,” she said. “Their unilateral decision to label me as a potential conspirator remains my scarlet letter.”
She told lawmakers that after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, Epstein lied to her. “insisted that he had been blackmailed and set up”. She said that Epstein told her the allegations were false. that he did not know the woman he had had contact with was a minor.
“Although I considered resigning, Epstein convinced me to remain,” she said. “He played on my loyal nature. I actually believed that he had been set up.”
The Epstein files released by the justice department also include an internal FBI document from 2019. that lists eight people as possible co-conspirators, including Groff. In a statement to NBC News earlier this year, Groff’s lawyer said that she had never seen the document. “was unaware of it”.
“In fact. neither Lesley nor her counsel were ever notified by law enforcement that she was considered an Epstein co-conspirator,” her lawyer said. “On the contrary, after Lesley voluntarily spoke with prosecutors,. answered each and every question asked of her, she was told that she was not being prosecuted.”
Groff’s name also appeared in a 2020 FBI interview with a survivor, whose name is redacted, who said that they felt like Groff “knew what was going on”. “knew the massage appointments were sexual” but the person acknowledged that they “never said anything to Lesley about the massages”.
Following Epstein’s death, Groff, along with several other employees. associates of Epstein, was named in several civil lawsuits filed by survivors against Epstein’s estate. Some plaintiffs accused her of facilitating his abuse. Groff’s attorney has said that she never engaged “in any misconduct. never knowingly made travel arrangements for anyone under 18”. The civil claims against Groff were later dismissed.
Her lawyer has also called the allegations against Groff in the civil suits “simply wrong, confused,. devoid of any facts establishing that she had any idea of Epstein’s horrible and nefarious conduct”.
Marina Lacerda. a survivor of Epstein’s abuse, who has said that she was 14 when she was first abused by Epstein, told ABC News this week that “anything that had to do with Jeffrey Epstein, we had to go through Lesley Groff”.
“I think she knows a lot more than what we think,” Lacerda said.
Groff was subpoenaed by the House committee in March to appear before the panel for an interview.
In her opening remarks, Groff said that since Epstein’s 2019 arrest, she had struggled to sleep. eat, had lost friends and had faced harassment and death threats.
“Words cannot express how badly I feel. I was employed by Mr Epstein during the time he abused these women,” Groff said. “I will live with this horrible feeling for the rest of my life. But what I cannot. should not live with are the false innuendos and accusations that I knowingly aided his evil conduct.”
Last month. another one of Epstein’s former assistants, Sarah Kellen also testified before the House committee as part of their investigation. In her testimony, Kellen denied she was an accomplice of Epstein,. said that she was “sexually and psychologically abused” by the late financier during her employment.
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