‘Lolita Express’ and the famous friends of Jeffrey Epstein, US billionaire charged with molesting dozens of girls

After Jeffrey Epstein’s latest arrest on sex trafficking charges, some famous people may be squirming. His notorious little black book and private-jet manifests contained a long list of boldface names, including Victoria’s Secret founder Leslie Wexner and former US president Bill Clinton.

US prosecutors on Monday encouraged anyone with information about Epstein’s conduct to come forward, not just potential victims.

To the socialites, celebrities and politicians who attended lavish parties at Epstein’s homes in Manhattan or Palm Beach in the early 2000s – or hitched rides on his private jet nicknamed the “Lolita Express” by the tabloids – the request carried a clear message: come talk to us before we seek you out.

“You would much rather be visiting the Department of Justice and engaging a conversation about what you saw rather than making the DOJ find you,” said Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor now at Dickinson-Wright.

“There’s a much greater potential for influencing the parameters of an interview and the scope of cooperation by going in voluntarily than becoming a compulsory guest” of the government, he said.

Considering the dozens of alleged victims and hundreds of names on Epstein’s contact list, the Epstein affair could be far from over. Some of the alleged victims have claimed they were farmed out to other men.

Although the alleged crimes date back to 2002, new information continues to arise. Epstein’s little black book was published by Gawker in 2015, years after he pleaded guilty in Florida for soliciting an underage prostitute.

Trial of billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ends with apology – but not to the dozens of women he is accused of molesting as underage teens

On Saturday the FBI, using a crowbar on one of the most expensive properties in Manhattan, executed a search warrant on Epstein’s Manhattan town house.

Agents gathered photographs of underage girls in suggestive poses, according to prosecutors.

The call to action by prosecutors and the discovery that Epstein, a registered sex offender, possessed explicit photos could lead to additional charges, Frenkel said.

In this way, prosecutors’ request for more evidence poses a threat to any of Epstein’s associates who also engaged in sex with minors.

It also raises the stakes for those who attended his parties and might have inferred that something was wrong with the fact that so many grown men were surrounded by girls who appeared to be teenagers.

To be sure, Epstein’s contact list includes many prominent people, both men and women, who are fixtures in the celebrity party scene.

The black book contains more than 1,000 names, ranging from close friends like Wexner to peripheral contacts from the worlds of politics, business, the media and European high society.

The UK’s Prince Andrew and members of the Trump family make appearances. There’s even an entry for the main number to the White House.

The names include well-known performers, including Ralph Fiennes, Alec Baldwin, David Blaine, Jimmy Buffett and Courtney Love; media figures including Charlie Rose, Mike Wallace and Barbara Walters; former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, former British prime minister Tony Blair, industrialist David Koch and the late Salomon Brothers Chief Executive Officer John Gutfreund and his wife, Susan.

Frenkel said the case could develop much like the US college admissions scandal, in which a number of wealthy parents have been charged with paying bribes to get their children into top-tier colleges. More than a dozen have pleaded guilty.

“Once the key witnesses flip, including the victims, the potential is there for other participants to be implicated directly,” he said.

“That could be a veiled message in the US attorney’s invitation to decide early whether to hunker down or come forward and get credit or acknowledgement for cooperation to avoid indictment.”

On Monday, Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman pleaded for people to come forward with any information about Epstein’s conduct.

In his most extensive known public comments about Epstein, Donald Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that he’d known the financier for 15 years and praised him as a “terrific guy”.

“He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump was quoted as saying.

“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Trump Organisation attorney Alan Garten has since distanced Trump from Epstein, telling Politico in 2017 that Trump “had no relationship with Mr Epstein and had no knowledge whatsoever of his conduct”.

Asked about the charges on Sunday, Trump said: “I don’t know about it”.

Epstein was also an associate of Bill Clinton, repeatedly lending the former president his jet to travel overseas.

A spokesman for Clinton on Monday said the former president was completely unaware of Epstein’s “terrible crimes” and hasn’t spoken to the ultrawealthy sex offender in “well over a decade”.

Also back in the spotlight is Alex Acosta, Trump’s labour secretary, due to his role in the deal that ended an earlier investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls.

As a US attorney in South Florida in 2008, Acosta brokered a plea agreement in secret with Epstein that allowed him to escape serious punishment for earlier allegations of sexual misconduct.

Epstein is accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Florida and New York.

He “intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18,” according to prosecutors, who said he also paid some of his victims to “recruit additional girls to be similarly abused”.

Epstein pleaded not guilty Monday to sex trafficking charges.

Additional reporting by Associated Press and The Washington Post