By Steve Neavling
A dozen victims of Jeffrey Epstein filed a lawsuit against the federal government Wednesday, accusing the FBI of failing to investigate credible tips about the financier’s sex trafficking operation.
The anonymous victims say the abuse would have stopped if the FBI followed up on numerous allegations.
The bureau finally launched an investigation in 2006, but the probe ended after Epstein pleaded guilty to a charge of soliciting prostitution in Florida, the suit alleges.
“As a direct and proximate cause of the FBI’s negligence, plaintiffs would not have been continued to be sex trafficked, abused, raped, tortured and threatened,” the suit claims. “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.”
The victims also claim that the FBI chose not to investigate additional evidence of criminal activity.
“During the FBI investigation, the FBI was complicit in permitting Epstein and co-conspirators to continue to victimize Jane Does 1-12 and other young women,” the suit states. “The FBI had photographs, videos and interviews and hard evidence of child prostitution and failed to timely investigate and arrest Epstein in deviation from the FBI protocols.”
The suit continues, “The FBI had a non-discretionary obligation, governed by established policies, procedures, rules, and protocols, to handle and investigate tips concerning potential and ongoing underage child erotica, rape, sex with minors, and sex trafficking in a reasonable manner and to act against Epstein and to prevent him from committing repeated crimes. Yet, contrary to its own established rules, the FBI failed to take appropriate action and botched and covered up investigations for years.”
