Whoa, Meet Eric Kessler and Arabella

Posted on July 16, 2019July 16, 2019 by Denise Simon

Who you ask?

Eric Kessler is founder, principal, and senior managing director of Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based philanthropic consultancy that caters to left-leaning clients. Arabella Advisors also manages a number of center-left funding and fiscal sponsorship organizations, including 501(c)(4) Sixteen Thirty Fund, 501(c)(3) New Venture Fund, 501(c)(3) Hopewell Fund, and 501(c)(3) Windward Fund. Kessler himself is closely involved with these organizations, often serving as the founder, principal officer, or board member in them.

Kessler is closely involved in Democratic Party and left-wing politics. He is a former Clinton administration White House appointee and previously served as national field director for the League of Conservation Voters. ^[1] Kessler later served as a member of the now-defunct Clinton Global Initiative. ^[2]

Kessler chairs a committee on culinary advocacy for the center-left James Beard Foundation and is co-founder of the Chef Action Network. He also serves on the board of directors of the National Democratic Institute. ^[3]

Image result for eric kessler

Okay so what?

Well, when it came to the paid choreographed operation against Brett Kavanaugh, enter Arabella Advisors. While there were other well funded organizations, Kessler is someone to continue to watch. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse spoke often about the dark money supporting the Kavanaugh confirmation.

The most visible liberal organization was Demand Justice, formed only a few months before Kennedy’s retirement by veteran Democratic operatives with experience in the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Obama administration. If money given to the Judicial Crisis Network is “dark” because JCN’s annual 990 tax filings don’t disclose its donors, Demand Justice’s bank account is a black hole. “Fiscally sponsored” by the Sixteen Thirty Fund, an under-the-radar liberal intermediary group that passes money from donors to dozens of liberal organizations, Demand Justice doesn’t even file the disclosure forms that “dark money” groups do. Senator Whitehouse couldn’t put it on one of his pie charts if he tried. Both the donors to Demand Justice and the amount of money they contribute are completely invisible.

The Sixteen Thirty Fund does file an annual Form 990, but it does not reveal the identities of its donors. Although its budget dwarfs that of the Judicial Crisis Network and the Federalist Society combined, it has failed to pique Senator Whitehouse’s interest. In 2017 it brought in $79 million and ended the year with $43 million in assets, growing by an astonishing 1,547 percent in only eight years. In pursuit of its cryptically worded mission—“promoting social welfare, including, but not limited to, providing public education on and conducting advocacy regarding key policies”—the fund bankrolls liberal groups focused on everything from judicial appointments, organized labor, and abortion to Senator Whitehouse’s own favorite dark-money heavyweight, the League of Conservation Voters. They also fund Majority Forward, a 501(c)(4) group closely tied to Senator Chuck Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC. Majority Forward alone accounted for one-third of all the dark-money spending in the 2018 election, giving liberals a comfortable dark-money lead over conservatives.

Eric Kessler, a former White House aide to President Bill Clinton, serves as senior managing director of Arabella and as president of Sixteen Thirty. Both groups have the same Washington, D.C., address.

The approach appears typical of the company’s approach to such initiatives. Kessler told Worth magazine in 2017 that Arabella often assumes core management functions for its client charities.

“First and foremost, we support family philanthropists, family foundations, by providing staffing,” Kessler said. “What that means is, there’s a whole bunch of foundations with assets between about $30 million and $300 million whose address is my office. We are their executive director, their program officer, their grant manager.”

But hold on there is more. Where did all this mass incarceration issue come from? Yup, Arabella.

As part of a report on their website:

Supporting research to map the network of companies involved in the prison-industrial complex in greater detail. Such mapping can raise awareness of the prison-industrial complex, identify and expose its harmful practices, and empower advocates to counter the influence of those seeking to advance policies tied to profits rather than to preserve and protect communities.
Supporting organizations and initiatives that are working to counter the advocacy efforts of politically active corporations that profit from mass incarceration. Various companies within the prison-industrial complex provide money to lobbying groups that strengthen and perpetuate policies that help drive mass incarceration. Those working for better policies need financial support to overcome potential opposition from groups that benefit from the continuation of “business as usual” in the sector.
Divesting from egregious actors and investing in positive solutions. As in other sectors, divestment can help isolate and stigmatize entities that are engaged in harmful practices and can potentially motivate other corporations to cease doing business with them unless and until they reform. Meanwhile, investment in positive solutions can begin to help rebuild damaged communities.
Using the power of endowment capital to engage in investor activism and capital market strategies targeting companies in the prison-industrial complex. Donors and investors can use their capital and influence to take equity positions in companies that are associated with the prison industry from which they can raise awareness and push companies toward reform from within.

There is also the matter of climate change and the condition of natural disasters so key cities are being pressured to comply with reforms for urban areas. The matter of the hurricanes in Puerto Rico is of particular note.

One notable project is in San Juan where we are part of the effort, led by The Solar Foundation and the Clinton Foundation, for the installation of solar and energy efficiency upgrades of the Plaza del Mercado de Río Piedras in San Juan, the largest produce market on the island, responsible for the livelihoods of 200 small business owners. Since Hurricane Maria, the energy situation has led to an unstable business environment. A $600,000 grant from The Hispanic Foundation and a $500,000 grant from CDP will cover the cost of the purchase and installation of the first phase of solar panels, battery capacity and LED lighting. Our grant also creates an apprenticeship program for local workers to learn skills related to solar installation, roofing and electrical work which will help promote local workforce development. The project is being done at the request of, and in close coordination with, the Municipality of San Juan.

What about this debate on gender equality and internet access (digital divide) for everyone? Yup, that too.

Stupid Republicans in the House and Senate, Cheap Foreign Labor

Posted on July 16, 2019July 16, 2019 by Denise Simon

Some of the names in the Republican House and Senate we have reasons to like very much but we should have a problem with this legislation. How about America First to start? You see, Silicon Valley did some very successful Congressional lobbying. The tech companies include Microsoft, Amazon, Equifax, Cisco, Google and Facebook to name a few. In summary, America does not have enough techies to do the jobs of the future, so rather than augmenting education or do career retraining, let’s go to China and India….swell eh? We lift visa quotas, bring in cheaper labor, put Americans out of work and launch another employment crisis, right? This too is fundamentally changing the whole immigration model again and placing foreign workers above American workers. American manufacturers go to China to build stuff because it is cheap labor. H.R. 1044 ends up doing the same thing right here in America.

Trump CANNOT sign this, please tell him so as you read on.

Image result for foreign cheap labor in the united states photo

The House of Representatives has taken a step in the direction of eliminating green card backlogs by passing the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 (H.R. 1044) introduced by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Ken Buck. (R-CO). The support was bi-partisan and passed in a 365 to 65 vote. The bill would:

Increase per country quotas from 7% to 15% in the family-based categories;
Establish a “first-come first-served” employment-based visa system (including EB-5 investor visas) by eliminating the “per country” caps;
Establish a three-year transition period during which 10-15% of the visas would be set aside for countries other than India or China; and
Ensure that immigrants who have approved employment-based immigration visa petitions at the time of enactment do not lose their places “in line.”

Representative Lofgren estimates that it would take a decade for the per country lines to equalize. The expectation is that if there is no increase in the number of visas available the wait time will even out to roughly seven years for everyone. Others have suggested that eliminating the quotas will only incentivize more immigration from India and China and thus eliminate any benefit.

Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduced a companion bill in the Senate (S. 386) back in February. That bill which also has bi-partisan support was referred to committee on July 9, 2019.

Senator Rand Paul, who opposed the “Fairness” Act, introduced the BELIEVE Act (Backlog Elimination, Legal Immigration and Employment Visa Enhancement Act) (S. 2091) on July 11, 2019. That bill, like the House bill, would establish a “first-come-first-served” employment-based visa system but would also:

Quadruple the number of employment-based visas by doubling the number available annually and then exempting dependents from the “count”;
Grant green cards to children of temporary workers who would normally “age-out” as long as they have graduated from a U.S. university and have been in the U.S. for at least ten years;
Issue employment authorization to spouses and children of temporary workers in E, H and L status;
Provide employment and travel authorization to those waiting in line for employment-based green cards as a safeguard; and (importantly for nurses and physical therapists)
Exempt all shortage occupations from green card limits.

Any equalization will eliminate long lines for some employers and industries while adding wait times for others. Proponents of the new bills believe that the equalization would create economic benefits by, among other things, making the United States more competitive with other countries like Canada that have been able to take advantage of prospective immigrants’ frustrations with the long delays in the U.S. immigrant visa process.

Facebook Primed for Illicit Funds Use/Money Laundering

Posted on July 15, 2019July 15, 2019 by Denise Simon

America’s rivals are increasingly turning to bitcoin-style cryptocurrencies after their economies were brought to their knees thanks to crippling U.S. sanctions, experts have warned.

Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela are all investing in the technology in an attempt to counter American economic might – and an expert says these nations are forming alliances through the technology.

A form of digital money, cryptocurrency uses encryption to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. It uses cryptography, a form of secret coding originating from the Second World War, to process transactions securely. Its major appeal is it is untraceable.

U.S. sanctions work by placing bans on dealings and transactions with persons, nations and companies.

When ransomware is planted on state or local government systems and theft of data occurs, cities are forced to pay ransom to regain ownership and control.

Florida has paid more than $1.1 million in bitcoin to cybercriminals to recover encrypted files from two separate ransomware attacks—one against Riviera Beach and the other against Lake City.

Lake City, a city in northern Florida, agreed on Monday to pay hackers 42 Bitcoin (equivalent to $573,300 at the current value) to unlock phone and email systems following a ransomware attack that crippled its computer systems for two weeks.

For years, ransomware has been a particularly annoying cybersecurity threat. And despite reports that cybercriminals are shifting their efforts away from encrypting malware to cryptomining malware, ransomware infections continue at an alarming rate.

In one week in March 2018 alone, government-run targets in two of the biggest cities in America — Atlanta and Baltimore — were hit by ransomware. These attacks, which disrupted important city services, are far from isolated; similar ransomware attacks have targeted U.S. municipalities for years.

Stories about smaller cities falling victim to ransomware often go unreported by the national news … or anywhere at all. Nevertheless, municipalities and cities in all corners of the U.S. have seen ransomware infect their networks.

So, here comes the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin with a major concern and warning for Facebook. What about this new Libra currency that has been launched?

(Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Monday that the Treasury department has serious concerns that Facebook Inc’s proposed LIBRA cryptocurrency could be misused for money laundering, adding to the growing regulatory skepticism of the company’s digital asset plans.

Secretary Mnuchin also said that the agency has warned Facebook that it must enact proper safeguards against illicit use such as money laundering.

“Treasury has been very clear to Facebook…and other providers of digital financial services that they must implement the same anti-money laundering safeguards in countering the financing of terrorism as traditional financial institutions,” Mnuchin said.

Meanwhile:

Activists and Democratic lawmakers blasted the Federal Trade Commission’s $5 billion fine against Facebook as “chump change” and lambasted the agency’s settlement as toothless.

The settlement, which was reportedly voted along party lines, gaining support from the FTC’s three Republicans while being rejected by its two Democrats, is the beginning of the end for the agency’s probe of Facebook’s alleged mishandling of more than 87 million users’ private data during the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Although the fine sets a record in terms of the agency’s actions against Big Tech, a chorus of Democratic lawmakers, technologists and activists excoriated the FTC for not doing enough and not imposing a larger penalty.

“The sad reality is that this does not go nearly far enough. For a company that last year alone generated revenue nearly 11 times greater than the reported fine, the Federal Trade Commission should send a clear signal to Facebook and so many other tech companies that privacy is their ultimate responsibility,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., who is chairwoman of the consumer protection and commerce subcommittee in the House, said in a statement. “If these reports are true, then they failed.”

Will Facebook pay the fine using Libra? Well, when it comes to the Facebook blockchain debate, Facebook declares the Swiss government will regulate it all. Really? There is a Congressional hearing in the Senate by the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee where Libra is to be explained. Frankly, isn’t PayPal a form of cryptocurrency too? Anyway, this testimony found here is regarding Facebook’s Libra Project.

Read it here.

The Jalisco Drug Cartel, the Terror Training Camp

Posted on July 15, 2019July 15, 2019 by Denise Simon

In part:

“If you want to go, fine, get out of here. The only way out of here is in a body bag. Whoever wants to go with him better speak up now. We’re not here to play.”

“Then I understood, and we all understood, that we were in big trouble. You don’t know what’s going to happen next, but you have to stay quiet and very serious because they could take any movement the wrong way,” Francisco recalls.

For years, videos of dismembered bodies, shootings, decapitated heads and all types of violence attributed to the CJNG ran through his mind. “I thought a lot about my son,” Francisco says. He ultimately decided to stay.

A Powerful Cartel

The CJNG has grown to become one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, according to analysts and security forces. The Attorney General’s Office estimates that the cartel maintains a presence in 28 of the country’s 32 states, according to local media reports. The cartel has also established alliances with local criminal groups in the states of Durango, Campeche, Coahuila and Zacatecas.

photo

The CJNG has also expanded abroad, “with a significant presence not only in the United States and Mexico, but also in Europe, Asia and Australia,” according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The genesis of this criminal organization, according to Sam Houston State University professor Nathan P. Jones, dates back to the July 2010 death of Sinaloa Cartel boss Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, alias “Nacho Coronel.” He specialized in methamphetamine production in the region around Jalisco. When Mexican authorities killed him, his operations fragmented into several groups. One of them was led by El Mencho. He was able to take advantage of Jalisco’s geographical location near Mexico’s Pacific ports. This allowed him to increase the volume of his business thanks to the sale of methamphetamine in markets in Europe and Asia, and the sale of fentanyl in the United States. Control of the ports was key to the CJNG being able to obtain the resources that allowed them to expand territorially, to corrupt Mexican government officials and to train their assassins as an elite force.

The Training

Francisco’s training camp was in Talpa de Allende, a municipality of just over 15,000 people in western Jalisco. A group of men armed with assault rifles and portable missile launchers loaded the 19 men into luxury trucks and drove them on dirt roads out to a hidden place in the Sierra de Talpa. The first truck stopped, then someone pulled a gun out the window and shot three times, which automatically opened a gate. They all passed and, again, another three shots were fired to signal the gate to close.

Once inside, the armed men took their cell phones and stripped them. “They had some car batteries. They got us wet and made us grab the terminals. So, if you had a GPS [Global Positioning System device] hidden inside you, it would burn. The shock was so strong that I practically peed,” Francisco explained.

The local boss was a young man about 28 years old, according to Francisco. He chose a nickname to address each of them. Then the training began with instructions on how to handle short and long weapons: handguns, AK-47 rifles and rocket launchers similar to the one the CJNG used to shoot down a Mexican Army helicopter in an attack that killed seven soldiers in May 2015.

The instructors let the men know all of the cartel’s rules imposed by El Mencho. They started with those related to firearms.

“Rule number one: Your finger should always be away from the trigger. Otherwise, in front of a cartel leader or high-ranking commander, you could be considered a threat and they could kill you.”

“Rule number two: Always check the safety.”

“Rule number three: Know how to hand over a weapon. Always pass it with the butt of the gun and not the barrel.”

The instructors imposed strict discipline. One mistake could be fatal. As was the case for one of the 19 recruits who nervously failed to put together a gun.

“In the blink of an eye, he killed him. He told us that he wasn’t useful because in a real confrontation, he would panic and put us all in danger,” Francisco said. Then began what the cartel called “the christening.” They all approached the corpse of their recently murdered companion.

“What is the first rule?” the plaza boss asked.

“If there isn’t a body, there isn’t a crime to pursue,” two of the commanders responded.

“Ok, Shaggy, come here. Cut off his hand. You don’t want to do it? Just tell me you don’t want to,” one commander said.

“You knew that if you said no, they were going to kill you,” Francisco recalls. Trembling, he began to cut off the dead man’s hand. Francisco touched his forearm. “I had to do it, you have no choice. I remember the fear, the blood.”

They were going one by one. The commanders saved the most timid group of recruits for the most difficult task: to decapitate the dead man and crush his head with a stone. When the body was severed, they were forced to eat some parts of it.

“There was one recruit who couldn’t eat it and vomited, but they picked up the piece of flesh from the dirt and forced him to eat it.”

These cannibalistic practices described by Francisco coincide with what a group of cartel hitmen arrested last June revealed. They said they did it to become desensitized to violence. The Attorney General’s Office in Jalisco has discovered at least five camps that the cartel used as clandestine training centers and narco-laboratories. Two more have been dismantled in Veracruz and Tabasco.

For Francisco, this was only the first part of a three-month stay in captivity.

*** In Bolivia, where he spent over two years evading justice, he was known as Jafett Arias Becerra, a respectable cattle rancher. José González Valencia is a man of many names.

González Valencia flew in and out of Bolivia multiple times in 2016 and 2017, raising questions about how it was so easy for him to live comfortably as a wealthy cattleman when he was wanted by the United States on charges of conspiracy to distribute large amounts of cocaine.

Bolivian authorities blame Mexico for the lapse, but also admit their fertile Santa Cruz region, known as “Bolivia’s barn,” is a popular hideout for drug traffickers on the lam. They acknowledge that they need to corral criminals like the Shrimp who find safe haven there.

A Cartel in the Crosshairs

The Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) has alarmed authorities in the United States and Mexico with its brutal tactics and rapid growth since it was formed in 2011.

Based in Guadalajara, the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, CJNG is behind some of the most notorious drug crimes of the past decade, including the 2011 torture and massacre of 35 rival cartel members in Veracruz and the downing of a military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade in 2015. The cartel even uses cannibalism as an initiation rite for new members.

The CJNG now has a presence in most of Mexico and connections in the rest of Latin America, the United States, Asia, Europe, and Australia. It is responsible for trafficking at least five tons each of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States every month, according to former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Last October, Sessions announced new measures targeting the CJNG, including hefty rewards for the capture of its leaders and economic sanctions against several of the Cuinis. He also unsealed indictments of 11 alleged members of the cartel, including Jose González Valencia.

Sessions called the CJNG one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal groups in the world.

“We are hitting them from all sides and with every weapon we have,” he said at a news conference. “They are in our crosshairs. This cartel is a top priority.”

Like many criminal organizations, CJNG is a family affair. José González Valencia — the man who lived as a cattle rancher in Bolivia — is the brother-in-law of its leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, who is also known as “El Mencho.”

The cartel’s rise and expansion are due largely to Los Cuinis, which according to US officials is dominated by the González Valencia family.

El Mencho’s wife, Rosalinda González Valencia, and three of her brothers, José, Gerardo, and Abigael, played a dominant role in establishing and operating Los Cuinis, with Abigael serving as “El Cuini” — the top squirrel.

In an interview with the Mexican news magazine Proceso in 2015, a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official described El Cuini as an intelligent trafficker whose diversification strategy differentiates CJNG from other cartels.

“The ‘Cuini’ focused on partnering with drug traffickers and narco-rebels of Colombia and other South American countries to sell cocaine and other drugs in Europe, without regard to the United States. That made a big difference in terms of profits earned,” he said.

“‘El Cuini’ and ‘El Mencho’ understood that there was more risk … if they were to compete with other cartels for the U.S. market,” another official told the magazine.

José González Valencia took over cartel finances after his brother Abigael was arrested in February 2015, according to the Center for Investigation and National Security, a Mexican intelligence agency. He was also allegedly responsible for providing security for the leader, El Mencho, making alliances with criminal groups in Asia and Europe, and establishing relationships with arms traffickers in the United States and Central America, Mexican newspaper La Jornada reported.

But despite his high profile, José González Valencia moved easily from Guadalajara to Bolivia, entering the country for the first time later that year. His ticket was a Mexican passport he had obtained in Guadalajara in 2013 under the name Jafett Arias Becerra.

It is unclear what he did to obtain that document, but it bought him years of freedom. In 2016, the year after he first came to Bolivia, he used it to obtain a Bolivian ID for foreigners. He was also granted a temporary stay valid for one year and applied for a second that would have been valid until March 2019.

Court records show American officials had been aware of his alias since January 2016. But according to Bolivian authorities, Interpol never issued any alerts for “Jafett Arias Becerra.”

González Valencia was finally caught in December 2017 — not in Bolivia, but in Brazil. He had flown there with a Bolivian friend, Mario Genaro Soljancic Fernandez, a vendor of veterinary products for cattle.

González Valencia was planning to meet his wife and children, who live in the United States, for a holiday in the tourist hub of Taíba on Brazil’s northeastern coast. Under Soljancic’s name, they rented a car and a seaside villa, complete with a basketball court and a small swimming pool, for 15 days.

In response to a US arrest request passed on by officials in Brasilia, police in the city of Fortaleza identified the rental car and then spent days monitoring security camera video until they found it, said Aldair da Rocha, the officer in charge of the operation. González Valencia was arrested at the stores in front of Beach Park, a nearby water park and tourist resort, on December 27, 2017. He was carrying his Bolivian ID card. Read the full fascinating wild story here from InSight. Amazing work.

Search Warrant Results on Epstein’s Home

Posted on July 15, 2019July 15, 2019 by Denise Simon

Primer: Epstein’s lawyers have proposed 14 conditions for pretrial release, including the use of surveillance cameras and GPS monitoring. Prosecutors say his vast resources and history of sexual offenses make him a flight risk and a danger to the community. He is presently is the same jail, just three cells away from el Chapo Guzman. Will he soon be moved? Likely….

Moving on to the search warrant. A fake Saudi passport? Really?

In part from Reuters:

Prosecutors said their case is getting “stronger by the day” after several more women contacted them in recent days to say he abused them when they were underage.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Rossmiller also revealed Monday that authorities found “piles of cash,” ”dozens of diamonds” and an expired passport with Epstein’s picture and a fake name during a raid of his Manhattan mansion following his July 6 arrest.

Epstein’s lawyers said he has not committed crimes since pleading guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution charges in Florida in 2008 and that the federal government is reneging on a 12-year-old plea deal not to prosecute him. They said they planned to file a motion to dismiss the case and that Epstein should be allowed to await trial under house arrest in his $77 million Manhattan mansion, with electronic monitoring.

In a written submission Friday to U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman, prosecutors shared new information about their investigation and why they perceive Epstein as dangerous.

They said several additional women in multiple jurisdictions had identified themselves to the government, claiming Epstein abused them when they were minors. Also, dozens of individuals have called the government to report information about Epstein and the charges he faces, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said they believe Epstein might have tried to influence witnesses after discovering that he had paid a total of $350,000 to two individuals, including a former employee, in the last year. That came after the Miami Herald reported the circumstances of his state court conviction in 2008, which led to a 13-month jail term and his deal to avoid federal prosecution . “This course of action, and in particular its timing, suggests the defendant was attempting to further influence co-conspirators who might provide information against him in light of the recently re-emerging allegations,” prosecutors said.

The decade-old secret plea deal led to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta’s resignation last week. Acosta came under renewed criticism following Epstein’s arrest over the 2008 non-prosecution agreement he oversaw as the U.S. attorney in Miami.

In addition to the charges in the indictment, prosecutors are also reviewing dozens of electronic files seized during a raid on Epstein’s residence after his July 6 arrest, finding even more photos than the hundreds or thousands of pictures of nude and seminude young women and girls they had reported prior to a court hearing a week ago.

In their submission to the judge, Epstein’s lawyers say their client has had a clean record since he began registering as a sex offender after his Florida conviction.

They said the accusations against Epstein are “outside the margins of federal criminal law” and don’t constitute sex trafficking since there were no allegations he “trafficked anybody for commercial profit; that he forced, coerced, defrauded, or enslaved anybody.”

Prosecutors said efforts by defense lawyers to characterize Epstein’s crimes as “simple prostitution” were “not only offensive but also utterly irrelevant given that federal law does not recognize the concept of a child prostitute – there are only trafficking victims – because a child cannot legally consent to being exploited.”

Last week, USAToday reported in part:

Federal agents who searched the East Side Manhattan mansion of wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein turned up a “vast trove of lewd photographs” of young-looking girls, including hundreds of meticulously labeled nude pictures locked in a safe, according to federal court documents.

The description, laid out ina memo by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, was aimed at convincing a federal judge that Epstein, who was arrested July 6 upon return from Paris on his private jet, should not be freed pending trial on charges of sex trafficking.

Agents used crowbars to force open the front door of the seven-story Upper East Side mansion.

The memo said the search turned up not only evidence supporting its sex trafficking allegations against Esptein but also “hundreds – and perhaps thousands – of sexually suggestive photographs of fully – or partially – nude females.”

Then in the Irish press, there is the matter of the Prince…

Prosecuters believed Jeffrey Epstein was tampering with potential witnesses when he was investigated over underage sex crime allegations, court documents have revealed.

A document titled ‘Statement of Undisputed Facts; drawn up in 2008 by Bradley Edwards, a lawyer for one of Epstein’s victims says: “Edwards has had a good basis to believe and did in fact believe that to avoid the Government learning about his abuse of minor girls, Epstein threatened his employees and demanded that they not cooperate with the government.

“Epstein’s aggressive witness tampering was so severe that the United States Attorney’s Office prepared negotiated plea agreements containing these charges.”

The documents describe Epstein ‘harassing and pressuring’ one of his alleged sex slaves into not co-operating with the investigation.

Following a complaint from the mother of a 14-year-old from Florida, Epstein was arrested on suspicions of paying her £130 for an erotic massage in 2005.

More than a dozen victims had come forward with similar tales of their abuse at the hands of Epstein when he secured a controversial deal with US prosecutors.

Those who did not co-operate with Epstein were apparently warned ‘bad things’ would happen to them if they helped prosecutors, the Daily Mail reports.

Epstein pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of soliciting minors – which earned him an 18-month jail sentence of which he served less than 13 months. But he was granted immunity from prosecution on a series of other underage sex charges that could have seen him locked away for a decade.

Epstein is a self-made billionaire who met Prince Andrew on several occasions around the world in exclusive locations during a close relationship spanning a decade.

Epstein’s global property portfolio included Manhattan’s largest private residence, a ranch in New Mexico, a mansion in Florida and private island neighbouring Richard Branson’s in the Caribbean.

He claimed the likes of former US president Bill Clinton, supermodel Naomi Campbell and actor Kevin Spacey were among his friends and house guests. Although there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on their part.

A father of one of his students recommended him to a Wall Street financier who set Epstein on the path to untold riches. One estimate puts his overall wealth at more than one billion dollars.

His true wealth remains unknown as much is hidden in the Caribbean tax haven of the US Virgin Islands.

It is believed Prince Andrew met Epstein through former wife Sarah Ferguson and Epstein’s companion Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maxwell was the daughter of disgraced newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991 after falling from his yacht when it emerged he had stolen hundreds of millions from the Daily Mirror pension fund. Epstein earned her gratitude and unswerving loyalty when he picked her up after her father’s death.

But court documents filed last week say their relationship took a sinister turn when Maxwell became “one of the main women whom Epstein used to procure under-aged girls for sexual activities and a primary co-conspirator in his sexual abuse and sex-trafficking”.

Roberts’ lawyers claim Maxwell took part in the sexual abuse and “took numerous sexually explicit pictures of underage girls involved in sexual activities” and shared these with Epstein.

In a strong rebuttal of the claims Maxwell said: “The original allegations are not new and have been fully responded to and shown to be untrue.

“Each time the story is retold it changes with new salacious details about public figures and world leaders. Ms Roberts’ claims are obvious lies and should be treated as such.”

The documents claim Epstein groomed “dozens” of children by inviting them to his Florida mansion to give him a massage which “turned into a sexual encounter”.

The private Caribbean island, called Little St James, allegedly became the scene of riotous orgies involving under-aged girls flown in from eastern Europe.

The home of American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in Palm Beach (Image: Splash)

It is claimed that Virginia Roberts became Epstein’s “sex slave” and that he made her “available for sex to politically-connected and financially-powerful people”.

Prince Andrew is one of those identified by Roberts, a claim he emphatically denies.

The court document claim Epstein offered Roberts and other girls to influential friends and contact in order to “ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information”.

There is no suggestion Prince Andrew was aware of Epstein’s sordid other life. But they regularly enjoyed each other’s company.

Epstein flew in his private Gulfstream jet to the Bahamas in 1998 to meet Fergie and her daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

The following February, Prince Andrew visited the US Virgin Islands where he stayed on Little St James, Epstein’s private tropical paradise.

He is also reported to have visited Epstein’s sugar-pink mansion in an exclusive area of West Palm Beach, Florida.

This property was later raided by the FBI and found to contain numerous pictures of Epstein’s underage victims, who he allegedly groomed from the age of 14 and paid £130 an hour for sordid “erotic massages”.

Jeffrey Epstein’s Private Caribbean island (Image: Splash)

The following year, Epstein and Maxwell were granted a rare honour given to only some foreign dignitaries – a stay at the Royals’ much-loved Craigowan lodge on the Balmoral estate.

A visit to Sandringham followed. One source told Vanity Fair in 2011 that Epstein “taught Andrew how to relax”, adding: “I remember when Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein first became friends.

“Jeffrey had Andrew put on a pair of sweatpants for the first time in his life. He had him wear jeans for the first time.”

Another source claimed that Andrew’s friendship with Epstein was in part motivated by a desire to help his ex-wife Sarah, who had run up huge debts.

Though there is no suggestion that either of them was involved in anything illegal. Epstein once loaned Sarah £15,000 but she later regretted taking the money which she described as “a gigantic error of judgment”.

Epstein’s downfall was a dramatic as his rise to wealth in the first place.

Remarkably, Prince Andrew’s friendship with the now disgraced financier did not end there. In a decision that continues to haunt him, the pair were photographed together in New York’s Central Park in 2010 following Epstein’s release from prison the year before.

Epstein has not yet responded to the latest developments in the case.