jeffrey epstein

March 28 (UPI) — Bank of America reached a settlement with a survivor of deceased sex predator Jeffrey Epstein that will distribute $72.5 million to his victims.

The survivor, named in the case as “BOA Jane Doe,” and her attorneys told a federal judge on Friday that a settlement had been reached with the bank on a proposed class-action suit over Epstein’s decades of abuse and trafficking of women and teenage girls, The Charlotte Observer reported.

The suit alleged that the bank ignored signals of Epstein’s crimes by continuing to do business with him while he was committing his crimes.

Doe’s attorneys said they are aware of at least 60 women who were abused or trafficked by Epstein, however the settlement covers all women who experienced either at Epstein’s hands or those “connected to or otherwise associated” with him between June 30, 2008, and July 6, 2019, NBC News reported.

Bank of America, which is the largest bank in the United States, denied liability or wrongdoing in providing Epstein banking services but settled in order to avoid a trial.

“While we stand by our prior statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs,” the bank told The Observer and NBC in a statement.

With the settlement filed, a judge will still have to approve it at a hearing, which is scheduled for April 2.

Bank of America now joins JPMorgan, which settled for $290 million, and Deutsche Bank, which settled for $75 million, in paying what is thought to be more than 1,000 women that Epstein abused in his years-long scheme.

March 20 (UPI) — Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit said she was “manipulated and deceived” by late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in her first interview about the relationship that lasted years.

Mette-Marit, who is married to Crown Prince Haakon, had a long-term friendship with Epstein, as shown in their emails released in the Epstein files in February by the U.S. Department of Justice.

She said in the interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK that she “did not know he was a sex offender or an abuser.” But one email in 2011 said she Googled him after he had been sentenced to 18 months in prison and had pleaded guilty to soliciting from girls as young as 14.

She said she now wishes she had never met him.

Mette-Marit decided to do the interview after scrutiny and pressure to explain, including from Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

The Norwegian parliament voted Tuesday to create an independent commission to investigate connections between Epstein and the Norwegian foreign office, The Guardian reported.

The palace has released a past statement in which Mette-Marit admitted she had shown “poor judgment” and expressed “deep regret at having had any contact with Epstein.” Other than this, Mette-Marit has stayed mute on the matter.

Mette-Marit and Haakon did the 20-minute interview Thursday with Norwegian broadcaster NRK at their home, the royal residence Skaugum, near Oslo. It was broadcast Friday.

Mette-Marit’s oldest son, Marius Borg Høiby, is facing seven years in prison for 39 charges that include four counts of rape. She also has pulmonary fibrosis and has said she needs a lung transplant.

“I am the mother of a young man who has been in a very demanding situation,” she told NRK. “In addition, I have health that requires a lot of rest. And it has developed even more.”

“It is incredibly important for me to take responsibility for not checking [Epstein’s] background more carefully. And to take responsibility for being so manipulated and deceived as I was,” she said.

She described her “great anger” that Epstein’s sex trafficking victims have not seen justice. “At the same time, it’s important for me to say if I’ve done something that has contributed to giving him legitimacy in some way.”

Mette-Marit said she was introduced to Epstein through mutual acquaintances in 2011 when she was a special envoy for the United Nations Aids Program.

In the October 2011 email, Mette-Marit wrote: “Googled you after the previous email. Agreed, it didn’t look good :).”

The interviewer asked what she meant, and she said she didn’t know.

“I spent a lot of time trying to figure that out myself. I wish I had the rest of that email correspondence,” she said. “But if I had found information that made me realize that he was an abuser and sex offender, I wouldn’t have written a smiley face.”

The interviewer mentioned a Wikipedia article that was available at that time saying he was a convicted rapist.

“It’s hard for me to say, because I can’t remember. But I didn’t know he was a sex offender or an abuser, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Mette-Marit also stayed at Epstein’s home in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2013, the files showed.

She said she went to the house because “a mutual friend of ours had borrowed the house” but that it is “one of the things I have spent the most time processing after the serious abuses became known in 2019.”

“The fact that I have been there and, not least, have a sense of guilt for the victims. I have spent a lot of time processing this. So, it is very difficult for me personally,” she said.

Mette-Marit mentioned a “situation” that made her feel uneasy on the last day of her stay, but she refused to elaborate, except to say she called her husband about it. Haakon told the interviewer that he remembers the call and that it made his wife feel “unsafe.”

But she stayed friends with Epstein after the incident.

“I am overly trusting, I tend to think the best of people,” she said. “But I also chose to end all direct contact with him. And it was because of such episodes as that.”

March 19 (UPI) — Prosecutors said that if Marius Borg Høiby, son of Norway’s crown princess, is found guilty, he should serve more than seven years in prison for the 39 charges he faces.

The charges include four rapes and assaults, rape and domestic abuse, multiple breaches of restraining orders, and drug and driving offenses.

One charge of violation of a restraining order has been dropped.

Høiby, 29, pleaded guilty to several minor charges but denied the rape charges.

The final day of the trial is Thursday, but it could take months for the judges to give a verdict.

Several alleged victims have testified, including Høiby’s former girlfriend, influencer Nora Haukland.

In all four rape cases the victims were either asleep or incapacitated. Early in the trial, Høiby told the court, “I don’t sleep with women who aren’t awake.”

His mother is Mette-Marit, who is married to the crown prince of Norway. Høiby is her son from a previous relationship. He grew up in the royal family, but is not an official member of it.

Mette-Marit was a friend of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which was revealed from one of the Epstein files releases from the U.S. Justice Department. Her health has declined due to pulmonary fibrosis, and she has said needs a lung transplant.

The prosecution asked the court for Høiby to be in prison for seven years and seven months. It also asked that he be banned from contacting one of his alleged victims for two years and asked that several devices, including three iPhones and a MacBook, be confiscated. It also wants his driver’s license to be taken away for two years, and for him to have to take a new driving test after that time is up.

“These are very serious acts,” said state attorney Sturla Henriksbø. “It is among the most serious offenses in our criminal code to apply to violations of integrity. And it should entail a strict and tangible reaction in each case.”

Police attorney Andreas Kruszewski said Høiby should not be given a “penalty discount” because of media attention.

“The fact that you commit criminal acts after the media spotlight has been directed at you as a well-known person contributes to the fact that he should not receive a reduction in sentence,” Kruszewski said.

March 11 (UPI) — The British Cabinet Office has released files from its investigation into former ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson on Wednesday as it digs into his ties to deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The first batch of documents revealed that Mandelson may have been briefed on classified information before being given security clearance when he was appointed as ambassador. They also show that he requested a large government payout when he was terminated last year.

Mandelson was arrested and then released last month in London over suspicion of misconduct in public office. The allegation stems from emails released in the Epstein files in which Mandelson appears to be sharing market-sensitive confidential information with Epstein.

Documents released by the Cabinet Office share some details after his appointment as ambassador in December 2024. Within days of his being appointed, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office offered to brief Mandelson on highly classified information while he was still being vetted.

Emails about the briefing were shared Dec. 23, 2024, about three days after the announcement of Mandelson’s appointment. It was not until Jan. 30, 2025, that Mandelson received an email confirming that he had cleared the vetting process.

It was in this email that he received a formal offer of employment.

When Mandelson was terminated from his position in September, he requested to be paid the full amount on his contract — more than 500,000 euros or $578,625. Instead, he was paid 75,000 euros or $86,793.75 to terminate the contract.

“As the documents show regarding his severance payment, Peter Mandelson initially requested a sum that was substantially larger than the final payment, not just two or even three times, but more than six times the final amount,” said Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister at the Cabinet office.

“Despite the fact that he was withdrawn from Washington because he had lost the confidence of the prime minister, the government obviously found that to be inappropriate and unacceptable.”

March 11 (UPI) — A bipartisan group of senators penned a letter to the Government Accountability Office on Wednesday calling for an investigation into the Justice Department over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files release.

The letter accuses the Justice Department of noncompliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the bipartisan law overwhelmingly passed by both chambers of Congress last year. The lawmakers shared concern that the department has still not released all of the files it is required to by the law, despite a December deadline.

Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, signed the letter. They also shared concerns about the files that have been released, including victims’ names not being redacted and alleged coconspirators’ names being redacted.

The Government Accountability Office is an independent and nonpartisan agency in the legislative branch. Its purpose is to operate as a watchdog over the federal government, with the authority to investigate and perform audits.

“Contrary to Congress’s explicit directive to protect victims, these records included email addresses and nude photos in which the names and faces of publicly-identified and non-public victims could be identified,” the letter said. “But when it came to information identifying powerful business and political figures who are alleged coconspirators or material witnesses, DOJ appears to have heavily redacted those.”

The senators are requesting that Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown reviews the department’s process it used to review, redact and release the files. They specify that they want the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether the release of the files “has serve to cover up child sexual abuse.”

The Epstein files have continued to be a source of contention between lawmakers and the Trump administration more than two months after the Justice Department was required by law to release the files.

Lawmakers have pushed for answers about the delayed and mistake-filled release from Attorney General Pam Bondi, leading to fiery exchanges in a House Judiciary Committee hearing last month.

The House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena for Bondi’s testimony last week. Five Republicans joined all of the Democrats in the committee in voting for the subpoena.

“This horrific scandal is one where powerful, wealthy men groomed, abused, and raped young women, men, and children,” the letter from the senators reads. “It is critical to understand what led to DOJ’s failure to redact the victims; information and re-victimize those individuals while violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act in its redactions of information related to their alleged abusers.”

March 10 (UPI) — Votes are being cast in the Georgia special election to replace Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Tuesday.

Greene’s resignation, announced earlier this year, leaves an open seat in Congress to represent Georgia District 14. More than a dozen Republican candidates are vying for the seat, along with a small handful of Democrats.

The special election is open, meaning there are no party primaries to determine the candidates. A candidate must earn a majority of votes to win the election. If no candidate meets this criteria, a runoff election will be held on April 7.

The seat is in a largely Republican leaning district. Greene won the 14th Congressional District by 29 percent in 2024.

The winner of the election will serve out the remainder of Greene’s term that ends on Jan. 3, 2027.

Greene, long an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, became at odds with the president over a number of issues in the past year. Notably, she pushed for the release of government files on notorious sex trafficker and former Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein. She also broke with Trump over his support of Israel and military actions abroad, including strikes against Iran.

Trump has weighed in on the race to replace Greene, giving his endorsement to Clay Fuller, a district attorney and Air National Guard officer.

Political pundits are watching Tuesday’s election closely to see how much weight Trump’s endorsement carries with voters.

With Greene’s resignation, Republicans hold a narrower majority in the U.S. House. The majority falls to Republicans by a 218-14 count with three vacancies.

Republican Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., died on Jan 6, the day after Greene announced her resignation. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., resigned on Nov. 20.

Casey Wasserman’s name has been scrubbed from the agency he founded decades ago, replaced with an amorphous moniker: “The Team.”

Monday’s move comes amid the lingering controversy over the sports mogul’s decades-old association with Ghislaine Maxwell, accomplice of the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Following revelations of Wasserman’s salacious 2003 emails with Maxwell, several musicians and athletes — led by pop artist Chappell Roan and soccer star Abby Wambach — said that, to stay true to their values, they would leave the agency then known as Wasserman.

Fears of a broad flight of artists and agents prompted Wasserman to announce that he was selling his talent representation and sports marketing firm. Talks with prospective buyers have been ongoing, according to a person close to the agency but not authorized to speak publicly.

For now, the agency is still owned by Wasserman and private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.

Wasserman continues to lead LA28, the nonprofit group that will be staging the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in two years. The LA28 board’s executive committee unanimously voted to keep Wasserman as chairman, after reviewing known details surrounding his more than 20-year-old flirtations with Maxwell and his “strong leadership” of the Games.

Visitors to the Wasserman agency website were greeted with a message saying the firm, as of Monday, was rebranding as the Team.

“For 24 years, this company has been shaped by our work, our people and our unifying belief in the power of Sports, Music and Entertainment,” the message read. “That philosophy remains the foundation of who we are — and where we are going.”

Wasserman was not mentioned in the website messaging. Nor was he pictured in its photos depicting smiling agents. Old press releases have been changed to refer to the company as the Team, not Wasserman.

The website’s background is now adorned with a grid of T’s.

In a Feb. 13 memo to his staff, Wasserman acknowledged his appearance in a recent batch of documents released by the Department of Justice related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell had “become a distraction.”

Wasserman said he was “heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago” had brought hardship to the agency he created in 2002.

“I’m deeply sorry that my past personal mistakes have caused you so much discomfort,” Wasserman wrote to his staff. “It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the clients and partners we represent so vigorously and care so deeply about.”

Wasserman appears to have met Maxwell on a September 2002 humanitarian trip through Africa, sponsored by former President Clinton.

Wasserman, a prolific Clinton fundraiser whose famous grandfather helped the Democrat win the 1992 presidential election, was joined on Epstein’s jet by his then-wife, Laura, actor Kevin Spacey, Epstein and his longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell and others, including security agents.

It’s not clear when Wasserman and Maxwell began corresponding via email. The messages contained in the Justice Department files are from March and April of 2003. In them, Wasserman writes about wanting to see Maxwell in a tight leather outfit and she offered to give him a massage that can “drive a man wild.”

Maxwell was convicted of sexual abuse in 2021.

Wasserman has worked nearly a decade to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles.

Former Mayor Eric Garcetti recruited him to help L.A. win its host bid and the International Olympic Committee reportedly were impressed with Wasserman’s “network of contacts.”

Behind the scenes, there have been tensions with Los Angeles political leaders. Mayor Karen Bass has said that Wasserman should step down from the high-profile role overseeing the Games. Bass said that “we need to look at the leadership” of LA28 and that her job is to make sure that the city is “completely prepared” for the Games.

March 6 (UPI) — The Department of Justice released new FBI documents Thursday that describe several interviews with a woman who accused President Donald Trump of sexually abusing her when she was a young teen.

The pages had been withheld from the other documents from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Officials said they were held back because they mistakenly believed they were duplicates.

The 16 pages of notes describe three interviews that the FBI conducted in 2019 with the woman, who said she was sexually abused by Epstein and Trump when she was between the ages of 13 years and 15 years in the 1980s.

There are also two pages from an intake form that document the initial call to the FBI from a friend who reported the woman’s claims.

Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019.

The House Oversight Committee voted Wednesday to subpoena U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify on the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files, which are legally required to be released to the public.

The Justice Department posted on X that it identified about a dozen other documents that were “incorrectly coded as duplicative.”

Federal prosecutors in Florida also determined that five prosecution memos that had been labeled privileged could be redacted and released.

NPR reported that it conducted an investigation that found 53 pages that appeared to be missing from the public release database.

There are still 37 pages missing, NPR said, including notes from the interviews, a law enforcement report and license records.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said in a statement that they applauded the release of the interviews but still criticized the department for its handling.

“But let’s be clear — this White House cover-up is ongoing. Millions of pages still remain concealed from the public and our committee,” said Sara Guerrero, spokesperson for Oversight Democrats.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to NPR Friday that Trump has been “totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein files.”

“These are completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence, from a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history,” Leavitt wrote to NPR.

“The total baselessness of these accusations is also supported by the obvious fact that Joe Biden‘s department of justice knew about them for four years and did nothing with them — because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. As we have said countless times, President Trump has been totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein Files,” she wrote.

March 4 (UPI) — The House Oversight Committee voted Wednesday to subpoena U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify on the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Five Republicans joined the Democrats on the committee voting in favor of the subpoena by a 24-19 count.

The vote was forced by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., during a full committee business meeting that was not related to the Epstein investigation. Republicans joining Mace in voting for the subpoena were Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Michael Cloud, R-Texas.

“AG Bondi claims the DOJ has released all of the Epstein Files,” Mace posted on social media. “The record is clear: they have not.”

Potential dates for Bondi’s testimony have not been announced.

While some Republicans joined Democrats in voting for a subpoena of Bondi, they did not do the same on a subpoena for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. A motion to subpoena Noem for her handling of immigration enforcement failed.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick agreed on Tuesday to testify before the House Oversight Committee about his relationship with Epstein. Lutnick’s relationship with the sexual abuser and trafficker came under further scrutiny after a photo of him with Epstein was posted on the Justice Department’s Epstein files database.

Lutnick previously downplayed his ties to Epstein.