Jeffrey Epstein Investigated by Police Years Before Arrest

On March 14, 2005, a Florida couple walked into the Palm Beach Police Department (PBPD) and told officers they believed their 14-year-old daughter “may have had some type of sexual relationship with an older male who resided in Palm Beach,” according to an incident report obtained by PEOPLE.

The couple did not know the man’s name, his address or any details beyond that, and said their daughter would not admit to or even discuss the incident — which they learned about from the mother of one of their daughter’s friends.

That report launched an investigation which ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of Jeffrey Epstein, who in 2008 pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Investigators were already familiar with Epstein years before 2005 though, as new records released by the Department of Justice reveal that he was the subject of two previous investigations by the PBPD.

The first investigation began in December of 2001, when the West Palm Beach Police Department (WPBPD) contacted the PBPD’s Organized Crime/Vice and Narcotics Unit and reported Epstein’s top lieutenant Ghislaine Maxwell was allegedly “hiring young woman from [Palm Beach State College] to come to her house and answer the phone,” according to the case report.

The report from the WPBPD said that “three female college students” had been approached on campus by Maxwell and allegedly told that she “needed young, beautiful unmarried women to answer phones and do office work at her home on Palm Beach.”

One student who accepted the $200-a-day offer on several occasions said most of the calls came from men “saying when they were going to drop of [sic] particular girls,” according to the report. Two other girls who spoke with the WPBPD “complained about Epstein touching them inappropriately” when they worked at the home.

The PBPD set out to try and interview these students but had little luck in contacting most of the girls, largely because they attended a community college and most lived off campus.

A few did eventually agree to interviews and while they reported that there were “nude photographs of women all over the house,” “women running around the pool area topless,” and the feeling that something “weird” was going on with the constant massages, they did not witness anything illegal.

At the same time, investigators with the PBPD were also doing trash pulls at Epstein’s home, and over the course of just a few months found “nude photographs of women,” massage directories and even a “list of female names titled ‘People That I Want You To Meet’ listing females, ages, descriptions, and what they do,” according to the report.

In April of 2002, the investigation was closed because “no illegal activity has been reported or detected,” per the report.

The investigation did, however, result in one of the college women included in that WPBPD report being kicked out of campus housing after six Smirnoff Ice alcoholic beverages were found in her room by school security, who had been asked to conduct a search by the PBPD when she refused to return their calls.

Then, in March of 2004, a female masseuse who had been giving Epstein massages at his home called the PBPD and said that she wanted to file a complaint.

The woman alleged that “several times Epstien [sic] asked her to take off her top or her pants,” but she refused to do so.

Police responded the following day at 11 p.m., saying “they would contact her at a later date,” according to the report. Five days later, police called the woman and left a message, with no further attempts to contact the individual mentioned in the report.

Five months after that, in August 2004, an officer filed a report after being flagged down by a taxi cab driver who informed him that he had “just dropped off two unknown white females, who appeared to be approximately 15 and 17 [years old] at the residence of Epstein.”

The cab driver also said that while driving to the home he “overheard the females discussing how much money they would make ‘dating’ in Palm Beach,” according to the report.

In November of that year, another report came in after the property manager for Epstein’s home called to report a suspicious vehicle was parked in the driveway.

The responding officer said that he arrived at the home and spoke to the woman in the vehicle, who informed him she was there to pick up an envelope that Epstein had left for her at the house, according to the report.

Epstein did in fact leave an envelope for the female, the officer reported, while also noting that at one point during their conversation the girl received a call from her mother, and said: “I can’t talk, I can’t talk. I’m at school, I gotta go.”

That girl also told the officer that the envelope contained “money for being a massage therapist” and also informed him “off the record” that Epstein “has many young girls come over for that” and that “there’s always a different young girl at the pool or inside with him when he’s here.” 

However, there was no action taken until March of 2005, when police once again began to pull trash from the home while also parking cars outfitted with recording devices down the street from Epstein’s mansion in order to surveil the entrance.

The report notes that on March 30, 2005, a PBPD detective was “investigating Epstein as a suspect involved in a sexual battery of a 14-year-old female.”

That investigation was launched by Det. Joseph Recarey, who had just one potential victim at that time. But by August 2006, he had interviewed over 30 potential victims — a majority of whom were minors, according to the report.

In May of 2006, Det. Recarey submitted his report to prosecutors, recommending that Epstein be charged with four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and a single count of lewd and lascivious molestation.

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If convicted on all five counts, Epstein could have been sentenced to 135 years in prison.

Prosecutors chose instead to seek a grand jury indictment on a single count of soliciting a prostitute.

From there, Epstein was able to negotiate his infamous sweetheart plea deal, serving just 13 months in a private jail before being placed on a modified house arrest that allowed him to travel between his properties in New York City, Palm Beach, New Mexico, the Virgin Islands and even Paris.