One of the four women named as “potential co-conspirators” in Jeffrey Epstein’s sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors is breaking her silence to tell the world that she is also a survivor of his abuse — and that she believes law enforcement ultimately came to see her as a victim. 

Sarah Kellen, who was employed by Epstein as a personal assistant for more than a decade starting in 2001, has come forward on the eve of her appearance Thursday before the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door, transcribed interview.

In interviews with federal and state law enforcement, as well as in other public documents, including civil lawsuits, survivors of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have alleged Kellen handled some of the logistics that enabled Epstein and his abuse, including calling his minor victims to make arrangements for massages, escorting them to Epstein’s bedroom and encouraging them to bring friends. 

And at least some Epstein survivors remain angry about Kellen’s role. Earlier this year, Epstein survivor Teresa Helm told a British media outlet that Kellen groomed her for abuse and that she is still unconvinced that Kellen “didn’t know what she was doing.” Kellen’s lawyers say Kellen never met Teresa Helm.

Kellen and her lawyers have insisted, however, that to the extent that she was involved in Epstein’s web, it was part and parcel of how Epstein sexually and psychologically abused her for more than a decade. They said Kellen is no differently situated than other survivors of Epstein’s decades-long predation of women and girls.

“I have no doubt there are countless women currently trapped in similar situations that could be helped by hearing my story,” Kellen told MS NOW.

Kellen’s lawyers said that while New York federal prosecutors investigated Kellen and initially sought to have her plead guilty to witness tampering, they came to understand that Kellen was victimized by Epstein and decided against prosecuting her.

Aside from brief comments to The Sun in 2020, Kellen has avoided the press. But she and her lawyers said they now want the public to understand how Epstein transformed her life not only through years of abuse but also by including her as his “potential co-conspirator” in his 2007 nonprosecution agreement.

That agreement was a critical piece of Epstein’s so-called sweetheart deal, which resulted in Epstein pleading guilty to two state prostitution-related crimes; serving fewer than 13 months in jail, including “work release” time; and registering as a sex offender in New York.

Kellen’s lawyers told MS NOW that Kellen was not consulted prior to her inclusion in the agreement, nor did she learn about it until after it was executed. 

They said the nonprosecution agreement nearly destroyed Kellen’s life by portraying her as complicit in his sexual abuse and trafficking. As a result, they said, Kellen has endured nearly 20 years of harassment and threats to this day.

‘Potential co-conspirator’

Included in the 3 million-plus pages the Justice Department has published in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act is correspondence between and among Florida federal prosecutors and Epstein’s lawyers about resolving the federal investigation. 

The correspondence reflects that, as of mid-September 2007, as federal prosecutors went back and forth with Epstein’s counsel about potential plea agreements, they had neither subpoenaed, much less interviewed, Kellen. 

Prosecutors even considered charges against Epstein based on his conduct toward Kellen.

According to people familiar with the investigation, mid-September draft plea documents published by the DOJ in redacted form reflect a proposed charge against Epstein for assaulting Kellen on an airplane around 2005. 

By the next afternoon, however, the lead prosecutor on the case, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie Villafaña, told a lawyer for Epstein she had received “some negative reaction” to charging Epstein with assaulting Kellen, “since she is considered one of the main perpetrators of the offenses that we planned to charge in the indictment.” There is no indication in the documents that Villafaña disputed the incident’s occurrence. 

The next day, Epstein’s lawyer, Jay Lefkowitz, first suggested protecting four named “potential co-conspirators,” including Kellen, from prosecution “for any criminal charge that arises out of the ongoing federal investigation,” so long as Epstein himself fulfilled all of his own responsibilities under the agreement. 

The nonprosecution agreement was signed by Epstein and his counsel on Sept. 24, 2007. Gone was any conception of Kellen as a victim of Epstein despite prosecutors’ consideration of her as exactly that just days prior. 

Instead, the agreement contained a provision that echoed the first proposal by Lefkowitz: In exchange for Epstein’s guilty plea and his providing compensation to agreed-upon victims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida agreed it would not “institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein,” including Kellen and three other named women. 

“It literally put a muzzle on us. It made us a target and made it impossible for us to speak.”

Sarah Kellen, referring to Epstein’s sweetheart plea agreement

In other words, the agreement tied Kellen’s fate to Epstein’s. She would only be safe from prosecution if he kept up his end of the bargain. Kellen’s lawyers said she was neither notified nor consulted before the agreement’s execution.  

Lefkowitz did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment about the plea agreement proposal. 

Kellen said everything she knew about the investigation and Epstein’s sweetheart deal was controlled and manipulated by him, much as she herself had been. Kellen said she understood there was an investigation as of the mid-2000s but that Epstein told her it had arisen after extortion attempts by girls who had lied to him about their ages and “were in cahoots” with plaintiffs’ lawyers. (One of the lawyers for plaintiffs at the time, Brad Edwards, is now among Kellen’s lawyers.)  

And while she said she understood at the time that Epstein had made a deal of some sort that resulted in his plea and jail time, she does not recall learning any specifics of that deal until after the ink was dry.

It was not until roughly two years later, when the agreement’s existence and terms were first publicly reported, that Kellen said she learned that Epstein’s agreement referenced and labeled her. But she still did not comprehend how it would impact her for decades to come.  

Kellen told MS NOW the agreement not only created a false narrative about her, but it also frustrated her ability to correct that narrative while Epstein was still alive.

“It literally put a muzzle on us. It made us a target and made it impossible for us to speak,” she said.

‘How was Jeffrey allowed to speak to them on our behalf?’

More than a decade later, in 2020, renewed interest in Epstein’s Florida deal led to a DOJ investigation of potential attorney misconduct by Villafaña, then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta and others. 

At that time, Villafaña told the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility that she agreed to include that provision because her office “considered Epstein to be the top of the food chain, and we wouldn’t have been interested in prosecuting anyone else.” 

The 300-plus page OPR report does not reflect, however, why none of the federal prosecutors involved apparently pressed to speak with Kellen before naming her in Epstein’s agreement.

The report also sheds no light on why prosecutors were comfortable labeling Kellen as a “potential co-conspirator,” especially given their knowledge that Epstein had physically assaulted her, without ensuring the women had the opportunity to speak with federal law enforcement about their own experiences.

But DOJ documents now show that at least one effort by law enforcement to talk to Kellen apparently was thwarted by Epstein.

Kellen told MS NOW that around 2007, she and another woman were with Epstein at an airport in St. Thomas when a baggage handler approached and said the FBI wanted to speak with the women. Epstein went to talk to them, she recalled, and when he returned roughly 10 minutes later, he said only, “Let’s go.” 

“If they had orders to talk to us, how was Jeffrey allowed to speak to them on our behalf?” Kellen asked.  

Documents produced by the DOJ seem to back this up: Not only did Kellen tell prosecutors about this incident at their first meeting in 2019, but a memo prepared by an unnamed federal law enforcement agent reflects that in late August 2007, weeks before Epstein signed the nonprosecution agreement, that agent rushed to the airport in St. Thomas where Epstein’s jet was about to takeoff in an attempt to serve target letters on two unnamed females he expected would be traveling with him. 

According to the document, the agent was advised by Customs and Border Patrol personnel who were present that Epstein was traveling alone, and her lawyers told MS NOW that Kellen never received that target letter.

It was not until July 6, 2019 — the day of Epstein’s arrest — that Kellen was personally approached by the FBI for the first time. Documents indicate that agents told Kellen Epstein had been arrested and that they wanted to interview her. When Kellen responded that she preferred to do so with her lawyers present, she was served with a grand jury subpoena. She and her lawyers met with prosecutors and the FBI for the first time that November, and their conversations continued the next month.

A document released by the DOJ reveals that during one of those meetings, Kellen described to prosecutors how Epstein not only sexually abused her “pretty often,” but he also “aggressively raped” her on one occasion.

‘Prosecutors recognized her as a victim’

Through her lawyers, Kellen said she recognizes that Epstein’s explanation to her all those years ago about why he was being investigated sounds implausible, or even ridiculous, to anyone familiar with his crimes. But she said Epstein manipulated and controlled her, just as he did to so many of his survivors.

“After Sarah was able to disclose her abuse at Epstein’s hands, prosecutors recognized her as a victim and declined to prosecute.”

Kathleen Cassidy, who represented Kellen

In recent years, however, the lawyers believe law enforcement’s understanding of Kellen has evolved. The recent DOJ release includes documents indicating that in 2020, Manhattan federal prosecutors initially considered charging Kellen criminally and even sought to have her plead guilty to witness tampering. 

Kellen and her legal team held firm, telling prosecutors in a now-public 2020 email that a nonprosecution agreement for her was deserved, “given [Kellen’s] abuse, and given the fact that we see her basically as a cog in Epstein’s wheel, acting entirely at his direction and doing what she did at a time that she herself was a very vulnerable victim.”

They also disputed in another now-public email that Kellen was present when certain survivor witnesses were sexually assaulted, while acknowledging that Kellen “does not doubt Epstein abused these women, as he did with almost all young women and girls he came into contact with.”

Her lawyers said those prosecutors ultimately informed them of their decision not to charge Kellen criminally. 

“After Sarah was able to disclose her abuse at Epstein’s hands, prosecutors recognized her as a victim and declined to prosecute,” Kathleen Cassidy, who represented Kellen at that time and continues to be a part of her legal team, told MS NOW.

‘A very sticky, complex situation’

Kellen still wonders what her life might have been like for the last 20 years if she had not been named a “potential co-conspirator” in 2007, while Epstein himself largely evaded accountability.

“I want to start turning some of the pain and trauma into something good that can help others and bring awareness to this important topic,” she said.

She said she has started seeing a therapist experienced in treating survivors of sexual abuse, including several Epstein survivors, through a trauma-informed lens.

“I have been on a deep healing journey the past 7 years coming to terms with my own abuse and manipulation,” she said. “I want to start using my story to bring awareness to how the grooming process and trauma bonds work and how easy it is to be brainwashed and manipulated in a cult-like power-imbalanced dynamic.” 

She said with the help of therapy, she now identifies as a survivor and has privately repaired and restored her relationships with some of Epstein’s then-minor victims.

One survivor, Dani Bensky, recently told MS NOW that Kellen’s situation is “complicated.”

“When you are victimized and then you are put in a position where you are manipulated to recruit, that is a very sticky, complex situation,” Bensky told Alex Witt.

“People really need to understand what sex trafficking is and what it looks like,” she said. “It really is like a pyramid scheme.”

Bensky added that she hopes Kellen’s appearance before Congress will continue to shed light on Epstein’s web of abuse.

“I really just hope she says everything she knows,” she said. “I think, you know, she saw a lot.”

The post Set to appear before Congress, an Epstein ‘potential co-conspirator’ says she, too, was a victim appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.