JEFFREY Epstein victim Sarah Ransome was just 22 when the convicted paedophile lured her into his vile sex trafficking ring.
Ransome was raped “three times” in a single day by Epstein on his notorious “Paedo Island”, before desperately trying to flee.
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And on Tuesday she stood by allegations she made in 2016 that the convicted paedophile had recorded sex tapes of Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and Richard Branson.
In her 2021 book, Silenced No More: Surviving My Journey to Hell and Back, Ransome told the story of her entrapment in Epstein’s world.
She has also given several interviews in recent years as a way of giving testimony about what happened to her as she once said “I will never have my day in court”.
Her testimony about Epstein’s assault provided in Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 defamation case against Maxwell was included only as part of an exhibit submitted by the firm representing Epstein’s own lawyer, Alan Dershowitz.
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Her 2016 emails to columnist Maureen Callahan were given as evidence that she “lacks credibility”.
This was because the messages which detailed her claims of Epstein’s sex tapes also included her retraction.
Ransome lays out the bombshell claims – without presenting evidence – about alleged filming that took place in Epstein’s New York mansion.
She then withdraws them, writing: “I want to walk away from this…I shouldn’t have contacted you and I’m sorry I wasted your time.
“It’s not worth coming forward and I will never be heard anyhow and only bad things will happen as a consequence of me going public.”
In 2017 she filed a suit against Maxwell and Epstein, alleging that Maxwell had recruited her for the billionaire paedo.
It was settled in 2018 under unknown terms.
Then the Epstein survivor appeared on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday and said it is “no secret” that the alleged tapes were made.
“There are videos that exist. The people that know they exist I’m sure are very frightened of them being released,” she claimed.
When asked about alleged hidden cameras on Epstein’s “Paedo Island”, Ransome said: “It’s no secret that everything was recorded.
“Multiple victims have come forward confirming my account along with others. I have also seen recordings in his office.”
And she claimed “In the time that I was with Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, amongst others, regularly enforced that if I ever did come forward, myself and my family would be harmed.”
Ransome claimed the disgraced financier had kitted out his various luxury properties – including the New York mansion and private island – with “high tech surveillance cameras”.
Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Richard Branson all denied the allegations.
The 17 unsealed files, containing over 100 newly unsealed pages about Epstein’s sex crimes and associates, were the fourth batch since the first release on Wednesday 3.
Meeting Epstein
In 2006, Ransome had moved to New York City alone and with no money to make a fresh start as a model.
She had been raised by her mum who struggled with alcoholism, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Initially born into an aristocratic Scottish family, her maternal grandfather was the wealthy Lord Gordon Macpherson.
But she herself grew up with limited funds and an absentee father, and by the time she fled Britain to the US she had already been abused.
Ransome was aged 11 when she was raped for the first time by one of her mother’s boyfriends, and again just three years later by another teenager.
She was approached by another young woman, Natalya, at a nightclub in New York who told Ransome about her billionaire philanthropist friend – Epstein.
Ransome told the Mail: “She was my age and I was so excited to find a friend. She asked me all about my family, what I was doing in New York.
“I told her everything; how I was all alone, my dreams of studying fashion. She asked for my number and I gave it to her.
“It seemed the most natural thing in the world.”
But just days later, Natalya called Ransome to say Epstein, who “helps lots of girls achieve their dreams”, wanted to meet her.
Days later she was sitting in a cinema in New York with the disgraced financier, and a group of “ten girls…all young and beautiful”.
“Looking back I realise I was targeted for my vulnerability. I was alone in the big city. I’d already admitted I was a lost soul,” she said.
“Jeffrey was charismatic, charming. He seemed genuinely interested in me. I had no idea I was being groomed to enter hell.”
‘Paedo Island’
And within a week, Ransome had been invited to go with a group of girls to Epstein’s private island in the Carribrean.
The group flew on Epstein’s so-called “Lolita Express”, when Ransome said she was woken by the convicted paedo having sex with one of the other girls in the cabin.
And when she arrived at the island, her phone and passport were taken away. By this point, she was unnerved.
Ransome was then instructed to give Epstein a foot massage, followed by a request to visit him in his bedroom the next day.
She said: “That was the night he first raped me. He told me to take off my dress and lay on the massage table.
“He said, ‘Tonight I am going to teach you how to be a woman.
“I sobbed and screamed for him to stop.”
Another girl was apparently waiting outside his bedroom to go in after her.
She was raped every day on the island, often up to two or three times.
Ransome told NPR: “I had nowhere to go. I was stuck on an island – no passport, no phone, couldn’t phone anyone.”
She gave a victim impact statement after Maxwell’s criminal trial, saying she tried to flee the island by jumping off a cliff into shark-infested waters.
Maxwell told the Mail: “I knew there were sharks in the water but I had to get away.
“At that point the sharks were a welcome alternative to the hell I’d been through. In that moment death felt preferable to one more rape.”
Maxwell showed up to pull her back from the edge, and she said “I went back with her into the monster’s lair.”
And when they returned to New York, where she moved into an apartment he owned, it continued.
Threats, bullying & drugs
Epstein had claimed he had connections at FIT, a New York fashion college and could help get her a place to study there.
This, combined with threats against her and her family helped keep her trapped in his ring of abuse.
In her book Ransome said Epstein told her “If you ever tell anyone what happened here I will kill you and your family.”
Ransome recalled in an interview: “I became financially dependent on him. I still believed he would help me get to fashion school.”
Ransome has also claimed she was bullied about her weight by both Maxwell and Epstein.
Maxwell apparently told her she needed to lose 30lb, putting her on a near-starvation diet of cucumbers and tomatoes.
She said “I was starving every day. Ghislaine told me I was fat.”
Epstein also apparently had her sent to a psychiatrist who prescribed powerful anti-depressants which left her feeling “drugged up”.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ‘right-hand woman’
Ransome has dubbed Maxwell Epstein’s “right-hand woman”, who “facilitated the spider’s web” around the paedophile “monster”.
She said of Maxwell: “She tries to claim she was out of his orbit by the time I was there, in 2006 and 2007, but she was a constant presence.
“Ghislaine blew hot and cold, vacillating between madam boss lady and nurturing mother figure.
“She could be kind, smiling, charming, what I called ‘Gracious Ghislaine’.
“That was the side of her the celebrities saw. But then she could be angry, cruel.”
Ransome attended Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial in November 2021 through to June 2022, despite not being one of the witnesses called.
Before the proceedings she said: “I pray justice will be done in court,.
“But I am a very spiritual person and I believe whatever happens, Ghislaine will burn in hell for all eternity.”
She told NPR: “Ghislaine – she tortured me daily.
“I mean, she tortured me every time I saw her. She starved me. She forced me into Jeffrey’s room to be raped.”
Sex tape claims
Ransome, who alleged in the recently unsealed court documents that Epstein had filmed Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and Richard Branson having sex with an unnamed friend – said she was terrified of Epstein’s powerful connections.
“There were pictures everywhere of him with Presidents, the Pope, world leaders, royalty.
“I was scared that if I ever spoke out he would have me killed like he’d threatened.”
Speaking of the so-called cameras on Epstein’s properties, Ransome recalled: “I once lit a cigarette and Jeffrey, who hated smoking, came out of nowhere..
“When I tried to escape I purposely chose a remote spot yet Ghislaine and security guards were there instantly.
“Jeffrey once told me, ‘I have tapes of every person who has ever been on my properties’.”
She also believes a Blackberry given to her as a gift was used to track her location, once when she refused to go to his home and he turned up alongside her in a limo.
Sarah’s escape
After a particularly violent assault in 2007, after almost a year of abuse, Ransome said she ran.
“It was in May 2007. I just ran. I was broken.”
After fleeing back to the UK Ransome said she moved house 47 times over the next few years, terrified of the repurcussions.
In 2019, Epstein committed suicide after his arrest for child sex charges.
“We survivors never got our day in court but when he died it was the first time I felt safe,’ she says. ‘I could stop looking over my shoulder.”
“This was a spider’s web, a sophisticated trafficking operation. I was lured in because I was approached by girls my own age.
“It was only when I was trapped on the island that the energy changed.
“I was mentally raped as well as physically raped. It took me years to pluck up the courage to even talk about it.”
In her book Ransome described herself as a “justice warrior”.
“I am now among those sceptical that Jeffrey killed himself.
“He had video footage of some of the world’s most powerful men engaged in despicable acts, and if that evidence had ever seen daylight, entire industries and factions of government may have fallen as swiftly as I did upon hearing of Jeffrey’s death.”
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