The Slippery Slope: In Defense of Victims’ Rights
By Erik Eging, Outreach & Communications Specialist at NVRDC
This article discusses certain instances of sex-trafficking, sexual abuse, and sexual exploitation perpetrated against adults and minors by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. In discussing these instances, this article references allegations of "prostitution" or repeats the term "prostitute" as it appears when describing formal statutory charges. I have included this forward to make clear that NVRDC does not condone or otherwise permit interal usage of the term "prostitute" due to its derogatory, de-humanizing, and offensive characteriation of sex-workers.
In late December last year, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in a Manhattan federal court room on 5 of the 6 charges she faced; including sex trafficking. To many in the country, the conclusion of the trial came as a sigh of relief after being swallowed up in a media cycle seemingly obsessed with lurid details of the case, jumping from scandalous revelation to exotic locals with an almost voyeuristic pleasure. One that comes from peeking behind the curtain of wealth and power. There was the death of Epstien himself, flight logs and black books filled to the brim with the names of the most elite amongst us.
What was often lost was the victims, both known and unknown, whose collective stories were silenced for decades. Their traumatization and retraumatization whilst seeking justice relied on a form of societal complicity bound up in how we choose to see the most vulnerable among us, who we grant the status of “victim”, and how these value judgments warp our legal systems as they make decisions on behalf of said victims, often to the benefit of the accused; often without their consent.
It’s important to examine these narratives and how the decades-long failure to enforce victims’ rights led not only to the current Maxwell trial, but also led to the victimization of countless other women throughout the years.
Why are these cases so difficult to talk about?
Right up front, it is important to acknowledge why these cases are so difficult to talk about in the first place. Sexual assault is a difficult topic. There is a generalized, shared discomfort associated with talking openly and honestly about sex (even the consensual kind), and there is a similar discomfort talking openly and honestly about traumatic experiences – whether from illness, misadventure, crime, or anything else. As a society we struggle to have difficult conversations about sex and trauma in a healthy way; and so talking about the experiences of sexual assault survivors is difficult not only because its compound problem, but also, because its vicariously traumatic. True engagement requires empathy, and empathizing with sexual assault survivors means acknowledging the very real possibility that something like this could happen to you or to your family; or worse, that it already has.
This terrifying realization creates a psychological knee jerk reaction, one that preserves the safety of one’s ego by creating distance between us and the survivor; often taking the form of victim blaming- i.e. what were they wearing, how much did they have to drink, etc. This was especially pernicious in the Epstein case, and like many other cases involving heavy coercion or outright trafficking, it became easier to label these young girls as sex workers-despite their age and inability to consent- than to engage with the reality of what these survivors went through. It's easier to focus on money or locations where these crimes took place and find an explanation that isn’t so scary because it's the girls who are at fault. In this version of events, the rest of us can take comfort in knowing “I wouldn’t have gone there”, “my children would never fall for that”, “my friends would have called the police right away”. These victim-blaming fantasies are so pervasive because they feel safe and they comport with the version of reality that we prefer; the one where we are in control, where our own mental fortitude is impervious to manipulation, where we can’t be the victims. As comforting as these fantasies might be, entertaining such notions have real world consequences; it hinders meaningful engagement on these issues, strips victims of their dignity and rights, and worst of all, creates the environment that sexual predators like Jeffery Epstein need to thrive.
In 2006, when Epstein was arrested for a sexual battery case against 18 girls, ages 14-18, this is exactly what happened.
The plea deal
While there are many aspects of the case to focus on, it might help to go back to 2008 and the infamous plea deal and the social factors that fed into it at the time. Clearly, by this point Epstein was adept at using his money and power to bend the law to his will, but what was also clear was that he could rely on societal norms and narratives to shield him from scrutiny or legal action. In 1997, Alicia Arden filed a complaint with Santa Monica police revealing that Epstein groped her during what she thought was a Victoria’s Secret modeling audition. A male police officer took her statement, during which he noted that she “willingly went to his room” and suggested she should think about filing a report. Ultimately charges weren't filed-against Alicia’s wishes–and she was never contacted by investigators about her complaint again. Speaking of the complaint, Alicia said she felt like she was “being blamed” for the whole thing.
In September 2006, Joe Recary, a detective in south Florida brought to state prosecutors what seemed like a straightforward minor sex abuse case. Over the course of a year, however, the prosecution shifted its focus from Epstein to his victims. Epstein was eventually charged with procuring a child for prostitution, and just on the face of the charging document alone, the underage girls subjected to Epstein’s abuse shifted from coerced to complicit, from prey to prostitutes. It's not hard to imagine how this view affected the prosecution’s position when offering Epstein a plea deal, or why when it came to enforcing the Crime Victims’ Rights Act there were no victims in sight. All this in spite of the fact that, as put by Julie K. Brown in her book Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, “Most of the girls he preyed on came from broken families, a few were homeless, one slept under a highway overpass–another was a witness in the murder of her own stepbrother. Often they had been raised by single mothers, or had parents who were alcoholics, drug addicts, or simply struggling to keep roofs over their heads.”
In a statement addressing the plea deal, Marie Villafaña, who had been the lead line attorney at the time, said, “That injustice, I believe, was the result of deep, implicit institutional biases that prevented me and the FBI agents who worked diligently on this case from holding Mr. Epstein accountable for his crimes.” She continues, “By not considering those implicit biases based on gender and socioeconomic status, OPR [the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility] lost an opportunity to make recommendations for institutional changes that could prevent results like this one from occurring in the future.”
This sentiment was effectively echoed by Julie K. Brown during an interview, when she noticed that the victims were all but absent from the original charges and media coverage, something that was thankfully remedied in the Maxwell case. "That's the one thing that I found that was missing in the [original] story, that none of the women's voices were in any of the stories that I read," Brown says. "There is nothing that was more powerful than the words of the women talking about this themselves. And I still kind of get choked up when I think about how brave they were to [speak out]."
The Maxwell Trial
In defending his 2008 decision to greenlight the plea deal back then and why things would be different were he to make the decision now, Alexander Acosta said, “Today we know a lot more about how victims’ trauma impacts their testimony,” he said. “Our juries are more accepting of contradictory statements and understand that trauma-impacted memories work differently. And today our judges do not allow victim shaming by defense attorneys.” However, having just lived through the Maxwell trial, it is evident that not much has changed.
The trial, which found Maxwell guilty of acting as a groomer on behalf of Epstein, was replete with the same accusations and open hostility towards victims in an attempt to shame and dismiss them; fortunately in this instance such tactics proved unsuccessful. Even so, victims’ names were repeatedly and intentionally used throughout the hearing by the defense in an attempt to intimidate and embarrass, one victim’s testimony was referred to as a performance, another was painted as an unreliable addict, while a “false memory” expert was brought in to argue that the memories of abuse had been “reconstructed” with the implication that it was for financial gain–once again the charge of prostitution by a different name. Clearly things today are still not as rosy as Acosta would lead us to believe.
However, this is not to paint an altogether negative picture. Things are changing and changing for the better. Acosta’s handling of the 2008 plea deal put a renewed emphasis on crime victims rights, culminating in the inclusion of sections (a)(9) and (a)(10) in the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3771. These additions solidified a victim’s right to be notified of any plea bargain or deferred prosecution agreement as well as their right to receive other affirmative notices under the law. Additionally, if the Maxwell trial showed anything it was the power of allowing victims to use their voices and the impact it had not only on the outcome of the trial, but as a powerful reminder of what happens when survivors are allowed the dignity of self–determination.
Why this Matters in DC and What’s Next?
Because the District relies on federal prosecutors to handle local prosecutions, DC crime victims are disproportionately disenfranchised when the CVRA lacks enforcement and when those tasked with affording the rights are not held accountable.
Having closed out January, a month recognizing the impact of human trafficking, we reflect on the deep trauma that Epstien’s victims experienced as minor trafficking survivors exposed to sexual violence and other forms of harm. As part of NVRDC’s Theory of Change, we recognize that existing response systems to crime are not always designed to meet the diverse needs of survivors and part of our work is both holding these systems accountable while contemporaneously transforming them.
Many crime victims and their advocates, as illustrated by the Jeffrey Epstein case, cannot rely on government prosecutors to ensure their rights are protected in the criminal legal system. Proposed changes to the CVRA in Congress can ensure the law will deliver on its promised rights and protections, invest in local crime victims’ rights resources and support, and provide processes for holding government actors accountable for violating these rights. This is why NVRDC is recommending legislative changes to the CVRA that would both strengthen the existing rights to ensure better compliance and enhance the accountability over those in the system who fail victims–as seen in the Epstein case years ago. You can read more about our recommendations and the need for meaningful rights to ensure victim participation in the criminal legal system here.