Former Epstein assistant to appear before House committee

(NEW YORK) — The House Oversight Committee on Thursday is scheduled to conduct a closed-door interview with Sarah Kellen, a former personal assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, as part of the panel’s ongoing inquiry into the federal government’s handling of investigations into the late sex offender.

Kellen, 46, was previously a subject of criminal investigations but has never been charged — due, in part, to her own allegations of persistent sexual abuse at the hands of the disgraced financier, according to court documents and records released earlier this year by the Justice Department.

“Every aspect of her life was controlled by Epstein. He dominated her psychologically. [Kellen] was constantly emotionally bullied and coerced by Epstein, including being required to submit to his constant sexual abuse,” her attorneys wrote in a civil complaint against Epstein’s estate in 2020.

Kellen’s appearance at the Capitol comes as the committee ramps up for a busy stretch of its investigation, which was officially launched in February of last year. Other notable witnesses scheduled in the coming months include Epstein’s longtime executive assistant Leslie Groff, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, former Goldman Sachs chief counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, and billionaires Bill Gates and Leon Black.

The committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), has indicated that a report on its findings will be produced before the end of the year.

Following Epstein’s death in custody in July 2019, federal prosecutors in New York investigating possible collaborators engaged in discussions with Kellen and her attorneys that spanned more than a year. Documents released by the DOJ earlier this year included prosecutors’ internal assessments of a potential case against Kellen and emails from her attorneys trying to dissuade the government from filing charges.

“We feel that 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, a [non-prosecution] would be the appropriate disposition,” an attorney for Kellen wrote in the spring of 2020.

According to DOJ records, the government did not dispute that Kellen “was herself a victim of abuse by Epstein,” noting that her account was consistent with others who worked for Epstein and allegedly experienced sexual exploitation.

Prosecutors detailed in a proposed “statement of facts” sent to Kellen’s attorneys in late 2020 that several “minor victims reported to federal agents that Epstein paid them for sexualized massages while they were underage girls, including during massages that [Kellen] scheduled.”

Kellen conceded that Epstein directed her to schedule his daily massages in the early 2000s when he was staying in his Palm Beach, Florida, residence, according to the DOJ records. She claimed she was provided a directory of names and instructed on who to call, and denied having knowledge that some who came to the house were underage.

She told prosecutors she viewed the “masseuses as her peers — i.e. young adults in their early 20s — and it never [crossed] her mind that any of them were minors,” government lawyers wrote in a December 2019 memo summarizing their investigation for Geoffrey Berman, then the top federal prosecutor in New York.

Kellen said she “only learned that Epstein was sexually abusing minors when news articles started coming out about it” in the mid-2000s, according to the records. “She recalled being shocked, angry, and disappointed. She was particularly angry with Epstein for manipulating her to help orchestrate the abuse of other women,” the records said.

Federal prosecutors ultimately decided against charging Kellen, though the internal deliberations that led to that outcome are unclear. Much of the legal analysis in the prosecution memos remains redacted in the publicly available versions of the DOJ records. 

Epstein’s former associate Ghislaine Maxwell remains the only other person charged in connection with Epstein’s crimes. She is serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison camp in Texas. Maxwell is presently seeking to have her conviction vacated or her sentence reduced.

Kellen — who has largely avoided public comment surrounding the Epstein investigation — told a reporter from a British paper who approached her on the street in New York in 2020 that she was “raped and abused weekly.”

“I have been made out to be such a monster — but it’s not true. I’m a victim of Jeffrey Epstein,” Kellen said, according to the U.K. Sun report.

An attorney who represented Kellen during discussions with federal prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment ahead of Kellen’s appearance in Washington, D.C.

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