A survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse told a House Oversight Committee hearing in Florida Tuesday that the late pedophile raped her while he was under house arrest in emotional testimony.
The witness, identified only by her first name, Roza, said she was first brought to the U.S. from Uzbekistan aged 18 by the late Epstein associate and model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, who secured her a talent visa and introduced her to the financier.
“I did not have the documentation to earn that visa, I’m 100 percent sure of that,” Roza told the committee. “I was promised a modelling career beyond my dreams.
“Less than a month after arriving in the United States, my agency sent me to the home of a registered sex offender. He was meant to be in a jail cell but I met him in his house here in West Palm Beach. He was not in a jail.
“Jeffrey was under house arrest for the molestation of underage girls at the exact time he was abusing me,” she said, in tears.
Florida law enforcement investigated Epstein in 2005 after an underage girl who had been hired to give him a massage at his home told her family he had sexually abused her.
Investigators eventually compiled a 53-page indictment using evidence from 34 victims, only for the predator to be granted a non-prosecution agreement by federal attorneys as part of a “sweetheart” plea deal that enabled him to sidestep federal sex trafficking charges.
Instead, Epstein pleaded guilty to the lesser state offense of soliciting a minor under 18 for prostitution, registered as a sex offender, and paid compensation to the victims.
He served just 13 months of an 18-month prison sentence in county jail and was allowed out on “work-release” privilege.
Roza told Tuesday’s hearing that Epstein had threatened her visa status and financial security to keep her from escaping.
“The fact he could commit those acts made justice feel impossible to me,” she said.
She also attacked the Department of Justice for leaving her name, and those of other survivors, unredacted in the Epstein files released in December and January, saying her’s appeared more than 500 times while those of the pedophile’s alleged accomplices were blacked out, which she claimed had been a “choice,” not a “mistake.”
Asked what justice looked like for her, Roza answered: “You guys have to figure out justice. Not me. You can’t give me justice.
“When I came to this country, I thought something was going to be different. I am shocked this is happening here, in the United States.
“You need to figure it out, and I hope you do, and I hope this never happens again.”
She concluded her remarks by likening the Epstein survivors’ movement to the campaign led by 19th century Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis to introduce antiseptic to maternity care to save women’s lives.
“I’m begging you, please wash your hands,” Roza told the committee.
