This is a centuries long Late sticker, but its harrowing that a person/group can get so rich and powerful that they can sneak a hint or two around of being into railing children and know that they wont be pushed into a slow running harvester...
There's are threads on the forum (such as MAPs) dedicated to fat loser nobodies who openly express being into the idea of diddling children. You don't need to be rich and powerful, you just need to not get caught doing it.
i get the feeling he got thrown under the bus because of just how worthless he is. "here is your sex pest, have at him guys"
Written after writing Reading this back in hindsight it makes me look I'm defending Epstein's associates but I'm moreso highlighting how difficult it was for the authorities actually do anything considering what little they actually had to go on, even with the files and associations with Epstein. The
two men associated with Epstein that were pursued by the law and public as a consequence of being tied to him have an almost outsized reputation relative to what they actually did.
I think this is true. I hated looking into the Andrew case because it makes you realise how relatively "soft" a target he was compared to the reputation he gained.
Andrew hadn't actually been charged for anything
new relating to Epstein. He evoked the Streisand effect trying to defend himself in am embarrassing interview but otherwise whether he would've been pursued for his ties is anyone's guess. The allegations made against him from Giuffre went as far back as 2014 for a crime committed in 2001. The "soft" part here is that Andrew's only a criminal because he may or may not have been aware that his sex with Giuffre was non-consensual.
The points of contention are that he lied about the length and association of his relationship with Epstein. He claimed he met him in 2010, a flagrant lie, and had maintained some sort of friendship with him after the more serious sexual assault allegations were made public against Epstein in 2011, The other is that the sex he had with Virginia Giuffre was possibly non-consensual ("possibly" is there because there's actually conflicting testimony on this; she was either threatened to do the deed or paid 15k for it by Epstein and found it "pretty cool" - both can be true but it muddies things, especially with conflicting character reports and the whole convo around being able to take consent long after it has already been given).
He also claimed to have never seen anything that could've put Epstein in prison in 2019, which is either an intentional (obstruction) or unintentional lie (criminal negligence?) because every girl he came across and who gave him his "massages" (including Giuffre herself) would qualify. He had also been to Epstein's Island during the time of a purported orgy so it's a coin toss on whether he was witness to exceptional degeneracy (illegal shit) or run of the mill degeneracy (legal shit).
The only repercussions Andrew got hit with was from Giuffre herself, who was able to sue him because New York extended the statute of limitations on sexual abuse – a law passed in reaction to Epstein – and he settled out out of court before it ever went to trial. (She got 12 mil to give to charity). He'd need to prove he didn't rape Giuffre, but all he'd be able to do is prove he didn't
know it was rape whilst she can prove/just say it was rape from her end and that'd be accepted, especially in the context; Andrew had already lost massively in the court of public opinion so good luck on getting the judge/jury to side with him. Furthermore, she'll be able to tell even more stories of Andrews sucking her toes and other embarrassing shit.
So yeah, Andrews wasn't actually punished for anything outside of being made a social pariah in the UK and beyond alongside losing his status in the royal family. A part of the reason he was able to avoid consequences might have less to do with his status (though it'd be hard to argue it played no part) and more to do with the fact he hadn't actually done anything provably
illegal, grossness and morality of a 40-year old man having sex with a 17 year old aside. He had sex with a 17-year old Giuffre in the UK where the AOC is 16 and possibly New York where 17 is the AOC. The Virgin Islands might provide an instance of statutory rape but Giuffre, for whatever reason, never specified where she had sex with Andrews just more or less confirming once in London. Giuffre's lawsuit also wasn't just for sexual assault but also emotional distress so either way if she wasn't able to prove the latter, she'd probably be able to argue the latter based on Andrews trying to dig up dirt on her after the Mail on Sunday had put out a photograph (of debatable legitimacy) back in 2011 and the belief Andrews had paid internet trolls to harass her.
This all sounds like a defence of Andrew but describing what happened plainly helps point out how out of everyone associated with Epstein, Andrews was just about the biggest yet simultaneously soft and contrived target they could've picked. He's guilty for not coming out earlier about Epstein (obstruction or negligence), lying on his behalf (intentionally or unintentionally), lying about the length of his relationship with Epstein (definite lie), and for raping Giuffre (which may or may not depend on whether you think consent can be retroactively retracted, whether someone can be a rapist if they weren't aware of their prostitute's lack of consent, and whether sex with someone younger than 18 regardless of local AOC laws both domestic and abroad constitutes statutory rape).
Outside of Andrew, you have
Jean-Luc Brunei, who is actually the
only person to have been arrested as a consequence of ties to Epstein. Didn't help that he tried to go into hiding after Epstein died, but it could've been in reaction to Giuffre turning her sights on him. He has odd parallels to Andrew: divorced in the 90s, then having sex with under-18s thereafter in what I can only surmise is partly based in some sort of mid-life crisis, and having the same accuser as Andrew: Giuffre, who also was a year above the domestic age of consent when she had sex with him (16 years old, AOC is 15 in France*) and whose allegations had emerged way before actual action was taken (2014). It was like they wanted young but legal girls to cope with the act they were 40+ and alone but I digress.
It was 7 months after he was detained for questioning that the allegation he'd actually be prosecuted for was made (drugging and raping a 17 year old in the 90s – we do not know anything else about the victim other than she's now living in America) and another 7 months later he killed himself.
Outside of prestige for associating with royalty, Brunei offered Epstein the means of acquiring new girls via his various modelling agencies, and Epstein claims to have had sex with 1000+ of Brunei's models. That could've been the opus mundi of Epstein's relationships, where big names were clout but less famous names were a means for him to enrich himself financially or sexually?
There's a similar
turn with all of Epstein's associates where they were with him initially in 2011 during the new wave of allegations but at some unspecified point they left him. There's emails from 2011 where Andrews goes from, "We'll get through this together!" to "Make sure you mention I had nothing to do with you," and Brunei went from visiting Epstein 80 times during his house arrest but then suing Epstein in 2015 for loss of business as a result of Epstein's illegal activity**.
Sorry for that aside, but's all to say nobody has actually been newly prosecuted/newly revealed to be a definitive sex pest as a result of Epstein and Maxwell's arrest in 2019, rather, authorities instead moved against
already known suspects who had prior allegations made against them that they hadn't acted upon until the sex trafficking stuff came to light and Giuffre was made a more reliable source. A lot of people have been tied to Epstein in some manner or another but it hasn't amounted to anything outside of Epstein and Maxwell themselves and potential PR hits, regardless of wrongdoing.
TLDR: Nothing that wasn't already known before has come of Epstein and Maxwell's arrest. All it really did was give strength Victoria Giuffre's claims and testimony giving the bare minimum of repercussions to any of Epstein's clients.
*Looking this up to confirm (because Giuffre has sex with him at 16), also discovered something horrifying:
Incest is completely legal in France, as is having incestuous children. It was a genuine flashbang.
French politicians want to change the law to raise the age of consent to 18 (from 15). They also want to do the same with incest, which is legal so long as the parties are over the age of consent - regardless of disparity.
**Trump sort of stands out from doing this earlier but he also follows the pattern here of providing something for Epstein (a source of girls - Giuffre worked at Mar-a-lago) which means he also possibly had sex with a girl provided by Epstein. But if we follow that pattern still then she would've been 18/19 in Florida or 17/18*** in New York. If that ends up being the case then there's no catharsis for anybody because he did something generally accepted as creepy and morally wrong to some but nothing actionable under the law besides maybe a civil suit, which only gets you money is what many of Epstein's victims have seemingly opted for.
***Did you know
Jerry Seinfeld dated a 17 year old girl?
(The moral of the story: do not look up age of consent laws unless you want to learn things you'd rather wish you hadn't.)