A former assistant to Jeffrey Epstein booked appointments for her employer “almost daily” but denied ever scheduling appointments with people she believed were underage, according to a transcript of her interview with members of Congress investigating the late sex offender.
Lesley Groff, Epstein’s former executive assistant, appeared voluntarily for a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee to “dispel the false notions” that she “knowingly enabled or conspired with him to commit his evil acts.”
Throughout her eight-hour interview on June 9, an often-incredulous panel questioned how Groff, who worked for Epstein for 18 years, was unaware of his abuse.
“You want us to believe that after 18 years working in the employ of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein that not on one occasion did you believe that any of your contacts in setting up these appointments with Jeffrey Epstein were either a minor or an underage person, correct?” asked Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi.
“That is correct,” Groff replied.
“Okay,” Krishnamoorthi responded. “This strains credibility, Ms. Groff.”
An attorney for the committee also asked Groff whether a 14-year-old child “sounds the same as a person in their 20s or 30s or 40s.”
“It’s possible. I don’t know. I was not evaluating voices,” Groff replied. “It — nobody ever sounded like they were underage.”
Groff’s interview, which was not under oath, marks the first time that she has faced questions about her connections to Epstein since she initially spoke to the FBI in 2021, two years after Epstein died in prison. She was initially identified as a potential co-conspirator in the case against Epstein but was never charged.
“It is important for the committee to understand that, to my knowledge, I never met any of these masseuses,” she said in her opening remarks. “None of these women or anyone else ever told me they were minors or that they were sexually abused. Nothing I heard or saw led me to believe otherwise.”
Groff worked for Epstein from 2001 to July 2019, when the wealthy and well-connected financier was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges.
She has never been charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the pedophile. Her lawyers have also maintained that she was not aware of his crimes.
Massages were a “normal part of his day,” she told lawmakers.
“I didn’t know their ages at all. It was a normal part of his day,” she said. “To me, it was like a luxury. I couldn’t believe that somebody would pay for — you know, do that for, you know, every day. That was a luxury you did once a year.”
Epstein would call her with “literally dozens” of tasks every morning, she told the panel.
“I had no free time. I went from task to task. I had two phones on my desk ringing constantly,” she said. “Almost daily, I made massage appointments for Mr. Epstein. He provided me the name and telephone number of a masseuse, and I called her. These calls lasted literally a few seconds.”
Sometimes masseuses called the office and asked if Epstein wanted a massage, and Epstein often directed Groff to arrange massages for his guests, she said.
“To me, the few minutes it took to arrange massages for Mr. Epstein were just part of his routine, like going to the gym was for some people,” she said.
Epstein “lied” to her after his arrest in 2008 and “insisted that he had been blackmailed and set up,” she told the panel.
That year, Epstein signed a controversial plea agreement admitting to soliciting a minor for prostitution, an arrangement criticized as a “sweetheart” deal that helped him evade more serious federal charges and a longer prison sentence.
“He angrily said that the allegations against him were false, and he had no idea that the women he had contact with was a minor,” Groff said. “It was a shakedown, he claimed, for money. In my mind, that was the reason that he was treated so leniently by law enforcement for such a serious crime.”
Epstein convinced her to continue working for him, she said.
“I actually believed that he had been set up. I believed that he could be kind and generous and caring because of the way he often treated me and others. I know now that this kindness was a facade and just a part of his manipulation,” she told the committee.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal charges of trafficking minors, and he died in a New York City jail while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide.
In the years after his 2019 arrest, she has struggled to sleep and eat, faced harassment and death threats, and has been “shunned” by friends, she said.
