‘So much of the truth lies here’: Epstein survivors testify in Palm Beach hearing
Less than two miles away from Jeffrey Epstein’s former mansion in Palm Beach, five survivors of the late sex trafficker’s abuse demanded Tuesday that the investigation into his crimes continue.
“I came here today to ask for one simple thing,” said Courtney Wild, who was abused by Epstein in that mansion at age 14. “To make sure this never happens again.”
She and the other women spoke at West Palm Beach City Hall in a hearing before Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
The hearing follows over a year of global debate about the Epstein case — which has embroiled the Trump administration in scrutiny and led to the release of 3 million pages of documents pertaining to Epstein’s sex-trafficking of what the Department of Justice estimated to be over 1,000 victims.
Testimony focused on survivors’ calls for accountability, and the questions that remain unanswered.
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Files, including survivors’ own documents, are still missing, witnesses testified. Other files were released unlawfully with victims’ names and personal information unredacted, identifying them to the world, and for some, their families for the first time.
The witnesses also focused on the powerful men that survivors say Epstein trafficked them to.
In July 2025, the Department of Justice and FBI released a memo announcing the files were closed, and that the government did not “uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
“The files are clear and the files name names,” said Lauren Hersh, a founder of World Without Exploitation, who testified alongside survivors at the hearing. “They all require careful independent examination of investigative leads.”
Palm Beach County was the start of many survivors’ abuse — and of a series of failures to prevent that abuse. Multiple representatives referred to it at the hearing as “ground zero.”
In 2006, Epstein was first arrested by Palm Beach detectives after a 14-year-old said he had abused her. But he was given federal immunity in return for pleading guilty in state court to two charges of solicitation of prostitution of a minor.
He served 13 months in a county jail, where he was free to leave for 12 hours a day, six days a week to work at a nearby office, and one year of house arrest in Palm Beach. In 2019, he was arrested on sex-trafficking charges in New York following the publication of a Miami Herald investigation, “Perversion of Justice.”
Also a few miles away from West Palm Beach City Hall is President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club — where Epstein was once a frequent party guest and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell recruited Virginia Giuffre, one of the first survivors to come forward.
Giuffre died by suicide in April 2025, and her family sat behind survivors at the hearing. Her younger brother, Sky Roberts, read a transcript of her May 2016 deposition, in which Giuffre was asked about other powerful men who abused her. He held a printed copy of her interview in front of him. Other survivors wore butterfly pins in honor of her.
“This is only a small sample of the thousands of stories that remain untold,” Roberts said. “The question today is no longer whether names exist, the question is what will Congress and the Department of Justice do about it.”
The House Oversight Committee has issued numerous subpoenas for testimony related to Epstein, and former Attorney General Pamela Bondi is expected to be questioned in a transcribed interview by a panel at the end of the month.
Rep. Robert Garcia, a ranking member on the Oversight Committee, said that if Democrats win the House in November, more key players in the Epstein case will be called to testify. He said the hearing marks a new phase of their investigation, with a focus on the ties the case has to Palm Beach County.
Florida Rep. Lois Frankel listed individuals involved in the 2008 plea deal who she said should be called to testify — including former Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer.
“So much of the truth lies here, hidden in Palm Beach County,” said Frankel. “We need to hear from them.”
“How many lives could have been spared the agony of abuse, had the prosecutors in Palm Beach County acted properly,” she said.
Survivors called for legislative changes and increased education on sexual abuse.
“Education is important,” said Jena-Lisa Jones, one of the survivors. “If we can’t take these bad guys off the streets, let’s teach our kids how to protect themselves.”
Among the requests from survivors was an amendment to the Crime Victim Rights Act. After Epstein’s 2008 plea deal, lawyer Brad Edwards and former federal judge Paul Cassell filed a lawsuit against the government stating that prosecutors violated the act, by creating a secret non-prosecution agreement without the knowledge of the victims.
A bill named after Wild, introduced multiple times, seeks to close loopholes in the act that allowed that to happen. A different proposed law named after Giuffre — “Virginia’s Law” — would eliminate statute limitations for survivors of abuse to come forward.
Spencer Kuvin, a Palm Beach County lawyer who represented victims of Epstein, also testified alongside the survivors. He questioned where surveillance taken at Epstein’s residence in New York is — and photos taken by Maxwell.
“Maxwell photographed everything, that was her passion, they have not released even a fraction of the photos that Maxwell took,” he said.
Wild was 14 when the abuse began. Dani Hannah Bensky was 17, and an aspiring dancer, in 2004. Jena-Lisa Jones was 14.
Wild grew up in Palm Beach County, where she experienced homelessness, and said crossing into the part of the county where Epstein lived was like crossing into a different world.
“He knew what he was doing,” Wild said. “It was all very calculated.”
“Especially in Palm Beach County, he preyed on us kids who came from troubled backgrounds.”
Maria Farmer, another survivor, testified by video, and said that she spent 23 nights of the past month in the hospital. The abuse continues to affect her health, she said. She first reported Epstein’s abuse to the FBI in 1996.
“The failures of those sworn to protect us overwhelms me,” Farmer said.
Roza — a woman testifying under her first name — was an aspiring model from Uzbekistan when Epstein abused her in 2009, after the plea deal and while he was supposed to be under house arrest. She said he used the threat of her immigration status against her.
Her name was among those released in files published in January. New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury asked the survivors what justice would look like for them.
“That’s your job, you guys have to figure out how to make justice, not me,” Roza replied.
“You keep on saying this is the worst case in the United States, but it’s not, this is the worst case in the world,” she said. “You need to figure it out, and I hope you do, and I hope this never happens again.”
This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 4:42 PM with the headline "‘So much of the truth lies here’: Epstein survivors testify in Palm Beach hearing."
