Jeffrey Epstein compared sex with underage girls to homosexuality
American financier Jeffrey Epstein (left) and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, 1997. (Davidoff Studios/Getty)
In one of his final interviews before his death, the billionaire and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein justified sex with underage girls by comparing it to homosexuality.
Epstein gave an anonymous interview to the New York Times at his Manhattan mansion last year, making several shocking comments which can now be revealed after his death.
They include a disturbing comparison between homosexuality and paedophilia, the criminalisation of both being described as “a cultural aberration.”
Reporter James Stewart recalled: “If [Epstein] was reticent about Tesla, he was more at ease discussing his interest in young women.
“He said that criminalising sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration and that at times in history it was perfectly acceptable.
“He pointed out that homosexuality had long been considered a crime and was still punishable by death in some parts of the world.”
Epstein poses for a sex offender mugshot (Florida Department of Law Enforcement/Getty)
Convicted sex offender
During their conversation, Stewart said Epstein “made no secret of his own scandalous past” and acknowledged that he was “a pariah in polite society.”
At this point the American financier was already a convicted sex offender, having been found guilty of soliciting sexual services from a 14-year-old girl in 2008.
Epstein reportedly seemed unapologetic about this, and claimed that his very notoriety was what made people so willing to confide in him.
The money manager was a friend to several rich and famous people, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Woody Allen.
Donald Trump and his then-girlfriend Melania with Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago, 2000. (Davidoff Studios/Getty)
“He also claimed to know a great deal about these people, some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use,” Stewart said.
Epstein told him: “Everyone has secrets” — a comment which seems particularly suspect in light of the FBI investigation that would be revealed less than a year later.
New sex trafficking charges were laid against Epstein on July 7, and he faced 45 years in prison if convicted.
On Saturday (August 10) he was found dead in his Manhattan prison cell, in what jail officials say was a suicide.
