Hey, it's Alec. We all love true crime podcasts, but perhaps you're looking for something a little different, less murder, more intrigue. I invite you to check out a new podcast I just released called Art Fraud. It's the true story of one of New York City's oldest and most trusted galleries dealing in world class art, and how its doors would close forever in the wake of an unprecedented scandal. The art market is ripe for cons because it's inherently subjective. I just couldn't even look at it because it was so garish and so not by Rothcoe. We're talking about eighty million dollars in fake paintings, or more precisely, forgeries. All episodes of Art Fraud are available right now. Okay, here's our show. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. In the aftermath of Jeffrey Epstein's death, the world turned its attention to the trial of his associate, Gilain Maxwell. Maxwell, it seems, is the last hope for resolution and accountability in a case with so many missing pieces. My guest today, Vicky Ward, is the perfect person to shed some light on the questions that remain. She's a New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter who has covered Jeffrey Epstein and Gilain Maxwell since two thousand two. Ward has a long history as a columnist and feature writer at The New York Post, Huff Post, and Vanity Fair. She's written books about New York real estate, the financial sector, and most recently, the White House and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's path to occupying it. Last year, she reported from the Maxwell trial in her sub stack News that of Vicky Ward Investigates, and now she brings us up to speed on the results of two decades of reporting as the host and producer on Chasing Gillaine, a podcast and documentary series on Discovery. Vicky Ward and I spoke about her entry point into the world of Jeffrey Epstein, long before the world would come to know his secrets. Well, it actually is twenty years only because I began reporting on him in the fall of two thousand and two, and the reason for that was actually because I was pregnant with twins and it was a high risk pregnancy, and I had been doing a lot of work on the West Coast. Actually prior to that, but my doctors didn't want me flying too much. And Jeffrey Epstein's name came up in page six of the New York Post. And this was a man who, despite the fact that he lived in what was said to be the biggest town house in New York, he was known by then to have his own island and the Caribbean, known to have a big ranch. Nobody knew anything about him. No one knew how he had made his money. He wasn't someone whose name appeared in the financial press. He was like Gatsby. He was a mystery figure. So Graydon Carter said to me, you know, I've heard about this guy for years. I have no idea where all his money came from. He's an enigma. He lives in New York. You live in New York, you're pregnant. This is the perfect moment. Go find out how he made his money. And that's how it all began. Now, when you approach him, what was the template for what you wanted to do in the beginning. So I absolutely reached out to him straight away, not least because you know one of the differences, but acute twenty years ago at it. When you report for Vanity Fair as opposed to same reporting for The New Yorker or the New York Times is that pictures really matter. And as reporters for Anti Fair, we were all trained to sort of remember that if you had great words and no great photographs, that's a New Yorker article you may not run in Vanity Fair. And so access is really critical. So absolutely I reached out to him. You know, I did a clipping search on him. There was almost nothing. He was like the invisible man, and so I knew that my best bet initially was to try and charm him, try and persuade him to answer my questions, and at the very least, because he was reluctant, was to get from him a list of people who he thought might wanted to talk about him and might say whatever it is he wanted to say about himself. It was. It was a start. The man of mystery who there's almost there's little to know record of him, but a man who was this type of cipher if you will, What pitch did you make? How did you get him to come out of his shell and talk? Wow? It was so I perhaps had an advantage in that he did some homework on me, and I think what he found out about me frightened him. I mean, he told me that he had a dossier on me and my then husband, and in some ways I wasn't a complete stranger to his world. My then husband's boss and step uncle was someone who knew Jeffrey, who knew Gillen Maxwell pretty well. I knew Gillen Maxwell socially, but not well. So you know, I had a reputation back then as being the kind of journalist that if they came knocking on your door, it probably wasn't because I wanted to write a puff piece about you, and so I think he gathered that quite quickly. The reason I say that to you is one of the first things he said to me was, Okay, you know, let's let's play chess. You'd be white, you get the first move. I mean, he was ready to do battle. And also at the very beginning, I ran into Gillen Maxwell at a baby shower on the Upper East Side of New York and I had heard I've done enough reporting to know that they were in some sort of bizarre relationship that she was supposed to be obsessed with him. It was not reciprocated I didn't know much more than that, but I didn't think that point in my reporting that a piece about Epstein's money would involve her. She studiously avoided me at that baby show, but I think she had to walk past me on her way out, and I said, I'm sure you've heard. I'm doing this fancy fair piece on on Jeffrey and his money, but as of yet, I found no reason to call you. And she started to cry. That was totally bewildering to me, and sort of still crying, she left the room. And I did wonder at that point what on earth that was all about. But you know, it was quite clear that Jeffrey Epstein viewed me as a sort of hostile incoming missile. And then, you know, the next bizarre thing that happened was that James Caine, who's just died, the CEO of bear Sterns. Then an investment bank, phoned me at home on my landline. And I hadn't yet reached out to Jimmy Caine. He was on a list of people that I wanted to speak to you, because what was known about Jeffrey Epstein is that he had worked for I think from memory six or seven years at bear Sterns and then abruptly left, and that there was a bit of a mystery as to why he had left, but that you know, Jimmy Caine was somebody he got very very close to whilst at that bag. So when Jimmy Caine phones me up and says, can you come and see me this afternoon, unprompted, you know, that was a sign that sort of Jeffrey Epstein was was going on the offensive here. You know, it's not normal for the CEO of an investment back to phone a channelist unsolicited and say can you get over here, and then spend all afternoon trying to tell me what an amazing guy Jeffrey Epstein was, you know, so something was clearly really wrong now to get to Gillen for a moment. It seems that everywhere you look in the in the Epstein case, people are being threatened. There's threats. You were threatened. And when I'm wondering, is did Maxwell even attempt to make that defense ins the Epstein threatened her if you don't go out and recruit these girls from me, you're going to be taken down and somebody there was none of that. There wasn't Alec. Actually, that's the big question mark that was left hanging over that trial. You know, I was in the courtroom every day of testimony and in some pre trial hearings. You know, we didn't get to hear the Gillen Maxwell story. And if what you say were to be true, you would have thought that that's a that's a pretty good defense, right, But they kept very far away from the narrative that she was any kind of victim of his. Her narrative was that she's not guilty. And I think what you start saying, well, I'm a victim, then you're admitting some kind of guilt. And the two very big question marks that came out of that trial regarding her was why did he wire her approximately thirty million dollars over a period of time. It's a huge amount of money for someone to work someone they're not married to, not related to. And why did she stay with him for over a decade in a relationship that clearly was at times unkind and cruel. I mean we heard how he treat you, cheated on her, how the butler in Palm Beach took down photographs of her when he had other women coming to stay to me Epstein threatening people. It seemed likely that she could turn over that card in court because that's consistent behavior for Epstein. It was documented that Epstein threatened people, bribed people, that he would go to many lengths to cover up his tracks. And as you just said, to say I was a victim is to admit I did something. I did something under duress. And she tried to say something. If I'm following you correctly, she tried to say in court I didn't do anything. Is that what was that the case? That is exactly what she said. I I am completely innocent. I didn't do anything. And you know, I think that although obviously the defense is not obliged to put her on the stand, it's up to the government. They have the burden of proof. Nonetheless, I think that there just were too many question marks in a way that were left hanging there for the jury to not quote unquote use their common sense, which is what Maureen Comey, the lead prosecutor, told them to do. And she said, look at that money. Who gets paid thirty million dollars and look at the fact that this woman sticks with this man. And you could see from the photographs that were shown the sort of the aging process, how they aged, and and so even though you heard these stories the sort of poor behavior by Epstein as a boyfriend to Maxwell, she's still there. And you know, I think for the jury to have swung to her favor, she actually needed to tell a story that was believable, and she didn't. Now, of course, my friends, a couple in particular, the word they coined for me is conspira noiak. They say that I'm a conspira noiak. I'm very keen on a handful of really what I consider great conspiracy theories. And the first thing I thought to myself when Epstein turned up dead, the one thing that is just like a light pulsing in the in the distance all the time that never goes off, is what happened to all the material that was in his town house, or in his Palm Beach house, or in any of his holmes, that were the CDs and the recorded material. If any of these people of his guests quote unquote having sex in his house with these underaged people, are these recruited people. Now, so he turns up dead. You know, the FBI had rated that house in New York, and I'm sure I'm sure if there's anything to be had there, they've got it. Where is it? Do you believe there is such stuff? And where is it? So, first of all, there are a lot of people who think that the circumstances under which Jeffrey Epstein died, including his own defense team. You know, I don't think we've heard the last of that. I don't think you're a conspiraoid to suggest something strange went on, and I think we have not heard the last of that. And I don't say that based on speculation. I say that based on something I know, the question of tapes. Where are they? So one of the really I found shocking moments of testimony in the Maxwell trial was actually from the FBI who raided Epstein's house in New York. Because what happened, I mean they described it to us. They went in around five o'clock in the afternoon, they spent all night, they took pictures of everything, they had it all labeled, and then they left it there. And they left it there. They're killing me, I'm not. I think it was absolutely astonishing because they didn't have the right warrant to take it out. So three days goes by before they return, Oh, it's not there. That would be a great scene, would be a great scene in the movie, is there's a guy that's like, there's a guy that's a property manager. He's there in the vestibule of the house. And the FBI says, now, whatever you do, don't take your eyes off these boxes. We've got the wrong warrant and we're gonna be back in a few days with the right warrant. And if this stuff were to disappear, it would have such a dileterious effect on the case. It would ruin the case, our case against Epstein. Whatever you do, don't remove these boxes that I mean, how the hell does this happen? It was just remarkable and would on the stat you know, the testimony was given by the FBI agents. They go back, the stuff is missing. They phone up Epstein's lawyers and say, could you bring it back? Well, I mean, okay, the and that that the lawyers bring it back and it's their beliefs that everything was given back. But I mean, by god, who the heck really does To the extent you can say in your work covering Maxwell Uh covering Epstein years ago, did he record people having sex in his house. According to my sources, yes he did, and in the recording of those and is that what got him killed? I mean, this is an obvious question. I'm sorry to accellent tried question, but I mean, does Epstein become somebody who everybody wants them dead? Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter, and does Epstein becomes somebody who it's better for a lot of people that he's dead, famous people, Well, it's yes, and not necessarily just Americans. I mean, I mean, you know, if you've listened to the podcast or watch the documentary series in there are all sorts of series that come out, and I try and explain it why some sources are more credible than others. There are a lot of people who would have been glad to see jeff Re Epstein dead. Right. Absolutely, the question of those tapes, you know, we have this guy aribaminashe who's got credibility problems, saying he thinks the Israeli government has them. I don't know. All I do know is that that it's amazing to me that there was a three day area between the FBI rated Jeffrey Epstein's house when those tapes that got taken out and supposedly put back. It's just astonishing. Do you think that she has because she have a fear she's gonna get killed in prison too? Because if because if that's the case, if the FBI leaves the boxes in the hallway for three days and they disappear, if Epstein's dead, she's one of the last people with the real dope on Epstein. And thus all the of Epstein's guests. I'm of the belief that Epstein was murdered because he had information We're going to bring down the high end the money on both sides of the aisle. Does she you think she has that fear and that that would be maybe speculation on your part. And I wonder how someone who was in prison guards against that no pun intended. How did they communicate their lawyers saying this person needs special protection. We don't want to end up like Epstein. You know what I mean? Well, the only thing I mean, look is that I have asked former assistant U S Attorneys for the Southern District about this, and thereof the view that what happened to Jeffrey Epstein was extremely unfortunate and that the powers that be are going to go out of their way to ensure that that doesn't happen again. So I think she'll be very closely, really closely watched. I mean, imagine if that was to happen again. Her demeanor in court, it was really fascinating to behold. She didn't look like somebody who was in the fight for her life. She didn't look like somebody who thought she was in the wrong. I mean, it was almost as if this was her show and the rest of us we're all in it. She was incredibly tactile with her lawyers, who obviously had become extremely fond of her. You know, she didn't come in with shackles or anything like that. She had her bottle of Fiji water. She didn't look malnourished. Her hair was dyed black and shoulder length, and you know, when her lawyers had to leave the room for sidebars with the judge, she would actually turn around a quite brazenly stare at all of us. At one point she sketched the court artist. This was a woman who seemed confident. Maybe the wrong word, but she wasn't on the defensive. Put it that way. She wasn't on the defensive. Whereas you know, I was in court when Jeffrey Epstein was sitting there and was denied bail, and his body language was different. He was he was rattled journalist Vicky Ward. If you enjoy conversations with tenacious journalists breaking the biggest stories, check out our episode with Pulitzer Prize winning reporters Megan Tooey and Jody Canter, who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal. So when Megan and I were on the phone, she suggested a kind of argument that she had used with victims in the past, which is to say to them very early in the conversation, look, I can't change what's happened to you in the past, but if we work together, maybe we can take the pain that you experienced and put it to some constructive purpose that will help other people. Because it's the best reason to talk to a journalist. You are doing this to have a constructive impact on society. It is. It may be very difficult, but our goal is to do something that you can eventually feel very proud of. To hear more of my converse station with authors and New York Times journalist Megan Tooey and Jodie Canter, go to our archives and here's the thing. Dot Org. After the break, Vicky Ward shares with us the time she felt her life was in danger from Jeffrey Epstein himself. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. Many who watched the Gillain Maxwell trial felt a sense of relief and closure from the guilty verdict, but following the trial, when a juror disclosed the press that he shared personal experiences of child sexual abuse with his fellow jurors during deliberations, it throw open the possibility of a potential mistrial. It is extraordinary, right, what's happened with this jura. We don't yet know what Judge Nathan is going to do, but it will be taken very seriously. And you know what's interesting is that one of her lawyers, Christian ever Adele, was the prosecutor who ultimately put away al Chapo. But I believe in El Chapo that was also a mistrial because of a juror who turned out to have made a mistake. So the one thing, you know, how this juror got through is a question we need to see unfold. We need answers to if we can, and we ought to get some I mean, I will say that Judge Nathan ran that courtroom with an iron rod. She must be furious that this has happened, but it was but it was her. She didn't have to let the jurors say anything. She's not obligated to do that. She chose to tell the jurors that they could speak if they wished, so to some degree, this is on her. It's like it's like Robert Kraft going to his little stopping shop and massage parlor there and being recorded and him being acquitted, I believe, and the evidence destroyed. All the evidence. He's acquitted, but the evidence of him doing what he's doing is destroyed. It's interesting to me how the Maxwell case, the Epstein case that eventually the women are heard. Let's give these women their day in court, and and and they're heard, and they're believed, and it leads to something. But one thing that's going to lead to is we've got to destroy this evidence. That Epstein and Maxwell are a prism through which you can see this sort of behavior on behalf of all these celebrities, or what happened. I mean, I'm somebody who I had people. I mean, I I endured online months of people writing to me online saying, you know, you're in Epstein's book. You're a petto, You're a peto. And I'm like, well, I'm in Epstein's book, like his dry cleaner is in his book, like his tree repair stories, and it I mean, I never met Epstein in my life. And number he's got a number which is what we call in my office, we called the dummy line. That's the number we give and we don't want you to have our number. And and people go on from there. They're like, you know, you went down to the island, you were on his plane. You win his flight log. I'm like, no, actually, I wasn't on the flight log. And then then we come to where we are now where this this this ability of them to protect his guests, to protect So that was the big frustration of the trial, which is, you know, where are all the men. There was a whole system going on, and it was referred to sort of frustratingly fleeting Lee when they talked about some of the names on the planes and you know some of the people that Jeffrey Epstein was photographed with. You know, I didn't know that he had met with Fidel Castro. I have to say that was new, and I didn't know about the pope. That was a whole new one as well. But the men who are presumably the ones on the c ds have disappeared from this story. And without the men, there would have been no enterprise because and I'm not just talking about the sex. I'm talking about the money. We still don't know where Jeffrey Epstein's money came from. But what is you know, has always drupped me as really interesting is that I have not found anyone who knew Jeffrey Epstein in the nineteen eighties, when he had relatively little money, lived in a studio apartment in New York, that ever saw any evidence of this kind of behavior. He had normal girlfriends of a normal age. I mean they may have been in their twenties and sort of model types, but there was nothing that unusual about that. It's only when he gets all this money very quickly and he builds the shangri las, these dens of iniquity, and he stops going out and instead the world comes to him. And it's not just the girls who come to him, you know, these very powerful men. He holds these salons inside his houses. He takes them on his planes. It's all hidden from view. And you know, it seems to be that the men and the money and the money that propped up this massive In the end, it was we know, it was a global enterprise. He had pictures of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi, cried Prince on the Wall. He talked about doing business with African dictators. He had an apartment in Paris, which is where he would meet with them. So that whole aspect of this is still in the dark, and you know, it's to me is a critical part of this. And what I'm hoping is that the investigation that's going on the US virgin Islands is investigating the Epstein estate, that that will produce a money trail of sorts. I'm hoping that that maybe some of the I mean, who knows what's going to come out. If the Virginia Roberts Geoffrey suit gets Prince Andrew goes forward, if anything will come out of that. The other suit that might be very interesting is the suit between David Boys and Alan Dershowitz, two legal titans who have really looked heads on all of this and are trying to get the each other and the and the vice versa, and as of now they're headed to trial, and Dershowitz certainly wants Leslie Wexner, who we know was a patron of Jeffrey Epstein's, to take the stand. So you know, again it's not over. I mean, I really hope it's not over. Let me let me ask you three quick questions, because I don't want to lose these topics. Now, Epstein eventually threatens you. Correct, Yeah, I didn't take him very long. How long after you've been talking to him regularly for a couple of months? Correct, So he got wind of the fact that I must have spoken to somebody. I don't uh. What had actually happened was I went to see Steve Hoffenburg, who was doing time in prison in Devon's, Massachusetts, sentenced to twenty years for committing the biggest Ponzi scheme in American history before Bernie made off. Now, what Hoffenburg told me inside that prison was that, in fact, it was Jeffrey Epstein's Ponzi scheme, and that Jeffrey had very cleverly managed to manipulate the legal system that had all fallen on Hoffenburg. He wasn't able to prove any of this but he also explained to me where I could find various sec depositions that Jeffrey had given that would show me that he was not everything he pretended to be, that he wasn't just this brilliant money manager for billionaires that he had in fact had a very checkered end to his career at best Terns. And Hoffenberg also told me that he had leverage overs bear Sterns, he knew various secrets. And so after that meeting, I did go and I did pull an sec deposition of that Epstein had given. I went and found another deposition that he'd given in the archives of a law firm in Pennsylvania. Because I was pregnant, I wasn't allowed ben Dover, so I had to have an assistant from Fancy Fair come with me. And we got very lucky because in fact, what we found what we needed in the first box that we came across, and we each had to we weren't allow write anything down, We had to remember what was in it. Well. I kept from Epstein until sort of the the eleventh that was that I had met these two sisters, Annie Farmer, who just gave testimony in the Maxwell case, who said that she had been sixteen when she'd had this absolutely horrible weekend stuck alone with Epstein and Gillen Maxwell in New Mexico. A Maria Farmer, her sister who had looked for Jeffrey Epstein for I think nearly a year in her twenties before something also completely horrible happened in Ohio. But I think once I started to ask questions about the money, I sort of waited till the end to ask him about the farmers, he began to really really push back and go into hyper gear about well, one with the threats. You know, I've got this dossier. I'm going to sue you personally. You know, I'm going to have my witch doctor place a curse on your children, you know, asking me very invasive questions about my body, where I was giving birth, and who my doctors were, and but also then really pushing it was at that point, you know, he wanted me to speak to Les Wexner all of a sudden, because he thought that the more famous or important people he could get on the phone to me, the more I would back down, that I would see that I must be I must be out of my mind like the bear Stearns phone call, right, you know, I just I kept going. I mean, ultimately I got somebody who had been on the executive committee at best Terns to tell me to be confident in what I had from the documents that in fact, Jeffrey Epstein had been up to no good and as it turned out, so to Jimmy Caine, and as Greenberg hadn't been spotless either, which is why Jeffrey Epstein left and had some leverage over them. Now, one other thing that occurred to me, and I want to approach this with the proper amount of sensitivity to this, which is not everybody who's making a charge of sexual assault has created equal You have people who are making a claim and they and they have a lot of evidence. What is the young woman's namers have pronounced Giffrey, Virginia Roberts, Giffrey. I'm wondering during the trial, during your coverage, did you think for a moment it was ever suggested that all of the grooming quote unquote that was alluded to and was testified about, which is, you know, horrific, But was it ever mentioned by the defense that these women specifically I want to attribute this to the defense that these women could have walked out the door at any given time. None of them were held against their will. Were they no or their families threatened if they left the compound and didn't do what they were asked to do. No. The defense's strategy was not to get into that, and in fact, the prosecution even let the witnesses lean in two the fact that they kept one they wanted to come back. You know, one case Caroline, who was the only accuser around whom the sex trafficking charges were based, and the sex trafficking charges are carried the longest sentence, She was very clear that she was so desperate financially, so addicted to drugs. I mean, it was a tragic story that she fact, the worst moment when she was eighteen was when Jeffrey Epstein said, actually, we're too old for me. She came back and back and back. So I would say it was the reverse. What what the defense tried to do and what made this trial very different from the Harvey Weinstein trial, Bill Cosby, all the all the sexual abuse trials that we've had recently, is that because the FBI and prosecutors were initially not going after Gillen, Maxwell they were focused on Jeffrey Epstein. These women had all given interviews in the last three years to the FBI about Jeffrey Epstein and the problem. And what was useful for the defense was that they may have either not mentioned Gillen Maxwell at all in those interviews, or they may have not said they can't remember what she was doing, or they may have said no, I don't think she was in the room, because they were focused on somebody else. And that's what complicated I think this trial. The prosecution obviously pointed out, well, memories change. These are not verbatim recordings their notes. But that's what the defense lead into. What they didn't lead into was, um, yeah, these these girls really really wanted the money. Yeah they didn't. They didn't lead into that. If anything, the prosecution did because they were they were children. I was working on a film once. The director of the film, who was an older man, he was he was older, he was in the seventies, he employed two women as extras on the set of the film, and they were prostitutes. It really is the money. I mean, it's like shattering what lengths they got for money. Well, when Caroline stood up and gave her testimony. Her life story was I think just tragic. Are just deep, deeply, deeply, deeply upsetting to hear you a child at sixteen then having to work off post Jeffrey Epstein as a stripper and an escort, and you know she when she she fell apart under aggressive defense cross examination. But I think that everyone in that courtroom just felt so incredibly sorry that anybody should have to be in that position that there's nothing left to sell except their body. It was, it was awful. Do you think Epstein killed himself? I think that whatever happened, he had help. Whatever happened, he didn't do it by himself. Vicky Ward, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back the key, Ward tries to shed some light on Jeffrey Epstein's appeal to socialite Gilain Maxwell. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear the thing. Metropolitan Correctional Centered guards Toven Noel and Michael Thomas discovered Jeffrey Epstein's unresponsive body. Their desk was fifteen feet away from Epstein's cell, and they somehow missed their rounds between ten thirty pm and six thirty am, leaving Epstein alone for eight hours. It was revealed that the guards had falsified records certifying they had performed their duties, and yet charges against them were dropped. In December, Vicky Ward shared her thoughts on this development. I have wanted that I have said there and I were, But the moment the Maxwell trial finished, I read a little tidy story in the newspaper somewhere saying that all charges against those guards had been dropped, like buried. To prosecute them would invite more discovery material people want to keep secret. Right. I do have a very reliable source on this, and I think that that story is not it's not over right. I mean, you know, I think what's so shocking about this is that, you know, Maxwell, when you look at her on the outside, you see pictures of her, she seems very winning. She's this attractive. You know, at first she's a very young woman and she's a bit older. She's got her arm around Epstein, their dear friends, and there's no way she could downplay her relationship with Epstein. The photographic evidence is like a family album. She's hugging him and rubbing up against him or what have you, regardless of their relationship, and you look at her and you think, how the hell did this woman with her connections and her family. Yes, her father was a scoundrel and he dies under these very h strange circumstances. But you just need to yourself, how does someone like her? How does she end up in this mess? How does she end up her life being destroyed by this relationship with this man? What did Epstein have? Was Epstein this bon vivant, raconteur, elegant, sophisticated, funny. Why do you think people were loyal to Epstein? Beyond blackmail? What did he have? Well, it's interesting what you say about GILLN. Maxwell is completely true, and it was funny. I was. I was taking an interview with the BBC. A new Epstein accuser had just come forward, and she was describing meeting Gilenn Maxwell, and she described her as electrifying um and Gilen Maxwell was electrifying and she was much I mean, she was everything that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't. But I found Jeffrey at swe crass vulgar, a bully, a thug, but he was rich. And you know, many people who were at Oxford with Gilen Maxwell have asked the same question, what on earth was she doing with him? I do know that in Britain they are now going back, certainly various documentary companies and are going to really really dig into the life of her father, because there's clearly something very messed up about someone who you know, prizes money so much that she's willing to do the kinds of things that we heard in that courtroom, and that that was the story that the prosecution laid out. And this was a woman who, if anybody could have got out and made something of themselves by themselves. She had the roller decks, she had the ability. Why on earth, I have asked, did she just not go out and get a job when her dad died? But she had grown up spoiled, used to all these trappings with money that was stolen, and you know, when you have to remember that her father's you know, millions were actually fraudulent. It was a facade right from the beginning. And you know, I suspect that she very cold bloodedly calculated that the route to power, particularly in America is through money, and that's what Jeffrey Epstein had. And also you see quite often people who have money and lose money, they have to go back, well, they have to, they have to go down a few natches. I've seen this so often, and they sit there and they go. You know, it's like Scarlett O'Hara, as God is my judge, I'll never go hungry again. You know these people, as God is my judge, I'll never live off of less than eight figures again. You know that once you have that level of wealth and privileges, private planes, life is just so much easier. Life is just so much more convenient. I'm not standing in line at the airport of the baggage claimed with a bunch of trolls. Once you have that and you lose it, you'll pretty much go to any lengths to get it back. And when you get it back, you're like, I'm never gonna I'm gonna do whatever it takes to stay here now because I went down to the basement and I hate it. What are you working on next? Is it a book or is it a podcast or is it a documentary? Because have you fallen in love with the two latter formats. Have you've grown fond of documentary filmmaking, I have. I'm doing all three. I'm doing all three. And I've been following this story in South Carolina about this family of lawyers who have been running the low country in South Carolina since and how there's been a series of tragedies down there, culminating in the very mysterious murder. Yes, I saw the articles along which which I'm The investigation into that murder has also led to the investigation into other murders that have happened down there. But the bigger picture is it's it's really a story about corruption in the law in South Carolina, and how right now you're seeing one group of people being replaced by another group of people. The question is is the new group any better than the old? I don't know, That's what That's what I'm going to go find out. The documentary you had on about Maxwell was your first filmed piece. What would you say are the advantages that books have over filmed reporting and vice versa. What did you find was the advantage to filming over writing? Well, it's interesting, you know, we we also we filmed the making of the podcast, so we did something unusual, so I was I was learning how to do a podcast at the same time as doing the film. There's great value in being able to bring viewers into the room with you as you're asking the questions, and for viewers to see people's faces, to see their reactions very helpful, I think for viewers to see me push back and say, well, you know, how do you know this? Do you really know it? It was a joy in a way for me to be able to take viewers on the journey that I do all the time, the journalistic journey. That was really fun. It was really interesting to learn into in the podcasting how telling a story for the ear is not the same as writing that. You have to really write episodes very thematically, and I learned to very great deal with that. And I think, you know, I've come away with a much clearer idea of what stories lend themselves to certain mediums, and I think it will be very useful for me going forward to be able to do all of them. Well, let me just say, I live my life looking at people and contemplating alternatives. Had they made a monest adjustment this way or that way, had they not done this, had they gone in this direction, their life would be completely different, and they make the choices they make it now Maxwell as poised to go to prison and maybe dye in prison, be in prison for the rest of her life, and that's just so, and you think to yourself, Good God, it didn't have to be that way, you know. I mean, I'm sympathetic to the victims, but I'm I'm saddened for everyone who they allow their life to be led in that direction. Do they allow them they destroy their own lives that way. So anyway, thank you so much, Thank you so much. Author and journalist Vicky Ward. You can find her podcast Catching Gilaine on Audible and her documentary series of the same name on Discovery. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeese, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.

Hey, it's Alec. We all love true crime podcasts, but perhaps you're looking for something a little different, less murder, more intrigue. I invite you to check out a new podcast I just released called Art Fraud. It's the true story of one of New York City's oldest and most trusted galleries dealing in world class art, and how its doors would close forever in the wake of an unprecedented scandal. The art market is ripe for cons because it's inherently subjective. I just couldn't even look at it because it was so garish and so not by Rothcoe. We're talking about eighty million dollars in fake paintings, or more precisely, forgeries. All episodes of Art Fraud are available right now. Okay, here's our show. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. In the aftermath of Jeffrey Epstein's death, the world turned its attention to the trial of his associate, Gilain Maxwell. Maxwell, it seems, is the last hope for resolution and accountability in a case with so many missing pieces. My guest today, Vicky Ward, is the perfect person to shed some light on the questions that remain. She's a New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter who has covered Jeffrey Epstein and Gilain Maxwell since two thousand two. Ward has a long history as a columnist and feature writer at The New York Post, Huff Post, and Vanity Fair. She's written books about New York real estate, the financial sector, and most recently, the White House and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's path to occupying it. Last year, she reported from the Maxwell trial in her sub stack News that of Vicky Ward Investigates, and now she brings us up to speed on the results of two decades of reporting as the host and producer on Chasing Gillaine, a podcast and documentary series on Discovery. Vicky Ward and I spoke about her entry point into the world of Jeffrey Epstein, long before the world would come to know his secrets. Well, it actually is twenty years only because I began reporting on him in the fall of two thousand and two, and the reason for that was actually because I was pregnant with twins and it was a high risk pregnancy, and I had been doing a lot of work on the West Coast. Actually prior to that, but my doctors didn't want me flying too much. And Jeffrey Epstein's name came up in page six of the New York Post. And this was a man who, despite the fact that he lived in what was said to be the biggest town house in New York, he was known by then to have his own island and the Caribbean, known to have a big ranch. Nobody knew anything about him. No one knew how he had made his money. He wasn't someone whose name appeared in the financial press. He was like Gatsby. He was a mystery figure. So Graydon Carter said to me, you know, I've heard about this guy for years. I have no idea where all his money came from. He's an enigma. He lives in New York. You live in New York, you're pregnant. This is the perfect moment. Go find out how he made his money. And that's how it all began. Now, when you approach him, what was the template for what you wanted to do in the beginning. So I absolutely reached out to him straight away, not least because you know one of the differences, but acute twenty years ago at it. When you report for Vanity Fair as opposed to same reporting for The New Yorker or the New York Times is that pictures really matter. And as reporters for Anti Fair, we were all trained to sort of remember that if you had great words and no great photographs, that's a New Yorker article you may not run in Vanity Fair. And so access is really critical. So absolutely I reached out to him. You know, I did a clipping search on him. There was almost nothing. He was like the invisible man, and so I knew that my best bet initially was to try and charm him, try and persuade him to answer my questions, and at the very least, because he was reluctant, was to get from him a list of people who he thought might wanted to talk about him and might say whatever it is he wanted to say about himself. It was. It was a start. The man of mystery who there's almost there's little to know record of him, but a man who was this type of cipher if you will, What pitch did you make? How did you get him to come out of his shell and talk? Wow? It was so I perhaps had an advantage in that he did some homework on me, and I think what he found out about me frightened him. I mean, he told me that he had a dossier on me and my then husband, and in some ways I wasn't a complete stranger to his world. My then husband's boss and step uncle was someone who knew Jeffrey, who knew Gillen Maxwell pretty well. I knew Gillen Maxwell socially, but not well. So you know, I had a reputation back then as being the kind of journalist that if they came knocking on your door, it probably wasn't because I wanted to write a puff piece about you, and so I think he gathered that quite quickly. The reason I say that to you is one of the first things he said to me was, Okay, you know, let's let's play chess. You'd be white, you get the first move. I mean, he was ready to do battle. And also at the very beginning, I ran into Gillen Maxwell at a baby shower on the Upper East Side of New York and I had heard I've done enough reporting to know that they were in some sort of bizarre relationship that she was supposed to be obsessed with him. It was not reciprocated I didn't know much more than that, but I didn't think that point in my reporting that a piece about Epstein's money would involve her. She studiously avoided me at that baby show, but I think she had to walk past me on her way out, and I said, I'm sure you've heard. I'm doing this fancy fair piece on on Jeffrey and his money, but as of yet, I found no reason to call you. And she started to cry. That was totally bewildering to me, and sort of still crying, she left the room. And I did wonder at that point what on earth that was all about. But you know, it was quite clear that Jeffrey Epstein viewed me as a sort of hostile incoming missile. And then, you know, the next bizarre thing that happened was that James Caine, who's just died, the CEO of bear Sterns. Then an investment bank, phoned me at home on my landline. And I hadn't yet reached out to Jimmy Caine. He was on a list of people that I wanted to speak to you, because what was known about Jeffrey Epstein is that he had worked for I think from memory six or seven years at bear Sterns and then abruptly left, and that there was a bit of a mystery as to why he had left, but that you know, Jimmy Caine was somebody he got very very close to whilst at that bag. So when Jimmy Caine phones me up and says, can you come and see me this afternoon, unprompted, you know, that was a sign that sort of Jeffrey Epstein was was going on the offensive here. You know, it's not normal for the CEO of an investment back to phone a channelist unsolicited and say can you get over here, and then spend all afternoon trying to tell me what an amazing guy Jeffrey Epstein was, you know, so something was clearly really wrong now to get to Gillen for a moment. It seems that everywhere you look in the in the Epstein case, people are being threatened. There's threats. You were threatened. And when I'm wondering, is did Maxwell even attempt to make that defense ins the Epstein threatened her if you don't go out and recruit these girls from me, you're going to be taken down and somebody there was none of that. There wasn't Alec. Actually, that's the big question mark that was left hanging over that trial. You know, I was in the courtroom every day of testimony and in some pre trial hearings. You know, we didn't get to hear the Gillen Maxwell story. And if what you say were to be true, you would have thought that that's a that's a pretty good defense, right, But they kept very far away from the narrative that she was any kind of victim of his. Her narrative was that she's not guilty. And I think what you start saying, well, I'm a victim, then you're admitting some kind of guilt. And the two very big question marks that came out of that trial regarding her was why did he wire her approximately thirty million dollars over a period of time. It's a huge amount of money for someone to work someone they're not married to, not related to. And why did she stay with him for over a decade in a relationship that clearly was at times unkind and cruel. I mean we heard how he treat you, cheated on her, how the butler in Palm Beach took down photographs of her when he had other women coming to stay to me Epstein threatening people. It seemed likely that she could turn over that card in court because that's consistent behavior for Epstein. It was documented that Epstein threatened people, bribed people, that he would go to many lengths to cover up his tracks. And as you just said, to say I was a victim is to admit I did something. I did something under duress. And she tried to say something. If I'm following you correctly, she tried to say in court I didn't do anything. Is that what was that the case? That is exactly what she said. I I am completely innocent. I didn't do anything. And you know, I think that although obviously the defense is not obliged to put her on the stand, it's up to the government. They have the burden of proof. Nonetheless, I think that there just were too many question marks in a way that were left hanging there for the jury to not quote unquote use their common sense, which is what Maureen Comey, the lead prosecutor, told them to do. And she said, look at that money. Who gets paid thirty million dollars and look at the fact that this woman sticks with this man. And you could see from the photographs that were shown the sort of the aging process, how they aged, and and so even though you heard these stories the sort of poor behavior by Epstein as a boyfriend to Maxwell, she's still there. And you know, I think for the jury to have swung to her favor, she actually needed to tell a story that was believable, and she didn't. Now, of course, my friends, a couple in particular, the word they coined for me is conspira noiak. They say that I'm a conspira noiak. I'm very keen on a handful of really what I consider great conspiracy theories. And the first thing I thought to myself when Epstein turned up dead, the one thing that is just like a light pulsing in the in the distance all the time that never goes off, is what happened to all the material that was in his town house, or in his Palm Beach house, or in any of his holmes, that were the CDs and the recorded material. If any of these people of his guests quote unquote having sex in his house with these underaged people, are these recruited people. Now, so he turns up dead. You know, the FBI had rated that house in New York, and I'm sure I'm sure if there's anything to be had there, they've got it. Where is it? Do you believe there is such stuff? And where is it? So, first of all, there are a lot of people who think that the circumstances under which Jeffrey Epstein died, including his own defense team. You know, I don't think we've heard the last of that. I don't think you're a conspiraoid to suggest something strange went on, and I think we have not heard the last of that. And I don't say that based on speculation. I say that based on something I know, the question of tapes. Where are they? So one of the really I found shocking moments of testimony in the Maxwell trial was actually from the FBI who raided Epstein's house in New York. Because what happened, I mean they described it to us. They went in around five o'clock in the afternoon, they spent all night, they took pictures of everything, they had it all labeled, and then they left it there. And they left it there. They're killing me, I'm not. I think it was absolutely astonishing because they didn't have the right warrant to take it out. So three days goes by before they return, Oh, it's not there. That would be a great scene, would be a great scene in the movie, is there's a guy that's like, there's a guy that's a property manager. He's there in the vestibule of the house. And the FBI says, now, whatever you do, don't take your eyes off these boxes. We've got the wrong warrant and we're gonna be back in a few days with the right warrant. And if this stuff were to disappear, it would have such a dileterious effect on the case. It would ruin the case, our case against Epstein. Whatever you do, don't remove these boxes that I mean, how the hell does this happen? It was just remarkable and would on the stat you know, the testimony was given by the FBI agents. They go back, the stuff is missing. They phone up Epstein's lawyers and say, could you bring it back? Well, I mean, okay, the and that that the lawyers bring it back and it's their beliefs that everything was given back. But I mean, by god, who the heck really does To the extent you can say in your work covering Maxwell Uh covering Epstein years ago, did he record people having sex in his house. According to my sources, yes he did, and in the recording of those and is that what got him killed? I mean, this is an obvious question. I'm sorry to accellent tried question, but I mean, does Epstein become somebody who everybody wants them dead? Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter, and does Epstein becomes somebody who it's better for a lot of people that he's dead, famous people, Well, it's yes, and not necessarily just Americans. I mean, I mean, you know, if you've listened to the podcast or watch the documentary series in there are all sorts of series that come out, and I try and explain it why some sources are more credible than others. There are a lot of people who would have been glad to see jeff Re Epstein dead. Right. Absolutely, the question of those tapes, you know, we have this guy aribaminashe who's got credibility problems, saying he thinks the Israeli government has them. I don't know. All I do know is that that it's amazing to me that there was a three day area between the FBI rated Jeffrey Epstein's house when those tapes that got taken out and supposedly put back. It's just astonishing. Do you think that she has because she have a fear she's gonna get killed in prison too? Because if because if that's the case, if the FBI leaves the boxes in the hallway for three days and they disappear, if Epstein's dead, she's one of the last people with the real dope on Epstein. And thus all the of Epstein's guests. I'm of the belief that Epstein was murdered because he had information We're going to bring down the high end the money on both sides of the aisle. Does she you think she has that fear and that that would be maybe speculation on your part. And I wonder how someone who was in prison guards against that no pun intended. How did they communicate their lawyers saying this person needs special protection. We don't want to end up like Epstein. You know what I mean? Well, the only thing I mean, look is that I have asked former assistant U S Attorneys for the Southern District about this, and thereof the view that what happened to Jeffrey Epstein was extremely unfortunate and that the powers that be are going to go out of their way to ensure that that doesn't happen again. So I think she'll be very closely, really closely watched. I mean, imagine if that was to happen again. Her demeanor in court, it was really fascinating to behold. She didn't look like somebody who was in the fight for her life. She didn't look like somebody who thought she was in the wrong. I mean, it was almost as if this was her show and the rest of us we're all in it. She was incredibly tactile with her lawyers, who obviously had become extremely fond of her. You know, she didn't come in with shackles or anything like that. She had her bottle of Fiji water. She didn't look malnourished. Her hair was dyed black and shoulder length, and you know, when her lawyers had to leave the room for sidebars with the judge, she would actually turn around a quite brazenly stare at all of us. At one point she sketched the court artist. This was a woman who seemed confident. Maybe the wrong word, but she wasn't on the defensive. Put it that way. She wasn't on the defensive. Whereas you know, I was in court when Jeffrey Epstein was sitting there and was denied bail, and his body language was different. He was he was rattled journalist Vicky Ward. If you enjoy conversations with tenacious journalists breaking the biggest stories, check out our episode with Pulitzer Prize winning reporters Megan Tooey and Jody Canter, who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal. So when Megan and I were on the phone, she suggested a kind of argument that she had used with victims in the past, which is to say to them very early in the conversation, look, I can't change what's happened to you in the past, but if we work together, maybe we can take the pain that you experienced and put it to some constructive purpose that will help other people. Because it's the best reason to talk to a journalist. You are doing this to have a constructive impact on society. It is. It may be very difficult, but our goal is to do something that you can eventually feel very proud of. To hear more of my converse station with authors and New York Times journalist Megan Tooey and Jodie Canter, go to our archives and here's the thing. Dot Org. After the break, Vicky Ward shares with us the time she felt her life was in danger from Jeffrey Epstein himself. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. Many who watched the Gillain Maxwell trial felt a sense of relief and closure from the guilty verdict, but following the trial, when a juror disclosed the press that he shared personal experiences of child sexual abuse with his fellow jurors during deliberations, it throw open the possibility of a potential mistrial. It is extraordinary, right, what's happened with this jura. We don't yet know what Judge Nathan is going to do, but it will be taken very seriously. And you know what's interesting is that one of her lawyers, Christian ever Adele, was the prosecutor who ultimately put away al Chapo. But I believe in El Chapo that was also a mistrial because of a juror who turned out to have made a mistake. So the one thing, you know, how this juror got through is a question we need to see unfold. We need answers to if we can, and we ought to get some I mean, I will say that Judge Nathan ran that courtroom with an iron rod. She must be furious that this has happened, but it was but it was her. She didn't have to let the jurors say anything. She's not obligated to do that. She chose to tell the jurors that they could speak if they wished, so to some degree, this is on her. It's like it's like Robert Kraft going to his little stopping shop and massage parlor there and being recorded and him being acquitted, I believe, and the evidence destroyed. All the evidence. He's acquitted, but the evidence of him doing what he's doing is destroyed. It's interesting to me how the Maxwell case, the Epstein case that eventually the women are heard. Let's give these women their day in court, and and and they're heard, and they're believed, and it leads to something. But one thing that's going to lead to is we've got to destroy this evidence. That Epstein and Maxwell are a prism through which you can see this sort of behavior on behalf of all these celebrities, or what happened. I mean, I'm somebody who I had people. I mean, I I endured online months of people writing to me online saying, you know, you're in Epstein's book. You're a petto, You're a peto. And I'm like, well, I'm in Epstein's book, like his dry cleaner is in his book, like his tree repair stories, and it I mean, I never met Epstein in my life. And number he's got a number which is what we call in my office, we called the dummy line. That's the number we give and we don't want you to have our number. And and people go on from there. They're like, you know, you went down to the island, you were on his plane. You win his flight log. I'm like, no, actually, I wasn't on the flight log. And then then we come to where we are now where this this this ability of them to protect his guests, to protect So that was the big frustration of the trial, which is, you know, where are all the men. There was a whole system going on, and it was referred to sort of frustratingly fleeting Lee when they talked about some of the names on the planes and you know some of the people that Jeffrey Epstein was photographed with. You know, I didn't know that he had met with Fidel Castro. I have to say that was new, and I didn't know about the pope. That was a whole new one as well. But the men who are presumably the ones on the c ds have disappeared from this story. And without the men, there would have been no enterprise because and I'm not just talking about the sex. I'm talking about the money. We still don't know where Jeffrey Epstein's money came from. But what is you know, has always drupped me as really interesting is that I have not found anyone who knew Jeffrey Epstein in the nineteen eighties, when he had relatively little money, lived in a studio apartment in New York, that ever saw any evidence of this kind of behavior. He had normal girlfriends of a normal age. I mean they may have been in their twenties and sort of model types, but there was nothing that unusual about that. It's only when he gets all this money very quickly and he builds the shangri las, these dens of iniquity, and he stops going out and instead the world comes to him. And it's not just the girls who come to him, you know, these very powerful men. He holds these salons inside his houses. He takes them on his planes. It's all hidden from view. And you know, it seems to be that the men and the money and the money that propped up this massive In the end, it was we know, it was a global enterprise. He had pictures of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi, cried Prince on the Wall. He talked about doing business with African dictators. He had an apartment in Paris, which is where he would meet with them. So that whole aspect of this is still in the dark, and you know, it's to me is a critical part of this. And what I'm hoping is that the investigation that's going on the US virgin Islands is investigating the Epstein estate, that that will produce a money trail of sorts. I'm hoping that that maybe some of the I mean, who knows what's going to come out. If the Virginia Roberts Geoffrey suit gets Prince Andrew goes forward, if anything will come out of that. The other suit that might be very interesting is the suit between David Boys and Alan Dershowitz, two legal titans who have really looked heads on all of this and are trying to get the each other and the and the vice versa, and as of now they're headed to trial, and Dershowitz certainly wants Leslie Wexner, who we know was a patron of Jeffrey Epstein's, to take the stand. So you know, again it's not over. I mean, I really hope it's not over. Let me let me ask you three quick questions, because I don't want to lose these topics. Now, Epstein eventually threatens you. Correct, Yeah, I didn't take him very long. How long after you've been talking to him regularly for a couple of months? Correct, So he got wind of the fact that I must have spoken to somebody. I don't uh. What had actually happened was I went to see Steve Hoffenburg, who was doing time in prison in Devon's, Massachusetts, sentenced to twenty years for committing the biggest Ponzi scheme in American history before Bernie made off. Now, what Hoffenburg told me inside that prison was that, in fact, it was Jeffrey Epstein's Ponzi scheme, and that Jeffrey had very cleverly managed to manipulate the legal system that had all fallen on Hoffenburg. He wasn't able to prove any of this but he also explained to me where I could find various sec depositions that Jeffrey had given that would show me that he was not everything he pretended to be, that he wasn't just this brilliant money manager for billionaires that he had in fact had a very checkered end to his career at best Terns. And Hoffenberg also told me that he had leverage overs bear Sterns, he knew various secrets. And so after that meeting, I did go and I did pull an sec deposition of that Epstein had given. I went and found another deposition that he'd given in the archives of a law firm in Pennsylvania. Because I was pregnant, I wasn't allowed ben Dover, so I had to have an assistant from Fancy Fair come with me. And we got very lucky because in fact, what we found what we needed in the first box that we came across, and we each had to we weren't allow write anything down, We had to remember what was in it. Well. I kept from Epstein until sort of the the eleventh that was that I had met these two sisters, Annie Farmer, who just gave testimony in the Maxwell case, who said that she had been sixteen when she'd had this absolutely horrible weekend stuck alone with Epstein and Gillen Maxwell in New Mexico. A Maria Farmer, her sister who had looked for Jeffrey Epstein for I think nearly a year in her twenties before something also completely horrible happened in Ohio. But I think once I started to ask questions about the money, I sort of waited till the end to ask him about the farmers, he began to really really push back and go into hyper gear about well, one with the threats. You know, I've got this dossier. I'm going to sue you personally. You know, I'm going to have my witch doctor place a curse on your children, you know, asking me very invasive questions about my body, where I was giving birth, and who my doctors were, and but also then really pushing it was at that point, you know, he wanted me to speak to Les Wexner all of a sudden, because he thought that the more famous or important people he could get on the phone to me, the more I would back down, that I would see that I must be I must be out of my mind like the bear Stearns phone call, right, you know, I just I kept going. I mean, ultimately I got somebody who had been on the executive committee at best Terns to tell me to be confident in what I had from the documents that in fact, Jeffrey Epstein had been up to no good and as it turned out, so to Jimmy Caine, and as Greenberg hadn't been spotless either, which is why Jeffrey Epstein left and had some leverage over them. Now, one other thing that occurred to me, and I want to approach this with the proper amount of sensitivity to this, which is not everybody who's making a charge of sexual assault has created equal You have people who are making a claim and they and they have a lot of evidence. What is the young woman's namers have pronounced Giffrey, Virginia Roberts, Giffrey. I'm wondering during the trial, during your coverage, did you think for a moment it was ever suggested that all of the grooming quote unquote that was alluded to and was testified about, which is, you know, horrific, But was it ever mentioned by the defense that these women specifically I want to attribute this to the defense that these women could have walked out the door at any given time. None of them were held against their will. Were they no or their families threatened if they left the compound and didn't do what they were asked to do. No. The defense's strategy was not to get into that, and in fact, the prosecution even let the witnesses lean in two the fact that they kept one they wanted to come back. You know, one case Caroline, who was the only accuser around whom the sex trafficking charges were based, and the sex trafficking charges are carried the longest sentence, She was very clear that she was so desperate financially, so addicted to drugs. I mean, it was a tragic story that she fact, the worst moment when she was eighteen was when Jeffrey Epstein said, actually, we're too old for me. She came back and back and back. So I would say it was the reverse. What what the defense tried to do and what made this trial very different from the Harvey Weinstein trial, Bill Cosby, all the all the sexual abuse trials that we've had recently, is that because the FBI and prosecutors were initially not going after Gillen, Maxwell they were focused on Jeffrey Epstein. These women had all given interviews in the last three years to the FBI about Jeffrey Epstein and the problem. And what was useful for the defense was that they may have either not mentioned Gillen Maxwell at all in those interviews, or they may have not said they can't remember what she was doing, or they may have said no, I don't think she was in the room, because they were focused on somebody else. And that's what complicated I think this trial. The prosecution obviously pointed out, well, memories change. These are not verbatim recordings their notes. But that's what the defense lead into. What they didn't lead into was, um, yeah, these these girls really really wanted the money. Yeah they didn't. They didn't lead into that. If anything, the prosecution did because they were they were children. I was working on a film once. The director of the film, who was an older man, he was he was older, he was in the seventies, he employed two women as extras on the set of the film, and they were prostitutes. It really is the money. I mean, it's like shattering what lengths they got for money. Well, when Caroline stood up and gave her testimony. Her life story was I think just tragic. Are just deep, deeply, deeply, deeply upsetting to hear you a child at sixteen then having to work off post Jeffrey Epstein as a stripper and an escort, and you know she when she she fell apart under aggressive defense cross examination. But I think that everyone in that courtroom just felt so incredibly sorry that anybody should have to be in that position that there's nothing left to sell except their body. It was, it was awful. Do you think Epstein killed himself? I think that whatever happened, he had help. Whatever happened, he didn't do it by himself. Vicky Ward, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back the key, Ward tries to shed some light on Jeffrey Epstein's appeal to socialite Gilain Maxwell. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear the thing. Metropolitan Correctional Centered guards Toven Noel and Michael Thomas discovered Jeffrey Epstein's unresponsive body. Their desk was fifteen feet away from Epstein's cell, and they somehow missed their rounds between ten thirty pm and six thirty am, leaving Epstein alone for eight hours. It was revealed that the guards had falsified records certifying they had performed their duties, and yet charges against them were dropped. In December, Vicky Ward shared her thoughts on this development. I have wanted that I have said there and I were, But the moment the Maxwell trial finished, I read a little tidy story in the newspaper somewhere saying that all charges against those guards had been dropped, like buried. To prosecute them would invite more discovery material people want to keep secret. Right. I do have a very reliable source on this, and I think that that story is not it's not over right. I mean, you know, I think what's so shocking about this is that, you know, Maxwell, when you look at her on the outside, you see pictures of her, she seems very winning. She's this attractive. You know, at first she's a very young woman and she's a bit older. She's got her arm around Epstein, their dear friends, and there's no way she could downplay her relationship with Epstein. The photographic evidence is like a family album. She's hugging him and rubbing up against him or what have you, regardless of their relationship, and you look at her and you think, how the hell did this woman with her connections and her family. Yes, her father was a scoundrel and he dies under these very h strange circumstances. But you just need to yourself, how does someone like her? How does she end up in this mess? How does she end up her life being destroyed by this relationship with this man? What did Epstein have? Was Epstein this bon vivant, raconteur, elegant, sophisticated, funny. Why do you think people were loyal to Epstein? Beyond blackmail? What did he have? Well, it's interesting what you say about GILLN. Maxwell is completely true, and it was funny. I was. I was taking an interview with the BBC. A new Epstein accuser had just come forward, and she was describing meeting Gilenn Maxwell, and she described her as electrifying um and Gilen Maxwell was electrifying and she was much I mean, she was everything that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't. But I found Jeffrey at swe crass vulgar, a bully, a thug, but he was rich. And you know, many people who were at Oxford with Gilen Maxwell have asked the same question, what on earth was she doing with him? I do know that in Britain they are now going back, certainly various documentary companies and are going to really really dig into the life of her father, because there's clearly something very messed up about someone who you know, prizes money so much that she's willing to do the kinds of things that we heard in that courtroom, and that that was the story that the prosecution laid out. And this was a woman who, if anybody could have got out and made something of themselves by themselves. She had the roller decks, she had the ability. Why on earth, I have asked, did she just not go out and get a job when her dad died? But she had grown up spoiled, used to all these trappings with money that was stolen, and you know, when you have to remember that her father's you know, millions were actually fraudulent. It was a facade right from the beginning. And you know, I suspect that she very cold bloodedly calculated that the route to power, particularly in America is through money, and that's what Jeffrey Epstein had. And also you see quite often people who have money and lose money, they have to go back, well, they have to, they have to go down a few natches. I've seen this so often, and they sit there and they go. You know, it's like Scarlett O'Hara, as God is my judge, I'll never go hungry again. You know these people, as God is my judge, I'll never live off of less than eight figures again. You know that once you have that level of wealth and privileges, private planes, life is just so much easier. Life is just so much more convenient. I'm not standing in line at the airport of the baggage claimed with a bunch of trolls. Once you have that and you lose it, you'll pretty much go to any lengths to get it back. And when you get it back, you're like, I'm never gonna I'm gonna do whatever it takes to stay here now because I went down to the basement and I hate it. What are you working on next? Is it a book or is it a podcast or is it a documentary? Because have you fallen in love with the two latter formats. Have you've grown fond of documentary filmmaking, I have. I'm doing all three. I'm doing all three. And I've been following this story in South Carolina about this family of lawyers who have been running the low country in South Carolina since and how there's been a series of tragedies down there, culminating in the very mysterious murder. Yes, I saw the articles along which which I'm The investigation into that murder has also led to the investigation into other murders that have happened down there. But the bigger picture is it's it's really a story about corruption in the law in South Carolina, and how right now you're seeing one group of people being replaced by another group of people. The question is is the new group any better than the old? I don't know, That's what That's what I'm going to go find out. The documentary you had on about Maxwell was your first filmed piece. What would you say are the advantages that books have over filmed reporting and vice versa. What did you find was the advantage to filming over writing? Well, it's interesting, you know, we we also we filmed the making of the podcast, so we did something unusual, so I was I was learning how to do a podcast at the same time as doing the film. There's great value in being able to bring viewers into the room with you as you're asking the questions, and for viewers to see people's faces, to see their reactions very helpful, I think for viewers to see me push back and say, well, you know, how do you know this? Do you really know it? It was a joy in a way for me to be able to take viewers on the journey that I do all the time, the journalistic journey. That was really fun. It was really interesting to learn into in the podcasting how telling a story for the ear is not the same as writing that. You have to really write episodes very thematically, and I learned to very great deal with that. And I think, you know, I've come away with a much clearer idea of what stories lend themselves to certain mediums, and I think it will be very useful for me going forward to be able to do all of them. Well, let me just say, I live my life looking at people and contemplating alternatives. Had they made a monest adjustment this way or that way, had they not done this, had they gone in this direction, their life would be completely different, and they make the choices they make it now Maxwell as poised to go to prison and maybe dye in prison, be in prison for the rest of her life, and that's just so, and you think to yourself, Good God, it didn't have to be that way, you know. I mean, I'm sympathetic to the victims, but I'm I'm saddened for everyone who they allow their life to be led in that direction. Do they allow them they destroy their own lives that way. So anyway, thank you so much, Thank you so much. Author and journalist Vicky Ward. You can find her podcast Catching Gilaine on Audible and her documentary series of the same name on Discovery. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeese, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.