The abuse victim who helped indict Jeffrey Epstein kept her identity secret for decades. Now she’s gone public in the hope of justice
The woman credited with helping to indict Jeffrey Epstein has spoken out for the first time in the decades since she was first abused by the disgraced financier at age 14.
Marina Lacerda was part of a vast network of victims who were abused by Epstein as a teenager. Until now, she was identified as an unidentified minor victim in the 2019 federal indictment against the disgraced financier.
On Wednesday, she went public with her claims for the first time, 23 years after she first came into contact with the disgraced financier.
Joining lawmakers and a group of survivors in Washington, D.C. Wednesday, Lacerda, 37, shared details of her abuse by Epstein and demanded the complete release of the so-called Epstein Files.
“I never thought that I would find myself here,” she said. “The only reason I’m here is because it feels like the people who matter in this country finally care about what we have to say.”
Who is Marina Lacerda?
She first met Epstein in 2002 in New York when she was just 14, according to the 2019 indictment.
The young Brazilian immigrant was a freshman in high school at the time, working three jobs to try to support her mom and her sister. That’s when a friend told her she could make $300 by giving an “older guy” a massage, she said at a Wednesday press conference on Capitol Hill.
“It went from a dream job to the worst nightmare,” Lacerda said.
An assistant to Epstein said she “needed to be” at Epstein’s mansion so often that she ended up dropping out of high school, she said at the press conference.
She held out hope that being connected to the wealthy financier could bring her real job opportunities.
But those job opportunities never came. Instead, she was abused for years.
“I had no way out — until he told me I was too old,” Lacerda said.
At 37, she’s now a mother to at least one daughter.
What are her allegations?
Beginning in 2002, Lacerda “was recruited to engage in sex acts with Epstein and was repeatedly sexually abused” by him for years at his Manhattan mansion. He was aware of her age at the time of the encounters, prosecutors said.
She was paid hundreds of dollars for each encounter, the filing states.
He also “encouraged and enticed” Lacerda to recruit other girls to engage in paid sex acts, which she did, the indictment states.
The abuse came to an abrupt halt by the time she turned 16 or 17, when Epstein made clear that his interest in her had waned. “You’re too old. I don’t want you anymore,” Lacerda recalled him saying.
Epstein was indicted on federal charges in 2019 — but died by suicide behind bars one month later while awaiting his sex trafficking trial.
Although she’s credited with helping secure the 2019 criminal charges against Epstein, investigators first approached her about his abuse in 2008, she told ABC News.
Her first thought was: “I have to call Jeffrey. What am I going to do?”
Epstein then hired an attorney for her; that was the last she heard of that investigation, she said.
He had been indicted in Florida on sex crimes charges in 2006. After the indictment, he cut a plea deal with federal prosecutors, requiring him to plead guilty to the state charges in exchange for the federal investigation into him being dropped.
In 2008, he pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18.
Asked about how she felt about having a hand in the eventual charges against him, Lacerda told ABC: “I would have felt much better today speaking if I was able to speak in 2008.”
“If they would have gave me the chance to speak, these women would not been through this,” she said.
What has she said about the Epstein Files?
Lacerda advocated for the complete release of the Epstein Files.
She stood on Capitol Hill Wednesday, vocally supporting the push by Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna to collect 218 signatures to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would require the Justice Department to make public the entirety of the Epstein-related records.
She demanded the records’ release “not only for transparency but for the American people.”
She denounced the government’s handling of the Epstein Files.
“The worst part is that the government is still in possession right now of the documents and information that could help me remember — and get over all of this, maybe — and help me heal,” she said, her voice breaking.
She struggles to remember “many pieces” of her story and the records could help her “put the pieces of my own life back together,” she said.
“My therapist says that my brain is just trying to protect itself but it’s so hard to begin to heal that there are people out there that know more about my abuse than I do.”
The Epstein Files have become a major pressure point of President Donald Trump’s second term. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to release the documents; as president, he has repeatedly claimed the matter was cooked up by Democrats.
As Epstein survivors spoke nearby on Wednesday, Trump again called the issue a “Democrat hoax that never ends.”
Amid calls for heightened transparency around the case, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department, which has since turned over tens of thousands of documents. The committee published the records Tuesday. Most contained already publicly available information — and none were the so-called “client list,” which could implicate other high-profile figures involved in Epstein’s scheme, the committee’s top Democrat Robert Garcia said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this year said she had the “client list” sitting on her desk; in July, a DOJ memo stated there was no evidence to support its existence. Survivors said Wednesday they would release their own “client list” if the Trump administration neglected to do so.
No one other than Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite serving 20 years in federal prison after she was convicted in 2021 for her role in a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse minors with Epstein, has been formally charged with any wrongdoing connected to Epstein. Trump has not ruled out a pardon for Maxwell. She met with top DOJ officials in July and has since been transferred to a more cushy federal prison.
