Christine Pelosi, the daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said beloved figures across the political spectrum could find themselves in hot water in connection to the sex trafficking allegations involving billionaire hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein.
“This Epstein case is horrific and the young women deserve justice. It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may – whether on Republicans or Democrats,” Pelosi wrote Sunday on Twitter following reports of Epstein’s Saturday arrest.
Eleven years after letting Epstein off lightly with a once-secret deal, federal prosecutors took another run at putting the billionaire financier behind bars on sex charges, accusing him Monday of abusing dozens of underage girls as young as 14.
Epstein, arrested over the weekend, was expected to make his first court appearance on the charges in the afternoon in New York City. Prosecutors were likely to argue he is a flight risk and should remain in jail instead of being released on bail to await trial.
Epstein, a 66-year-old hedge fund manager who once hobnobbed with some of the world’s most powerful people, was charged in an indictment unsealed Monday with sex trafficking and conspiracy. The charges carry up to life in prison.
He was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Florida and New York.
Epstein “intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18,” prosecutors said. He also paid some of his victims to “recruit additional girls to be similarly abused by Epstein.”
“In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit in locations including New York and Palm Beach,” prosecutors added.