Jonathan Whitcomb, attorney for Lesley Groff, June 5, 2020
“She didn’t know.”
Lesley Groff, who worked as Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime executive assistant, has always said she had no idea about his crimes. To be legally complicit in a crime, you have to know you’re helping commit it. For moral complicity, the standard is lower. You don’t even need to take an active role. Just knowing about the crime and doing nothing is enough.
But how can we really know what someone knows?
I think about all the times I’ve looked away, shut down a thought, or turned a blind eye to something wrongâwhether it’s a huge environmental disaster or a small theft right in front of me at the supermarket. I tell myself someone else will handle it. It’s not my fault or my responsibility. I’m too insignificant to make a difference. At some point, I decide not to let what I’ve seen or heard or guessed take root in my mind. Over time, I’ve found it’s much easier to live with what I know if I don’t admit itâeven to myself.
FBI interview with Lesley Groff, September 24, 2021
Groff met with a recruiter, who told her about “a job to organize one man’s life. This man was EPSTEIN, a Manhattan socialite. GROFF had never heard of EPSTEIN before this.”
Lesley Groff never planned to be an assistant. After college at the University of Texas in Dallas, she moved to New Jersey with her first husband. She worked for an office supplies company for nine years, got divorced, then worked as a salesperson at Nordstrom. She met her second husband at a triathlon and decided she wanted to find work as an events planner on Wall Street. In 2001, a recruiter found her resume on Monster, a job listing site, and set up an interview for herâthen in her mid-30sâto be an assistant to a wealthy financier.
For the interview, Groff went to Epstein’s offices on the 4th floor of 457 Madison Avenue, part of the Villard Houses. These are elegant 19th-century brownstone residences built around a courtyard, also home to a luxury hotel. She met with Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein, whose phone kept ringing during the interview. He would talk briefly, then hang up. Groff left with the impression of a busy, lively workplace.
Once she got the job, Groff had her own office and worked alongside Epstein’s team of assistants, lawyers, and a trader who together managed his money and life. A few years later, she started working from his homeâa seven-story townhouse on East 71st Street near 5th Avenue. In the central hallway hung a life-sized sculpture of a woman in a white wedding dress clutching a rope.
View image in fullscreen: Jeffrey Epsteinâs former home on East 71st Street in New York. Photograph: Bill Tompkins/Getty Images
Groff was in charge of Epstein’s calendar, making his appointments and setting up his calls. When she started, Maxwell told her that Epstein had a massage every day. Epstein would call Groff in the morning and tell her, “Call X and see if she can do a massage at 4,” then keep calling every 15 minutes until it was arranged. If Groff couldn’t reach X, he’d tell her to call Y. (In response to questions about these appointments, her lawyer, Michael Bachner, wrote: “During her employment, Lesley never witnessed or was told of anything illegal related to these massages.”)
Groff worked for Epstein for 18 years, from 2001 until his arrest in July 2019. No criminal charges have ever been brought against her (or anyone else connected to Epstein, apart from Maxwell). Since Epstein’s death in August 2019, Groff has stayed almost invisible and only spoken through her lawyers. Recent photos show her going to Pilates or walking her dog near her home in Connecticutâoff-duty and low-key. Compared to the royals, politicians, billionaires, and professors who have appeared in the Epstein story, she seems to have faded into the background.Yes, Groff is low-statusâshe’s not a celebrity and has no public reputation to lose. But when you search for her name in the files, you get over 160,000 results, more than anyone else. (I’ve read maybe 10,000 of those, which is just a small part.) No one was in more regular, day-to-day contact with Epstein.
After the Epstein files were released, the US Congress’s committee on oversight and government reform decided to look into whether the federal government’s investigation into Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes was mishandled. On March 3, 2026, they sent Groff a letter asking her to come to Washington for an interview on June 9: “The Committee believes you have information that will assist in its investigation.” In other words, they think Groff knows more than she has ever admitted.
Interview with Lesley Groff in the New York Times, February 5, 2005:
“It comes down to the bond. I know what he is thinking and I know when I need to be fast. It’s a nice roll we are on.”
Being a good executive assistant means fully immersing yourself in the role. The job involves managing small details: dates, times, appointments, travel, meals, gifts, emails, and calls. But it also requires anticipating these thingsâknowing what’s needed before it’s asked for. To do that, the assistant has to understand their boss’s mind. In a healthy setup, the relationship is close but has clear boundaries. Sheâand it’s almost always a sheâcan share her opinion or say no. Victoria Rabin, founder of the Executive Assistants Organization, calls it a kind of work marriage. She told me no other professional relationship needs as much trust or closeness. (Her old boss used to say she knew more about him than his wife did and could ruin him in five minutes.)
Even though an assistant might have power from knowing so much, it’s not an equal partnership. “If you are committed, you sell your soul to that person,” Rabin said. In a less professional dynamic, the assistant becomes so essential to her boss’s daily lifeâand so completely under his controlâthat she turns into a voiceless worker. Rowena Chiu, who briefly worked as an assistant to Harvey Weinstein, compared her role to a butler in Downton Abbey, where the main rules were to do what you’re told and stay invisible. Chiu, who says Weinstein sexually assaulted her, was often told she could be replaced in an hour. She’d hear Weinstein yelling at a top director on the phone and think, if he can treat them like that, what could he do to me? She said she was like “a gnat on an elephant.”
Over the years, Epstein had several assistants, but Groff was the most senior and stayed the longest. As I read her emails, I was first struck by how much she managed his time and movements, or acted as his gatekeeper. But really, she was more like a well-trained extension of him. In a 2005 New York Times article about executive assistants on Wall Street, where both Groff and Epstein were interviewed, Epstein described his assistants as “an extension of my brain” and a “social prosthesis”ânot separate people, but part of his mind and body.
[Image: Jeffrey Epstein in 2017, from the New York State sex offender registry. Photograph: AP]
Groff’s job was to make sure Epstein’s life ran exactly how he wanted it. “Jeffrey has requested that he please NOT be disturbed while in gym working out ⊠even if a guest is here waiting,” she emailed her colleagues in 2012. “When Jeffrey is waiting for something and you know the urgency with a package, you should give it to him right away if at all possible,” she wrote about a two-hour delay in delivering some pastries in 2015. “He called me asking where his cannolis are!?” On any given day, Groff would go from fixing a towel rail (“can we PLEASE get someone on top of this”) to figuring out how to…She handled everything from Epstein’s allergic reaction (“it’s obvious his face isn’t right”) to making sure Steve Bannon got the Apple Watch Epstein had given him (“can you confirm Steve has his watch?… I need to get back to Jeffrey… sorry to be such a bother!”). She was great at her jobâquick, polite, and always upbeat, even when her tasks were ridiculous, like dealing with two “monster” vacuum-packed steaks left on Epstein’s plane or figuring out how to transport three tubs of Oreo ice cream (“JE’s favorite”) from New York to another of his properties without it melting. Her emails were full of exclamation marks, emoticons (especially the winking smiley), and excited phrases like “Tremendous!”, “Super!”, and “Terrific!”. When a New York businessman named Jonathan Farkas told her that her efficiency was the envy of the German army, Groff forwarded the email to her husband, Ike, asking, “think I should forward to JE???!!!” Ike replied that she should save it in her files, just in case she ever needed another job.
Epstein knew Groff was capable, but his emails rarely acknowledged her efforts beyond an occasional curt “thx.” Instead, he showed his appreciation with money. In a New York Times interview, he said that when Groff told him she was pregnant in 2004, he offered to pay for a nanny and bought her a car to make her commute from Connecticut easier. “There is no way I could lose Lesley to motherhood,” he said. According to a payroll document, he also doubled her salary from $60,000 in 2004 to $120,000 in 2005. There were perks too: in 2014, Epstein emailed Groff offering a “Florida holiday my style please, five star hotel the whole works.” (Groff’s husband, Ike, forwarded the email to someone else, saying, “Seriously the best boss ever.”) On Valentine’s Day in 2018, Epstein bought her and some other assistants appointments with Glam Squad, where stylists would come to their homes to do their hair and makeup (“too sweet!” wrote Groff). Once, in 2015, she got to tour his private plane, ride in his helicopter, and take a boat to his private Caribbean island, Little St James, before staying at a luxury hotel. “The heli was one of the best parts!” she wrote in a group email to her family, who were impressed. “I didn’t know he had a helicopter too! WOW!” said one. “NOT a boring job!” wrote Groff’s mother.
By 2015, Groff was earning $140,000 a year and had received several bonuses, the Florida trip, and approval to buy a car worth up to $45,000. She was able to buy, rebuild, and decorate a white clapboard house in New Canaan, Connecticut, now estimated to be worth around $5 million. (Though her emails also show that she and Ike had to take out a large construction loan from the bank to do the work.) In 2016, she emailed Ike to tell him her salary had gone up to $150,000 plus a $7,500 bonus check (“not bad! :)”) and mentioned a loan she was going to take out with Epstein: “Makes me happy!”
Groff seemed to sense that Epstein’s generosity had limitsâhe wasn’t a cash cow, or at least, the money he gave came with his own rules. Before a family mini-break in New York, Ike suggested she ask Epstein to get them tickets for a show. The cost would mean nothing to Epstein, but Groff felt she couldn’t justify asking for $500 Hamilton seats and wondered if she could swing Dear Evan Hansen instead.
When Groff got her raise to $140,000 in 2014, Ike, who worked for Tourmaline Partners, a trading firm, joked that he could retire. (“Ha. Please don’t do that,” Groff replied.) She was well paid but always aware that she lived in a different economic world than her boss. In her FBI interview, Groff recalled seeing an invoice for a carpet for his plane that cost more than she earned in a year.
FBI Interview, 24 September 2021
GROFF felt it was pretty incredible to see.All the people Epstein dealt withâin politics, television, and so onâleft Groff feeling amazed. Before working for Epstein, she had never known anyone who owned a plane or anything like that.
Groff’s emails were full of celebrities and their assistants. There was Amanda, who worked for the then Duchess of York; Lauren, who worked for Bill Gates; Julie, who worked for Larry Summers; and Kathryn and Gini, who worked for Woody Allen. She had to check the timing of a meeting with Naomi Campbell (who ended her emails with “Love & Light”), and it was Groff’s job to figure out which car the duke should be picked up in and what Woody and Soon Yi wanted for dinner. (“Woody would like: Chicken dumpling with cilantro, and Piri piri chicken wings. I would love grilled asparagus goma ae, eggplant shishito miso honey, and shrimp tempura and seasonal vegetables,” confirmed Soon Yi, whose emails from her phone came with a red balloon emoji, making each one feel like a small celebration.)
With access to so much private information, Groff’s job came with strict rules. She told the FBI that when Epstein hired her, she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. If she ever talked about anything she learned from people he worked with, she would have to pay him $100,000. Early on, Maxwell told her she was there to work, not to chat or socialize with anyone she met through the job, including Epstein. For example, if she bought tickets for Epstein to see a movie, she knew not to ask him the next day if he enjoyed it.
Groff was expected to act as if she knew nothing and no one. In her first month on the job, she told the FBI, she was invited to a party through work and went with her husband, breaking the no-socializing rule. “Epstein found out and ‘torched’ her the following Monday.” He said he was going to fire her but put her on probation instead. Groff never did anything like that again. She learned that mistakes were not tolerated.
Not once, Groff told the FBI, did she have “normal conversations” with Epstein. Instead, he would give one-line decisions: yes, no, “pay it,” “burgers.” And Groff would reply with a quick, cheerful confirmation: “will do!!” Epstein knew he could count on her to do anything quickly and well. When an employee gave a long list of excuses for failing to ship a painting from Paris to New Mexico, Epstein replied with a single line: “give the job to lesley, thanks.” When Groff went on vacation, she assured Epstein she would have her BlackBerry with her. He replied by telling her where she needed to be on the day she returned: “71st on 20th” (meaning his house). Groff: “Of course!!!! Can’t wait!”
Over time, I started to recognize the tone of Groff’s emails to Epstein. They reminded me of the messages I sent in my first jobs, at the lowest level of organizations where I still naively thought that good behavior would be noticed and rewarded. It’s the tone of service, of knowing your place and being eager to please, often used by junior women toward senior men. It’s also the tone of a perfectionist, someone trying to appear flawless, where everything is possible and nothing is too much. You do everything asked of you and more, running as consistently and tirelessly as a machine, andâmost importantlyâyou never say no.
The colleague who failed to ship the painting confided in Groff about Epstein: “it has been tough with him.” “I’ll bet,” Groff replied sympathetically. In 2014, Groff exchanged emails with a colleague who had just received an email from Epstein that was “worse than ever ⊠Swearing and telling me I am a disgrace ⊠He literally has never been this bad. Which is saying a lot.”F tried to offer some support, then suggested the person “take the bull by the horns and go!” They were grateful for her encouragement â “it really helps.” For some reason, Groff never followed her own advice.
25 January 2012, DOJ Epstein Library
From: Lesley Groff
Just confirming you and your friend will be coming to see Jeffrey tomorrow at his home at 7pm!
Thanks,
Lesley
(What’s your friend’s name too, just so I have it)
25 May 2012, DOJ Epstein Library
From: Lesley Groff
Hello! Hope all is well! Jeffrey will be in New York next week, and Peter Mandelson will be around too. Jeffrey was asking if you and “your friend” could come by and meet Peter⊠Thanks, Lesley
5 May 2015, DOJ Epstein Library
From: Lesley Groff
Hello⊠might you and/or your new friend be available to come see Jeffrey tomorrow at 2pm? Please let me know as soon as you can! Thanks, Lesley
Groff’s emails inviting girls â her word â to “see” Epstein all followed a similar pattern. Often, the arrangement involved working around their job or college class schedules: “Tuesday I’m at school until 10pm â we have orchestra rehearsal for the concert on Friday.” Groff also received emails from intermediaries on behalf of other girls: “She can skip some classes and leave school at 1pm. If Jeffrey wants her at 3.30pm, she can make it.” Groff replied: “Ok, all good to know⊠we’ll let JE decide. Thanks!”
Sometimes, Groff struggled to find someone Epstein had requested: “Jeffrey thinks I should have her info, but I can’t find any? Whose friend is she? Do you know?” Other times, she would try to predict her boss’s needs: “What [REDACTED] does JE want to see in Paris? Is that [REDACTED]? Do one of you know?” (Her colleague replied: “I think possibly [REDACTED]. We always see her in Paris.”) Once, she spent a day emailing back and forth with someone in Russia trying to arrange a time for her to see Epstein, before realizing he meant a different person with the same name. “So no worries! Talk to you next week!”
If the girls were coming from overseas, Groff organized their flights, visas, and accommodation. “She was arranging all of that,” Juliette Bryant told me. Bryant is a survivor who met Epstein in South Africa and then spent two years in New York after Epstein promised her a modeling career. Epstein never contacted Bryant directly, but Groff would call often, say “Hi Juliette, it’s Lesley,” then put Epstein on the line. “She seemed friendly,” said Bryant, but they never spoke much beyond the start and end of a call. She only met Groff once. Surely, Bryant thought, Groff must have known something wasn’t right: “If I’d been working in that office, I’d have found it odd,” she said, “with all the young girls coming and going.”
View image in fullscreen
Jeffrey Epstein and Woody Allen in a partially-redacted photo released by House oversight Democrats. Photograph: House oversight Democrats
The rotating cast of girls created another layer of paperwork. Groff returned their lost items: “Please check for a green bikini (kind of a jungle print) in one of the drawers⊠the girl who was there last thinks she left it in the drawer.” She arranged their payments in cash, usually between $500 and $1,000, once specifically for “time spent on the island.” She would book appointments for them at his preferred New York dentist (Thomas Magnani) and hair salon, FrĂ©dĂ©ric Fekkai. (And sometimes for herself: in 2018, Groff had a haircut, highlights, manicure, and eyebrow wax worth $825.) Once, when one of Epstein’s accountants questioned a payment to a cosmetic vein specialist and suggested who the treatment might have been for, Groff responded, “Gosh⊠I really don’t know! She seems too young for that!?”Groff wasnât the only assistant who set up these appointments. Rina Oh, a survivor of Epsteinâs abuse, told me that âdifferent secretaries communicated with certain girls,â but they all followed the same script: ââMr. Epstein would like to make an appointment to see you. Heâs going to be in New York on such and such dates. Are you available to see him at 2 p.m.?â Then I would have to confirm, and she would write it in the calendar.â
Groffâs emails to the girls on Epsteinâs behalf were usually formal and polite, with careful language and a cheerful tone. But the replies she got could be unpredictable. On May 5, 2014, a girl emailed her saying her friend wouldnât be available to see Jeffrey on May 8, âbut I can bring another girl⊠if Jeffrey wants to! Let me know.â Groff forwarded the email to Epstein: âBelow from [REDACTED]⊠please advise.â
Sometimes the emails included photos. On April 18, 2012, someone emailed to apologize for a delay and sent pictures of two friends, âboth Russians.;))).â âNo worries⊠thanks,â Groff replied. On May 1, 2012, someone emailed to check if Groff had received the ânew photo.â She hadnât, so they sent it again with the subject line â[REDACTED] from Ukraineâ: âDarling, here are the pictures of the new girl. She is 21. Very sweet and lovely. Let me know you received them, please. I took them from her portfolio, so the quality might not be great. But I think you can still see everything.;)))â Groff forwarded the email to Epstein without comment.
Groff also handled the girlsâ questions and concerns. After setting up an appointment with a girl and her friend to see Epstein on the evening of October 21, 2011, she got this email from the girl at 3:45 p.m. that day:
âHey Lesley, my friend just got back, and I spoke to her about tonight. She has never done anything like this before and is a little nervous about the whole thing. I donât know what Jeffrey has planned for tonight, but is it okay if they just meet this time? She would feel much more comfortable that way. If Jeffrey would rather not, thatâs okay. Let me know.â
Groff replied: âHe says of course you can just stop by!!! :)â
Non-prosecution agreement, 2007
âIf Epstein successfully fulfills all the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States also agrees that it will not bring any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, or Nadia Marcinkova.â
The first time Groffâs name appeared in a legal document related to Epsteinâs crimes was in the secret plea deal he made with the state attorneyâs office in South Florida. In exchange for federal immunityâand immunity for several assistants, including GroffâEpstein agreed in 2008 to plead guilty to two low-level state charges, one of which was âsolicitation of minors to engage in prostitution.â
When I asked Groffâs lawyer, Michael Bachner, about what she knew of the 2008 conviction, he said: âAfter Epsteinâs arrest in 2008, he repeatedly lied to Lesley and other staff members, insisting he had been blackmailed and set up. He angrily claimed the allegations against him were false and that he had no idea the âprostituteâ he had contact with was a minor. In Lesleyâs mind, thatâs why law enforcement treated him so leniently before and after his sentencing.â
In the years that followed, as Groff kept working for Epstein, she became aware of the controversy surrounding the plea deal. On March 25, 2011, her husband, Ike, emailed her a link to a story in the Daily Beast: âJeffrey Epstein: How the hedge fund mogul pedophile got off easy.â Groff replied, âYes, he told me yesterday this would be in the Daily Beast.âJeffrey Epsteinâs former assistant, Sarah Kellen, was photographed heading to an interview with the House Oversight Committee in Washington DC in May. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Then, in 2017, author Sarah Ransome filed a case claiming she had been abused by Epstein, and that this abuse was made possible by Maxwell, Groff, and two other staff members. Later that year, Ransome dropped the case against Groff and the other staff, and reached a settlement with Epstein and Maxwell the following year.
Groff kept working for Epstein until his arrest in July 2019. In his will, written two days before his death on August 10, 2019, he placed his estate into a trust to be shared among various friends and relatives, with the largest portion ($50 million) going to his last partner, Karyna Shuliak. Smaller amounts were left to Maxwell ($10 million), his brother, his pilot, and several other staff members. Under a section titled âAfter My Death,â Groff was listed in a clause that read:
âI forgive any loans I made to the following individuals or entities:
e) Lesley Katherine Groffâ
After Epsteinâs death, Groff was named in several lawsuits, including cases brought by anonymous victims in 2019 and 2021, which were later dismissed. As a condition for receiving money from the Epstein victims compensation program, survivors were not allowed to take legal action against Epsteinâs estate or former employees. By the time the program ended in 2021, it had awarded $121 million to 135 survivors.
Groffâs name also came up in FBI interviews conducted in 2019 and 2021. In the 2021 interview, a victim who was under 18 at the time described how Groff arranged her appointments with Epstein, which were massages that âturned sexual right away.â She thought it was âpretty obvious Lesley knew what was going on,â though she never said anything to Groff about the massages. She would tell Groff if a friend couldnât make it and suggest other girls. Groff, she said, also arranged for Epstein to pay for an abortion and for hotel stays. She mentioned telling Groff that she couldnât get an apartment because she wasnât yet 18.
The most notable case naming Groff was a civil lawsuit filed by Jennifer Araoz against Epsteinâs estate after his death. Araoz said she had been abused and raped by Epstein at his home when she was 14 and 15. In her complaint, Araozâs lawyer, Daniel Kaiser, claimed that âMs. Groff directly facilitated, and conspired with Epstein and others, to make possible and otherwise enable the sexual offenses committed against the minor plaintiff, Ms. Araoz.â In response, Groffâs lawyers, Jon Whitcomb and Michael Bachner, argued that Araoz had confused Groff with someone else: the alleged crimes happened at Epsteinâs house when Groff wasnât based there. They said Groffâs job âdid not include arranging sexual encounters with underage girls.â In fact, they argued, Groff was innocent and had âbeen wrongly blamed for years based on pure speculation, guesswork, and insinuationâlike, if she worked for Jeffrey Epstein, she must have known he was abusing teenage girls and must have been involved.â They stressed one key point: âShe did not know.â
On December 1, 2020, the case was dismissed. Araoz had withdrawn because of the conditions set by the compensation program, her lawyer said. âWe are not surprised the civil case has been dropped, since Lesley found out about these inexplicable crimes when everyone else did,â Bachner said at the time. âAs a wife and mother, Lesley remains heartbroken for Jennifer and all the victims,â added Whitcomb.
When I asked Bachner about the allegations in all the civil cases naming Groff, he said they were âsimply wrong, confused, and lack any facts showing she had any idea about Epsteinâs hoâHere is the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
…terrible and evil behavior. In fact, in some cases, the actions she was accused of happened years before Lesley even started working for Mr. Epstein. We should also note that every civil case against Lesley was dismissed, and she never paid a single cent toward a settlement.
Although all the civil cases were dropped, Groff was still under criminal investigation. But in December 2021, Whitcomb and Bachner said that after a two-year investigation, federal prosecutors had decided not to charge her. In her lawyers’ version of events, Groff did nothing, saw nothing, and knew nothing. Her ignorance was so complete that it seemed to become a solid thing, wrapping around her like a reinforced steel chamber built to withstand any attack.
4 June 2014, DOJ Epstein Library
From: Ike Groff
To: Lesley Groff
https://pagesix.com/2014/06/04/accusers-bid-to-reopen-epstein-sex-abuse-case/
From: Lesley Groff
To: Ike Groff
Oh man. I knew something was going on, but I didn’t know what. This could be bad.
Complicity is hard to pin down. It’s not easy to see or prove. The accomplice isn’t the main actor, but someone in the shadows. In his book Complicit, Christopher Kutz, a law professor at Berkeley, explains that a person can only be charged with a crime like conspiracy or aiding and abetting if their actions on their own meet the legal definition of a crime. Prosecutors have decided that Groff’s actions were not crimes in themselves.
Even if Groff’s complicity is no longer a criminal issue, it’s still an ethical one. Groff and her team of pilots, drivers, lawyers, and accountants helped the Epstein machine run smoothly without interruption. Everyone involved in his life, no matter how small their role, helped keep it going and contributed to its effects. Kutz writes that the idea of individual moral responsibility is too limited when so many serious harms are caused by many people working together. But that doesn’t let the individual off the hook: “Just because something is a collective responsibility doesn’t mean it’s not also an individual responsibility.”
So Groff was one of many people who enabled Epstein. Enabling abuse isn’t a crime, but Amos Guiora, a law professor at the University of Utah, is now pushing several countries to make it one. (Guiora is the son of Holocaust survivors. His first book was about the concept of the bystanderâsomeone who watches a crime happen right in front of them and does nothing, like those who taunted his father with water while he was on a death march in the former Yugoslavia.) In his second book, Armies of Enablers, Guiora wrote about people who enabled sexual abuse by, among others, U.S. national team gymnastics coach Larry Nassar at Michigan State University and Catholic priests in Boston. In every case, there were people who let the abuse continue by protecting the abuser or the institution, or by ignoring victims’ reports. They knew what was happening, even if they never saw it directly, and they did nothing.
For Guiora, Groff is a classic example. If she was making appointments and booking flights, she was enabling: “All this stuff can’t happen without her.” In that sense, she was just like the church leaders or university administrators who put loyalty to their institutions above their duty to victims. The only difference, Guiora said, was that in Groff’s case, “her institution was Jeffrey Epstein.” (When asked what Groff knew about Epstein’s crimes, Bachner said, “We strongly believe that Epstein deliberately kept Lesley isolated from his criminal behavior. He had no reason to confide in her and every reason to lie. Epstein lived in two worldsâone legitimate and one notâand made sure they never crossed paths… Lesley now realizes that Epstein made her the face of his legitimate world. It’s no wonder she was included in so many emails.”)
For some of Epstein’s victims, Groff…Her behavior speaks for itself. She was the one who set up their appointments, booked their flights, and handled their payments. “They were all deeply involved,” Rina Oh told me. “They can’t deny they were enabling.” Juliette Bryant wondered if Groff and her colleagues convinced themselves that the girls were models visiting from overseas, rather than facing the reality that Epstein had built a system of international sex trafficking. More likely, she thought, Groff knew something was going on but chose not to think about it. “A lot of people don’t ask questions.”
FBI interview, September 24, 2021
Groff is now retired and lives with her husband. She has a son. She enjoys exercising and listening to audiobooks.
Among Groff’s emails are hundreds exchanged with her husband, Ike, showing a wholesome home life far removed from the constant demands of her job. They plan dinners, discuss home renovations, the bank loan, and decisions about paint colors and window styles. They arrange play dates, football practice times, and summer camps for their son, and worry about how much time he spends on social media. Groff comes across as a devoted mother in the ordinary, all-consuming way. She worked from home when she could to spend more time with him and made sure she was home on his first day of third grade. In an email to a pregnant former colleague, Groff tells her to enjoy every moment because it’s the “best best best” part of life. Time goes by so fast, she said, and she found herself crying when she looked at photos of her son as a little boy. Having a child, she wrote, is “THE MOST AMAZING thing you will ever experience.”
After reading email after email, I felt like I was seeing things I shouldn’t. I found myself inside Groff’s private worldâher family, her home, the details of a life she kept separate from her job: the train she planned to take home, the burgers she’d make, the volunteer work she wanted her son to do. Yet reading these personal moments also showed how much someone can split their life in two. It’s possible to have everyday concerns, to deeply care for the people you love, and still willingly work for a terrible man who does terrible things. There was nothing special or unique about Groff that made her capable of this: anyone could have had their rĂ©sumĂ© picked from a pile and done exactly what she did. We like to think, from the safety of not being in her position, that we would have acted differently. But the ability to close our eyes to horror is probably nearly universal.
Still, there’s the question of why she stayed so long. When I asked Bachner, he replied: “Although Lesley considered resigning, Epstein was manipulative in persuading her to remain… She was awestruck by the quality of the company that continued to surround Epstein after his conviction, including heads of state, philanthropists, scientists, philosophers, past and present elected officials, and men and women of universal approval. Regrettably, Lesley, like so many others, was misled by Epstein and those complicit with him.” Later in the statement, Bachner added: “Lesley wishes she had never met Epstein and that she had resigned. Instead, her life has been turned upside downâincluding being viciously threatenedâsimply for doing her job as a secretary for a con man who intentionally misled her and kept her isolated from his criminal conduct.”
Whatever Groff knew, it seems she never seriously questioned what Epstein was doing or her role in it. Perhaps, as she performed her job as his social organizer, she felt her actions no longer belonged to herâthey were just carrying out his will. It didn’t matter what she thought about what he did, because it wasn’t her job to think, only to do what he wanted. This isn’t to excuse what she did or didn’t do, but to try to understand how someone can separate themselves that way.Itâs hard to understand how someone who worries about how much time their child spends on their phone could spend years arranging for girls to meet a man convicted of abusing children. And itâs even harder to understand why, through all that time, she never walked away.
When Groff goes to Washington on June 9, she wonât be the first of Epsteinâs former employees to testify before the House committee. His accountant, Richard Kahn, and his lawyer, Darren Indyke, were both interviewed in early March. Kahn said he made the wrong choice by continuing to work for Epstein after 2008, but there was a financial crisis and he had a family to support. Indyke said he âhad no knowledge whatsoever of Jeffrey Epsteinâs wrongdoingsâ while working for him. Kahn also talked about how it affected his family and said his reputation had been dragged through the mudâa situation that didnât seem to get much sympathy. (Democratic Representative James Walkinshaw accused Kahn of being âwillfully ignorant.â)
The interviews didnât reveal anything shocking or provide a sense of closure. But they did show the strange, stuck existence of everyone closely tied to Epstein who has avoided formal punishment. They may never be convicted of a crime, but they canât escape the shadow of being linked to him. Instead, they live in a kind of limbo, under vague suspicion, where the best they can hope for is something impossible: to live out of sight, have their names forgotten, and rewrite the past.
During her last weeks working for Epstein, Groff handled the usual tasks. She booked flights for [REDACTED] from San Francisco to Hong Kong. She followed up on a propane delivery to Epsteinâs island. There was back-and-forth about who was keeping a copy of some boat logs. Groff wasnât sure why it mattered, âbut the fact Jeffrey asked about it means something.â
On July 5, 2019, Groff emailed Epstein and several colleagues about a man named Pokey, who was supposed to have arrived on the island. âHe said he would be there 7am last we heard,â she wrote. âCan you confirm?â Meanwhile, Epstein emailed Groff and others complaining about some broken windows that were âmeant to swivel past each other so the ENTIRE window is open.â
The next day, Epstein would fly on his private jet from Paris to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, where he would be arrested on charges of sex trafficking of minors. There was no sign in the emailsâas Groff worried about Pokey not showing upâthat her bossâs entire criminal operation was about to collapse. It was just another day, filled with administrative tasks and the endless effort to make one manâs life go exactly as he wanted, minute by minute. Another employee replied to say that Pokey wasnât answering his phone. Groff, never one to back down from a pressing task in front of her boss, gave an order: âKeep trying.â
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about the book Seriously the Best Boss Ever A Look Inside the World of Jeffrey Epsteins Assistant written in a natural conversational tone
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 What is this book actually about
Its a memoir written by Sarah Ransome who worked as a personal assistant to Jeffrey Epstein The book details her experiences inside his world revealing the manipulation trafficking and abuse she witnessed and survived
2 Who is the author Sarah Ransome
She is one of Epsteins many victims She worked for him as an assistant and was also groomed and trafficked She wrote the book to expose the truth and share her side of the story
3 Is this book just a tellall or does it have a deeper message
Its both While it reveals shocking details about Epsteins operations it also focuses on survival resilience and how victims are systematically controlled Its a warning and a story of fighting back
4 Do I need to know a lot about the Jeffrey Epstein case to understand it
No The book explains everything from the ground up If you know the basic headlines youll be fine Its written for a general reader
5 Is it a difficult or triggering read
Yes it can be It contains descriptions of sexual abuse psychological manipulation and trauma If youre sensitive to these topics you might want to read it in short sections or with support
Intermediate Questions
6 What does the title Seriously the Best Boss Ever mean
Its deeply sarcastic Epstein would present himself as a generous charismatic mentor to his assistants but the title highlights the cruel irony he was a predator hiding behind a mask of being a great boss
7 How did Sarah Ransome get the job
She was a young aspiring model from South Africa She was recruited through a modeling agency that was a front for Epsteins trafficking network She was told shed be working for a wealthy philanthropist
8 What specific things did the book reveal that werent in the news
It provides a daytoday look at how Epsteins household ranhow he controlled staff how victims were recruited the logistics of his private island and how he used assistants
