Trump barred Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago over sex assault: court docs
By
Priscilla DeGregory and
Aaron Feis
Jeffrey Epstein turned Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago into another of his
hunting grounds for young girls, leading Trump to bar him from the Florida resort, court papers claim.
“Trump allegedly banned Epstein from his Maralago Club in West Palm Beach because Epstein sexually assaulted a girl at the club,” according to the papers, filed in the Sunshine State as part of an ongoing legal battle between Epstein and Bradley Edwards, who represented many of Epstein’s underage accusers in civil suits against him.
The filing is dated April 2011, well before Trump ascended to the presidency.
The same filing also cites an underage Jane Doe’s allegation that Epstein’s girlfriend-turned-pal Ghislane Maxwell recruited her at Mar-a-Lago to be the couple’s “sex slave.”
Trump has previously praised Epstein as a “terrific guy” and, according to the filing, Epstein once welcomed Trump aboard his private plane, hosted him in his Palm Beach home and had 14 phone numbers for Trump in a computer directory.
But the
president on Tuesday distanced himself from the freshly arrested, convicted pedophile.
“I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” Trump told reporters at the White House of Epstein during an appearance with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. “I had a falling out a long time ago, I’d say maybe 15 years.
“I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
Messages left for Edwards, as well as Epstein’s criminal lawyer, Reid Weingarten, were not immediately returned.
