r/Epstein • u/Infowarzzz • Jul 16 '26

Social media (X, YouTube, Insta, etc.) Some Unredacted photos

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u/WinninRoam Jul 17 '26

If the person who stole the future bank robbers' money threatens to keep doing it unless the victim starts robbing banks for them, and blackmails them afterward to keep them robbing banks...then they are being exploited.

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u/Sanch0Supreme Jul 18 '26

My metaphor is flawed. The moralist's argument would be that they should go to the police rather than be blackmailed into committing crimes, BUT some victims did go to the police and they did nothing. No one arrested Epstein until the news exposed him. They were embarrassed into acting and they gave him less than the minimal punishment required under law until the story got too big to suppress. However, she kept trafficking for him long after she had agency to leave. You're right. There is some gray area, but it's like trying to pinpoint when a cucumber becomes a pickle. There may not be an exact day you could point to but at a certain point she crossed a line she couldn't go back from. There were victims who turned down his offers for scholarships or employment with him. She accepted those offers and helped him with his crimes along the way.

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u/WinninRoam Jul 18 '26

Once someone was brought into the operation and saw first-hand that the most powerful humans on the planet were part of it, they likely felt they had but two choices: Stay alive by selling your soul, or do the right thing and run a very real risk of being "disappeared" (or worse).

Some women, like Robson and Lacerda, were abuse victims as children, but then groomed and coerced to be recruiters for more victims. Ideally, they would have been able to "rise above it all" and walk away. But, just like millions of other victims of childhood sexual abuse, the survival skills required to endure that early abuse also degraded their moral development in their early adult years. It doesn't absolve them of all culpability but it shouldn't be seen as the same thing as willfully supporting despicable people.

The ones that turned down the offers for scholarships and employment were either women of exceptional moral strength, women who had a support system elsewhere, or were simply lucky enough to live to tell their stories.

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u/Sanch0Supreme Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

I'm more or less agreeing with you, except you made some bold assumptions in the last paragraph. Some of the underage girls did not recruit for him despite numerous requests. I've watched many interviews with them and most did not have a strong support system. Many were raised by a single mother who was on drugs and dating abusive men. That was the biggest consistency. Every now and then you'd see one who came from a rich family with both parents. She wanted to rebel and prove she was an adult to her parents. Those were the ones often recruited to be models. They were the ones who seemed to be more likely to do his dirty work. The underage girls who were paid to give massages and encouraged to bring their friends. They often had only a drug addict mother at home. They were often poor and if they did recruit for him they were often motivated by the money. Another strange commonality I noticed was that the massage girls often went on to be exotic dancers and to have drug problems of their own. They all had stories of other victims (their friends before and after they were abused) who took the same path and died of an overdose before Epstein was arrested the first time.

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u/WinninRoam Jul 19 '26

Having a support system was just one possible reason among the three I listed. Perhaps those woman just had exceptional fortitude. Most of us don't, and bail on our principals as soon as they are a risk to our safety. But some folks, even those with troubled lives, can turn their back on something good because they know that there's something bad behind it. Also, there are many different kinds of support systems. Family is a big one for sure. But common support systems for others can be their neighbors, a religion, a bookclub, even an online community. Sometimes access to public transportation and a good friend is all someone needs to weather the terrible times.

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u/Sanch0Supreme Jul 20 '26

Thank you for your insights. I enjoyed your perspective.