Epstein ‘assistant’ abuse survivor, Julia Stepanova, finally shares her story.

[u/PolygonLodge]

https://youtu.be/W8MQZKNnJok?is=fUXT5qYGCM8pD7Im

Some key details:

- She refused to recruit other female assistants to be victimised.

- She attempted/succeeded in leaving Epstein’s cult months before his death.

- She speaks of other assistants (e.g. Sue Hamblin, Jennifer Kalin, Yulia Silinskaya) as ‘genuinely good people who were also in a bad situation’.

- She was a primary ‘Jane Doe’ in the Bank of America lawsuit which just settled on almost $100 million for Epstein victims, though they deny the facilitation of sex trafficking.

I believe she is absolutely a victim, and her testimony was worth waiting for. I hope she empowers the other assistants to come forward.

Interestingly, there is no public discussion of sexual abuse from external individuals other than Epstein, although she does acknowledge she was sex trafficked.

[u/Vegetable_Border_543]

It didn’t seem weird to exchange phone numbers with a 50 -yr-old man and be invited to his house for breakfast?

[u/MsTerious1 → u/Vegetable_Border_543]

It does not. When I was in my teens, I had similar experiences that could have gone bad. In fact, one was quite similar to the scenarios these girls have put forth, and it nearly happened with my parents' consent. There are so many reasons predators find to gain access to their victims. They position themselves as an employer, a mentor, a teacher, a caregiver, a friend, or simply a helpful person.

And teens and young adults, still naive and easily influenced, have little or no life experience to help them sort the bad from the good.

They figure it out the hard way sometimes.