One ofJeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistants told members of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday that she did not know about the late convicted sex offender’s crimes, describing him as a master manipulator who had every reason to keep them a secret from her, according to two sources familiar with the testimony.
As a way to try to demonstrate her ignorance about Epstein’s wrongdoing, Lesley Groff, Epstein’s former executive assistant, said she believed the massage appointments she made for Epstein with young women and girls were with massage therapists, the sources said.
“I want to say without any doubt that I have come to believe the man who employed me from February of 2001 through July of 2019 was a monster. For 18 years, I worked for Dr. Jekyll but was never permitted to see the true Mr. Hyde,” Groff said in her opening statement, later obtained by CNN.
“Mr. Epstein was, in hindsight, a master manipulator and deceiver who separated his legitimate life from his secret life as an abuser, and made sure, that as his secretary, those two worlds did not collide.”
Groff is one of the most notable members of the late financier’s inner orbit to speak to Congress as part of its Epstein investigation — a ubiquitous assistant who helped manage every aspect of Epstein’s life from appointments with women to meetings with powerful individuals, as evidenced in the Justice Department’s millions of Epstein files.
As part of her opening remarks, she recounted to the investigative panel how massage appointments were booked and claimed to have never met any of the women involved.
“These calls lasted literally a few seconds. ‘Hi, this is Lesley calling for Mr. Epstein. Are you available for a massage at 4:00?’” Groff told lawmakers. “None of these women or anyone else ever told me they were minors; or that they were sexually abused. Nothing I heard or saw led me to believe otherwise.”
She would have never remained silent, she said, if she knew of Epstein’s crimes.
Groff told lawmakers during the hour-long interview that she was not sexually abused by Epstein, one of the sources said. She said she did not need her job with Epstein and testified that both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell told her that she should not associate with their friends and colleagues, insisting their business was none of hers.
Since Epstein’s arrest, Groff, who has largely stayed out of the spotlight, told lawmakers she’s been shunned by friends, received death threats and her family has been harassed.
Groff addressed Epstein’s survivors in her opening statement, testifying that her “heart breaks for these women.”
“I believe them. Words cannot express how badly feel that I was employed by Mr. Epstein during the time he abused these women. I will live with this horrible feeling for the rest of my life,” she told lawmakers of the survivors.
But Groff’s denial that she had any knowledge about Epstein’s wrongdoing was immediately met with condemnation from survivors.
Sharlene Rochard expressed skepticism that Groff would not have been aware of Epstein’s crimes.
“One of the hardest parts for survivors is hearing the people who were closest to Epstein claim they saw nothing,” Rochard told CNN. “That doesn’t match my experience. Survivors deserve answers, not claims of ignorance.”
