One of the scenes of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes was set up in court for Ghislaine Maxwell’s jury to see Friday: An expensive-looking but very worn and used massage table.
The table — seized by Florida cops from Epstein’s villa more than 15 years ago — was displayed while prosecutors questioned retired Palm Beach Police Lt. Gregory Parkinson about an October 2005 search of Epstein’s lair.
“Mr. Parkinson, what is the green object?” asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen Comey.
“That is a portable, collapsible massage table,” Parkinson answered.
Prosecutors say Epstein used the table to assault dozens of minors Maxwell brought to his Palm Beach villa.
The young women were taken to Epstein’s house to perform massages that escalated into sexual assault, the feds charge. Jurors heard about assaults from two witnesses during the trial’s first week.
Before seeing the table on Friday, the jury watched a 40-minute video with no audio of the execution of the search warrant. The video was not viewable to reporters or courtroom spectators.
According to statements the prosecution made early Friday outside of the jury’s presence, the footage showed multiple photos of naked women that decorated Epstein’s villa, and a “sexually suggestive” image of a prepubescent girl hung up outside his bedroom.
And the jury saw two famous faces on the video they heard about in earlier testimony.
“There is a picture of Pope John Paul II with Jeffrey Epstein,” Parkinson narrated to jurors, describing what they were watching on the video. “That is a picture of Fidel Castro with Jeffrey Epstein.”
The jury on Friday also saw a picture of two black vibrators recovered in the search named “Twin Torpedoes,” devices Epstein’s accusers have said he weaponized against them during sexual assaults.
Witnesses earlier in the week described how Epstein and Maxwell used the massage table.
Testifying under a pseudonym, the first accuser to testify, Jane, said Epstein and Maxwell sexually abused her at the table multiple times in the 1990s.
Describing the typical sequence of events that would precede an assault, Jane on Tuesday said, “It would be other people spending time at the house, sort of hanging out, seemingly casually.
“And then it was, once again, sort of, it seemed just abruptly everything would stop. And someone, Ghislaine or Jeffrey, would sort of summon everyone to, you know, follow to a room.”
“Where would everyone go?” asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe.
“To either Jeffrey’s bedroom or mainly the massage room,” Jane responded.
Jane said she met Epstein and Maxwell during a chance encounter at a prestigious arts camp in Michigan, of which Epstein was a major donor, when she was 14 years old.
In the years to come, she claims, the couple routinely sexually abused her and introduced her to Donald Trump, whose Miss Teen USA beauty pageant she competed in.
Maxwell’s lawyers grilled Epstein’s old house manager, Juan Alessi, on cross-examination about stealing money from the financier after quitting his job in the early 2000s.
During his testimony Wednesday, Alessi said that he knew of at least two underage girls who frequented the $18.5 million property during the decade-plus he worked as Epstein’s Florida house manager.
He identified one of the girls as Virginia Roberts-Giuffre, who has accused Epstein of loaning her out for sex with Prince Andrew. Alessi said he first saw Roberts-Giuffre one day when he drove Maxwell to Mar-a-Lago.
And the longtime staffer said he also met Jane, who Maxwell and Epstein instructed him to chauffeur on numerous occasions — once picking her up from school.
Alessi said he was tasked with cleaning up after Epstein’s allegedly abusive massages. He said that on numerous occasions, he removed soiled towels from the area and at least four times retrieved vibrators and other devices, which he had to hand wash before returning them to a wicker basket where Maxwell stored the items.
Also on Friday, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Alison Nathan reprimanded Maxwell lawyer Jeffrey Pagliuca for revealing Jane’s actual name. It marked the defense team’s second slip of the tongue since opening arguments began on Monday.
“You are admonished to carefully abide by my ruling,” said the judge.
Maxwell, who will turn 60 on Christmas Day, has pleaded not guilty to eight felony counts that allege she trafficked teenagers to have illegal sex with Epstein and lied about the conduct under oath.
The British publishing heiress maintains prosecutors have substituted her in Epstein’s wake, as he killed himself in a lower Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 and can no longer be brought to justice.
