NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI gathered extensive evidence that Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused underage girls, but found little evidence that the well-connected financier ran a sex-trafficking ring that catered to powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.
Videos and photos seized from Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands do not show victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in a 2025 memo.
A review of Epstein’s financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no link to criminal activity, another 2019 internal memo said.
Summarizing the investigation in an email last July, agents said “four or five” of Epstein’s accusers had alleged that other men or women had sexually abused them. But, the agents said, “there was insufficient evidence to charge these individuals at the federal level.”
The AP and other media organizations are still reviewing millions of pages of documents, many of them previously confidential, that the Justice Department released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and those records may contain evidence overlooked by investigators.
Here are the takeaways from what the documents show about the FBI investigation and why US authorities ultimately decided to close it without further charges.
The origins of the investigation
The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported that she had been molested at the millionaire’s home in Palm Beach, Florida. Then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta brokered a deal in which Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Sentenced to 18 months in prison, Epstein was free until mid-2009.
In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the charges.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019. A month later, he committed suicide in his jail cell.
A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein’s longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she recruited several of his victims and sometimes joined in the sexual abuse. Sentenced in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Lack of evidence for conspirators
Prosecution memos, case summaries and other documents made public in the department’s latest release of records related to Epstein show that FBI agents and federal prosecutors have been diligently pursuing potential co-conspirators. Even seemingly strange and incomprehensible statements were examined, called to receive information lines.
Some allegations could not be verified, investigators wrote.
In 2011 and again in 2019, investigators interviewed Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who in lawsuits and news interviews had accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous men, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew.
Investigators said they confirmed Giuffre was sexually abused by Epstein. But other parts of her story were problematic.
Giuffre has admitted to writing a partially fictional memoir of her time with Epstein that contains descriptions of things that did not happen. She also gave changing accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote.
Two other Epstein victims whom Giuffre claimed were also “loaned” to powerful men told investigators they had no such experience, prosecutors wrote in a 2019 internal memo.
Photos and videos do not involve others
Investigators seized a trove of videos and photos from Epstein’s electronic devices and homes in New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They found CDs, paper photographs and at least one videotape containing nude images of women.
None of the videos or photos showed Epstein’s victims being sexually abused, none showed men with naked women, and none contained evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an email to FBI officials last year.
If there had been, the government “would have pursued any possibilities they generated,” Comey wrote. “However, we have not found any such video.”
Investigators poring over Epstein’s bank records found payments to more than 25 women who appeared to be models — but no evidence that he was involved in prostitution of women with other men, prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors considered charging some of Epstein’s associates, including an assistant and business clients, but ultimately decided against it due to a lack of evidence.
No customer list found
Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News in February 2025 that Epstein’s never-before-seen “client list” is “sitting on my desk right now.” But FBI agents wrote to their superiors saying the client list did not exist.
On Dec. 30, 2024, about three weeks before President Joe Biden left office, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate contacted subordinates to ask “whether our investigation so far indicates the ‘client list,’ often referred to in the media, exists or not,” according to an email summarizing his question.
A day later, an FBI official responded that the caseworker had confirmed that there was no client list.
On February 19, 2025, two days before Bondi’s appearance on Fox News, an FBI supervisory special agent wrote: “While media coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein case refers to a ‘client list,’ investigators have located no such list during the course of the investigation.”
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Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
___ The AP is reviewing documents released by the Justice Department in collaboration with reporters from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC. Journalists from each newsroom work together to review files and share information about what’s in them. Each channel is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.