Beginning at about 00:02:06 in this Ben Meiselas video, Michael Wolff recounts how Jeffrey Epstein showed him some photos of topless females “of uncertain age” sitting on Trump’s lap, one or two of which were laughing at the stain on his pants.
My question is, why did Wolff apparently not report this to anyone at the time? Or did he notify the authorities but nothing came of it? Were there insurmountable evidentiary hurdles due to the fact that a third party (Wolff), was describing photos that might no longer exist? I rather doubt that last point, though, because Epstein was clearly proud of the photos and had been storing them in a safe.
Does anyone have a legal obligation to notify authorities of a crime they were not a particpant in? AFAIK, They are of course, legally obliged to not lie or misdirect authorities looking into a crime about relevant information, or hide actual evidence, but no obligation to report what they see if they choose not to.
Mandated reporters include people with professions involving children, vulnerable adults, and emergency services (i.e., teachers, physicians, and police officers), while other states consider all adults to be mandated reporters regardless of their profession. Mandated reporter - Wikipedia
He knew, they all knew. If you were anybody in NY society late ‘90s ‘00s or ‘10s Epstein was either busy trying to get you to come to his island or blackmailing you with the foto’s of your last visit. Trump, Clinton, all of them. Anybody with eyes who ever visited an east coast fundraiser knew. (That is half the Senate floor).
Thanks for the answers so far. As it turns out, because we were talking about it earlier today, my wife looked it up herself and found that there was no definite reporting requirement in this case.
As for the other part of my question, would there be probable cause if Wolff had reported it? IANAL but it sounds like it could be verging on hearsay.
You and Princhester are saying the same thing, I think. Because Wolff wasn’t certain of the age of the women he saw in the photos, whether there was anything illegal to report was, thus, also uncertain.
Ethically, yes. Legally, no. I have experienced trying to hold a mandated reporter accountable for failing to report. The system couldn’t be arsed to even ask a question about it. Trust me when I say, all the law enforcement and court professionals I dealt with would very much rather not have to get involved. And they were much more pissed at me than they were at the perpetrator.
Yes, because even cursory investigation (without need of any warrants) wouldn’t have yielded tons of damming evidence within a couple of hours.
Passenger manifests either forged or showing old men and underage girls going to some private resort? Any investigation got told of by somebody too powerful to ignore.There were plenty of witnesses/survivors perfectly willing to testify to anyone who would listen.
Hiding behind “legal” arguments just shows the depths of the corruption.
This. If it’s uncertain whether or not they were minors then it is uncertain as to whether there was anything illegal to report.
While it’s well outside my particular legal expertise, even if the females were underage, I’m not sure that a photo of a topless underage girl sitting on a clothed man’s lap is evidence of a crime - not all depictions of naked underage people are a crime (or Nirvana’s record company would be in trouble).
And as to probable cause, again it’s well outside my particular legal expertise, but I suspect that if you go to the police and said “Epstein has some photos of topless females whose age is uncertain sitting on a man’s lap” that would be sufficient to get a warrant, since you are admitting you don’t even know they are underage.