The Cops

Michele Pagan is now a sergeant for the Palm Beach Police Department.

In early 2012, at a reception at Mar-a-Lago, Detective Joe Recarey received the first Palm Beach Police Foundation Police Officer of the Year award-one of several honors he received in the course of his twenty-three-year career in Palm Beach. Two years later, he left the department and took a job as director of loss prevention for the Gold Coast Beverage company.

“I’ve been [at the Palm Beach Police Department] longer than my children have been alive,” he told a reporter for the Palm Beach Daily News when he left. “I’m going to miss a majority of the people I’ve worked with, and, obviously, I’m going to miss the work. This is my extended family. Like many families, you have disagreements with some family members. But you overlook that, and you work together and you’re a team. I’m going to look back and miss a lot of the people I’ve worked with.”

Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter left the department in 2008 after twenty-eight years on the job. He now runs his own security company in Palm Beach.

Jean-Luc Brunel

In January of 2015, Jean-Luc Brunel sued his old friend Jeffrey Epstein, claiming that Epstein’s fall from grace had cost him millions of dollars in business and caused him “severe emotional stress.”

The lawsuit claimed, “Plaintiff Brunel is emotionally destroyed as a result of Epstein’s actions and the resulting effects on his business. He has been on medications to deal with the effects of this.”

It continues: “Defendant Epstein recklessly inflicted emotional distress on Plaintiff Brunel by engaging in illegal conduct with under-aged girls, which was falsely linked to Plaintiff…This illegal conduct was extreme and outrageous by any standard.”

The suit went on to quote Brunel’s doctor, who said that the modeling scout had gone into psychotherapy “due to a subjective sense of depression related to what he believes is a loss of business in his modeling agency as a result of slander published against his business.” Brunel had gone on prescription drugs-Prozac, Rivotril-as a result.

The fashion world had frozen him out, he said, after his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein had become public. It had become impossible for him to find the “fresh faces” he needed for his agency, MC2.

Brunel acknowledged Epstein’s alleged crimes but denied his own involvement. “Epstein’s illegal activities were outrageous and extreme; they involved receiving massages from the under-aged girls while the girls were nude or nearly nude; penetration of the girls with a finger or object; or full intercourse.”

When the Daily Beast reported the story and reached out to Brunel for a comment, the website’s reporter was told, “Jean-Luc is not in town; he’s in South America.”

Brunel’s agency, MC2, is still in business.

Jeffrey Epstein

As of this writing, Jeffrey Epstein continues to entertain young women at his Manhattan town house.

EPILOGUE

When John Connolly, Tim Malloy, and I began work on this book, I had hoped to interview Jeffrey Epstein myself: to look directly into the eyes of the man we’d be writing about. Epstein declined to sit for an interview. Many of his friends and associates did speak with us on the condition that they not be quoted. Several of them still liked Epstein and made a point of telling us what a loyal friend he was-although, like Icarus, he seemed to have a fatal flaw.

If Epstein had agreed to an interview, these are the questions I would have asked him:

•You pleaded guilty to a single felony count of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Do you believe in your heart that you were guilty?

•In 2011 you told the New York Post, “I’m not a sexual predator, I’m an ‘offender.’ It’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.” Do you stand by that statement today?

•Do you feel you were treated fairly by the criminal justice system?

•What effect did your conviction have on your business?

•Do you believe that you’ve done psychological harm to the women-especially the underage girls-you’ve been involved with?

•Are you still in touch with Ghislaine Maxwell?

•Are you in touch with Prince Andrew?

•You’ve spent time with Bill Clinton as well as Donald Trump. How would you characterize the two men?

•Several people have described you as a very loyal friend. Is that a fair characterization?

•I’ve heard that Leslie Wexner removed all photographs of you from his home. Given how close you once were, have you reconciled or tried to repair the relationship?

•Did the thirteen months you spent in jail change you in any way?

•After your stay in prison, have you continued to seek the company of very underage women?

•You were ordered to undergo psychological treatment as part of your sentence. Are you under treatment today?

•Do you regard yourself as having a sex addiction, and, if so, have you been treated for it?

•What is your greatest regret?

•What do you look for in a woman?

•Last question. How well do you sleep at night?

Photos

Epstein’s Palm Beach property, 358 El Brillo Way (© Chris Bott / Splash News / Corbis)

One of the photographs captured on video during the Palm Beach Police Department search warrant walk-through of Epstein’s El Brillo Way residence (Palm Beach Police Department)

Jeffrey Epstein’s 1969 high school yearbook photo (Lafayette High School, Brooklyn, New York, 1969)

Jeffrey Epstein, Coney Island, circa 1969 (Anonymous)

Leslie Wexner, photographed at his home in New York City, 1989 (© Lynn Goldsmith)

(L to R) Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Tony Randall, who presided over a November 1991 YIVO Institute event at the Plaza Hotel to honor the late Robert Maxwell (Marina Garnier)

(L to R) Deborah Blohm, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Gwendolyn Beck attend a reception at Mar-a-Lago, 1995. (Davidoff Studios)

Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and (newly signed Trump Model) Ingrid Seynhaeve, attending the Victoria’s Secret Angels party at Laura Belle club in New York City on April 8, 1997 (Marina Garnier)

Virginia Roberts, age fifteen; photo reportedly taken by Jeffrey Epstein in New York City (Virginia Roberts Affidavit, US District Southern Court of Florida)

(L to R) Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts, and Ghislaine Maxwell; photo reportedly taken by Epstein with Roberts’s camera in Maxwell’s London town house. Roberts was seventeen years old at this time. (Virginia Roberts Affidavit, US District Southern Court of Florida)

Virginia Roberts, age seventeen; photo reportedly taken by Jeffrey Epstein at Zorro Ranch, his New Mexico property, in winter (Virginia Roberts Affidavit, US District Southern Court of Florida)

Jeffrey Epstein with Professor Alan Dershowitz in Cambridge, MA, September 8, 2004 (© Rick Friedman / Corbis)

On the day the police investigation began, Epstein was photographed with Ghislaine Maxwell in New York City at the 2005 Wall Street concert series benefiting Wall Street Rising, at Cipriani in New York City, March 15, 2005. (Joe Shildhorn / Patrick McMullen)

Jeffrey Epstein, photographed with Adrianna Ross, attending the launch of Radar magazine held at the Hotel QT in New York City, May 2005 (Neil Rasmus / Patrick-McMullan.com / Sipa Press)

2008 Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office booking photo of Jeffrey Epstein (Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office)

The Stockade, where Epstein served his sentence, photographed here in 2006, was located at 673 Fairgrounds Road in West Palm Beach, Florida. At the time, it was used as a minimum- and medium-security facility housing women and juveniles, as well as male inmates on a work-release program. (Smith Aerial Photos)

Epstein pleaded guilty to state solicitation charges and served thirteen months of an eighteen-month sentence, with liberal work-release privileges, in a solitary cell at the Palm Beach County Stockade similar to the one pictured here. (Courtesy CDC Special Management, Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office)

Epstein and lawyer at the West Palm Beach courthouse in June 2008 to enter a plea nearly two years after being charged (Uma Sanghvi / The Palm Beach Post / ZUMAPRESS.com)

Jeffrey Epstein’s entry in the National Sex Offender Registry (National Sex Offender Registry)

Epstein’s Little Saint James island, U.S. Virgin Islands: a privately owned cay (nicknamed Little Saint Jeff’s) whose owner locals affectionately refer to as Richie Rich (© Chris Bott / Splash News / Corbis)

Epstein’s Gulfstream, photographed on Little Saint James island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, January 2015 (© Chris Bott / Splash News / Corbis)

Epstein’s longtime pilot, Larry Visoski, was at the controls as Epstein’s Gulfstream left Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, January 2016. (Jae Donnelly)

When Prince Andrew and Epstein were seen strolling together through New York’s Central Park in 2011, shortly after Epstein’s release from jail, the duke was forced to quit his role as the British government’s global trade envoy. (Jae Donnelly / News of the World)

Stephen Hawking, photographed in March 2006 aboard an Atlantis submarine that was custom-fitted by Epstein to accommodate his wheelchair. Hawking was attending the conference “Confronting Gravity,” “a workshop to explore fundamental questions in physics and cosmology,” sponsored by the J. Epstein VI Foundation and the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics (CERCA) at Case Western Reserve University, at the Ritz Carlton, St. Thomas, USVI. (Courtesy CERCA, Case Western University)

A framed photo of Florida governor Charlie Crist and Scott Rothstein in Rothstein’s office in Fort Lauderdale, autographed by Charlie Crist: Scott-You are amazing! Charlie Crist (Carline Jean © Sun Sentinel / ZUMAPRESS.com)

Epstein’s current residence, the storied building formerly known as the Herbert N. Straus Mansion, on East 71st Street just off Central Park, was acquired by Leslie Wexner in 1989. (Laura Hanifin)

Epstein, a longtime benefactor, with an unidentified friend, attended the 2014 New York Academy of Art’s Tribeca Ball, presented by Van Cleef & Arpels, at the New York Academy of Art on April 7, 2014, in New York City. (Billy Farrell / BFAnyc.com)

Nadia Marcinkova, Michele Tagliani, Sarah Kellen, and Teala Davies, photographed at the New York Academy of Art’s Tribeca Ball, April 14, 2004 (Rob Rich / SocietyAllure.com)

Sarah (formerly Kellen/Kensington) and husband, NASCAR driver Brian Vickers, arrive on the red carpet at the 141st running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. (Jeff Moreland / Icon Sportswire via AP Images)

Nadia Marcinkova and Larry Visoski, Epstein’s personal pilot, in what appears to be the cockpit of a Gulfstream G-II (YouTube)

Michael and Janet Reiter at the Palm Beach Police Foundation Policemen’s Ball at Mar-a-Lago, January 2012 (Debbie Schatz / Palm Beach Daily News / ZUMAPRESS.com)

Retired Palm Beach police detective Joe Recarey, November 2013 (Meghan McCarthy / Palm Beach Daily News / ZUMAPRESS.com)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

James Patterson received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community at the 2015 National Book Awards ceremony. He holds the Guinness World Record for the most number one New York Times bestsellers, and his books have sold more than 325 million copies worldwide.

http://www.JamesPatterson.com

http://www.facebook.com/JamesPatterson

John Connolly has been an investigative reporter for twenty-five years, the last twelve of them with Vanity Fair. He has written scores of nonfiction pieces for numerous national magazines.

Tim Malloy is a thirty-year veteran of print and television journalism. He has won eight Emmys as an investigative reporter, documentary maker, and war correspondent. He appears in print, on the Web, and on TV as a political analyst.

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