How Jeffrey Epstein Grew His Sex-Trafficking Ring – The New York Times Magazine

How Jeffrey Epstein Grew His Sex-Trafficking Ring

By Jen Percy
Nov. 15, 2026, Updated 9:07 a.m. ET

Marina Lacerda knew the friend who brought her to Jeffrey Epstein from the neighborhood. It was 2001, Marina was 13, and the friend was a couple of years older. They both lived near Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens, where people got dressed up just to walk around, stopping at the tanning salon, the shish kebab place and the barbershop, waving at friends riding up and down in their cars, pumping music. Marina’s block was “super Italian,” she told me. “Real Italians with plastic over their couches who were cooking pasta.” Around the corner were Egyptian and Romanian families, lots of Brazilian families like Marina’s.

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Some of the girls around the corner formed a Spice Girls group and made up dances. Marina wore bell bottom jeans, a T-shirt with flowers and white platform sneakers printed with the Union Jack. It’s what she thought Sporty Spice would wear. It was also one of the only outfits she really had. Her mom, who worked as a cleaning lady, would take her to a thrift store and Payless, and that was it.

Marina told her older friend, who was also Brazilian, everything about her life, including how badly she needed money. The friend wanted to help. “I have this really rich and powerful guy,” she said. “He’s really cool.” Marina could make $300 giving him a massage. The friend had met Epstein the same way — another girl from the neighborhood introduced her. “The only thing is you have to take off your top,” she said. “It’s like being in a bikini.”

Marina remembers taking a cab to Manhattan with her friend, because Epstein paid for it. She knew there were skyscrapers in the city, but she didn’t know there were mansions. She had never been in a rich person’s home before. She walked into the townhouse on East 71st Street wearing the same clothes she wore almost every day, looking like Sporty Spice.

Marina and her friend took an elevator to the third floor and waited in the massage room, where the ceiling was painted to look like the sky. She loved the sky! It was her favorite thing. When she was a little girl, still living in Brazil, Marina would sometimes get carsick on drives with her grandparents, and they would tell her to lie down in the back seat and look up at the sky. It always made her feel better. Her mom had already left for America, but she felt safe looking up at the sky, thinking about how they were under the same roof of stars.

Epstein walked into the massage room wearing a robe. He introduced himself as Jeffrey and told Marina he’d heard wonderful things about her. She blushed. She figured her friend must have told him that she was working three jobs to help support her mother and little sister, who was 5. He must already know she’d been going through a really tough time.

Epstein lay on the table with a little towel over him and talked to her, asking dozens of questions about her life. Where are you from? Where do you go to school? Where do you live? Do you have any siblings?

Marina was beaming. She couldn’t believe this rich man was taking the time to get to know her. She massaged his calves because he said he loved getting his calves massaged. Her friend was massaging his arms and shoulders. She already felt comfortable with Epstein, chatting as if with a friend. Then he turned onto his back and his towel slipped off. He didn’t put it back on.

“Can you take off your bra?” he asked Marina. When he reached for her breasts, she told him she wasn’t comfortable, and her friend yelled at her in Portuguese, saying she was being a stupid prude. Then she said in English: “I don’t know why you’re being annoying!”

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Source: How Jeffrey Epstein Grew His Sex-Trafficking Ring – The New York Times