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EPSTEIN SURVIVORS HAVE HAD ENOUGH  
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Mimi Rocah
September 4, 2025
MSNBC
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_ Trump's DOJ shoved Epstein's survivors too many times, and now they
are determined to push back and to demand justice. "We are here today,
and we are speaking, and we are not going to stop speaking,” said
one survivor. _

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An extraordinary thing happened Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill:
Survivors of the sexual abuse, trafficking and anguish
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by Jeffrey Epstein
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Maxwell
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two decades finally had their voices heard
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“I have to use my voice, the voice that had been silenced by fear
and shame for so many years,” said survivor Anouska de Georgiu.
Another survivor, Marina Lacerda, spoke publicly for the first time.
“Our government could have saved so many women, but Jeffrey Epstein
was too important and those women didn’t matter,” Lacerda said
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“Well, we matter now. We are here today, and we are speaking, and we
are not going to stop speaking.”

The voice of one person coming forward can spur more to come forward.

The survivors made their remarks at a nonpartisan rally hosted by
World Without Exploitation, an anti-trafficking organization. That was
followed by a news conference by a bipartisan group of House
representatives, with both events played live across major broadcast
networks. The purpose was to pressure politicians to back the release
of all the files in the government’s investigations of Epstein from
the Justice Department and other agencies.

But Wednesday was so much more than a political event. It was a coming
together of women and their families who have been repeatedly
dismissed, ignored and lied to over decades by a government and
justice system 
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should have protected them. According to Lauren Hersh, World Without
Exploitation’s executive director, some survivors in attendance felt
this was the first time they could talk about being exploited by
Epstein. As survivor Liz Stein said
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“We’re in a sorority that none of us asked to join, but we all
stand here today, stronger together, because our collective voice is
powerful.”

I saw Wednesday the same phenomenon I saw in the 20 years I was a
federal and state prosecutor working with victims of abuse: The voice
of one person coming forward can spur more to come forward. There is
strength and safety in numbers that these women and their families
have found. It helps survivors understand and internalize that it is
not their fault and they are not alone. You could hear it in their
cheers at calls of “no more” 
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see it in their supportive hugs and tears for one another. Their
mission is not only to demand that the files in the government’s
possession be released so that they can learn what is known about the
abuse they suffered, but also more broadly to ask that Americans wake
up to the alarming statistics about the sexual abuse of minors that
prosecutors like me are all too familiar with.

This demonstration of political
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almost entirely brought on by the actions of the very same people —
Trump and his allies — who are desperate for the issue to go away.
This group of survivors felt demoralized and diminished after
then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta inexplicably gave Epstein a slap on
the wrist
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2008 (Acosta would later serve in the first Trump administration). And
they have been treated with the same disdain by the current Justice
Department.

The only sliver of justice the victims have seen was in 2021, when
prosecutors in the Southern District of New York successfully
prosecuted Maxwell
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federal sex trafficking charges. Some of the survivors who spoke
Wednesday (including de Georgiu) testified in that trial despite their
fears. But now Trump’s Justice Department is reversing even that
smallest of victories.

This is not a hoax. We are real human beings. This is real
trauma.” 
Epstein Survivor Haley Robinson

First, the lead prosecutor on the Maxwell team was abruptly fired
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July. Then Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed Maxwell
and subsequently published their sit-down, giving her a platform to
lie about survivors’ courageous testimony. And Trump has not only
refused to rule out a pardon for Maxwell; he has defended his
“right to give pardons.”
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On Wednesday, the survivors repeatedly talked about being pushed too
many times and too far. Teresa Helm called Blanche’s interview
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and “triggering,” saying that Maxwell used the same voice for her
“lies” in the interview that she did when trapping young women
like Helm to join Epstein’s enterprise. Haley Robinson bristled at
Trump’s repeated labeling of Epstein’s abuse as “a Democrat
hoax,” stating plainly:
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is not a hoax. We are real human beings. This is real trauma.” Annie
Farmer expressed the survivors’ outrage
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finding out through press reports that Maxwell had been transferred
overnight to a “spa” prison in Texas after her Justice Department
interview.

For years, these survivors have been sidelined and silenced. But the
shoves and insults from Trump and his DOJ were the final straw. As
survivor Jess Michaels put it:
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once kept us silent now fuels that fire and the power of our voice.
… We are not the footnotes in some infamous predator’s tabloid
article. We are the experts and the subjects of this story. We are the
proof that fear did not break us.”

_Miriam E. Rocah is the former Westchester County (N.Y.) District
Attorney, and former AUSA and Chief SDNY. _

MSNBC [[link removed]] is a cable news channel that broadcasts
news and liberal political commentary. It is owned by NBCUniversal, a
subsidiary of Comcast, and is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in
Manhattan, New York City. 

* Jeffrey Epstein
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* U.S. Department of Justice
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