Several women who survived abuse by Jeffrey Epstein gathered for a public service announcement video demanding that Congress release all files on the accused sex trafficker.
“It’s a call to action,” one of the women, Danielle Bensky, told NBC News on Sunday. “As long as we are Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell survivors, we also stand with so many victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.”
The public service announcement, produced by Unexploited World, directs the public to a link to send automated letters of support to their leaders in Congress. It comes ahead of Tuesday’s much-anticipated House vote on whether to release those files.
“A lot of people see our stories and want to find a way to defend them, but they’re not really sure how to do it,” Bensky said. “We really want to tell people that you can go out and do this for yourself and be a part of what is, in some ways, starting to feel like a movement.”
The video shows several women holding photographs of their younger selves when they met Epstein, the late prominent financier who lived in wealthy and politically connected circles.
“There are about a thousand of us,” says a woman in the video. “It’s time to bring the secrets out of the shadows.”
Epstein survivor Annie Farmer, whose sister Maria Farmer was the first woman to file a criminal complaint against Epstein, in 1996, emphasized that the release of the files is not a political issue but has been buried for too long.
“Please remember that these are crimes that were committed against real humans, real individuals. This is not a political issue. This has been going on for decades,” Annie Farmer said. “My sister Maria Farmer reported this under the Clinton administration, right? Mistakes were made in this case under the Bush administration. So many things have happened over the decades that were law enforcement failures in this case.
“This is not partisan. We ask that you support us now in releasing all files,” he continued.
Bensky said she was 17 and a budding dancer in 2004 when Epstein sexually abused her at his Manhattan mansion.
“When you look at how long this has gone on, we have to do something about it. And it’s really not political. It never has been for us,” he said.
Both women were among a group of survivors who wrote a letter thanking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for backing the effort to release Epstein’s files in a dramatic split of her party lines.
The women said the tone of the emails in a trove of Epstein-related documents that lawmakers on the House Oversight and Reform Committee released last week did not surprise them and that they hope it signals a new era of transparency.
“I think it’s the kind of misogyny and classism and the tone of some of these emails that really bothered people, it was something that we were all very aware of, it was part of this group and these types of conversations,” Farmer said. “I think it was really nice to see other people looking at that world and being disgusted by it.”
Epstein committed suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. Maxwell, his accomplice, was convicted in 2022 on federal sex trafficking charges and is reportedly seeking to have her prison sentence commuted.
While survivors have repeatedly emphasized that the Epstein case should not be politicized, it has been a political lightning rod on Capitol Hill.
President Donald Trump, who was mentioned in some of the released Epstein emails, on Friday ordered the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s involvement with financial institutions and political figures while taking aim at Democrats. Trump has denied any involvement in Epstein’s crimes.
Janine Eduljee, Hayley Walker and Jennifer O’Neil contributed.
