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A central witness who provided critical evidence in the case against late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 spoke publicly for the first time during an exclusive interview with ABC News this week.
Marina Lacerda, 37, who was identified in the Epstein indictment as 'Minor-Victim 1' and provided information that led to his conviction, is calling on lawmakers and President Donald Trump's administration to release records related to the case in order to help victims of his sex trafficking of minors heal.
"I would like for them to give all the victims transparency, right, to what happened and release these files. It's also not only for the victims, but for the American people," Lacerda told ABC News' Linsey Davis.
Lacerda was initially contacted by federal investigators in 2008, however, Epstein secured a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors before she could tell a grand jury about her allegations of childhood sex abuse against him. Investigators contacted her again 10 years later, at which point she provided information to build a case that charged the disgraced New York financier with sex trafficking minors.
Lacerda, who immigrated from Brazil, said she met Epstein when she was 14 years old in 2002, at which point she was recruited to provide a massage to him, which ultimately led to years of sexual abuse.
"His house was a revolving door. There was always girls," she told ABC News. "If he was in New York, he had his week prepped to see as many girls as possible. I would say he was seeing about five to maybe eight women, maybe even more, maybe up to 10 women a day."
Trump, whose name reportedly appeared seven times in Epstein's flight logs, and his administration have recently faced scrutiny for not releasing more information about the Epstein files, which led to the president publicly directing Bondi to release "pertinent" grand jury testimony. On July 16, Quinnipiac University released a poll showing a majority of Americans (63%) disapproved how Trump and his administration had handled the Epstein files.
Podcaster Joe Rogan, who staunchly supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election, criticized the administration's announcement claiming there was never a list or footage revealing Epstein's alleged clients, which was a talking point of conservative pundits for years.
“They’ve got videotape and all [of] a sudden they don’t,” Rogan said on the episode of his Joe Rogan Experience podcast released on July 15.
“You had the director of the FBI on this show saying, ‘If there was [a videotape], nothing you’re looking for is on those tapes,'” he added, referring to FBI Director Kash Patel's appearance on his podcast in June. “Like, what? Why’d they say there was thousands of hours of tapes of people doing horrible s–t? Why’d they say that? Didn’t Pam Bondi say that?"
Bondi had previously claimed that the supposed Epstein list was on her desk awaiting review months ago and told reporters that the FBI was reviewing "tens of thousands of videos" of Epstein "with children or child porn" on July 1 before the DOJ suddenly announced that there was no "Epstein list" or incriminating footage of his associates days later. President Trump spent months claiming he had plans to release everything the government had on Epstein and his alleged associates, which included releasing The Epstein Files: Phase 1 in February, though the files revealed next to no new information.