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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVirginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent abuse survivors, dies by suicide
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/virginia-giuffre-one-jeffrey-epsteins-prominent-abuse-survivors-dies-s-rcna203027Giuffre, 41, died in Neergabby, Australia, where she had been living for several years.
Giuffre was one of the earliest and loudest voices calling for criminal charges against Epstein and his enablers. Other Epstein abuse survivors later credited her with giving them the courage to speak out.
She also provided critical information to law enforcement that contributed to the investigation into and later the conviction of Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as other investigations by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

hlthe2b
(109,672 posts)from severe threats levied on you throughout life, certainly would take a toll.
May she be at peace...
RainCaster
(12,833 posts)
spanone
(139,017 posts)
MLAA
(19,221 posts)H2O Man
(76,749 posts)Recommended.
canetoad
(19,006 posts)Virginia has been in the Aussie news lately. Marriage breakdown after something like 20 years. A minor car accident but she made some bizarre social media posts afterwards. Mentally, it was clear she was not in a good place.
JMCKUSICK
(2,287 posts)That abuse stays with us all our lives, especially those of us that haven't gotten therapy. Some of these wounds are decades old and what some of us need is simply to be believed, not even to be understood, just believed.
Please ponder that, it's much harder to do that than it would seem.
The_REAL_Ecumenist
(912 posts)REPEATEDLY as a toddler, (went on for at least a year and some change, 5 days a week), I'll always have that deadly wound in my soul. Until recently, I thought that I had somehow escaped the damage that brings because I have never abused drugs, alcohol, worked in the sex industry, had mental illness, etc ad nauseum, I was the rare lucky survivor. However, I have had SERIOUS health issues ALL MY LIFE including a duodenal ulcer I never knew I had, (until it perforated which resulted in COMPLETELY bleeding out 2x and being clinically dead for 45 minutes), I somehow survived a terminal diagnosis of metastatic cervical cancer, I have a crazy immune system that I'm trying to survive, (Diffuse Sarcoidosis that has morphed into Cardiac Sarcoidosis, Neurosarcoid, pulmonary sarcoid...it's EVERYWHERE!), onset of complex bilateral temporal epilepsy...I don't think that everything I've undergone healthwise is disconnected to what happened to me as a child. Add to that the physical beatings I suffered at the hands of my "father" & I should be shocked to even be alive.
hamsterjill
(15,828 posts)May I simply offer a hug, and welcome you to DU?
Reading your post it is obvious that you are a very strong individual. That's not to meant to be a badge of honor, but it's meant to encourage you to keep doing whatever it is that you're doing that works.
Wishing you peace...
The_REAL_Ecumenist
(912 posts)of DU for almost 20 years but following the cancer diagnosis, chemo and God only knows what else, I forgot the password for the original log in info. I was here when Andy fought his valiant fight against Pancreatic cancer, I remember when Khephra's mom , (if I recall correctly) delivered the sad news that he'd left us and so many other things over these last 2 decades.
The one thing I remember to remind myself is this: NO matter what happened, I SURVIVED & what those monsters tried to do, INCLUDING the thing I Laughingly refer to as "my father", (BTW, I'm the ONLY surviving girl...I have 3 brothers but I was the one he beat regularly), even though it is somewhat Pyrrhic, I WON!!
I feel that ANYONE who sexually abuses ANYONE but most nauseatingly, a CHILD, needs to be EXECUTED because in a very real way, a child who is sexually abused loses a part of them they'll never get back.
electric_blue68
(21,369 posts)I'm sorry you've suffered the original heinous abuse, and later physical manifestions of trauma. Not surprising where your cancer emerged either.
May you now be always cancer free, and as medical knowledge increases - your other medical difficulties be essed, or cured.
And welcome.
JMCKUSICK
(2,287 posts)Live through such abuse, much less survive it The_REAL_Ecumenist. I agree that physical manifestations of long past emotional/psychological traumas are as real as a sunrise.
All my life I've heard the "Get over it or past it" type of advice and it just destroys any sense of legitimacy that my past traumas affect me today in some ways like they happened yesterday.
It can be very difficult to understand PTSD for people that have it, never mind those who have never had it.
The triggers that freeze me exactly the same way they did when I was 5 or 10 or 15 and through my life. The physical dread manifesting with nausea or intestinal issues almost like clockwork when I see turmoil coming emotionally.
The hardest advice to give happens to be the hardest to take.
Please trust your instincts, gut, intuition, whatever you call it. Especially when you can't explain it rationally! As surely as a beaten dog will cower under certain conditions forever, we will also instinctively react to certain triggers.
Please know you are not alone, practice standing firm, especially when it comes to sense of personal safety, and please let those of us that can relate and even understand, in.
Love, John
LymphocyteLover
(7,957 posts)led to your health outcomes in some way. Thank you for sharing.
LymphocyteLover
(7,957 posts)toddler. Totally incomprehensible for most people.
What happened to your father?
Kid Berwyn
(20,357 posts)It’s a small world...
The ‘Epstein-Barr’ Problem of New York City’s Dalton School
JERRY LAMBE
July 13th, 2019, 10:50 am
Excerpt...
Epstein, who was charged last week by federal authorities in the Southern District of New York with sex trafficking with sex-trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex-trafficking, was a 20 year old college drop-out when he was hired to teach at Dalton by the school’s headmaster Donald Barr in the mid 1970’s. Donald Barr was the father of current United States Attorney General William Barr, who is currently overseeing Epstein’s prosecution.
According to at least one former student, Dalton alums have long joked about Barr’s hiring of Epstein..
“The joke has been [that] this is the Epstein-Barr problem at Dalton, said Harry Segal, a 1974 graduate who is now a senior lecturer at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medical College, in an interview with the Huffington Post. Epstein-Barr is a type of herpes virus best known as the cause of infectious mononucleosis.
Scott Spizer, who graduated in 1976, said that Epstein was most remembered for his “persistent attention” on teenage girls in the hallways, recalled a night when the young educator showed up at a party where Dalton students were drinking.
“I can remember thinking at the time, ‘This is wrong,’” Spizer said in an interview with the New York Times.
Continues...
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/the-epstein-barr-problem-of-new-york-citys-dalton-school/
Tradition.

MorbidButterflyTat
(2,963 posts)What a scumbag.
And, children are not prostitutes, they are victims.
electric_blue68
(21,369 posts)Scrivener7
(55,692 posts)LymphocyteLover
(7,957 posts)Roy Cohn and Jeffrey Epstein
kimbutgar
(25,062 posts)He so reminds me of Roy Cohn in his hate of everyone who isn’t white and his evil vibe.
electric_blue68
(21,369 posts)electric_blue68
(21,369 posts)yardwork
(66,587 posts)Horrible on all levels
mucholderthandirt
(1,498 posts)It just goes, generation after generation, with people getting worse and worse, and nothing ever happens to them, they're never punished. They're allowed to build massive amounts of wealth and power, and nothing is ever done.
I'm of the opinion that we're long past the time when the sane people in this country need to start weeding out this evil and giving them what they are due. It's not pleasant, and we'll need a crap ton of mass burial sites, but this world is never going to get better until it's done.
A good start would be to tax the uber-rich people into the middle class, and discourage any attempts to consolidate wealth. Yeah. I'm a dreamer.
LymphocyteLover
(7,957 posts)Epstein's blackmail ring... did he have a separate enterprise?
Kid Berwyn
(20,357 posts)Things get sick, scary fast when it comes to obtaining a hold over people. Epstein followed in the tradition of Roy Cohn, the Mafia and KGBCIAMI6WKWTF.
The Final Lesson Donald Trump Never Learned From Roy Cohn
The unrepentant political hitman who taught a younger Trump how to flout the rules didn’t get away with it forever.
By MICHAEL KRUSE
Politico, September 19, 2019
One of Donald Trump’s most important mentors, one of the most reviled men in American political history, is about to have another moment.
Roy Cohn, who has been described by people who knew him as “a snake,” “a scoundrel” and “a new strain of son of a bitch,” is the subject of a new documentary out this week from producer and director Matt Tyrnauer. It’s an occasion to once again look at Cohn and ask how much of him and his “savage,” “abrasive” and “amoral” behavior is visible in the behavior of the current president. Trump, as has been well-established, learned so much from the truculent, unrepentant Cohn about how to get what he wants, and he pines for Cohn and his notorious capabilities still. Trump, after all, reportedly has said so himself, and it’s now the name of this film: “Where’s My Roy Cohn?”
What Cohn could, and did, get away with was the very engine of his existence. The infamous chief counsel for the red-baiting, Joseph McCarthy-chaired Senate subcommittee in the 1950s, Cohn was indicted four times from the mid-’60s to the early ’70s—for stock-swindling and obstructing justice and perjury and bribery and conspiracy and extortion and blackmail and filing false reports. And three times he was acquitted—the fourth ended in a mistrial—giving him a kind of sneering, sinister sheen of invulnerability. Cohn, Tyrnauer’s work reaffirms, took his sanction-skirting capers and twisted them into a sort of suit of armor.
Snip...
“I decided long ago,” Cohn once told Penthouse, “to make my own rules.”
He was acquitted in ’64, and he was acquitted in ’69, and he was acquitted in ’71, all the while thumbing his nose at the feds, but Cohn’s screw-you stance was a lifelong philosophy, entitlement plus boldness.
He was “an incredibly spoiled princeling of an only child,” Cohn cousin David Lloyd Marcus told me. “He always got his way,” recalled his favorite aunt. As an adult, the resting expression on his face, which was marred by a scar that ran like a scrape down the middle of his nose, was a mixture of “arrogant disdain” and a “whipped-dog look,” people observed, “caught somewhere between a pout and a challenging glare.”
Continues...
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/19/roy-cohn-donald-trump-documentary-228144
An important picture that ties things from commie-hunting Joe McCarthy era to Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump via Roger Stone and Associates and the late Jeffrey Epstein:
The Ghost of Roy Cohn
BY TERRY MELANSON · AUGUST 24, 2014
EXCERPT...
In an interview with former NYPD detective James Rothstein, this author discovered that such operations do exist and go far back into America’s secret history. Rothstein is no conspiracy theorist. He is a legend in American law enforcement and speaks from experience. Furthermore, he gave me two notable examples from his time as a detective. Rothstein had an opportunity to have a sit-down with infamous McCarthy committee counsel Roy Cohn. During this sit-down, Cohn admitted to Rothstein that he was part of a rather elaborate sexual blackmail operation that compromised politicians with child prostitutes (Rothstein, no pagination). Cohn told Rothstein that this operation was being carried out as part of the anticommunist crusade of the time (no pagination).
Rothstein also had an opportunity to speak to infamous Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis. During this conversation, Sturgis revealed one of the reasons for breaking into the Watergate. According to Sturgis, there was a “Pedophile Book” hidden away at the Democratic National Committee headquarters (no pagination). The book was supposed to have a list of pedophiles on the American political scene (no pagination). One can only imagine the power G. Gordon Liddy would have held over the government if he had such a book in his possession.
I asked Rothstein if Roy Cohn was a real anticommunist or just using the fear of communism to justify his sex ring. It seemed like a fair question. After all, Cohn had argued against homosexuals being schoolteachers when he himself was a homosexual. Perhaps Cohn’s hypocrisy extended to his anticommunism. Rothstein made it clear that Cohn was a genuine anticommunist (no pagination). Anticommunist sentiments aside, evidence suggests that the sex ring operation started by Cohn was used for more than fighting the threat of domestic communists. Fugitive ex-CIA officer Frank Terpil has claimed that sexual blackmailing operations directed by the CIA were intensive in Washington during the Watergate era (DeCamp 179). Terpil also asserts that his former partner, Ed Wilson, was coordinating one of these sexual blackmail operations (179). In a letter to author Jim Hougan, Terpil revealed Wilson’s modus operandi:
“Historically, one of Wilson’s Agency jobs was to subvert members of both houses [of Congress] by any means necessary…. Certain people could be easily coerced by living out their sexual fantasies in the flesh…. A remembrance of these occasions [was] permanently recorded via selected cameras…. The technicians in charge of filming… were TSD [Technical Services Division of the CIA]. The unwitting porno stars advanced in their political careers, some of [whom] may still be in office.” (Qtd. in DeCamp 179)
According to John DeCamp, a former Nebraska Senator and Vietnam War hero, Wilson’s operation was merely a continuation of the one set up by Cohn (179). When I asked James Rothstein if Palfrey’s outfit was a continuation of the sexual blackmail rings that began with Cohn, he answered in the affirmative (Rothstein, pagination). The NYPD veteran made it clear that Palfrey’s outfit could not exist in Washington unless it was a tool for the power elite and sinister factions of the intelligence community (no pagination). Somewhere in a Queens cemetery, the corpse of a high-powered attorney is smiling in his grave.
SOURCE Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20170103005208/https://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2014/08/24/the-ghost-of-roy-cohn/
Original (busted): https://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2014/08/24/the-ghost-of-roy-cohn/
The same Roy Cohn who taught Donald Drumpf also schooled Roger Stone and Jeffrey Epstein...
... Who knew what when? In Palo Alto, after Epstein’s conviction, he was a guest at a dinner for the MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden that was hosted by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. At the same dinner Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. Is money so powerful that it tramples all other considerations? As James Baldwin put it, “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.”
One of the most remarkable moments in Tyrnauer’s documentary comes near the end, when it’s no longer possible to pretend that Cohn isn’t a liar and a fraud, when it’s no longer possible to deny that he lacks both shame and conscience. When Cohn was about to be disbarred in 1986 for defrauding his clients and for taking advantage of a dying and incompetent man, character witnesses began to emerge. There were letters to the court from William F. Buckley Jr., Barbara Walters, William Safire, and, of course, Trump, who wrote that Cohn “has been extremely loyal and extremely honest.” Were Cohn’s parties—was his protection—really that good?...
Source: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a29130905/roy-cohn-documentary-wheres-my-roy-cohn/
It’s conceivable Matt Gaetz got some learnin’ and now all his friends like Ka$h Patel, too.
Link to tweet
At the end of the investigations and the day, I hope America remembers Trump is owned by Putin.
When Dirty Russian-Connected Money Saved Trump’s Ass and His Ensuing Business Disasters Helped Destroy the Global and American Economies
September 27, 2020
Brian E. Frydenborg
As Trump’s taxes return to the news, here is the parallel context and setup where he went from failure on the verge of collapse to being propped up by money connected to Putin’s Russian government and the Russian mafia and then to failing repeatedly and spectacularly in those related business ventures, but in ways that allowed him to hide the dire straits of his finances and run as a “successful” “billionaire” for president in 2015-2016. And, oh, he managed to fail in these ventures in ways that helped to bring on the global financial crises and America’s Great Recession of 2008. As the house of cards image of Trump lied and cheated his way to building up comes tumbling down, a detailed look at that shady time when Trump was boosted by dirty Russian-connected money is essential.
Source: https://realcontextnews.com/when-dirty-russian-connected-money-saved-trumps-ass-and-his-ensuing-business-disasters-helped-destroy-the-global-and-american-economies/
Epstein, like the DC Madame, was ultimately operating for the Take — the deliverables being incriminating materials like photos, videotapes and sound recordings. Pee tapes, for another example.
allegorical oracle
(4,880 posts)“The maddening thing about Cohn and Trump,” Tyrnauer told me recently, “is that they have this sort of Road Runner-versus-Wile E. Coyote knack, where you think the boulder is going to fall on them and crush them and they escape just in the nick of time.”
Ain't that the truth?
Kid Berwyn
(20,357 posts)Loosely based on mobster Whitey Bulger and the corruption of the Boston FBI, the movie’s plot looked at a situation where the cops had infiltrated the crooks who had infiltrated the cops who answered to an infiltrated FBI who was answering to the orders of the most corrupt bastard of all, Jack Nicholson’s character based on Whitey Bulger.
To solve their problems, the crooks would metaphorically drop an anvil on the guy. In real life, he would get warned by his chums in FBI and escape Justice. Unfortunately for Bulger, the corruption was exposed. After conviction and imprisonment, a fellow inmate murdered him in prison. Like in Stalin’s day: “No man. No problem.”
LymphocyteLover
(7,957 posts)littlemissmartypants
(27,672 posts)
UpInArms
(52,747 posts)I am so sorry for all your torment
Mr. Evil
(3,288 posts)Just another loose end tied up.
Call me a conspiracy nut. I really don't give a shit.
hamsterjill
(15,828 posts)But I think it would always be worth looking in to.
I trust nothing much any more. I do wish her peace.
Mr. Evil
(3,288 posts)Especially when it involves anything or anyone remotely close to Jeffrey Epstein.
TommyT139
(1,391 posts)Reported in March:
"Ghislaine Maxwell 'wants presidential pardon from old pal Donald Trump' amid 'rekindling friendship' "
https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/ghislaine-maxwell-wants-presidential-pardon-1010218
AZJonnie
(819 posts)over the course of numerous court cases. She was no longer a threat to reveal information, IOW. In fact, without her testimony, Epstein might not be underground, and Maxwell might not be behind bars. Her tireless advocacy almost single-handedly brought them down.
Anyways Ms. Giuffre, I hope you pass gently, and thank you for all you did to bring Epstein & Maxwell's horrors to light.
Violet_Crumble
(36,252 posts)No, clearly some shadowy cabal out there is pulling strings and taking care of 'loose ends'. No wonder those wise Cookers hang out at Masonic Lodges and shriek at people going in. All the pieces fit together!
I'll just forget that only a few weeks ago she was involved in a minor crash with a bus and posted some very random and screwed up stuff about only having a few days to live. And I'll forget that she went full-on Trumpy, which is a very bizarre thing for an Australian to do, especially in rural WA. And that she had a very long history of being abused. And once I've forgotten all those facts, I can happily agree with you
ShazzieB
(20,649 posts)Why some people feel compelled to reach for a conspiracy theory instead of seeing the simple reality that's right in front of our faces is beyond me. This is heartbreaking, the end of a tragic life, and imo, making up stories to create unnecessary intrigue is disrespectful to the memory of this heroic woman.
Littlered
(255 posts)She had a lot going on that had nothing to do with Epstein. Conspiracy theories detract from the real issues of mental health.
Self Esteem
(2,147 posts)She called herself his number one fan and commented positively about her time working at Mar-a-Lago.
Clearly she was never able to overcome what happened to her.
live love laugh
(15,300 posts)LymphocyteLover
(7,957 posts)moniss
(7,235 posts)who took part in this are so protected speaks volumes even now about how the rich and powerful can hide and protect themselves after treating people like no more than a thing to be used. RIP Virginia.
usonian
(17,614 posts)about the perverse, abusive and secretive rich and powerful.
moniss
(7,235 posts)LymphocyteLover
(7,957 posts)ShazzieB
(20,649 posts)

electric_blue68
(21,369 posts)
DarthDem
(5,386 posts)May she rest in peace. I'm so sorry for what happened to her and the pain she was forced to endure.
Mme. Defarge
(8,713 posts)Scrivener7
(55,692 posts)twodogsbarking
(13,655 posts)no_hypocrisy
(51,520 posts)“I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape or form am I suicidal,” she wrote. “I have made this known to my therapist and GP – If something happens to me – in the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me [quieted].”
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https://nypost.com/2025/04/26/world-news/jeffrey-epstein-victim-virginia-giuffre-wrote-she-was-not-suicidal/
rurallib
(63,721 posts)Maybe Monday when there will be more eyes