“You didn’t see me run out of his house. You didn’t see me stare at the sidewalk cracks, so I could focus on something… We weren’t smiling and happy. It was so gross that conversation that I heard.”
This is NCOSE Survivor Services Coordinator and Epstein/Maxwell Abuse Survivor, Teresa J. Helm, speaking on the Justice Department’s interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell claims that she had never seen anything “non-consensual” and that the girls left Epstein’s house always “happy.”
What Helm and other survivors experienced was radically different from what Maxwell describes in her interview.
Over the past few months, there has been a news whirlwind surrounding the release of the “Epstein files,” which allegedly hold information about those who enabled Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s abuse, as well as sex buyers who had sexual encounters with young women and girls arranged by the criminal duo. Helm has expressed immense frustration with the way it is all being handled.
She said that negative public responses towards those who come forward about sexual abuse inhibits them from speaking up in the first place. Survivors often face smear campaigns, threats of retaliation, even physical violence. But there is another fear. One that is simple, yet grave, when it materializes: that no one will listen to them.
“Survivors are frequently silenced or glossed over. That goes far beyond Epstein/Maxwell survivors, but survivors across the board,” said Helm.
The DOJ Interview: “Disgusting”
Ghislaine Maxwell was recently questioned by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in an attempt to appease the public demand for information about who Epstein and Maxwell were connected with. Members of the public are throwing around the phrase, “client list,” but make no mistake: those who paid for sexual access to these young women, some minors at the time, are not “clients,” but sex buyers and abusers.
Given that Maxwell has already been convicted of sex trafficking and perjury, one would think an interview with her would be a little less forgiving. Instead, Blanche pitched her softball questions and rarely pushed back on her answers with more skepticism. At one point, in fact, he helped her.
The exchange between the two goes as follows:
Maxwell: Any time I saw anybody with him, they were happy to be with him. It just was — he’d be sitting there, and he’d have somebody massage his feet, or squeeze his shoulders, or — I saw that a lot… I saw physicality, but not anything that was — I don’t know how to characterize it, anything that looked aggressive, I suppose, to define that. I never saw anything that was —
Todd Blanche: Non-consensual
Maxwell: Thank you. Okay. I never saw anything that was non-consensual.
“He put the words in her mouth for her. He finished her sentence,” said Helm. “It’s just disgusting.”
Helm expressed frustration that survivors were not consulted in preparation for this interview to offer possible questions. Further, Helm stressed how insulting it was for the Justice Department to platform Maxwell on such a massive stage before giving the same stage to survivors who suffered at the hands of Epstein.
“She got this airtime and platform, her voice was elevated way before our voices were elevated here today,” said Helm at the D.C. press conference earlier this month, where survivors came together, calling for the Federal government to release the files, hold the sex buyers and facilitators accountable, and stand with survivors.
On the Epstein/Maxwell Media Coverage
With the high volume of media coverage on this issue, Helm said it has been difficult for her to see so many news outlets politicize the case. She described the battle for transparent accountability of those involved in the Epstein sex trafficking ring as a form of “political warfare,” rather than a righteous pursuit of justice for survivors of sexual abuse.
“Everyone’s raising political points non-stop. And that’s a big ongoing frustration for me,” she said. “As I speak, I try to speak down the middle because it’s not about politics, it truly isn’t.”
Politics aside, the massive amounts of attention that this case is getting is a product of the government’s inaction.
“If you’re not going to follow the process, you force us out there. To elevate, rise up, bigger and louder,” said Helm. “It’s interesting how people try to get us to go away when really it just encourages us to get louder. It’s counterproductive, if they would just follow the process to begin with.”
The government can keep dragging their feet to prosecute those who were involved, but at the end of the day, Helm said, it would be foolish for anyone to accept the lie that Epstein and Maxwell acted alone:
“From the young women that recruited me, there was a driver who picked me up at the airport. There was an assistant that made all the travel arrangements for me, there was somebody who made sure I had a fruit basket and snacks and things in the apartment building I was staying in.”
“Systems require lots of support,” Helm says. “This was an entire sex trafficking system. For anyone trying to claim that Epstein and Maxwell created, maintained, and perpetuated this entire system alone would obviously just be ridiculous.”
Survivor Voices are Making Waves
Despite the federal government’s failure to act on the Epstein/Maxwell case, survivors will not be silenced. Their voices are still ringing loudly, sharing the truth and inspiring action.
Just this week, we heard from a survivor who remained silent about her sexual abuse for nearly thirty years—yet was inspired to finally speak out by Teresa J. Helm and other Epstein survivors’ courageous advocacy. This survivor says:
“This morning, I was inspired by a clip of Teresa Helm on MSNBC discussing the ways the Epstein coverup is impacting all survivors and I felt seen and I felt the burden of my untold story…”
She proceeded to explain how she was groomed and sexually exploited by her 40-year-old boss at age 19, while working in a pizza shop in Ohio. She shared details of their abusive relationship— how he would brag to her about his abuse of other girls and women, how he would make her feel guilty about going to class or studying, how he would throw out her birth control pills … She stayed silent for decades until, finally, the Epstein coverup moved her to tell her story.
“I’ve been triggered by … the lack of justice, not just now but for decades—and of course being someone who never had a path for justice, it’s really burned,” this brave survivor says. “The most disheartening thing about it is knowing that has been going on from the very top to the very bottom of society. It’s going on with these billionaires that people like Epstein and Maxwell pander to and it’s going on in the backrooms of pizza shops in rural Ohio … That’s why my story became too heavy to keep to myself this morning. I wanted to add it to the chorus. My hope is: more stories, more voices, less violence.“
Share the Truth!
Counter the harmful politicized narratives around the Epstein/Maxwell issue by sharing this podcast episode with Teresa J. Helm:
