On 9 September 2022, Lucia Osborne-Crowley flew from London to Miami and caught a Greyhound bus north to West Palm Beach. The writer and journalist had arranged to meet Carolyn Andriano, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell from the age of 14 until she was 17, starting in 2001. Andriano had been a crucial witness in the trial against Maxwell in 2021.
When the two women met, Andriano said she had just been visited by a private investigator – a man in his 60s, who had heard she was talking to someone about a book. In a restaurant that afternoon, Osborne-Crowley was approached by a man in his 60s. What was she writing, he wanted to know. He offered her drugs, cash and a meeting with one of Epstein’s pilots, then put his hands under her skirt. When the manager asked him to leave, he waited in the car park; Osborne-Crowley had to escape through a staff exit.
She had been following the Epstein case for six years by then and had written a book about the Maxwell trial, The Lasting Harm; this was just a taste of what others had experienced. In November 2025, 28 Epstein survivors released a statement saying many of them had received death threats. They all asked for police protection.
With Epstein dead and Maxwell in jail, who was paying these men? “It could be any of the people who are not yet facing charges,” says Osborne-Crowley when we meet. “Firstly, they can afford it. The weekend I was in Miami, there was a person following me, a person following a survivor in South Africa who was in my book, and a person following a survivor in the UK. Just so that we all were aware.” Two women withdrew from The Lasting Harm after receiving threats. “Ghislaine used to tell them: ‘If you ever tell anyone what’s going on here, no matter how far into the future, we will find you and we will stop you.’ And in a lot of ways, that promise was kept.”
Andriano died in a hotel in May 2023, eight months after Osborne-Crowley’s visit. The autopsy recorded an accidental overdose of methadone and fentanyl. It was a shock to those who knew her. “She’d been clean for so long and I spoke to her the day before,” says Osborne-Crowley. “It didn’t feel like she was about to relapse for the first time in 10 years.”
When the two women met, Andriano said she had just been visited by a private investigator – a man in his 60s, who had heard she was talking to someone about a book. In a restaurant that afternoon, Osborne-Crowley was approached by a man in his 60s. What was she writing, he wanted to know. He offered her drugs, cash and a meeting with one of Epstein’s pilots, then put his hands under her skirt. When the manager asked him to leave, he waited in the car park; Osborne-Crowley had to escape through a staff exit.
What the actual fuck am I reading here? The guy just walks up to a woman in a restaurant and sexually assaults her, people saw that happening, and he is only asked to leave?
Like, nobody thought it good to just slam this guy’s head to the table and keep him there until police had arrived to arrest him?
I think people like this are pretty good at reading the room and knowing when there is an opportunity to exploit the weaknesses. Perhaps they look around and see a bunch of people who’d most likely feel pretty intimidated. Perhaps they don’t really care what happens, so long as they leave the girl with the impression that they’re in charge.
No country in the entire world has a police or justice system that punishes the rich.
The Scandinavians sometimes do: a CEO once got a speeding ticket of 121,000 euro for going 75 in a 50 km/h zone. Not sure about more serious or financial crimes though.
Minor correction: Finland is Nordic, but not Scandinavian. It was arguably Scandinavian during the several hundred years it was occupied by Sweden, but that’s a somewhat touchy subject.
Vietnam executed one for fraud I think.
In Spain Iñaki Urdangarin, Isabel Pantoja and Julián Muñoz served prison terms for corruption. All of them very rich.
Are these sentences slaps on the wrist or proper ones similar to those for regular people?
I remember the whole show about Sarkozy in France: after the full 20 days in jail he was back to chilling poolside at one of his mansions with an ankle monitor.
Urdangarin:
In June 2018 he was sentenced to 5 years and 10 months in prison; he was initially imprisoned in Ávila, but as of 2021 he was on supervised release.
Pantoja:
She only served around 15 months
Muñoz:
After nearly two years behind bars he was released from prison in 2008 but was arrested again in 2013 for other offenses related to Operation Malaya.[4] Due to poor health stemming from his having diabetes mellitus type 1 he was in a less restricted degree of incarceration since May 2016
Right. Seems the same protocol there: convict them for their most minimal crime, do a show stint in a prison. Or allow them “exile” in Dubai like that king. This is not the same justice system as the plebeian one.
There are some, but they’re not the majority for sure
China
Yeah, also not a great country for many reasons
Can’t you literally buy your way out of murder there?
no, that’s the US.
They executed Bai Tianhui a few months ago for taking $156 million in bribes in his role as a financial services manager. If he couldn’t buy his way out of a bribery conviction, I’m not sure how much buying your way out of a murder would cost.
They also jailed the former justice minister 3 years ago for life for concealing his brother’s crimes and taking bribes, so I’m guessing that even if it used to be a popular option, it might be a bit harder now.
I suppose it was a thing I read about years ago, but I recall there being stories about rich socialite who drive around recklessly (often under the influence) and run someone over. They then go back and finish the person off because if the person dies you pay a monetary penalty (if you can) as opposed to paying medical bills/lawsuits.
Do you have recollection of that? Was it just rumor and hearsay that spread because of sinophobia or whatever.
I also recall several high profile US cases (because that’s the world I largely live in on the internet) where someone rich faces consequences because they defrauded the wrong people. Most notably Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes. That doesn’t mean the US system inherently works because of two cases, just a case of a broken clock.
There was a controversial article in Slate from a decade ago about “double hit” drivers killing people because of the perception that paying the compensation for someone’s death was cheaper than paying for someone’s lifelong disability care, might that be it?
But even if true, that still seems a little different than what “paying to get out of murder” implies.
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