Set to appear before Congress, an Epstein “potential co-conspirator” says she, too, was a victim

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One of the four women named as “potential co-conspirators” in Jeffrey Epstein’s sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors is breaking her silence to tell the world that she is also a survivor of his abuse — and that she believes law enforcement ultimately came to see her as a victim.

Sarah Kellen, who was employed by Epstein as a personal assistant for more than a decade, starting in 2001, has come forward on the eve of her appearance Thursday before the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door, transcribed interview.

In interviews with federal and state law enforcement and in other public documents, including civil lawsuits, survivors of Epstein and Maxwell have alleged Kellen handled some of the logistics that enabled Epstein and his abuse, including calling his minor victims to make arrangements for massages, escorting them to Epstein’s bedroom, and encouraging them to bring friends.

And at least some Epstein survivors remain angry about Kellen’s role. Earlier this year, Epstein survivor Teresa Helm told a British media outlet that Kellen groomed her for abuse and that she is still unconvinced that Kellen “didn’t know what she was doing.”

Kellen and her lawyers insist, however, that to the extent that she was involved in Epstein’s web, it was part and parcel of how Epstein sexually and psychologically abused her for more than a decade. They say Kellen is no differently situated than other survivors of Epstein’s decades-long predation of women and girls.

“I have no doubt there are countless women currently trapped in similar situations that could be helped by hearing my story,” Kellen told MS NOW.

Kellen’s lawyers said that while New York federal prosecutors investigated Kellen and initially sought to have her plead guilty to witness tampering, they came to understand that Kellen was victimized by Epstein and decided against prosecuting her.

Aside from brief comments to The Sun in 2020, Kellen has avoided the press. But she and her lawyers say they now want the public to understand how Epstein transformed her life not only through years of abuse but also by including her as his “potential co-conspirator” in his 2007 non-prosecution agreement.

That agreement was a critical piece of Epstein’s so-called sweetheart deal, which resulted in Epstein pleading guilty to two state prostitution-related crimes, serving fewer than 13 months in jail, including “work release” time and registering as a sex offender in New York.

Kellen’s lawyers tell MS NOW that Kellen was not consulted prior to her inclusion in the agreement, nor did she learn about it until after it was executed.

They say the non-prosecution agreement nearly destroyed Kellen’s life by portraying her as complicit in his sexual abuse and trafficking. As a result, they say, Kellen has endured nearly 20 years of harassment and threats that continue to this day.

“Potential co-conspirator”

Included in the 3 million-plus pages the Justice Department has published in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act is correspondence between and among Florida federal prosecutors and Epstein’s lawyers about resolving the federal investigation.

That correspondence reflects that as of mid-September 2007, as federal prosecutors went back and forth with Epstein’s counsel about potential plea agreements, they had neither subpoenaed, much less interviewed, Kellen.

Prosecutors even considered charges against Epstein based on his conduct toward Kellen.

According to people familiar with the investigation, mid-September draft plea documents published by the DOJ in redacted form reflect a proposed charge against Epstein for assaulting Kellen on an airplane in roughly 2005.

By the next afternoon, however, the lead prosecutor on the case, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie Villafaña, told a lawyer for Epstein she had received “some negative reaction” to charging Epstein with assaulting Kellen, “since she is considered one of the main perpetrators of the offenses that we planned to charge in the indictment.” There is no indication in the documents that Villafaña disputed the incident’s occurrence.

The next day, Epstein’s lawyer, Jay Lefkowitz, first suggested protecting four named “potential co-conspirators” — which included Kellen — from prosecution “for any criminal charge that arises out of the ongoing federal investigation” so long as Epstein himself fulfilled all of his own responsibilities under the agreement.

The non-prosecution agreement was signed by Epstein and his counsel on September 24, 2007. Gone was any conception of Kellen as a victim of Epstein, despite prosecutors’ consideration of her as exactly that just days prior.

Instead, the agreement contained a provision that echoed the first proposal by Lefkowitz: In exchange for Epstein’s guilty plea and his providing compensation to agreed-upon victims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida agreed it would not “institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein,” including Kellen and three other named women.

“It literally put a muzzle on us. It made us a target and made it impossible for us to speak.”

Sarah Kellen, referring to Jeffrey Epstein’s “sweetheart” plea agreement

In other words, the agreement tied Kellen’s fate to Epstein’s own. She would only be safe from prosecution if he kept up his end of the bargain. Kellen’s lawyers say she was neither notified nor consulted before the agreement’s execution.

Lefkowitz did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment about the plea agreement proposal.

Kellen says everything she knew about the investigation and Epstein’s sweetheart deal was controlled and manipulated by him, much as she herself had been. Kellen says she understood there was an investigation as of the mid-2000s but that Epstein told her it had arisen after extortion attempts by girls who had lied to him about their ages and “were in cahoots” with plaintiffs’ lawyers. (One of the lawyers for plaintiffs at the time, Brad Edwards, is now among Kellen’s lawyers.)

And while she says she understood at the time that Epstein had made a deal of some sort that resulted in his plea and jail time, she does not recall learning any specifics of that deal until after the ink was dry.

It was not until roughly two years later, when the agreement’s existence and terms were first publicly reported, that Kellen recalls learning that Epstein’s agreement referenced and labeled her. But she still did not comprehend how it would impact her for decades to come.

Kellen told MS NOW the agreement not only created a false narrative about her, but also frustrated her ability to correct that narrative while Epstein was still alive.

“It literally put a muzzle on us. It made us a target and made it impossible for us to speak,” she said.

“How was Jeffrey allowed to speak to them on our behalf?”

More than a decade later, in 2020, renewed interest in Epstein’s Florida deal led to a Justice Department investigation of potential attorney misconduct by Villafaña, then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta and others.

At that time, Villafaña told DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) that she agreed to include that provision because her office “considered Epstein to be the top of the food chain, and we wouldn’t have been interested in prosecuting anyone else.”

The 300-plus page OPR report does not reflect, however, why none of the federal prosecutors involved apparently pressed to speak with Kellen before naming her in Epstein’s agreement.

The report also sheds no light on why prosecutors were comfortable labeling Kellen as a “potential co-conspirator,” especially given their knowledge that Epstein had physically assaulted her, without ensuring the women had the opportunity to speak with federal law enforcement about their own experiences.