BOOK EXCERPT: The Devil Wears Sneakers — Epstein and the network that allowed him to flourish

The release of the Epstein files was supposed to produce and resolve a metapuzzle. By ordering these documents to be placed in the public domain, legislators hoped the larger picture, concealed behind four presidential administrations, would eventually emerge. Emails would illuminate flight logs. Flight logs would illuminate meetings. Court filings would illuminate financial records. Thousands of fragments would combine to reveal a truth too large to be contained or camouflaged. 

But the metapuzzle was defective. The Department of Justice effectively backed a dump truck up to the gates of public scrutiny; discharged loads of emails, memorandums, legal correspondence, flight manifests and contact lists; and then stood back while journalists, lawyers, amateur sleuths, YouTubers, conspiracy theorists and political operatives descended in a feeding frenzy. 

Some pieces appeared to fit together; others seemed to belong to entirely different puzzles. Everywhere there were gaps: missing attachments, unexplained references, absent metadata, vanished communications and conversations that appeared to begin in the middle and end before they had properly begun. 

And there are roughly three million more documents that Blanche has refused to release, so it’s as though someone had emptied a jigsaw puzzle onto a table, removed an unknown number of pieces, discarded the lid with the picture on it, and then challenged the public to put it together. 

In her posthumously published memoir Nobody’s Girl, Virginia Giuffre described the social system that produced and protected Epstein as “corrupt to the core”. But systems emerge from institutions, and institutions are made up of individuals. If the fruits of the system were poisoned, then their roots, branches and leaves were also contaminated. In fact, the whole damn orchard was diseased. 

The ‘Epstein class’

The journalist Anand Giridharadas has described this milieu as the “Epstein class”: a constellation united less by ethics than by utility and influence – a self-protecting caste whose defining characteristic is the expectation that privilege should erase obstacles and open doors.

Money buys entry. Access is the currency of power: the private introduction, the discreet favour, the direct line to a president, the invitation to the right dinner or a seat at the table where influence circulates. Philanthropy often becomes the cloak that preserves this rarefied world, projecting public virtue while protecting private power. This is not to condemn philanthropy wholesale – many philanthropists give generously and selflessly. But too many “broligarchs” Botox themselves into philanthropists, using humanitarian causes to launder reputations, burnish their legacies and purchase not only influence, but the appearance of virtue itself. 

As Giridharadas observes, communities demand obligation, accountability and sacrifice, while networks are transactional, demanding usefulness. Epstein understood the difference better than most. He did not build a community. He cultivated a network.

You just have to follow the money, and probe Epstein’s trusts and shell companies established in Palm Beach and the Virgin Islands, to get a whiff of the stench of corruption. There are at least 31 shell companies and at least a dozen trusts. But apparently the most reputable financial institutions didn’t trust their noses – or, if they did, they weren’t speaking. Despite years of warning signs, JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank continued providing Epstein with banking services long after allegations of his sexual abuse became public; JPMorgan’s relationship continued even after his 2008 conviction. 

In civil litigation brought by Jane Doe 1, an Epstein survivor, and separately by the US Virgin Islands, both banks were accused of failing to identify, investigate or report transactions bearing the hallmarks of trafficking – including large cash withdrawals and payments to young women. 

The allegations included failures to file suspicious-activity reports and to apply appropriate anti-money-laundering scrutiny. Neither bank admitted liability. In 2023, JPMorgan agreed to pay $290-million to Epstein survivors, while Deutsche Bank agreed to a $75-million settlement. The cases represented a rare attempt to hold powerful financial institutions accountable not simply for handling a predator’s money, but for allegedly ignoring the warning signs embedded in it. 

The media played a more paradoxical role. At its best, journalism accomplished what prosecutors, politicians and regulators repeatedly failed to do: prise open a case powerful people had spent years trying to bury. Yet journalism had vulnerabilities of its own. 

Chronicler becomes Epstein collaborator

Researcher Ellie Leonard’s examination of the correspondence between Epstein and journalist Michael Wolff traces a gradual shift in roles. What began as reporting increasingly resembled collaboration. The observer became a confidant, then a strategist, slipping from chronicler to courtier. 

According to Leonard, Wolff first met Epstein around 2000–2001, when he travelled on Epstein’s private jet to a TED conference on the West Coast – a flight on which he encountered the financier surrounded by the young women who would become intrinsic to Epstein’s world. 

After Epstein’s 2008 conviction, their correspondence increasingly centred on reputation, media strategy and social rehabilitation. Leonard’s chronological reconstruction documents discussions of “catch and kill” strategies, counter-narratives celebrating Epstein’s intellect, business acumen and philanthropy. As Wolff seemingly became intoxicated by Epstein’s stench of corruption, the boundary between observation and advocacy grew increasingly blurred. 

Investigative journalism often requires proximity to dangerous, deceptive and compromised people. The ethical challenge is not gaining access, but preserving independence once access has been granted. 

Wolff travelled with Epstein, relied heavily on him while researching Donald Trump – reportedly recording more than 100 hours of interviews – and by 2017 had become an unlikely confidant of Steve Bannon, who was pursuing what correspondence described as an REP: a “Rehabilitate Epstein Project”. 

The evolution of the relationship is captured in an apparently trivial gesture. In May 2011, Epstein sent Wolff several pairs of his favourite sneakers, after which Wolff emailed Epstein’s office: “Just trying on the sneakers this minute – perfect fit. And nice cushion. Very much appreciate and look forward to my run tomorrow.”

On its face, the exchange is unremarkable. But in Epstein’s world, gifts were rarely just gifts. They cultivated familiarity, obligation and reciprocity. The sneakers were inexpensive. Their value lay elsewhere. By December 2018, the correspondence no longer reads like an exchange between journalist and subject, but between collaborators attempting to manage an unfolding crisis. 

On the morning of Saturday, 1 December 2018, Wolff writes to Epstein: “This thing as model journalism is one more element that could give it legs … I don’t think it’s a question now of directly de-bunking this … What I’d like to do is game out everything … Maybe we do agree to a big interview with you … this has to be war gamed out …’ 

Epstein replied: Do you think we highlight that at the end of the day it was prostitution. sex for money. a state crime. with state laws.’ 

Wolff: “At this point I don’t think you can go legalistic. They’ve won the high ground – young, vulnerable, poor girls.” 

Epstein: “im aware. im thinking what would Trump do.”

Wolff: “He never tries to explain. He denies, blames media, denigrates someone else.” And later he added: ‘Claims are ludicrous and self-serving, media is working with the other side’s lawyers, this is all about Donald Trump.” 

There is no meaningful discussion of the victims, no acknowledgement of harm, no moral reckoning. The women appear instead as a strategic obstacle. The conversation turns on messaging, media strategy and reputational repair, culminating in an attempt to cast Donald Trump, in Epstein’s words, as “the real villain”. 

We get a repugnant vignette of a powerful man treating allegations of serial sexual abuse as a public-relations problem – and a journalist helping him manage the fallout. Shape shifting the narrative through figures such as Wolff, Bannon and others became one of Epstein’s enduring preoccupations. 

The Epstein monster

To call Epstein a monster is accurate in one sense and evasive in another. The label explains everything and nothing. Across cultures, naming has been associated with power: in Jewish folklore, the golem is animated through sacred words and rendered inert when they are removed; in Rumpelstiltskin, the spell is broken when his true name is spoken. To name something is to make the unknown manageable. 

We do much the same with predators. We call them monsters because the word creates distance, reassuring us that they are fundamentally different from us. But the Epstein story resists that comfort. The danger was not that a monster had slipped unnoticed in among decent people. It was that a vain, manipulative, acquisitive, charming, cruel and deceptively casual man was embraced by people who should have known better. The systems that sustained him were constructed by ordinary hands. 

Whether Epstein was a psychopath is another question, and one that cannot be answered with certainty without a formal forensic assessment. Robert Hare, whose work transformed the modern understanding of psychopathy, describes a pattern of superficial charm, manipulation, grandiosity, shallow emotion, lack of remorse and habitual exploitation. 

In The Sociopath Next Door, clinical psychologist Martha Stout argues that people without conscience rarely resemble monsters; they often appear charming, successful and unremarkable, making their capacity for manipulation harder to detect. We look for the grotesque and overlook the persuasive. 

What creates such a personality remains contested, with research pointing to a complex interplay of genetic predisposition and environment rather than a single cause. But whatever psychological traits Epstein possessed became truly dangerous when amplified by extraordinary wealth, social prestige and institutional deference. 

A psychiatric label may illuminate aspects of his behaviour; it cannot explain why so many intelligent and influential people overlooked, excused, accommodated and even admired it. In the email trove of the Epstein files there are remarkably few messages condemning him – telling him what a despicable piece of shit he was, a malignant narcissist, a sick excuse for a human being. Instead, the emails, particularly those from some women, are often suffused with affection, gratitude and love. 

That story belongs not simply to one man, but to the world that allowed him to flourish. Perhaps the loudest image of silence emerges not from a sealed court file, an email thread or a deposition, but from a congressional hearing room. There sat former Attorney-General Pam Bondi, facing lawmakers, cameras and the nation. Behind her sat survivors whose lives had been irrevocably altered by the crimes under discussion. They had spent years fighting to be heard, demanding answers from institutions that had repeatedly failed them. Yet at the moment when acknowledgement seemed the simplest and most humane gesture, Bondi kept her back to them, refusing to turn even when asked. The survivors stood in unison, waiting. 

For decades, this has been their reality. Their experiences have been compartmentalised, minimised, disbelieved or ignored. Institutions have spoken the language of procedure: lawyers, liability, public figures, plausible deniability. But many survivors still navigate the consequences alone and in silence. 

Becoming part of a ‘we’

In Know My Name, Chanel Miller describes a similar loneliness. For years, she imagined herself wandering across a dry, empty plain, isolated by an experience that seemed impossible to communicate and harder still for others to understand. 

Then came a moment of revelation: she realised she was surrounded by survivors. She was part of a “we”. 

The women who challenged Epstein and the systems that protected him arrived at a similar understanding. Their stories differed. Their wounds differed. Yet what had seemed like isolated acts of endurance revealed themselves as part of something larger. Testimony found testimony. Memory found memory. Voices found one another. 

The orchard was indeed rotten to the core. Its roots ran deep; its branches spread wide, sheltering wealth, influence, privilege and power. For years, it seemed capable of smothering every challenge to its authority. 

Yet rot is not the only thing that spreads. For all its corruption, the orchard failed in one crucial respect: it could not kill the seeds of resistance. Nor could it silence forever those who discovered that their voices were strongest when joined together. DM

The Devil Wears Sneakers: Jeffrey Epstein’s Predatory Paradise in South Africa by Hazel Friedman (published by Jonathan Ball Publishers) retails for R340 in South Africa.