Eyes on Epstein: The Island Lunch Comes Back

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The story moved this week because old explanations have entered new spaces.  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s testimony, a handwritten note that appeared five years and three months later, and the files continue to produce documents,  but the immediate pressure is now on the people who have to explain why their earlier versions are incomplete.

Howard Lutnick’s Island Lunch Finally Reached Congress

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick became the highest-ranking Trump Cabinet official to sit for House Oversight questions about his Epstein ties, and the session immediately turned on one problem: the island lunch that did not fit his earlier story. 

Reuters reported that Lutnick told the panel Jeffrey Epstein learned he and his family were vacationing in the Virgin Islands and invited them to lunch. Lutnick said he could not recall why the lunch happened in 2012, even though he had previously said he decided years earlier that he would never again be in a room with Epstein.

The most damaging part was the narrowing of the old denial. Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) told reporters Lutnick claimed that when he said, “I would never be in a room again with Jeffrey Epstein,” he meant only a room with just himself and Epstein. Walkinshaw said Lutnick was “perfectly OK with his wife and family being in a room with Epstein,” and added that the hearing should have been televised so the public could “see the sweat on his brow.”

Lutnick’s name appears more than a hundred times in the files, including many direct email exchanges with Epstein. The files show Lutnick and Epstein signed agreements on the same day in 2012 to buy stakes in a digital advertising company, and that Lutnick communicated with Epstein through Epstein’s assistant as recently as 2018. Lutnick has denied having a close relationship with Epstein and has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) called the testimony “embarrassing” and described Lutnick’s responses as “contortions and lies.” Chairman James Comer (R-KY) defended the voluntary appearance but also said, “It’s a felony to lie to Congress.” 

James Marsh, who represents some Epstein survivors, said the hearing did not provide “any real substance for identifying” alleged perpetrators of Epstein’s network and that survivors deserve “more than performative oversight.”

The Purported Suicide Note Appeared Outside the Epstein Files

A federal judge released a note described as a possible Epstein suicide note, and the first problem is where it came from. It was not released through the Department of Justice’s Epstein library. It surfaced through the sealed court file of Nicholas Tartaglione, Epstein’s former cellmate and a former police officer later convicted in a quadruple murder case.

A spokeswoman for the DOJ said, “The note has not yet been authenticated, and this is the first time the DOJ is seeing it as well.” Tartaglione says he discovered it in a book after Epstein was found in their Manhattan jail cell with a bedsheet around his neck in July 2019, weeks before Epstein died.

The note itself is short and strange and includes the line, “They investigated me for month (sic) — found nothing!!!” It continues, “It is a treat to be able to choose” the “time to say goodbye.” It ends, “NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!” 

US District Judge Kenneth Karas released the document while making no finding about whether Epstein actually wrote it.

Mark Epstein Called the Note a Forgery

The note had barely entered public view before Epstein’s brother challenged it. Business Insider reported that Mark Epstein called the document a forgery and argued that one of its phrases looked as though someone had copied language from Jeffrey Epstein’s emails that became public only recently.

That matters because the note is now being weighed in two different arenas at once. In court, it is a document connected to Tartaglione’s case. In the public Epstein story, it is being treated as another missing piece from the jail timeline. The note is unsigned and unauthenticated; Tartaglione claims to have turned it over to his lawyers after Epstein’s first jail incident because he feared being blamed for harming him.

Leon Black’s Private Appeal to a Federal Judge Is Now Public

The Guardian published one of the most revealing financial power stories in the Epstein file cycle this week. Leon Black’s lawyers privately reached out to Judge Jed Rakoff in 2024 to challenge an alleged victim’s credibility in an Epstein-related class action process. The Guardian reported that the move triggered months of court proceedings outside public view and led Rakoff to reverse a $2.5 million award that had been granted to the alleged victim in a separate Epstein-related class action case. She later received $200,000.

The woman, identified as Jane Doe in court filings, alleges that Epstein trafficked her and that Black raped her as a teenager. Black denies ever meeting or raping her and has not been charged. The same Guardian investigation reported that Black paid Epstein $170 million, according to a Senate Finance Committee investigation, and that Black says the payments were for tax and estate planning.

The most revealing material is the way the private appeal was framed. In a message obtained by The Guardian, Black wrote, “Not since my father’s death 49 years ago have I felt such pain and seen such hurt inflicted on those I love.” 

Jane Doe told The Guardian, “Justice is not always blind. It is often shaped by power, access, and who is able to withstand the process. I am still here. And I am not done.”

Maxwell’s Prison Camp Placement Keeps Looking Worse

Ghislaine Maxwell’s move to a minimum security prison camp in Bryan, TX, is now drawing scrutiny from people who understand federal prison placement. The Independent reported that prison consultants called the decision to house a convicted sex trafficker in that kind of facility “unprecedented” and “highly irregular.”

The placement already had political weight because it followed Maxwell’s meeting with Todd Blanche, who later became acting attorney general. Trump’s Justice Department has repeatedly faced criticism over the Epstein files, that Maxwell was moved to a low-security camp after meeting with Blanche, and that the move fed cover-up allegations. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for helping Epstein abuse minors.

Inmates Say They Were Punished for Talking About Maxwell

The prison story did not stop at Maxwell’s placement, shifting to what happened to women who talked about it. CNN reported that inmates at Federal Prison Camp Bryan said they were punished after speaking to the media about Maxwell’s treatment and conditions at the camp.

Former inmate Julie Howell told CNN she was berated by Warden Tanisha Hall and moved to a higher-security detention center after speaking out. The Telegraph reported a similar account, with Howell claiming she was reprimanded after criticizing Maxwell’s transfer to the minimum-security facility. The Bureau of Prisons has faced mounting questions over why Maxwell is there at all.

The Zorro Ranch Truth Commission Hired Outside Lawyers

New Mexico’s Epstein Truth Commission moved from concern to capacity this week. The commission hired the Albuquerque law firm Faddoul, Cluff, Hardy & Conaway to help investigate Zorro Ranch and Epstein’s ties to New Mexico.

State House Rep. Andrea Romero (D), who chairs the commission, said, “We are hopeful that this team of people can help us tell the story of what happened at Zorro Ranch. And in the enterprise of Jeffrey Epstein over the course of that time.” 

The commission has a $2 million budget funded by prior Epstein settlements, with $750,000 going to the law firm.

The commission is part of a broader reckoning in New Mexico over the fact that Zorro Ranch, unlike Epstein’s island and New York townhouse, had never received the same level of scrutiny. The state has already searched the property, but officials have not publicly said what they found.

Palm Beach Is Getting a Public Hearing

The Epstein investigation is scheduled to return to the place where the original case was first mishandled. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee plan to hold a May 12 field hearing in Palm Beach with direct testimony from survivors.

Officials said the hearing, led by Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA), is meant to provide a public platform for key witnesses in the county where Epstein’s 2008 deal allowed him to avoid federal charges for years. In April House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) vowed to hold hearings with victims after Melania Trump called for them in her White House speech. The Palm Beach hearing is now the next test of whether that promise becomes more than a press line.

Bondi’s Testimony Is Still Being Fought Before It Happens

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is now scheduled to appear before House Oversight on May 29, but Democrats are already objecting to the terms. In a May 4 letter, Garcia wrote that Democrats welcome the chance to question Bondi about Epstein, Maxwell, and the Justice Department’s continuing failure to produce the files under the committee’s subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The letter raises three concerns: that Bondi’s testimony must be filmed and released, that she must provide substantive and complete answers, and that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s role as her attorney raises ethical concerns because Dhillon is a current DOJ employee. Garcia wrote that failure to film and release the testimony would be “a grave injustice to the American people and survivors of Epstein’s crimes.”

Bondi had agreed to testify, while the May 4 Oversight Democrats letter makes clear that the fight over format is still alive.

Bard’s President Is Stepping Down After the Epstein Review

Leon Botstein is stepping down as Bard College president after an outside review of his Epstein contacts found that his interactions with Epstein were more extensive than his public explanations had suggested. A review by law firm Wilmer Hale found roughly 25 visits by Botstein to Epstein’s townhouse, a two-day visit to Little St. James, and two visits by Epstein to Bard.

The review found that the visits included “multiple women” later identified as Epstein victims. It also reported that Botstein had been warned by a senior faculty member not to engage with Epstein, and that he viewed “Bard’s need for funds” as paramount. The report quoted the view attributed to Botstein this way: “I would take money from Satan if it permitted me to do God’s work.”

The finding that hit hardest was the one about accuracy. WilmerHale concluded that Botstein “minimized and was not fully accurate” in describing the relationship. Bard’s board said Epstein-linked funds would be directed to organizations supporting survivors of sexual harm.

New York Survivors Are Trying to Change the Law Before the Estate Shrinks

Four women who say Epstein abused them went to Albany this week to urge New York lawmakers to remove legal barriers that limit civil claims against convicted sex traffickers. The testimony came before the Senate Codes Committee as lawmakers considered bills that would increase penalties and open a one-year window for older claims.

Lara Blume McGee, who encountered Epstein when she was 17, told lawmakers, “Our justice system allowed a web that protected the powerful, the wealthy and the well-connected.” 

Glendys Espinal said Epstein manipulated her into massages while she was in high school and that the estate has argued the statute of limitations makes what happened to her “worth zero.”

Kathryn Robb, a survivor and attorney, warned that delay itself is doing damage. “With each passing day,” she said, “the Epstein estate is shrinking, and with it, survivors’ ability to maintain or have meaningful relief is shrinking as well.”

What We’re Watching

The next pressure points are now concrete: the Palm Beach hearing on May 12, Bondi’s scheduled appearance on May 29, the release of any Lutnick transcript, and whatever else comes from the Tartaglione note now that it is no longer sealed. The strongest thread this week is accountability after delay. The people and institutions that once sat around the edges of the Epstein story are now being asked to explain the record in public, and some of those explanations are not holding cleanly.