By the mid-2000s, Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of teen girls was routine. From 2002 to 2005 alone, the late financier victimized “dozens” of underage teens by luring them into sex acts for payment under the auspices of massage work, some as young as 14, prosecutors said.

Epstein leaned on a coterie of employees and associates – including British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell – to secure a “steady supply of minor victims”. He also enlisted his victims to recruit other girls under the false pretense of providing massages, prosecutors said.

While the breadth of Epstein’s crimes is well-documented, papers in recently unveiled investigative files from the Department of Justice have put into sharper relief how he and his associates had an almost assembly line-like process for procuring victims.

These documents – released over the past week by a Trump administration under intense political pressure from both Democrats and Republicans – also make clearer how girls and young women were perceived as commodities: mere bodies meant to serve a predator’s twisted predilections – and possibly those of his associates.

US justice department says it may need ‘a few more weeks’ to process 1m more Epstein documents for release

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One document from 2001 described how Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding Epstein’s crimes, accosted three female students on a Palm Beach, Florida, college campus.

“Maxwell said she needed young, beautiful unmarried women to answer phones and do office work at her home on Palm Beach,” a police report stated. At least one of the students went to the house on several occasions and “described the telephone calls as men call[ing] in saying when they were going to drop of[f] particular girls”.

“All three girls said Maxwell and Epstein were secretive about what was going on at the house, and at least two of the girls complained about Epstein touching them inappropriately. They said Maxwell asked for a list of other girls who she could call to work on short notice,” the report continued. Maxwell “said she needed a large pool of girls to call as she did not know how many she would need at any given time”.

Investigative notes from 2019 describe what seemed to be a crisis for Epstein: his supply of girls to abuse was running low.

Notes taken by an FBI investigator during an interview stated: “Friends of [redacted] friends. Big Brazilian group. Desperate time” and “running out of girls”.

“Cant just bring girls he doesn’t like,” the interview apparently recounted. “Told her keep looking for girls.” At one point, someone witnessed Epstein “asking for ID to girl wanted to make sure under 18 b/c he wasn’t believing them b/c [redacted] messed up by bringing more older girls”.

The interviewer also noted the witness recalling Epstein’s comments such as “you know what I like” and “you know what I’m into”.

“Understood that to mean young petite underage,” the interview notes also said.

Newly disclosed documents also describe how victims were encouraged to source girls and young women for Epstein. During grand jury proceedings in Maxwell’s federal case, a law enforcement officer described one victim’s recollection of these requests.

This victim told the law enforcement agent, in effect, that Maxwell once said: “Do you know anyone who could give him a blowjob today, I don’t feel like it?” The victim also remembered that when Maxwell asked her to bring other girls, “they have to look young at least”.

This victim did not bring any girls or women into Epstein’s orbit, telling law enforcement that “she didn’t want anyone else to go through that”.

Another victim told law enforcement that she brought other girls to Epstein’s house. “She was told she could earn more money,” the law enforcement agent told grand jurors.

The victim said that this directive came from Epstein and Maxwell. “They asked if she could bring younger girls,” the agent told the grand jury.

These tranches of documents have provided still more insight into others’ potential participation in crimes that treated girls as objects to be used. One email dated 7 July 2019 states: “When you get a chance can you give me an update on the status of the 10 CO conspirators?”

In addition to Maxwell, one of the names mentioned in this exchange about co-conspirators is “Brunel”. Epstein was friends with a French modeling agent named Jean-Luc Brunel.

Police arrested Brunel in December 2020 at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on suspicion of crimes such as rape and sexual assault of minors, as well as human trafficking of underage girls for sexual exploitation.

Brunel, who was believed to have provided teens to Epstein, was found dead in prison about two years after his arrest. Authorities said his cause of death was suicide.

Documentation also suggests that Epstein and others might have shared child sexual abuse images with each other. An attorney representing a co-executor for Epstein’s estate wrote the FBI in April 2023 for guidance; they were reviewing documents and came across potential child sexual abuse images.

“Apparently the relevant video was shared with Epstein by an individual who was convicted of a child pornography-type offense and it depicted one or two topless women,” the letter states.

The potential casual transfer of child sexual abuse images was mentioned in an FBI file nearly 30 years prior. Maria Farmer, a fine-art painter who worked for Epstein in the mid-1990s, told authorities in 1996 that he “stole” nude photos and photographic negatives of her 12- and 16-year-old siblings.

Farmer, whose sister Annie was abused by Epstein, told the FBI that he “is believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers”. The case type was listed as “child pornography” in this report.

Federal authorities did not follow up on Farmer’s complaint. They did not recognize that she had reported him for possible child sexual abuse images; the public confirmation of this report came during Epstein document disclosures.