George Rush was one of the country’s best-connected journalists as the Editor of the New York Daily News’ Rush & Molloy column when he had an eye-popping encounter with Jeffrey Epstein. Almost two decades later, he discovered the much more sinister truth behind it in the Epstein files. In this riveting dispatch Rush describes how Epstein tried to manipulate the Daily News—and successfully kept Ghislaine Maxwell out of their coverage. And see his must-watch interview with Joanna Coles on The Daily Beast podcast by clicking here.
I got wind that Jeffrey Epstein might be on the prowl again in September of 2009.
A mutual friend had introduced me to Renee Morrison, a socialite-turned-amateur-detective who’d always found her Palm Beach neighbor more than a little creepy. Epstein had recently completed 13 months of his featherweight work-release sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Having endured evening sleepovers at the county sheriff’s stockade, he was now ensconced in his mansion on El Brillo Way, on probation.
Morrison, who’d immersed herself in his case, suspected that the registered sex offender was continuing to recruit local girls who needed money. In a withering letter to The Palm Beach Daily News, she denounced him as “one of the most notorious pedophiles in the history of child trafficking,” declaring, “We need Mr. Epstein gone.”
Some of Morrison’s suspicions were hard to stand up, but she did have a network of informants. She told me that at the recent Clinton Global Initiative summit in New York, Epstein’s alleged henchwoman, Ghislaine Maxwell, had been served with a subpoena to testify in a lawsuit filed by one of Epstein’s accusers.
Morrison pointed me toward an affidavit given by this accuser, then known as “Jane Doe 102.” She would later be identified as Virginia Roberts Guiffre. The affidavit alleged that in 1998, when she was 15, Guiffre had been working as a changing room assistant at the Mar-a-Lago Club when Maxwell introduced herself and told her she could earn a “great deal of money” as a massage therapist. The affidavit alleged that, on Guiffre’s first visit to Epstein’s home, Maxwell had guided her to a spa room where Epstein lay naked and where Maxwell “took off her own shirt...and started rubbing her breasts across Defendant’s body, impliedly showing Plaintiff what she was expected to do... The encounter escalated, with Defendant and Ms. Maxwell sexually assaulting, battering, exploiting, and abusing Plaintiff... [Afterward] Defendant and Ms. Maxwell giddily told Plaintiff...she had ‘lots of potential.’”
Hoping to write a story for the New York Daily News’ Rush & Molloy column, I interviewed Guiffre’s lawyer, Bradley Edwards, another accuser’s attorney, and Palm Beach’s tenacious former police chief, Michael Reiter. On October 9, I emailed a list of questions to Maxwell, with whom I’d once dined, and to public relations eminence Howard Rubenstein, who had represented Epstein.
The Billionaire In Epstein’s Web
At the end of a Friday, our editor-in-chief, Martin Dunn, informed me that Epstein had contacted the paper’s owner, Mort Zuckerman. I’d known that Zuckerman and Epstein had been partners in several media ventures. I didn’t know then how close they were. This was 16 years before the Wall Street Journal would report that Zuckerman had joined Donald Trump in signing a book celebrating Epstein’s 50th birthday, in which Zuckerman jokingly suggested Epstein had a secret family in Lichtenstein.
It was long before documents released by the Department of Justice would show that, in 2008, Epstein had begun a years-long quest to sell Zuckerman estate planning advice and that, a few months before my 2009 query, Epstein had offered to fix Zuckerman up with a “smart,” “beautiful,” “32-year-old” Italian architect.
DOJ documents also revealed the urgent emails that my queries triggered.
Epstein Lied In His Brooklyn Accent
“Please call me asap,” Epstein wrote to Zuckerman. Later, in a “proposed answer” to my questions, Epstein told Zuckerman that “no sex occurred” with Guiffre and that she had admitted to working previously as an “escort, call girl, and a massage parlor worker.” (Earlier in 1998, Guiffre, a runaway, had been recruited into a modeling sex-trafficking operation in Miami.) Epstein said it “would be wrong” and “defamatory” to publish the lawsuit’s allegations.
A few hours before my deadline, Zuckerman wrote to Epstein: “We r doing major editing over huge objections...hope to c copy asap.”
I expected that the story would be whittled down to a splinter or, more likely, killed. Instead, Zuckerman asked that we hold it and that I speak to Epstein the following week. I welcomed the opportunity. The press-allergic money manager had given no published interviews.
A few days later, Dunn and I had a conference call with him. In videotaped depositions I’d seen, Epstein spoke with a cultivated accent that matched the Harvard sweatshirt he’d bought. But that day he leaned into the blue-collar vowels of his native Brooklyn.
“I come from a working class [family],” he said. “I understand your readership… I understand the Daily News type of reader. I understand the charge of bringing in, attacking the rich guy, and I respect it. Your job is trying to sell papers.”
But Epstein suggested there was a “potentially more exciting” article. “Not only do [readers] dislike the wealthy, but they dislike lawyers,” he contended. “I think that’s universal.”
The story he had in mind would expose the “malicious fabrications” of his accusers’ attorneys, he said, especially Edwards. “Brad Edwards decided that he could make money off some of these women,” Epstein claimed. “You guys are allowing yourself to be used.”
Epstein professed that his accusers had led him to believe they were older, since they’d worked at “adult establishments” that “would require proof of age. Because it’s illegal to have underage girls anywhere.”
He denied ever having intercourse with any of the plaintiffs, despite an affidavit from Palm Beach police testifying that accusers reported they had.
He insisted that all the “massages” took place at his house. “So, any girl who came to my house was coming to my house to get money,” he said.
The state solicitation charges to which Epstein had pleaded guilty were part of a secret arrangement wherein the U.S. Attorney’s office had agreed not to prosecute him for federal crimes. But Epstein claimed even this plea deal was excessive.
In New York City, “the same [solicitation] charge, it’s a $100 fine,” he contended. “On closer examination, you’ll find that my penalty was harsher, not less, harsher than anyone else who has ever been charged with solicitation of prostitution.”
His victims’ civil suits were “all about money,” he said. “Some of the prostitutes got paid, and they simply want to be paid again.”
But why was he in the habit of hiring young “prostitutes,” even if he thought they were of legal age, as he claimed? The question made him sputter.
“My God, I can’t have that conversation,” he said. “I pled guilty to what I pled guilty to. I can’t talk about it anymore than that.”
“I don’t want to attack the character of the girls,” said the man who’d done just that. “It wasn’t very smart of me to go so close to the line.”
“Even if they ‘came willingly’ and ‘came to get paid,’” I asked, “do you feel like you shouldn’t have...?”
“No question, George. I look back with, you know, embarrassment at what had happened. It was – no good reason - I’m just looking to get my life back.”
He claimed he was currently focused on philanthropy, “funding minority charities locally. Look, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve always given back to the community.”
Much of his time, he said, was spent advancing mankind’s knowledge.
“I’ve collected some of the world’s smartest people,” he said. “I’ve funded some of the world’s greatest cutting edge, and bleeding edge, science... I have some Nobel Prize winners come here and they end up getting funded for some things that are hard to get funded for nowadays.”
I asked if he was still getting massages.
“I’m afraid not,” he chortled. “Most of the scientists who come here are in their 70s and 80s. They’re not that attractive.”
Epstein urged me “to be as skeptical as you want.” But he predicted that the alleged deceptions of his accusers and their lawyers “will come out and you’ll be able to write more about it. I think you’ll see it was not how it was portrayed.”
He was equally adamant that Maxwell “was never, never ever a part of it. She was actually gone before most of these instances happened.” He added, “I implore you to leave Ghislaine out. I’ll take the heat. She’s already fragile.”
He signed off. I felt that our 22-minute off-the-record chat had been a waste of time, a stalling tactic to keep his New York circle in the dark.
His Sinister Emails Exposed
During the next few weeks, I continued to report, reviewing flight logs of passengers on Epstein’s plane and other testimony. Somehow this got back to Epstein.
“Im told that george rush is back doing a story,” he emailed Zuckerman. To keep me on the right track, Epstein offered to share depositions showing “that these girls are admitted hookers.” He advised the paper to “wait” for his “exclusive.” That story came on December 7, 2009, when Epstein filed a civil racketeering suit alleging that Edwards had taken part in a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Edwards’ former partner, Scott W. Rothstein, recently arrested in a scheme to sell investors shares in plaintiff settlements, including a potential payout from Epstein.
“Does george rush have the balls to print the truth,” Epstein emailed Zuckerman.
The Rothstein scam certainly was newsworthy—Rothstein was later sentenced to 50 years in prison—but Edwards said he himself had been a victim of Rothstein.
Notwithstanding Epstein’s taunt to my “balls,” the essential “truth,” to me, remained his perdition. I compressed my research into a draft. To his credit, Zuckerman let it run. At his behest, the published article did not mention Maxwell.
It noted the Rothstein litigation but focused on Epstein’s recent settlement with the still-unnamed Giuffre, who alleged that for four years, until she was 19, she’d been made to serve Epstein’s “every sexual whim.” Giuffre, who in 2025 would take her own life, said she had been “sexually exploited by [Epstein’s friends] … including royalty, politicians, academicians [and] businessmen.” The article also reported that authorities were keeping Epstein under surveillance.
Epstein Pleaded to Keep Lies Secret
Epstein’s critics were pleased the story had made it into print. But three months later, Edwards gave the Daily News a massive migraine. I had told him that I’d had an off-the-record interview with Epstein. Edwards decided that the recording of that conversation could help the case of another “Jane Doe” client, as well as Edwards’ own defense against Epstein’s racketeering suit against him.
His firm served me with a subpoena and filed a motion demanding that I share the recording. The motion argued that the “unique” tape could prove that Epstein lied in a deposition about knowing me, that he had exhibited no remorse, and that he bore malice toward Edwards. Epstein emailed Zuckerman that, according to his legal team, he could press charges against me if, as a Florida resident, he hadn’t given his permission to be recorded—a courtesy he hadn’t offered visitors whom he secretly videotaped in his Palm Beach home.
Whether out of journalistic principle or kindness to Epstein, Zuckerman supported the Daily News’ shield law defense that the recording was a privileged conversation with a confidential source. After listening to the interview, U.S. District Judge Lawrence M. McKenna ordered me to surrender the recording or go to jail. “I hope you don’t have to bring pajamas to the next hearing,” he quipped in court.
Behind the scenes, Epstein was following the case closely. He also wanted to keep the recording out of Edwards’ hands. Following McKenna’s ruling, he emailed Zuckerman: “I’d appreciate the paper appealing the decision.”
The paper’s lawyers estimated that an appeal would cost at least $50,000. Our unhappy publisher reamed me for telling Edwards about the Epstein interview. Nevertheless, Zuckerman agreed to an appeal.
Then, perhaps because of the tape, Epstein settled with another “Jane Doe” client of Edwards. McKenna’s order to surrender the tape was vacated. Still, Edwards maintained he needed the tape to stave off Epstein’s “vendetta” lawsuit against him. New York State Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman ruled Edwards did not.
In 2012, Epstein dropped his suit against Edwards and, in 2018, reached a financial settlement in which he publicly apologized for trying “to damage [Edwards’] reputation,” admitting that Edwards’ “aggressive investigation” had been “highly effective.”
The Secrets I Knew Nothing About
In light of Epstein’s death in 2019, I believe it’s now in the public interest to share the interview.
DOJ files suggest that my reporting didn’t sour Zuckerman on Epstein. In emails during the following six years, they frequently express fondness for each other. They had regular dinners and breakfasts. (Note to chef: Mort’s a vegan.) Among other invitees to a 2013 gathering at Epstein’s townhouse were future Barclays CEO Jes Staley and future British ambassador (Lord) Peter Mandelson, both now casualties of their Epstein associations.
In 2016, Zuckerman marked Epstein’s 63rd birthday with a tongue-in-cheek note proposing a dinner menu that would include a simple salad and whatever else “would enhance Jeffrey’s sexual performance,” the New York Times reported.
Zuckerman, the former chairman of Boston Properties, has never been accused of any involvement in Epstein’s crimes. Dozens of emails suggest their friendship rested on Epstein’s ambition to be “the architect” of Zuckerman’s financial affairs. A 2013 draft contract proposes that Zuckerman pay Epstein $30 million for estate planning; the fee drops to $21 million in a later proposal. Neither contract is signed. Other emails suggest that Zuckerman went back and forth on Epstein’s proposal for a “total revision” of his estate. By 2016, when emails indicate Zuckerman was exhibiting memory loss, Epstein expressed frustration that the billionaire’s family and attorneys were resisting his offer to steer his legacy planning. (Representatives at Boston Properties did not reply to requests for comment.)
Epstein was still angered by the coverage he was receiving in the Daily News, which I’d left by then.
“how you could let your paper call me a pedophile.???!!!!” Epstein emailed Zuckerman. “I expect a public apology and a full retraction. I have been a close friend of yours for years.”
DOJ files show no reply from Zuckerman. A search of the Daily News archives found no retraction or apology. The paper continued to call him a “pedophile.”
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