Ava Cordero

Biography

The American financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ran a ring of female sex traffickers, who were tasked with recruiting underage females into his orbit for his sexual gratification. His close friend and associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was the chief recruiter and some-time participant in his crimes. The New York Times in 2019 reported that Sarah Kellen, Lesley Groff, Adriana Ross and Nadia Marcinkova were part of the Epstein system, as well as Haley Robson, and published that "Recruiters were allegedly told to target young, financially desperate women, and to promise them help furthering their education and careers." Rina Oh is another Epstein recruiter who spoke to the press in 2021. Kellen, Groff, Ross and Marcinkova were listed as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the Acosta 2007 plea deal; when Judge Alison Nathan sentenced Maxwell in 2022, she described Kellen as "a knowing participant in the criminal conspiracy" and said she was "a criminally responsible participant". Journalist Nick Bryant maintained in an October 2024 interview with Shawn Ryan that Epstein trafficked girls below the age of 10 in part from places like Yugoslavia, which in the 1990s was undergoing a particularly brutal civil war. In 2021, Politico magazine wrote:

Epstein essentially was running an enterprise at Royal Palm Beach High School. According to victim testimony given to the Palm Beach police, each teen would earn around $200 if she brought a new friend to Epstein. This spread throughout the school. Although Palm Beach is known for its wealth, surrounding towns are less affluent. For girls from underprivileged families, $200 was a big deal... According to a Palm Beach police report, Epstein once told a victim that he had purchased Marcinkova at age 15 from her family in Yugoslavia to be his sex slave. Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, the co-executors of Epstein's estate, have inserted a clause in the estate's victim compensation fund whereby applicants cannot sue Epstein's employees.

== Cordero v. Epstein (2007) == On October 16, 2007, Ava Cordero, a transgender woman and aspiring model based in New York City, filed a lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court accusing Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was sixteen years old. She alleged that Epstein made her perform "bizarre and unnatural sex acts" in return for assistance with her modeling career. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2008.

== Jane Doe v. Epstein lawsuits (2008) == In 2008, three lawsuits made by anonymous women were filed against Epstein by the lawyer Jeffrey Herman. Each sought $50 million in damages. On February 6, 2008, an anonymous Virginia woman, known as Jane Doe No. 2, filed a $50-million civil lawsuit in federal court against Epstein, saying that when she was a 16-year-old minor in 2004 and 2005, she was "recruited to give Epstein a massage". She claimed she was taken to his mansion, where he exposed himself and had sexual intercourse with her, and paid her $200 immediately afterward. A second suit was filed on March 5, 2008. A third suit was filed in March 2008 by a different woman. These and several similar lawsuits were dismissed. All other lawsuits had been settled by Epstein out of court.

== Jane Doe 102 v. Epstein (2009) == In May 2009, Virginia Roberts Giuffre filed a lawsuit (with Katherine Ezell as her lawyer) as Jane Doe 102 against Epstein and accused Maxwell of recruiting her to a life of being sexually trafficked while she was a minor. The 2009 suit stated that "In addition to being continually exploited to satisfy defendant's [Epstein] every sexual whim, [Ms Giuffre] was also required to be sexually exploited by defendant's adult male peers, including "royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and or other professional and personal acquaintances." At the time, she named Epstein and Maxwell but did not identify any of the men. The suit was settled that same year for $500,000 and other unspecified "valuable consideration".

== Epstein v. Scott Rothstein, et al. (2009) == Epstein filed a civil racketeering lawsuit in December 2009 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, against Scott Rothstein (of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler) and named one of Rothstein's former associates Bradley J. Edwards. along with L.M., one of Epstein's alleged 14 year old victims. Epstein accused Rothstein of using him to prop up his Ponzi scheme by selling settlement shares. Epstein also alleged that Edwards sought to harass and depose his friends. Epstein dropped the charges against Edwards three years later, in August 2012.

== Bradley Edwards v. Epstein and Rothstein (2009) == Victims rights attorney Bradley J. Edwards filed a countersuit against Epstein for malicious prosecution in Florida state civil court. After a protracted legal battle and an appeal the suit was scheduled for trial in December 2018. The trial was expected to provide victims with their first opportunity to make their accusations in public. However, the case was settled on the first day of the trial, with Epstein publicly apologizing to Edwards; other terms of the settlement were confidential.

== Victims' rights: Jane Does v. United States (2014) == A December 30, 2014, federal civil suit was filed in Florida by Jane Doe 1 (Courtney Wild) and Jane Doe 2 against the United States for violations of the Crime Victims' Rights Act by the U.S. Department of Justice's NPA with Epstein and his limited 2008 state plea. There was a later, unsuccessful effort to add Virginia Roberts (Jane Doe 3) and another woman (Jane Doe 4) as plaintiffs to that case. The addition accused Alan Dershowitz of sexually abusing a minor, Jane Doe 3, provided by Epstein. The allegations against Dershowitz were stricken by the judge and eliminated from the case because he said they were outside the intent of the suit to re-open the plea agreement. A document filed in court alleges that Epstein ran a "sexual abuse ring", and lent underage girls to "prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders". This long-running lawsuit is pending in federal court, aimed at vacating the federal plea agreement on the grounds that it violated victims' rights. On April 7, 2015, Judge Kenneth Marra ruled that the allegations made by alleged victim Virginia Roberts against Prince Andrew had no bearing on the lawsuit by alleged victims seeking to reopen Epstein's non-prosecution plea agreement with the federal government; the judge ordered that allegation to be struck from the record. Judge Marra made no ruling as to whether claims by Roberts are true or false. Though he did not allow Jane Does 3 and 4 to join the suit, Marra specifically said that Roberts may later give evidence when the case comes to court. On February 21, 2019, in the case of Two Jane Does v. United States, Senior Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Kenneth Marra said federal prosecutors violated the law by failing to notify victims before they allowed him to plead guilty to only the two Florida offenses. The judge left open what the possible remedy could be.