Posted on 07/11/2019 1:42:56 PM PDT by TigerClaws
JEFFREY EPSTEIN SHIPPED a shredder from the U.S. Virgin Islands to his Palm Beach home in July 2008, shortly after reaching a non-prosecution agreement with then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, maritime records show. Then, in March of this year, shortly after a Florida federal judge invalidated that agreement, Epstein shipped a tile and carpet extractor from the Virgin Islands to his Manhattan townhouse, the records show.
Epstein, a billionaire financier, was arrested in New Jersey last Saturday on charges of running a sex trafficking ring that involved luring underage girls to his New York and Florida residences, and taking them on global flights on his airplane, dubbed the Lolita Express. Epstein was first accused of abusing underage girls, some of them as young as 14, more than a decade ago, and he evaded prosecution potentially due to his high-profile connections.
A key challenge investigators faced when first targeting Epstein in the mid-2000s was an inability to obtain evidence through subpoena. A 2005 search of Epsteins Palm Beach home came up empty in its quest for computers that investigators suspected contained critical evidence connected to his alleged sexual abuse of young girls.
In 2007, a federal grand jury subpoenaed the computers. That August, Acosta, who is now Donald Trumps labor secretary, entered into plea agreement discussions with Epstein. Because of those talks, a motion to compel production of Epsteins computers was delayed, according to the Miami Herald. Epstein held out, however, resisting the deal because it would require him to register as a sex offender. The FBI continued investigating and in March 2008, according to the Miami Herald, preparations were being made to take the case to a new federal grand jury.
That would prove unnecessary, as Epstein agreed to a deal with Acosta. Without notifying the 32 identified victims, the federal government reached a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in exchange for his guilty plea in state court to a minor offense. He pleaded guilty on June 30.
On July 7, 2008, federal prosecutors told Epsteins attorneys via email that they intended to notify the 32 victims about the agreement. Epsteins lawyers and the prosecutors debated how much of the agreement to reveal, settling on a less than full accounting.
A week later, on July 15, Epstein received a shipment at his Palm Beach home from the port in the U.S. Virgin Islands closest to his home there, according to maritime shipping records compiled by ImportGenius and provided to The Intercept. The shipment was a 53-pound shredder.
For the next decade, Epsteins legal troubles appeared to be behind him. Then, in November 2018, the Miami Herald published a new investigation into Epsteins alleged child sex trafficking ring, which prompted federal investigators to take a new look at the case. However, the agreement not to prosecute first had to be invalidated. That came on February 21, when a Florida federal judge ruled that Acostas office had violated the Crime Victims Rights Act by keeping the women in the dark.
On March 11, 2019, Epstein got a new shipment from the port in the U.S. Virgin Islands. This time, it was sent to his New York townhouse, and its listed in maritime records as a tile and carpet extractor that weighed 191 pounds.
William George, an analyst with Import Genius who found the details of the shipments in the companys database, noted that both shipments could, of course, be entirely unrelated to the alleged crimes and the prosecutions. Indeed, many people own shredders or tile and carpet extractors do not run child sex trafficking rings to service the global elite. Still, the timing could require an explanation from Epstein. He is currently in jail awaiting trial and unavailable for comment. His legal representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
That gets the DNA off the floor, but how do you get it out of the shredder?
She knows more criminals than an inmate at Leavenworh.
Get rid of possible DNA or other traces that could be used as evidence.
I have a friend who used to work for an outfit that was developing such technology. Basically you could place the residue pieces on a flat table and an computer controlled camera would take pictures of each piece. Then the computer program would reassemble the document from the fragments.
That was quite a few years ago and I’m sure the technology has improved since then.
Of course if you incinerate your materials, there’s no way to reconstitute a document from ash.
good movie!!
What? No BleachBit? He could have borrowed Hillary’s.
Decent low end commercial class shredder that is about $200 on Amazon is about 53lbs.
Its not that big of a machine
The industrial ones can weigh into the thousands
Plus why pay a fortune shipping this stuff in from the VI when you can just get them on Amazon in 2 days for less with prime shipping?
Epstain doesn’t have prime?
What movie?
DoD approved crosscut shredder for classified material and as I recall I think it was 7/32 of an inch but they changed that to millimeters now and here’s a link to several varieties available.
https://www.papershredders.com/DoD-High-Security_c_36.html
I don’t know if anyone recalls this but in the movie The Falcon and the Snowman there’s a scene where they’re in a classified space and they’re using the shredder to mix their Bloody Mary’s I always kind of got to laugh at that because there was special Shredder oil you had to use that was a very fine oil and I can’t imagine a bloody mary tasting very good after it’s been through an oily shredder.
After Fawn Hall and Ollie North were charged with shredding documents I recall most classified shredders in the military were stenciled with the name Ollie prominently displayed. So Ollie’s legacy in the military was to have practically every Shredder named after him.
The weight implies durability because he needs to shred everything as quickly as he can. Those Staples shredders would not be up to par for the thousands of documents he wants to get at.
The jig is up they found tapes in his
safe when they search his home. I suspect that may explain his millions.
It’s hard to get a good shredder in the States...
Here’s the thing about deviants like Epstein: The perverted sex drive isn’t static. 14 yr Olds may have been a thing for him decades ago but it is highly unlikely that mere youth would turn him on now. So, what does turn him on? Well, his concern about the carpets and tiles in his pad offer a clue...
“...This time, it was sent to his New York townhouse, and its listed in maritime records as a tile and carpet extractor that weighed 191 pounds. ....”
Sounds like he needed to remove all traces of blood and DNA from his NYC townhouse. Considering what went on there, that probably required a lot of time and several “cleanings.”
Argo, about the Iranian hostage crisis. theres a scene where they have kids piecing together the shredder paper from the embassy.
what’s a tile and carpet extractor?
Thank you. I had completely forgotten about that movie.
No, not really. Something like a phonebook burns more akin to a log than does paper but it doesn’t like to stay lit and things like thick fanfold printer output tends to absorb moisture from the environment, like a carribean island, so now it burns like a soggy green log. Since it doesnt stay lit someone has to keep stirring the pile and even then chunks tend to get lost in the ash.
Individual sheets of course burn well but when you throw it in a big pile and light it in the hopes of speeding the process up you find that air cant get between the sheets so it doesnt light or want to stay lit even with gasoline or diesel.
Either way you wind up with a big pile of evidence exposed somewhere.
To burn it you would need to take the time to crumple each sheet and make a giant pile or make big fat shreds that hold themselves apart like a pile of spaghetti and burn it in batches or it will compress in on itself again recreating the no air problem.
If your going to have to get equipment to do it quickly and you need to make sure none can reassemble it then you need either a shredder and an incinerator or better, as Greybeard mentioned above, a pulverizer.
A shredder alone is just a way to distribute secrets more slowly.
Sorry, I meant Greyfriar in 39.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.