Jeffrey Epstein and his associates worked to suppress negative press and rebuild his image in the years after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor, newly released documents reveal.
The documents, among 20,000 pages released Wednesday by Republican members of the House oversight committee, include emails and memos that depict a coordinated effort to influence online search results and journalists, and restore Epstein’s reputation.
In December 2010, Epstein, who was released from jail in July 2009, exchanged a series of emails with Al Seckel, an eccentric collector who appeared to be helping manage Epstein’s online reputation. An obituary says Seckel died in France in 2015.
“The google page is not good,” Epstein complained on 11 December. “After sept when you told me you thought it would take appox twenty thousand to clean up and hopefully in time for Nov 1, then another ten thousand, and another ten thousand and your emails about how you are all about results.”
Seckel sent Epstein screenshots of the first page of Google search results for Epstein’s name, assuring the financier that the “daily beast article is gone” from the list, and that “the other ones, including the powerful Huffington Post, are about to be pushed off”.
The screenshots show a HuffPost story titled “Jeffrey Epstein, Convicted Pedophile and Former Hedge Fund Titan Now a Free Man” published on 21 July 2010, as the seventh link on the list of search results.
A few days later, on the 15th, Seckel informed Epstein that “the bots did the sweep”.
“You only have one negative article left on front page of google, which is the Huffington Post article,” Seckel said. “The Huffington Post is extremely hard to move, because it is so powerful, has millions of links to it, and uploads massive new and original content it on a daily basis with posting from outside readers.”
Still, he claimed that he had been able to “push it down the page”. In the attached screenshot, the HuffPost story was now eighth on the search results.
Seckel also claimed that “toxic suggested search engine terms that popped up automatically when you typed in your name” had also been removed.
In the email, Seckel celebrated what he described as an “important victory” when it came to Epstein’s Wikipedia page. “The headlines do not mention convicted sex offender or pedophile,” he said, “instead, Philanthropic work, Epstein Foundation, Promotion of Scientists.
“Your wiki entry now is pretty tame,” he claimed, adding that “bad stuff has been muted” and pushed to the bottom. “We hacked the site to replace the mug shot and caption, and now has an entirely different photo and caption,” he added. “This was a big success.”
Wikimedia, the non-profit organization that hosts Wikipedia, did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
But Seckel warned that while the results were “up and in the direction we hoped” they were “still new, and subject to volitility, especially if new original content is not added on a minimum of a weekly basis”. He told Epstein that the work “needs to be maintained” and told the financier that payments were “now due if you want to continue”.
Epstein pushed back, responding that he was “never told never that there was a 10K fee per month” adding: “you initially said the project would take 20..then another 10. then another 10.”
Seckel replied that while his “initial estimate” was “25”, the job was “far far worse” than “originally expected” and told Epstein: “You have a dedicated group of people trying to undo and damage you, including now.”
Later in the email, Seckel wrote: “I spend literally four months of non-stop work, creativity and my own political capital to get you this so far, which not only saved you time, but countless dollars and isn’t something that can be readily bought.”
“We were trying to fix up your mess,” he added. “I didn’t create it. Just thought it would be something to help. This was NEVER about pulling money out of you.”
In another email that month, Seckel wrote that they had “managed to knock out Daily Beast again” and they had “managed to push” the HuffPost piece near the bottom of the page of search results, and said that it could be “pushed off” but that it would “take a bit more work”.
The HuffPost story, according to the screenshot shared, was now down to the 10th on the search list.
The documents also show associates making efforts to shape media coverage. In March 2011, R Couri Hay, a New York-based publicist, who, in 2019, told Town & Country that he had spoken with Epstein three times and that Epstein had come to him for help with his image, wrote to Epstein saying that a Newsweek reporter was working on a story about him, focused on Epstein’s “reemergence in New York post your previous problems”.
“If you hire me I feel confident that I can positively affect this feature on your behalf,” Hay, who told the New York Times in 2019 that he ultimately declined to work for Epstein and had misgivings about Epstein’s sincerity, wrote. “That does not mean I can control it completely or that they would reference past problems. However, I can assure you that the story will be fair and balanced and that your side will be represented intelligently.”
Hay suggested arranging interviews with people who “have seen the good things that you have done in business, science, and philanthropy”.
In a message several days later, Hay wrote that the story was being “written without your input” and tells Epstein that he has been “subtly guiding” the reporter “on your behalf”. In the email, Hay added that he would like to “formalize this job with your attorneys and then I would really need to give names and numbers of pro Jeffery power brokers” for the reporter to call.
Hay did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
A June 2011 memo from public relations firm Osborne & Partners, titled “Issues of Reputation”, is also among the documents, and appears to have been put together for Epstein and outlines a strategy to repair his image. The Guardian reported earlier this year that in 2012 Epstein had been in contact with Ian Osborne, who ran the PR firm. Osborne & Partners did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The memo advises minimizing any mentions in the tabloid press, restoring “your profile” in select media, political and philanthropic circles, establishing “you as a pioneering support of science and technology” and suggests hosting “some kind of annual event which brings together your business and philanthropic interests”.
Under “tabloid press attention”, the memo stated: “Since it is an unambiguous objective of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday to take down Prince Andrew, it is disastrous for you to be seen in any way to facilitate his lifestyle, or to help with his well documented issues.”
“Their sole interest in you and Ghislaine is as a means to attack Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson,” the firm added. “You need to studiously avoid any involvement whatsoever with the couple, which will lessen the interest and we can establish a constructive relationship on your behalf with them.”
The firm also suggested a “clean-up” of search results on “all major search engines where your name is part of a search query”, describing it as an “urgent priority”. The firm also advised engaging with “top editors and columnists”, especially “serious business and financial journalists”.
In July 2011, Epstein emailed prominent publicist Peggy Siegal urging her to reach out to Arianna Huffington to enlist HuffPost to investigate “Andrews accuser”, seemingly referencing the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers who also alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He has consistently denied the allegations and settled Giuffre’s sexual assault case in 2022.
In the email, Epstein wrote that Huffington “should champion the dangers of false allegations” and “send a reporter or reporters to investigate” Giuffre. “The palace would love it,” he added.
“The girl in the photo, was nothing more than a telephone answerer, she was never 15, according to her version she worked for trump, first at that age, at MAra lago [sic],” Epstein added.
Siegal replied that “if you rewrite your last email in better grammar (and so I have a better understanding) I can cut and paste and send it to Arianna Huffington from me”. Epstein responded with a rewrite.
In a phone call on Thursday, Siegal told the Guardian that she never forwarded Epstein’s edited email to Huffington and had “no reason to call her”.
“It was preposterous for him to think that I would get involved in his idiotic nefarious affairs and jeopardize my good relationship with Arianna,” Siegal said, adding that she had a working relationship with Huffington, who published her Oscar diaries every year.
“Jeffrey was completely delusional and lived in his own fantasy of a world that revolved around him as he always thought he was the smartest person in the room,” she said. “He was a complete ego-maniac who was obsessed with his own false sense of power.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for HuffPost said: “Arianna Huffington has not been affiliated with HuffPost since 2016. To the best of our knowledge, no talk of this coverage ever made it to HuffPost.”
