Jeffrey Epstein’s personal assistant has claimed British sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was “instrumental” in making him the “monster” he became.
Sarah Kellen – who accused paedo financier Epstein of raping her on a weekly basis – said the shamed socialite “fed him and catered to every whim” during his terrifying reign of sexual abuse. And in a newly released testimony Ms Kellen, 46, revealed she had dinner with shamed Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor at his private apartment in Buckingham Palace and attended Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday party at Windsor Castle.
Speaking about Epstein’s twisted relationship with Maxwell, Ms Kellen said: “I always felt that she was instrumental in Jeffrey becoming who he became. I always felt like she kind of turned him into the monster that he became, that she just fed him and catered to every whim that he wanted.”
View 4 ImagesSarah Kellen testified last month at a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill(Image: Getty Images)
From 2001 Ms Kellen, 46, spent more than 10 years as Epstein’s personal assistant and was previously described as one of his top recruiters of young girls. She was named as one of the four potential co-conspirators in his so-called “sweetheart plea deal” for having sex with children in 2008. He served just 13 months in a low-security prison.
But she claims she was recruited onto Epstein’s team by a woman she met in a hotel in Hawaii. She also dismissed suggestions she was Epstein’s “lieutenant”. Instead she said was an “indentured slave” subject to his weekly assaults, which were sometimes violent.
The transcript of Ms Kellen’s testimony from last month was released by the House Oversight Committee, which is looking into Epstein’s life and the criminal investigations into him.
View 4 ImagesMaxwell was jailed in the US for 20 years in 2021 for her role in Epstein’s sex trafficking network(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
In it Ms Kellen criticised Maxwell, 64, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking children to Epstein, and said she should never be pardoned. Ms Kellen said in one incident Maxwell was on a bed naked and began touching her body to show her “how to touch Jeffrey and what he liked”.
She described both Epstein and Maxwell as vile people with the paedophile being like “Jekyll and Hyde”. She said that at the “drop of a hat you would see the fire in his [Epstein’s] eyes, and it was horrifying”. She told investigators: “I would witness him even bring Ghislaine to tears, who I thought was the strongest, coldest woman I had met.” Maxwell would berate Ms Kellen with insults like calling her a “polyp on a Donkey’s ass”, a “pigot” and “minion”.
Ms Kellen also identified both Mr Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson as some of the “prominent individuals” she had met. She said: “Prince Andrew was at the New York house. We also went to Andrew’s private apartment at Buckingham Palace for dinner. And we were at Princess Beatrice’s party at Windsor Castle.”
View 4 ImagesMs Kellen identified Mr Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson as some of the “prominent individuals” she had met(Image: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)
Photos of Beatrice’s party in 2006 showed Epstein wearing a white military uniform next to Maxwell in an elaborate face mask. Next to them in a tuxedo stands disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein. Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was asked about the party during his interview with BBC Newsnight in 2019. Epstein attended even though a US arrest warrant had been issued for him two months earlier.
Mr Mountbatten-Windsor said: “Certainly I wasn’t aware when the invitation was issued what was going on in the United States and I wasn’t aware until the media picked up on it because he never said anything about it.” Eight days after the party, Epstein was arrested by police in Palm Beach, Florida.
According to Ms Kellen, she never saw Andrew acting inappropriately and he was not one of the men she named as having sex with her, apart from Epstein. She told how Maxwell gave Castro a book about her late father, the media tycoon Robert Maxwell
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Ms Kellen spent her childhood as a Jehovah’s Witness and groomed from the age of 13 by an 18-year-old who she would marry once she became 17. She divorced her husband at 21 and began working for Epstein. Epstein died in a prison cell in New York in 2019, aged 66, while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking offences. Maxwell was jailed in the US for 20 years in 2021 for her role in Epstein’s sex trafficking network.