In March of 2005, a woman contacted the Palm Beach Police Department and reported that her fourteen-year-old stepdaughter had been lured to Epstein’s mansion by an older girl to give him a “massage” for $200. The going rate at that time for a professional in-home massage was $100. The older girl was paid $200 to bring the younger girl to Epstein. One scout brought a very pretty twenty-three-year-old to Epstein, and he quickly rejected her as “too old.” He liked fourteen- to sixteen-year-olds, preferably ones who looked even younger than that.

In October of 2005, criminal investigators obtained a search warrant for Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion, where they found many incriminating pieces of evidence. Numerous girls had come forward who had told similar stories of Epstein’s sexual abuse—he used the same M.O. on the girls, so the girls who had never met each other told essentially the same story. Evidence corroborating the girls’ statements was found in Epstein’s home and was described as “overwhelming” and sufficient to send Epstein to prison for life. There were many photographs of nude girls displayed in the house, and the sex toys that the girls had described were found where the girls said they were kept, in the “massage” room.

One would think that Epstein might have changed it up a bit to avoid such clear and abundant evidence of his modus operandi. The photographs that he said he took of various men with girls probably created a sense of being untouchable—those powerful men would do anything to avoid exposure. Perhaps he felt so entitled and safe that he got sloppy with the evidence of his crimes, strewn throughout his mansion.

It wasn’t until soon after Epstein’s arrest in 2019 that law enforcement found a CD containing a list of “girls + men” images in Epstein’s New York home, along with many photos and other incriminating pieces of evidence.

Epstein’s household employee, Alfredo Rodriguez, testified that Epstein’s attorney, Alan Dershowitz, spent the night in the Palm Beach mansion during the years when Epstein was assaulting girls on a daily basis. Nude photographs of girls as young as twelve or thirteen adorned the walls of a spiral staircase—a staircase that his houseguests must have ascended to get to their guest rooms.

One of Epstein’s housemen, Juan Alessi, testified much later, in 2009, that Dershowitz visited Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion four or five times a year. Unless the witnesses were both lying, the idea that Dershowitz wouldn’t know that Epstein had a taste for young girls is hard to fathom.

A “little black book” of Epstein’s powerful friends and allies— at least part of it—emerged during the Palm Beach investigation and appeared in court documents in 2008. Like everything else about Epstein, the book is shrouded in confusion and inconsistent stories. It contained the names and phone numbers of Epstein’s powerful allies, including some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. There was also a list of the girls, organized by city, with names and numbers. The photos of the girls that Ghislaine Maxwell made and kept on her computer were gone by the time police got the warrant and conducted the search.

The New York Times reported in 2019 that Epstein’s “small bound book” was created by Epstein’s employees. One of those employees involved with this book—Epstein’s former house manager Alfredo Rodriguez—apparently gave a few pages to the Florida police in 2006, but retained at least part of it as leverage. Rodriquez had apparently obtained some of the information concerning the girls that Epstein recruited for sex from Epstein's computer.