Pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein used a bizarre messaging system called 'Mindspring' to boss around the people in his home
- Jeffrey Epstein used a bizarre messaging system called "Mindspring" to boss around his household.
- His housekeeper of 15 years, Juan Alessi, detailed the now-dead pedophile's obsessions in an affidavit.
- Instead of simply talking to Alessi, Epstein, while in his Florida home, would call his office in New York to send instructions to Alessi in Florida on the platform.
The now-dead pedophile and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein maintained bizarre obsessions with how he instructed people to act within his home, according to a recently unsealed affidavit, using a now-defunct Messaging system called "Mindspring" to boss people around.
The document was unsealed Wednesday night, among more than 1,000 pages of documents detailing how Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly sex-trafficked young girls and covered up their conduct. The affidavit was taken in 2016 by Juan Alessi, who worked for Epstein as a maintenance man and housekeeper in his Florida home between 1991 and 2006.
In it, Alessi testifies about how Epstein used a Mindspring network to communicate with his friends and his housekeeping staff in multiple homes.
Epstein would often prefer to use a convoluted series of Mindspring messages instead of simply talking to someone on the phone, according to Alessi. Epstein, while in his Florida home, would call his office in New York to send Alessi instructions in Florida, Alessi said.
"It got so ridiculous at the end of my stay, okay?" Alessi said. "That Mr. Epstein, instead of talking to me that he wants a cup of coffee, he will call the office; the office would type it; they would send it to me, 'Jeffrey wants a cup of coffee, or Jeffrey wants an orange juice out by the pool.'"
Alessi said that, by the end of his period of work for Epstein, he would sit in the office and receive Mindspring messages from and for Epstein.
"I was there. And we have a signal when it comes on and says, 'Hey, you've got mail,'" Alessi testified.
Mindspring was founded in the mid-1990s as a type of customer support platform and had evolved into a more robust communications platform by the early 2000s. The service was ultimately discontinued in 2008, rendered obsolete by the widespread adoption of email and instant messaging services. The name of the person who set up the Mindspring server in Epstein's homes is redacted from the unsealed Alessi affidavit.
Alessi said he found Mindspring so frustrating that it led him to quit after 15 years of working for Epstein.
"It was a message system that Jeffrey received every two, three hours, with all the messages that would have to go to the office in New York, and they will print it and send it faxed to the house, and I would hand it to him," he said.
Alessi has said he saw more than 100 women go into Epstein's home while he worked there, and that he was sometimes asked to pay them on Epstein's behalf. He said Epstein swore them to secrecy and that he found it "sickening" to hear that people accused him of sexual abuse.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. He spent 13 months on work release in county jail.
He was arrested again, in 2019, on charges of sex-trafficking children in New York and Florida, but he died by suicide in jail before he could stand trial.
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 on charges related to sex-trafficking, grooming children for sexual abuse, participating in sexual abuse herself, and lying about her actions in a deposition.
She has pleaded not guilty and has a trial scheduled for July 2021, though her lawyers have recently sought to have the charges dismissed, arguing the pool for the grand jury that indicted her didn't have enough Black and Hispanic people.
- Read more:
- Ghislaine Maxwell told a group of young girls to 'kiss, dance, and touch one another' for her and Jeffrey Epstein to watch, a witness says in unsealed court records
- Ghislaine Maxwell asked a judge to drop charges against her, arguing the grand jury pool didn't have enough Black or Hispanic people
- A judge denied Ghislaine Maxwell's renewed bid to be released on bail, saying she's still a flight risk
- Ghislaine Maxwell says her marriage will keep her in the US if she's released on bail. She previously said she was getting a divorce.