Jeffrey Epstein used victim’s cancer-stricken mom as leverage to keep abusing her: suit
Jeffrey Epstein used the cancer diagnosis of one of his victim’s mothers as leverage to repeatedly sexually abuse the aspiring ballerina — and threatened to withhold treatment if the teen didn’t keep her mouth shut, according to a new lawsuit.
The accuser, Danielle Bensky, dropped the allegation in a lawsuit she and an unidentified co-accuser filed against two of Epstein’s closest advisers in Manhattan federal court on Friday.
Bensky claims Epstein seized on her mother’s recent brain tumor diagnosis shortly after she started being abused by the sick pedophile in 2004, court papers allege.
Then an aspiring dancer, Bensky said her first run-in with Epstein came after she was paid $300 to give the late financier a massage at his New York mansion. Fearing his wealth and power, Bensky said she returned numerous times to give him similar massages — including ones where he would order her to remove clothes while he masturbated.
When Epstein learned her mom had been diagnosed with cancer, he told the teen he was “familiar with neurology” and asked her to bring in the brain scans for him to look at, according to the suit.
“Epstein told Bensky that he knew the best surgeons in New York, but that if Bensky wanted Epstein to help her mother, then she would have to recruit other girls for him,” the court filing says.
“Over the next year, Epstein threatened Bensky in many ways including threatening that if she did not abide by his demands, her mother would not get the medical treatment she needed for her brain tumor.”
Bensky claims that Epstein’s threats against her cancer-stricken mother forced her into a “cult-like life” at the mercy of the convicted sex trafficker and those who allegedly enabled him, per the suit.
Her claims were among those included in the complaint filed against Epstein’s longtime personal lawyer, Darren Indyke, and his accountant, Richard Kahn, last week.
The suit alleges Indyke and Kahn helped build the “complex financial infrastructure” which allowed the late pedophile to sexually abuse hundreds of victims over two decades.
Bensky and the other Epstein accuser, identified as Jane Doe 3, allege the two advisers were “well aware” of the pedophile’s crimes and they “knowingly and intentionally personally benefited” from the operation.
Indyke and Kahn denied the allegations on Wednesday, saying via their lawyer they were “extraordinarily surprised and disappointed” by the new lawsuit.
“These newly-filed claims are factually baseless and legally frivolous,” their lawyer, Daniel Weiner, said in a statement obtained by The Post.
“Neither Mr Indyke or Mr Kahn has ever been found in any forum to have committed any misconduct, and they emphatically reject the allegations of wrongdoing contained in the complaint.”