In the latest materials from the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein released on Friday, Latvia is mentioned as one of the possible locations for recruiting underage girls, Latvian Television (LTV) reported on its programme Panorāma.
Latvia is mentioned in the documents more than 500 times in various contexts, while Riga appears more than 800 times. The released files include the names of several Latvian models and modelling agencies, and reveal Epstein’s personal correspondence with Latvian girls. It is also possible that Latvian women served as his assistants.
Latvia is first mentioned in 2001, when one of Epstein’s associates discusses an invitation to visit Latvia, allegedly from the then prime minister. An anonymous sender wrote in 2001 that he had received a personal invitation from the Latvian prime minister to visit the country and exchange greetings. The letter also asks whether people fish in Latvia. At the time, the prime minister was Andris Bērziņš.
Former prime minister Bērziņš denied to LTV that he had invited Epstein to visit Latvia, and told the news portal Delfi that he has never been involved in fishing.
According to LTV, most of the Latvia-related entries in the Epstein case materials date from 2007.
They mention several Latvian models and agencies, suggesting that modelling agencies may have been one of the main points of contact between Epstein’s circle and Latvian women. The numerous Latvia-related records include Latvian girls’ passports, airline tickets to and from Riga, hotel reservations in Riga — with the Grand Palace Hotel appearing most frequently, in 67 entries — shipments of various gifts, and personal correspondence between Epstein and Latvian girls.
One of Epstein’s closest associates, Jean-Luc Brunel, an agent for international modelling agencies, served for several years as a jury member at the “Baltic Beauty” modelling competition organised by the Natalie agency, which featured girls as young as 14. In 2011, the programme de facto reported that an investigation was under way into allegations that Brunel may have supplied Epstein with underage girls. At the time, Natalie agency head Ēriks Meisāns, who is also mentioned in the correspondence, denied to the programme that he had been aware of any such activity.
The Epstein files also mention Latvian basketball player Kristaps Porziņģis, who previously faced allegations of rape. North American media reported on the rape allegations on 31 March 2019. Several documents related to this case appear in the Epstein files. For example, in an email written on the morning of the 31st of March, shortly after the information became public, Epstein wrote to a well-known American lawyer, David Schoen, asking about the woman involved and requesting a recommendation for a reliable investigator to look into the matter.
Porziņģis’s side described the incident as an attempted extortion.
As previously reported, the U.S. Department of Justice released at least three million additional pages from the Epstein case on Friday.
More than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images were also made public.
Epstein was accused of sexually abusing and trafficking dozens of underage girls for sexual exploitation. He never stood trial, having died by suicide at a federal detention centre in New York in August 2019, one day after documents were released that provided broader insight into the sex trafficking network he operated between 2002 and 2005.
Under political pressure from Republicans, Trump signed legislation last November giving the Department of Justice 30 days to release most of the Epstein-related case files.
After missing the December deadline to publish all documents, the Department of Justice announced that it had assigned hundreds of lawyers to review the materials to determine what needed to be redacted in order to protect the identities of sexual abuse victims and avoid compromising ongoing investigations.
The number of documents under review has grown to approximately six million, including duplicates, the ministry said.
Before Christmas, the Department of Justice released thousands of documents, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs and other materials. Many of them had already been publicly available or were heavily redacted.
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