Around 10 "new" suspected victims have come forward in a French probe into the network of late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a Paris prosecutor said Sunday.
France opened a human trafficking investigation after the US Justice Department in January released the latest cache of files from the investigation into the disgraced financier, who died in prison in 2019 while facing charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.
French magistrates are seeking to investigate possible offences committed in France or involving French perpetrators who facilitated his crimes.
Top Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said around 20 suspected victims had made themselves known after she urged potential victims to speak up in February.
Some were already known to investigators, she told the RTL broadcaster.
"But we also had new victims come forward, ones we didn't know at all. There are around 10 of them," she added.
Epstein files on display at New York pop-up exhibit, all 3.5 million pages
Listening to victims
"The choice we've made for the time being is to listen to these victims," she said.
"A certain number of them are abroad so the investigators are trying to set up meetings to suit when they are able to come to Paris."
Investigators were also scouring through the so-called Epstein files, and would be searching them for any names mentioned by alleged victims, she said.
"We have also got back out Mr. Epstein's computer, his telephone records, his address books," she said, adding her team would be "making requests for international assistance."
French former associate of Jeffrey Epstein found dead in Paris jail
French investigators searched Epstein's luxury Paris apartment in September 2019, more than a month after he was found hanged in his New York jail cell, after allegations that he procured young women to abuse in France.
"None of the people who could potentially be implicated have been questioned" so far, Beccuau said.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring for prostitution a girl under the age of 18, and served 13 months in prison before being released on probation.
Epstein fallout triggers resignations, probes
(with AFP)
