FBI agents investigating David Copperfield in 2007 said that “a clear connection” existed between the famous illusionist and Jeffrey Epstein, according to documents released by the Department of Justice last week in the latest tranche of the Epstein files.
A 2007 FBI memo by agents in Seattle said further investigation of this “connection” was needed to “to determine if they [Copperfield and Epstein] both shared a predilection for minors” and “if they engaged in referring possible victims to each other”.
The FBI’s two-year investigation into Copperfield started in 2007 after a Seattle woman named Lacey Carroll, who had met Copperfield after attending one of his shows, alleged he had raped and sexually assaulted her on his private Bahamian island, called Musha Cay, after luring her there on the promise of modeling and promotional work. The investigation was dropped around January 2010 and Copperfield was never charged in relation to Carroll’s rape allegation or any other sexual misconduct.
In an interview with Oprah filmed on Musha Cay in 2012, Copperfield claimed he had not only been exonerated but was a victim in the case.
Lawyers for Copperfield did not reply to questions about the newly released files. In 2024, Copperfield’s lawyers told the Guardian that he “was not a friend of Jeffrey Epstein”. They said any suggestion Copperfield was friends with Epstein “is totally false and a mischaracterization made by the media” and that he and Epstein were “at most, acquaintances” who only met on a “handful” of occasions.
Copperfield has repeatedly denied ever engaging in sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior.
The new tranche of documents released last week reveal new details about the FBI’s investigation of Copperfield, and discussions that were held between law enforcement officials who were investigating Copperfield and officials investigating Epstein.
In the FBI’s 12 December 2007 memo, Seattle agents expressed concerns to counterparts in Miami about Epstein-related evidence that could be relevant to their investigation of Copperfield. The investigation, the agents said, had identified “a number of potential witnesses” who they believed lived in Miami and may have had a relationship with or worked for Copperfield. Two of these potential witnesses, they noted, were women who “are or may be witnesses” in the Epstein investigation in Miami, including one who had said Epstein “groomed” her.
The FBI was interested in interviewing the two women because both were named in Copperfield’s “business list”, which the agents said “appears to be a compilation of females that he targeted for sexual conquest”.
The agents said that the entries in Copperfield’s business list noted that the two women were “Jeff Epstein guestf[sic]” and that “he” – a likely reference to Epstein – said that one of the women was “not loyal, doesn’t play the game”. The memo said evidence seized from Copperfield’s residence and warehouse and at the MGM Grand Hollywood Theater, where he performs, also showed a “number of occasions” when Copperfield provided complimentary tickets to Epstein and his guests.
The memo said that, following raids on Copperfield’s properties, there appeared to be a “13-year gap” in Copperfield’s records, which were seized by federal agents. The memo said investigators had not located “hard copy files” for the period from 1993 to 2005, which, agents noted, was the timespan when Epstein would have “likely become aware of the investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct”.
The FBI wanted to conduct the interviews in Miami, agents said, to glean more about whether the relationship between Epstein and Copperfield “included illegal activities”.
“If such a relationship existed there is a significant and legitimate concern regarding the preservation of evidence currently being held by the Miami division and Epstein’s defense counsel in regards to the investigation of Epstein.”
In a separate 5 September 2008 email, the then assistant US attorney in Seattle, Susan “Susie” Roe – the most senior prosecutor on the Copperfield investigation – asked Ann Marie Villafaña, the assistant US attorney in Florida who worked on the Epstein case, for a copy of Epstein’s controversial plea deal, in which he pled guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor. He served 13 months out of an 18 month sentence.
“Do you think he would ever talk about Copperfield?” Roe asked. She also wanted to know if Villafaña knew the name of anyone in the Department of Justice “who really knows the sexual and/or violent crimes stuff”.
She ended the email by saying: “We’re still working on Copperfield – lots of acts but concerns about applicable law!” Earlier reporting by the Guardian revealed that prosecutors were challenged by the fact that the alleged rape had taken place in the Bahamas, not on US soil, and that the US attorney’s office believed it might lack jurisdiction to charge Copperfield.
Villafaña responded to the email, the records show, saying: “I can definitely say that Epstein will not talk to anyone … he would just never turn in one of his friends unless it meant a big benefit for him.” She also queried whether Carroll, Copperfield’s alleged victim, had flown to the magician’s Bahamian island via South Florida, because if so, she could “pitch in” and “think creatively about charging decisions”.
‘Close relationship’
A separate partially redacted memo, which appears to have been written by an FBI agent and is dated 26 November 2019 – months after Epstein’s suicide – included additional details and claims about the criminal investigation into Copperfield and investigators’ findings.
The name of the sender is redacted, but the person said the FBI investigation into Copperfield “showed that Copperfield trained his employees to identify young females (teens to early twenties) in the audience of his shows”. The females, the person said, were “separated from their boyfriends, families and husbands and brought backstage”.
“Copperfield’s employees were given access to a notebook that instructed them how to provide Copperfield with females. He kept a notebook with the females he was with” that included “contact information, whether he had sex with them, and a photograph,” the person said.
The person added: “I don’t know if any of his victims were underage. There were allegations that he drugged some of the females. I recall Epstein’s name coming up in our investigation a number of times and Copperfield appeared to have a very close relationship with Epstein.”
Copperfield’s name was on a “list” investigators found that included other men, the person said, adding, “some of which had reputations like Copperfield and Epstein”.
“Our case was eventually closed because our USAO [US attorney’s office] was weak and intimidated by the financial resources of Copperfield,” the person said, while adding there had been other challenging issues involving the victim and jurisdiction. The person said they tried to get copies of as much as they could before the original evidence was returned and appeared to offer it to another FBI official who was working on a separate investigation.The timing suggests the person could have been offering help in connection to the justice department’s case against Epstein’s longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Becky Roe, a lawyer for Carroll, who is not related to prosecutor Susan Roe, said in an email to the Guardian that she recalled the FBI “wanted the DoJ to charge” Copperfield, and were “likely upset” when they decided not to, something she said was not unusual in her experience. She said the FBI had “done an excellent investigation” but disagreed with the assessment in the 26 November 2019 memo that prosecutors were fearful of taking on Copperfield.
“I do not share the opinion [that] the US attorney’s office was weak. I [previously] worked with Susie Roe … and she was definitely NOT weak,” Becky Roe said, adding that she was not well informed about the jurisdictional issue that she believed was the decisive factor in not charging Copperfield.
The Guardian tried to reach Susan Roe for a comment but she has retired from public office.
Behind the magic
The Guardian published an investigation into allegations involving Copperfield in May 2024, reporting that Copperfield had been accused by 16 women of engaging in sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior, including claims that he drugged three women before he had sexual relations with them.
Copperfield denied the allegations of wrongdoing. His lawyers told the Guardian at the time that he had “never acted inappropriately with anyone” and said a “truthful” depiction of Copperfield would describe his “kindness, shyness and treatment of men and women with respect”.
The Guardian’s investigation included an examination of records that were available at the time about Copperfield’s dealings with Epstein, including message pads that had been confiscated from Epstein’s residence and appeared to show Copperfield leaving messages for Epstein 16 times over several months between 2004 and 2005.
Lawyers in London who represented Copperfield at that time – at Harbottle & Lewis and Carter Ruck – were asked questions about Epstein and Copperfield’s dealings by the Guardian in 2024. The lawyers repeatedly denied that the pair were close.
They also denied that Copperfield had left “multiple messages” for Epstein. “Any messages that were left would have been left by our client’s office in response to a request by Epstein for tickets to a show,” the lawyers told the Guardian.
In December 2025, in a release of another tranche of Epstein files, the Department of Justice released photographs which showed Copperfield and Maxwell wearing white robes and hugging each other at a location that appears – based on the Guardian’s comparative analysis of other photographs – to have been taken on Epstein’s private island. The photographs were not dated.
Copperfield’s lawyers did not respond to questions about the photographs or Copperfield’s apparent stay on Epstein’s island, or how often he may have frequented it.
The latest batch of Epstein file documents includes a 2015 email between Epstein and a woman named Nadia, who sent a link for Musha Cay – Copperfield’s own island, where Carroll alleges he raped her – to Epstein. She asked “when did he get this?”. Epstein answered “after I told him about it”. Copperfield has denied Carroll’s allegations.
