Lesley Groff mentioned 157,000 times in Epstein files
For nearly two decades, Lesley Groff ran Jeffrey Epstein’s life.
From 2001 until Epstein died in a New York prison cell in 2019 while facing charges of trafficking hundreds of women and girls for sex, Groff, a New Canaan resident, was his executive assistant, keeping a tight handle on his schedule, meetings and travel.
If a world leader wanted to fly on Epstein’s plane or needed an assist getting their kid into college, they went to Groff. She dealt with everyone from Prince Andrew and Elon Musk to Steve Bannon and Woody Allen while steering Epstein’s professional and personal calendars.
Her presence in the Epstein files, released by the Department of Justice in batches since December, is nothing short of ubiquitous, and helps pull back the curtain on one of the less scrutinized members of Epstein’s inner circle.
Groff ’s name appears at least 157,613 times in the files, a figure that dwarfs other more well-known members of Epstein’s network, including convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell (13,169 mentions), deceased French model and alleged recruiter Jean-Luc Brunel (4,727 mentions), Epstein’s accountant Richard Kahn (52,781 mentions) and his personal lawyer Darren Indyke (17,783 mentions).
She is so prominent that DOJ lawyers even debated how to handle all the files mentioning her, according to internal department emails from October 2020 included in the files’ release.
“She was Epstein’s primary secretary who handled the travel logistics for
Epstein, his employees, and the victims who traveled. So it makes sense that her last name has so many hits,” one federal attorney, whose name was redacted, wrote in the documents.
In fact, Groff is mentioned more in the files than any person except Epstein. Despite her constant presence in Epstein’s life, she is a figure that has flown largely under the radar in the public consciousness relative to Maxwell, Brunel or Epstein’s former billionaire backer, Les Wexner.
When she has been mentioned in media coverage, Groff, 58, is often listed alongside Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marcinkova, both former assistants who victims alleged in lawsuits and depositions helped coordinate recruitment, travel and payment for Epstein’s assaults, which he often presented as “massages.”
But unlike Kellen and Marcinkova, there is no evidence that Groff — who has owned a home appraised at $4.2 million in New Canaan for more than a decade — was also victim of Epstein. Her role was much more elite-facing and often mundane: liaising with CEOs and world leaders, setting up
calls with academics and making sure Epstein’s visa papers were in order for his travel.
Despite victims’ multiple lawsuits, which have been dropped, claiming Groff helped facilitate his crimes and a recently unsealed internal DOJ document from August 2019 that lists Groff as a “coconspirator” in Epstein’s trafficking network, she has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s trail of abuse.
Groff did not respond to a request for comment and her lawyer, Michael Bachner, declined to make her available for an interview.
“The fact that the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not prosecute Lesley demonstrates clearly that she had no criminal involvement with Epstein,”
Bachner said in a statement. “We also know that every civil lawsuit filed against Lesley was dismissed against her.”
‘An extension of my brain'
Groff first started working for Epstein at his New York office in Feburary 2001, according to a 2008 interview she gave to FBI agents. She had been an event planner, and found the assistant gig, which she got after interviewing with Epstein and Maxwell, after posting her resume on the Monster employment website.
By 2005, the year that Palm Beach Police began investigating Epstein for sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14, Groff had become an essential part of Epstein’s network, according to an interview he gave to the New York Times.
Epstein described his team of assistants, including Groff, as “an extension of my brain,” for whom he paid upwards of $200,000 a year, kept a charge account at a swanky Manhatten hairdresser and brought on trips on his Boeing 727 jet, subsequently nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”
When Groff considered leaving her job after having a baby, Epstein agreed to pay for full-time child care and buy her a Mercedes-Benz instead. “There is no way that I could lose Lesley to motherhood,” Epstein told the Times.
And years of emails, revealed in the recent DOJ document disclosures, shed light on what made Groff so indispensable.
A review of just three days of her emails — from Dec. 1 to Dec. 3, 2010 — paints a picture of Epstein’s extensive social network and Groff’s necessity in maintaining it.
Despite being just over two years removed from pleading guilty to soliciting a child prostitute in Florida, Epstein was back networking with the global elite.
During those three days in December 2010, across more than 100 emails, Groff scheduled meetings with banking executive Jes Staley, billionaires Bill Gates and Leon Black, the then-CEO of Apollo Global Management who later resigned in disgrace over his connections to Epstein. She arranged meetings with physicist Lawrence Krauss and Yale University psychiatrist Henry Jarecki about his private island in the British Virgin Islands. Jarecki would face a lawsuit that has since been dropped alleging he “enabled” Epstein’s trafficking.
That week was an eventful one for Epstein: His good friend Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (then Prince Andrew) was in town. For Groff, that meant coordinating his lodging and scheduling a Friday night out for the pair. The royal would later be stripped of his titles over his Epstein association.
Also on his social calendar was a Thursday night dinner party hosted by director Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, whose guest list included Mountbatten-Windsor (who Epstein called “the Duke”) as well as television journalists Charlie Rose and Katie Couric. As Groff was quick to remind Epstein, Allen’s 75th birthday had been a few days earlier.
“Peggy (Siegal) thinks you should do place cards so the Duke does not get stuck sitting next to someone who is boring,” Groff counseled Epstein in one email. “Peggy thinks he should for sure sit next to Katie Couric.”
Over the course of those three days, Epstein also exchanged calls — set up by Groff — with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem — who recently drew headlines for his conversations with the sex trafficker — and then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.
Crist had recently lost reelection, and Epstein was pressuring him in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to receive clemency for his 2008 conviction.
Amid the high-powered meetings and various other investment calls and doctors’ appointments, the more haunting messages exchanged between Groff and Epstein, often sent late at night, mention meeting people whose names were redacted. Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, victims’ identities were supposed to be redacted.
“Shall I cancel (redacted) at 11:30 today?” Groff asked Epstein on Dec. 2, 2010, referencing a latenight meeting.
“(Redacted) is here,” Groff wrote in the subject line of an otherwise blank email, sent at 9:45 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2010. Epstein was scheduled to be with Mountbatten-Windsor at that time.
Multiple emails also referenced Janusz Banasiak, Epstein’s former Palm Beach house manager, picking “kids” up, including from school.
Groff 'never witnessed anything improper or illegal'
During her 18 years on Epstein’s payroll, Groff — who, according to internal FBI documents, worked in an “oval office” located to the left of the entrance to Epstein’s New York City mansion — was often