My question is: Could Epstein have used this original expired passport to have new Saudi passports issued over the years? Maybe we found the original because it’s no longer useful, but he has a current one stashed somewhere.
Also, this is all completely crazy. A few weeks ago it was obvious nonsense that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta ran a child sex ring out of a pizza shop. That still is obvious nonsense, except that she’s just her husband degrees of separation away from a major human trafficker. And the Bill Clinton/Epstein connection isn’t trivial. And it makes my skin crawl. I’m sure Qanon is having a field day.
His only options now are to either plead guilty and get it over with or to try the legal equivalent of a hail mary and hope that he still has enough power to apply pressure to a judge or jury. Realistically fleeing the country is his best chance to stay out of prison at this point, and maybe his lawyers can get a judge to pretend he’s not a serious flight risk.
I don’t think it’ll work this time–it’d kill the career of any judge who let him out. Unfortunately I wouldn’t be surprised to see the evidence coming out of his homes get buried or destroyed, though.
I find it hard to believe that a person accused of human trafficking would draw the line at crossing borders illegally.
As for being a flight risk, someone with his connections and wealth would be in the wind like Kaiser Soze the moment he left the courthouse, if for no other reason than to try to stay ahead of the compromised people that will want to silence him. One doesn’t traffic children in a vacuum.
I would speculate that Trump – at least – has already toyed with the thought of an “accident” befalling Epstein.
Because I know of people in the their freakin’ 70’s who mentally never stopped being children, and the most notorious one happens to be currently occupying the oval qffice.
O_o
That said, sex trafficking is still a heinous crime, regardless of the age of the victims. That Epstein’s victims were MINORS (since your quibble seems to be about mere semantics, rather than the actual crimes themselves) only makes it all that much more repugnant.
Again, that’s a personal opinion, one which is highly debatable.
A 14-year-old or even 16-year-old is still dependent on legal adults for their safety and support in myriad ways that an 18-year-old is not.
That’s part of the reason exploiting them for sex is so heinous: they have far less power to control their own destiny than a person who could just move out and get a job to support themselves.
Canada, in the 1970s, raised the federal recognized age of consent to 16, because any adults wanting to fuck 14 year olds are creepy pedos. What the actual fuck, European men?
Edit:
Men, don’t fuck teens, at all, you fucking monsters.
Just imagine the power imbalance between a well-connected billionaire man and an impoverished 14-year-old-girl who is literally trapped on his private island.
No. Just no. Stop justifying child abuse. Stop it. It’s fucking gross. These men are rapists of children. Men in their 40s and 50s and 60s SHOULD NOT have relationships with girls under the age of majority. Full stop.
The strange thing is that, even in the 1980s, if you travelled to France or Spain or even the UK on an Austrian passport you wouldn’t get your passport stamped. Border police would look at it more or less cursorily and then wave you through. An Austrian passport from the 1980s with French, Spanish, and UK entry/exit stamps would be very weird.
And incidentally of course since the Schengen accords went into effect in the mid-1990s, you don’t even need to present any ID at all when you travel between participating countries (such as France, Spain, and Austria). I recently flew from Germany to Finland and on either leg of the journey nobody ever wanted to see my identity card.
