A woman who says she was trafficked to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island has described the terrifying moment she was first sexually abused during her flight to the Caribbean.
Speaking to Sky News, 43-year-old Juliette Bryant said the abuse began as the plane took off, shortly after she was recruited in Cape Town in 2002 while she was a university student and aspiring model.
Bryant said she was initially flown to New York and later told she would be travelling to the Caribbean with Jeffrey Epstein. At Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, she boarded a private jet where she was seated beside him.
“As the plane took off, he started forcibly touching me,” she said in the interview.
“I just freaked out. I suddenly realised – oh my God, my family aren’t going to see me again,” she added.
She alleged that the women who had recruited her laughed during the assault, deepening her fear.
Bryant said that once she arrived at Epstein’s private island, Little St James in the US Virgin Islands, she believed she had no way of getting out of there.
She claimed her passport had been taken and that she was transported to the island by helicopter after landing in the Caribbean.
She said she was later flown to other properties linked to Epstein in New York, Palm Beach, Paris and New Mexico, describing repeated abuse.
She said it left her with lasting emotional toll that she is still struggling to process.
The allegations come as the US Justice Department released its latest batch of files related to the Epstein case, totaling 3.5 million documents released so far.
Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor, died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
