Epstein investigator tracked down and assaulted by mystery man: report

A British journalist who had investigated Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell for years revealed that she had been tracked down by a supposed private investigator while in public, bribed with drugs and cash and then sexually assaulted, The Guardian exclusively reported Monday.

That journalist was Lucia Osborne-Crowley, who in 2024 published “The Lasting Harm,” a behind-the-scenes account of Maxwell’s 2021 trial on sex-trafficking charges, including exclusive interviews with alleged victims of Epstein and Maxwell.

It was in September of 2022, Osborne-Crowley told The Guardian, that she flew to Miami, Florida to meet with and interview Carolyn Andriano, a victim whose testimony helped secure Maxwell’s conviction.

The two met at a restaurant in West Palm Beach, during which Andriano told Osborne-Crowley that she had recently been visited by a supposed private investigator appearing to be in his 60s who “had heard she was talking to someone about a book,” The Guardian reported.

After the meeting, it was then that Osborne-Crowley was approached by a stranger in the restaurant, whom she described as a man in his 60s.

“What was she writing, he wanted to know,” The Guardian reported. “He offered her drugs, cash and a meeting with one of Epstein’s pilots, then put his hands under her skirt. When the manager asked him to leave, he waited in the car park; Osborne-Crowley had to escape through a staff exit.”

The bizarre encounter bears hallmarks of other stories shared by those either investigating or alleged victims of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation, with 28 alleged Epstein survivors having signed onto a statement that they had all received death threats. Prominent Epstein investigator Julie K. Brown appeared to have also been monitored amid her investigations into Epstein.