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Key points
- Offering money and “friendship," Jeffrey Epstein lured a young girl into procuring.
- The experience made her vulnerable to alcohol, drugs, and trafficking.
- Therapy and speaking out helped her return to the life she wants.
Haley Robson, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s many victims, was only 16 years old when Epstein changed her life. It wasn’t for the better. She’s an example of the harm that under-age sex can cause, but she’s also an example of how healing is possible.
An “Easy” Way to Make $200
As she explained in a recent interview with the author, her relationship with Epstein began in 2002, when a girl from her West Palm Beach high school asked her a question that might interest any high school student. “Want to make a lot of easy money?"
Robson was interested. The girl explained to Robson that she could get $200 just for giving a guy a massage. She’d have to be in her bra and panties, and she’d need to lie about her age, but nothing more would happen.
That’s not how it worked out. A few days later, Robson and her high school friend drove to Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach island home. She doesn’t remember whether it was a weekday or weekend, but she does remember that she entered through the kitchen door and a woman who met her there took her upstairs, where Epstein was waiting.
He was in a spa area near his bedroom. He quickly insisted that she remove her clothes down to her bra and panties.
The location of the spa made Robson uneasy. It was in Epstein’s bedroom suite, surrounded by other rooms, and isolated from the rest of the house. Robson said it was as if the spa area was cocooned inside other rooms, and she realized that if something went wrong and she started screaming, the area was so isolated that nobody would hear.
During the massage she was giving Epstein, he touched her breasts and her buttocks, and he tried to pull her panties off so he could insert his finger into her vagina. He also wanted to use a vibrator on her.
“No, stop,” she begged.
Epstein Wanted More Girls
Surprisingly, Robson recalls, he didn’t go any further. “OK,” he told her, “I’m not going to do anything more, but I want you to bring your friends. I’ll pay you $200 every time you bring me a girl.”
Robson was feeling caught off-guard, and the way Epstein acted from then on made her feel completely confused. “He was so calm and reasonable. The interactions I had with him from then on made me feel like he was there for me when I needed a friend or someone to talk with. It was almost a friendship.”
Each time Robson recruited another girl for Epstein, he was as good as his word and gave her another $200. She only massaged him that one time, but as she said, “I always was paid cash. Jeffrey always paid privately, in his office or by the pool, never showing anyone that I received cash.”
She continued her association with him for the next two years. For her it meant, “I had money to do things, like go on school trips. It also meant I could save money so I could leave West Palm and have a fresh start.”
She had a strong reason for wanting a fresh start, she told me, ,and it was probably the reason she was vulnerable to Epstein in the first place. A year before, she had been raped. In the time since the rape, her attacker and his best friend kept following her to her school or her gym, humiliating her and reminding her of her trauma.
“I was desperate at the time I first met Jeffrey,” she said. “It was a time when I was already using several drugs. Seeing those two boys stalking me and taunting me was like a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from.”
Epstein seems to have known just how to act with Robson to keep her in his orbit. He was skilled at making her see him as a friend, someone who was there for her, helping her. “It clouded my judgment,” she remembers, adding that she learned later, “Everything Jeffrey was telling me was a lie. He told me that he was an astronaut, then he told me he was a scientist, then he told me he was a humanitarian who worked with a lot of charities.”
Looking back on her experience, Robson doesn’t know whether Epstein knew that what he was doing was wrong. Her view today is, “He was a sick man. Sometimes you’d look at his eyes and the lights were on but nobody was there. It’s like he was absent.”
The Destructive Impact on Robson’s Life
During this period, Robson parents knew something was wrong. They sent her to both a psychotherapist and also a psychiatrist. To deal with her night terrors, sleep walking, and other symptoms, her psychiatrist prescribed Xanex, Celexa, Lamictal, and Lexapro.
At age 18, Robson finally did escape Epstein and also the rapist and his friend who were stalking her. She had enough money to move to Fort Lauderdale, where she worked as a stripper. But as often happens, she ended up being trafficked.
In 2006, at age 20, she finally broke free from being abused.. When her drug dealer boyfriend was executed gangland-style, her parents intervented. Her father came and got her. With the help of therapy, she began rebuilding her life. Still, she maintained a rigid silence about what she had been through. She earned a living by waitressing.
Speaking Out
In the last couple of years, Robson decided to speak out. She believes that by telling her story, she can help prevent others from going through what she went through
“Women in any country who’ve been sexually abused are usually scared to admit what they’ve lived through,” she says. “They’re afraid of being judged and that they’ll be isolated. The answer I’ve found is sharing your journey, because this pushes you in a different direction, one where you can see the light. The light that things can get better only happens when people talk about it.”
Her deepest wish is to encourage others to get the healing that comes from not hiding what they’ve been through. Her final thought is a tribute to her therapist. “Randy Kogan, my therapist, told me, ‘Your trauma is not your fault or your responsibility; your healing is your responsibility.’ Today, Robson tries to live her life in the light of that understanding.
