The former managers of Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island have revealed what they saw while working for him and Ghislaine Maxwell, remembering in a new documentary how there were ‘always women around’. Watch a clip from the documentary here:
In 1998, Epstein purchased an island in the Virgin Islands called Little St James, hiring Miles and Cathy Alexander to manage the vast site – which would go on to become a ‘sex trafficking palace’, according to David Boies, lawyer to Epstein’s survivors.
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However, Miles and Cathy maintain that they were ‘never involved’ in Epstein’s crimes, having spoken about their experience for the first time on camera in this evening's episode of Ghislaine Maxwell: The Making of a Monster.
“In 1998, there was a job advertised for a management couple for an island in the Caribbean, and then from our interviews all the way through to the end, there were always women around,” Miles explained.
“I was employed as island manager, and Cathy was employed as the housekeeping manager.
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Cathy said Maxwell had warned that ‘there would be a lot of women around', with Miles adding: “She used to refer to it as the ‘bees around the honey pot’. She said, ‘You’ll see lots of bees around the honey pot. I’m the Queen Bee – always remember that.’”
As a boss, Maxwell was ‘very demanding’, with the couple admitting they used to call her ‘Hurricane Maxwell’ as all sense of tranquility would disappear when she arrived on the island.
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“She used to run around fixing things, making sure everything was perfect for Mr Epstein,” Miles continued.
“That was the whole point of her being there, to make sure Mr Epstein had everything he ever wanted.
“We knew there were going to be girls there, and then one day I’m told to go and serve tea. And I walked out to the pool with this big tray of tea and there’s a Victoria’s Secret model and people lying around without clothes on, because they didn’t come down with their costumes, so...
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“I went back to Cathy and I said, ‘It’s your turn, I’m not doing this.’”
Cathy said the women would ‘all be lying there in next to nothing’, adding: “They were just there for him, basically.
“If you wanted to go swimming, he’d take the girls with him, they’d go off to the beach. So they were like companions.”
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Miles said that, whenever he asked the guests what they did for a living, answers ranged from ‘estate agent’ and ‘model’ to ‘student’.
“You got quite complacent about it,” he said.
Along with the women, other guests invited to the island included a number of high profile names – including, of course, Prince Andrew.
“He came to the island a few times," Miles said.
"The first time was by himself, and then twice with Miss Maxwell.”
Cathy said the pair were ‘very good friends’ who would go swimming or jet skiing together, while Miles added that they would ‘laugh’ and ‘tease each other’, describing their relationship as ‘really close’.
“It was loud, we could hear it,” he said.
“They just enjoyed themselves.”
Cathy continued: “And he was so relaxed, he’d just open the door to the kitchen and come in and say, ‘Right, what can we eat?’
“It was like a home in many ways.”
Other people brought to the island for Epstein also included massage therapists, hired by Maxwell - who would be the first to 'test' them out to ensure their service was good enough for him.
Cathy explained: “I think [Maxwell] got into a situation where she had to find massage therapists for him, and the younger the better. And I got asked to find massage therapists and they were always too old, so she had to go and find somebody young.
“And I think in a way it felt uncomfortable that she was looking for these young massage therapists. She just made sure that he got his massages, come hell or high water – she made sure he was happy.”
Gretchen Rhodes was one of those hired by Maxwell as a private masseuse, arriving at the island when she was 24.
Remembering how her job soon turned into abuse, Rhodes revealed how, on one occasion, she had to massage Epstein's nipples as he masturbated.
“These people made the weirdest things so normal and normalised... it was all horrible and weird," she said, later adding: “[Maxwell] led me into that situation knowing full well that it’s not a normal situation to put somebody else, but doing it anyway.
“To me, she was the reason that I was abused.”
As island managers, the Alexanders said they weren't aware of the abuse, claiming they hadn’t seen women ‘trying to escape’, as alleged in the press at the time, and that no one ever came to them ‘crying’.
However, Cathy then said: “The only person who ever cried was somebody who came to give him a massage and just said, ‘Look, I want to go home.’
“And that was all. But I don’t know what happened in the room.
“People left the island very suddenly, yes. There could have been women that could have been assaulted or hurt, or...”
Miles cut in, saying they had ‘no evidence’ of that, before Cathy added: “Where there's smoke, there’s fire, but we didn’t see it, and we weren’t involved in any of it.
“[Maxwell] was trying to please [Epstein], at her detriment. That’s basically what she did: she wanted to make sure he was happy, whether she did it legally or whatever.”
When asked if Prince Andrew would get massages, Miles replied: “I don’t think so.”
The Alexanders admitted they simply ‘can’t remember’, before Cathy said: “When he was on his own, no.
“But you never know, because we weren’t privy to see any of the other side of Mr Epstein.”
Watch the first two episodes of Ghislaine Maxwell: The Making of a Monster on All4 now. Tune in to the final instalment tomorrow at 10pm on Channel 4.
Topics: TV and Film, Documentaries, Jeffrey Epstein
Jess Hardiman