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NEW YORK — <\/span>The FBI collected ample proof that Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> sexually abused underage girls but found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.<\/p>\n Videos and photos seized from Epstein\u2019s homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn\u2019t depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.<\/p>\n An examination of Epstein\u2019s financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019.<\/p>\n Summarizing the investigation in an email last July, agents said \u201cfour or five\u201d Epstein accusers claimed other men or women had sexually abused them. But, the agents said, there \u201cwas not enough evidence to federally charge these individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n The AP and other media organizations are still reviewing millions of pages of documents<\/a>, many of them previously confidential, that the Justice Department released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act and it is possible those records contain evidence overlooked by investigators.<\/p>\n Here are takeaways from what the documents show about the FBI investigation and why U.S. authorities ultimately decided to close it without additional charges.<\/p>\n The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported that she had been molested at the millionaire\u2019s home in Palm Beach, Florida. Then-Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta struck a deal<\/a> letting Epstein plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.<\/p>\n In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the accusations.<\/p>\n Epstein was arrested in July of 2019<\/a>. One month later, he killed himself<\/a> in his jail cell.<\/p>\n A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein\u2019s longtime confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>, saying she\u2019d recruited several of his victims and sometimes joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term. <\/p>\n Prosecution memos, case summaries and other documents made public in the department\u2019s latest release of Epstein-related records show that FBI agents and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential coconspirators. Even seemingly outlandish and incomprehensible claims, called in to tip lines, were examined.<\/p>\n Some allegations couldn\u2019t be verified, investigators wrote.<\/p>\n In 2011 and again in 2019, investigators interviewed Virginia Roberts Giuffre<\/a>, who in lawsuits and news interviews had accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous men, including Britain\u2019s former Prince Andrew<\/a>.<\/p>\n Investigators said they confirmed that Giuffre had been sexually abused by Epstein. But other parts of her story were problematic.<\/p>\n Giuffre acknowledged writing a partly fictionalized memoir of her time with Epstein containing descriptions of things that didn\u2019t take place. She had also offered shifting accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote.<\/p>\n Two other Epstein victims who Giuffre had claimed were also \u201clent out\u201d to powerful men told investigators they had no such experience, prosecutors wrote in a 2019 internal memo.<\/p>\n Investigators seized a multitude of videos and photos from Epstein\u2019s electronic devices and homes in New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They found CDs, hard copy photographs and at least one videotape containing nude images of females.<\/p>\n No videos or photos showed Epstein victims being sexually abused, none showed any males with any of the nude females, and none contained evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an email for FBI officials last year.<\/p>\n Had they existed, the government \u201cwould have pursued any leads they generated,\u201d Comey wrote. \u201cWe did not, however, locate any such videos.\u201d<\/p>\n Investigators who scoured Epstein\u2019s bank records found payments to more than 25 women who appeared to be models \u2014 but no evidence that he was engaged in prostituting women to other men, prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n Prosecutors weighed the possibility of charging some of Epstein\u2019s close associates, including an assistant and business clients, but ultimately decided against it because of lack of evidence.<\/p>\n