More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell publicly urged billionaire Leon Black to fully cooperate with the House Oversight Committee as lawmakers prepared to question him about his relationship with Epstein. In a letter released ahead of Black’s scheduled deposition, the survivors called on him not only to appear, but also to comply with congressional subpoenas demanding records, including nondisclosure agreements in his possession. Black paid Epstein tens of millions of dollars for what he has described as tax and estate-planning services, and that enormous financial relationship has made him one of the most important figures in Congress’s renewed investigation. The survivors argued that Black’s use of NDAs deserved particular scrutiny because those agreements could help clarify the nature of his dealings with Epstein and others in Epstein’s orbit.


The pressure on Black was already escalating on Capitol Hill. House Oversight Chairman James Comer had threatened to hold him in contempt if he failed to cooperate, while Black had previously denied knowing about Epstein’s broader criminal conduct until the 2019 sex-trafficking charges, despite acknowledging that he knew Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges involving a minor. Rep. Thomas Massie also named Black from the House floor while calling for the Justice Department to investigate Epstein associates more aggressively. The survivors’ message was therefore straightforward: Black’s immense financial dealings with Epstein, his possession of potentially relevant agreements and his acknowledged knowledge of Epstein’s 2008 conviction make full transparency necessary. They warned that if Black continued withholding records or resisted the committee’s demands, Congress should use every enforcement tool available to compel his cooperation.


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Epstein survivors urge billionaire Leon Black to cooperate with House panel | Jeffrey Epstein | The Guardian

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Seven women have filed a civil lawsuit in New York accusing celebrity hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai and employee Patrick Coombs of helping groom them for Jeffrey Epstein, including by altering their appearance to suit Epstein’s preferences. According to the complaint, Epstein allegedly sent young women and girls to Fekkai’s Manhattan salon, where their hair was bleached blond and they were styled to look “as young as possible,” with the plaintiffs describing the salon as a central part of the grooming process. Five of the seven women are proceeding anonymously, while the named plaintiffs include former model Kersti Ferguson and former Playboy Playmate Audra Christiansen. The lawsuit was filed under New York’s Gender-Motivated Violence Act and alleges that Fekkai and his salon were part of a broader network that helped manipulate and prepare women for Epstein’s abuse. Those allegations have not been proven in court, and Fekkai has denied wrongdoing in connection with separate Epstein-related accusations.

The lawsuit also places Fekkai’s business relationship with Epstein under scrutiny, alleging that Epstein helped boost Fekkai’s commercial success while Fekkai, in turn, provided services that benefited Epstein’s operation. The plaintiffs claim Epstein’s connections helped Fekkai’s products gain access to major retailers, including Victoria’s Secret, which was then controlled by Leslie Wexner, and they argue that Fekkai’s salon became intertwined with Epstein’s broader social and trafficking network. The case comes amid renewed congressional attention to Fekkai after Sarah Kellen reportedly accused him during a closed-door House interview of sexually assaulting her years earlier, an allegation Fekkai has denied. Rep. Thomas Massie has also publicly named Fekkai among people he believes should face further investigation. The new lawsuit therefore pushes Fekkai from being merely another name associated with Epstein into a direct civil defendant accused of helping shape and groom women for Epstein’s benefit.


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Jeffrey Epstein's Celebrity Hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai Accused of Bleaching Girls Blond and Grooming Them 'Like Dolls' | IBTimes UK

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Eleven Jeffrey Epstein survivors voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit against Leslie Wexner, the Wexner Foundation and Nine East 71st Street Corporation after a prolonged fight over whether the case belonged in state or federal court. The lawsuit was originally filed in New York Supreme Court under the city’s Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act, accusing Wexner and related entities of helping enable Epstein through financial support, control over his finances and access to the Manhattan townhouse later associated with his abuse. Wexner and the foundation moved the case into federal court, where the dispute quickly became centered on jurisdiction rather than the substance of the allegations. The key fight involved whether complete diversity existed between the parties, particularly because plaintiff Andrea Sterling said she had been living in Tulum, Mexico, while defense lawyers pointed to public material suggesting she still had ties to Miami. After Nine East sought discovery into Sterling’s domicile and opposed sending the case back to state court, the plaintiffs moved to dismiss the action.


The dismissal was without prejudice, which means the survivors did not lose on the merits and are not necessarily barred from bringing the claims again. That distinction is important because the allegations against Wexner were never adjudicated; the case ended, for now, because of the jurisdictional battle rather than because a judge found the claims insufficient after a full merits review. Wexner has denied knowing about Epstein’s abuse, has not been criminally charged, and his representatives have argued that the complaint failed to provide a factual basis for holding him responsible. But the filing window created by New York City law remains open into 2027, leaving the possibility that the survivors could refile under a different procedural posture. So the immediate result is not an exoneration of Wexner or a defeat of the underlying allegations, but a tactical withdrawal after the case became bogged down in a fight over where it should be heard.


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Epstein Abuse Claimants Withdraw Wexner Foundation Suit Without Prejudice After Federal Venue Fight | IBTimes UK

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In the weeks after the murders, the Goncalves family said they wanted to raise money for a reward in hopes that a financial incentive might persuade someone with useful information to come forward. Kristi Goncalves said the family planned to use crowdfunding campaigns, including GoFundMe and GiveSendGo, to build a reward fund and, if necessary, hire a private investigator. At that point, the case was entering its fifth week with no publicly identified suspect, and the family was becoming increasingly frustrated with the pace of the investigation and the limited information being released by authorities. Nearly $15,000 had already been raised through the two campaigns, with the family saying the money would go toward getting answers as well as Kaylee’s final arrangements and celebration of life.

The proposed reward also highlighted the growing divide between the Goncalves family and law enforcement over how aggressively the public should be enlisted in the search for the killer. Moscow police said investigators were already receiving strong tips and leads and had not yet decided that an official reward was necessary, while the Goncalves family clearly believed every available tool should be used to generate information. Their willingness to independently raise money showed just how desperate they had become for movement in the case and how unwilling they were to simply wait for investigators to dictate the pace. Before Bryan Kohberger’s arrest later that month, the reward effort was another example of the family using public attention and media exposure to keep pressure on the investigation and search for anything that might break the case open.


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After Bryan Kohberger’s arrest, one of the more prominent theories floated by commentators and online sleuths was that the University of Idaho murders might have been connected to incel ideology or a broader resentment toward women. That theory drew oxygen from several pieces of Kohberger’s background that were publicly reported after his arrest: accounts from women who described awkward or unsettling encounters with him, reports that female students had complained about his behavior in educational settings, and the fact that three of the four victims were young women. Some commentators also tried to read significance into his academic interest in criminology and criminal behavior, as well as into online posts and profiles that were attributed to him or people believed to be him. From there, a narrative developed that Kohberger may have harbored hostility toward women or identified with communities centered on rejection, grievance and misogyny.


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Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had extensive ties to France, yet the full scope of what happened there remains far less explored than their activities in New York, Florida or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Epstein owned a lavish apartment on Avenue Foch in Paris that functioned as both a social hub and, according to survivor accounts and later investigative findings, another location where young women and girls were brought into his orbit. His French connections ran deep through the modeling world, particularly through Jean-Luc Brunel, the powerful agent accused of using modeling agencies to gain access to vulnerable young women and minors. French investigators later gathered allegations that Epstein committed rape and sexual assault in Paris, while other accounts placed Epstein, Maxwell and Brunel in Saint-Tropez and other parts of France where similar patterns of recruitment and exploitation were alleged. French authorities searched Epstein’s Paris residence after his 2019 arrest, but his death, Brunel’s later death in custody, statutes of limitation and the international nature of the network left major portions of the French story unresolved.


That unresolved history is now getting another look. In February 2026, Paris prosecutors opened fresh investigations into possible human trafficking and financial crimes after millions of newly released Epstein records produced new leads, and they also began a complete reanalysis of the earlier Brunel investigation. Prosecutors have acknowledged that the material could point to sexual offenses, trafficking, money laundering, tax fraud and other misconduct committed on French soil or involving French nationals, while urging additional survivors to come forward. The French dimension matters because Epstein’s activities there appear to have intersected with fashion agencies, wealthy social circles, politicians, diplomats and international travel in ways that have never been fully mapped publicly. So while France has investigated parts of the Epstein network, the larger question remains open: how extensive was the operation there, who facilitated it, how many victims were involved, and whether crimes tied to Epstein and Maxwell extended far beyond the handful of French allegations that have already reached investigators.



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Reports in early 2023 claimed investigators had found multiple photographs of one of the female University of Idaho murder victims on a phone seized from Bryan Kohberger, though the identity of the woman and the origin of the images were not publicly disclosed. It was unclear whether Kohberger had taken the pictures himself, saved them from social media or obtained them some other way, but former FBI officials said the allegation, if accurate, could have been extremely significant because it might have helped prosecutors establish prior interest, fixation or a connection to one of the victims. Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer said such material could become part of a broader behavioral pattern, especially when considered alongside other evidence investigators were gathering about Kohberger’s movements, digital history and possible familiarity with the victims. At that stage, however, the claim came from unnamed sources and had not been confirmed in court filings.

The potential importance of the photos was that they could have helped answer one of the biggest unanswered questions in the case: whether Kohberger knew of or had focused on any of the victims before the murders. If the images predated November 13, 2022, prosecutors could have argued that they supported a theory of surveillance, fascination or targeting, depending on what the surrounding digital evidence showed. But the mere presence of a photograph would not, by itself, establish stalking, contact or motive, and investigators would have needed to determine when the images were obtained, how they reached the phone and what Kohberger did with them. Later examinations of Kohberger’s phone complicated the early reporting, with investigators publicly describing large numbers of selfies and cached images of women but not establishing the dramatic victim-photo claim in the way early reports had suggested.


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In the early weeks after the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, attention turned to the familiar idea that the first 48 hours of a homicide investigation are the most important. The theory is rooted in the practical reality that witnesses’ memories are fresher, surveillance video is less likely to have been erased, physical evidence has had less time to degrade, and suspects have had less opportunity to destroy evidence, coordinate stories or disappear. But experts cautioned that the “48-hour rule” was not some hard deadline after which a murder suddenly became unsolvable. In Moscow, that distinction mattered because the case had already moved well beyond the first two days without an arrest, feeding public concern that investigators had missed their best opportunity. The reality was more complicated: police were still collecting forensic evidence, interviewing witnesses, obtaining digital records and reviewing enormous amounts of surveillance footage and tips.

The larger point was that time absolutely mattered, but modern homicide investigations could continue developing long after the first 48 hours because DNA testing, cellphone records, financial data, vehicle records and surveillance systems could generate leads weeks or even months later. In the Idaho case, investigators were dealing with an unusually complicated scene involving four victims, multiple surviving roommates, an off-campus house frequently visited by other students and a huge volume of physical and digital evidence. So while the lack of an immediate arrest created understandable anxiety, it did not mean the investigation was failing or that the case was destined to go cold. The first 48 hours were best understood as the most valuable opening window in an investigation, not an expiration date on the possibility of solving the murders.


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The Karen Read case helped create a toxic blueprint for modern true-crime culture, where serious criminal proceedings are treated like team sports and public opinion is manipulated through repetition, outrage, harassment, and absolute certainty untethered from actual evidence. What happened in Canton went far beyond ordinary disagreement about guilt or innocence. Witnesses were turned into villains, critics were attacked, speculation was elevated into fact, and social-media personalities helped transform a homicide prosecution into an entertainment ecosystem built around loyalty, monetization, and tribal warfare. The most dangerous part of that legacy is how easily the formula can now be transferred to other cases: choose a side early, construct a simple counter-narrative, punish dissent, flood the public with emotionally charged claims, and hope the resulting pressure reaches far beyond the internet. None of that is skepticism or citizen journalism. It is a culture where popularity begins competing with evidence and where people convince themselves that screaming louder somehow makes their version of events more credible.


Years of covering Jeffrey Epstein have only made that behavior more intolerable because Epstein’s history provides legitimate reasons to distrust powerful institutions without requiring anyone to invent facts. Prosecutors can fail, police can make mistakes, governments can lie, and wealthy people can receive extraordinary treatment, but none of that means every rumor becomes true or every preferred theory deserves to be treated as established fact. Serious scrutiny demands the same skepticism toward your own conclusions that you apply to prosecutors, investigators, and institutions, and that standard disappears once criminal cases become fandom. Victims become props, defendants become mascots, witnesses become targets, and tragedy becomes content for people whose audiences reward outrage over accuracy. The Karen Read circus did not teach people to question authority; it demonstrated how easily public certainty can be manufactured before factual certainty has been earned. If that blueprint continues spreading, the justice system risks becoming another spectator sport driven by algorithms, personalities, money, and whichever crowd can scream the loudest.


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The Karen Read case helped create a toxic blueprint for modern true-crime culture, where serious criminal proceedings are treated like team sports and public opinion is manipulated through repetition, outrage, harassment, and absolute certainty untethered from actual evidence. What happened in Canton went far beyond ordinary disagreement about guilt or innocence. Witnesses were turned into villains, critics were attacked, speculation was elevated into fact, and social-media personalities helped transform a homicide prosecution into an entertainment ecosystem built around loyalty, monetization, and tribal warfare. The most dangerous part of that legacy is how easily the formula can now be transferred to other cases: choose a side early, construct a simple counter-narrative, punish dissent, flood the public with emotionally charged claims, and hope the resulting pressure reaches far beyond the internet. None of that is skepticism or citizen journalism. It is a culture where popularity begins competing with evidence and where people convince themselves that screaming louder somehow makes their version of events more credible.


Years of covering Jeffrey Epstein have only made that behavior more intolerable because Epstein’s history provides legitimate reasons to distrust powerful institutions without requiring anyone to invent facts. Prosecutors can fail, police can make mistakes, governments can lie, and wealthy people can receive extraordinary treatment, but none of that means every rumor becomes true or every preferred theory deserves to be treated as established fact. Serious scrutiny demands the same skepticism toward your own conclusions that you apply to prosecutors, investigators, and institutions, and that standard disappears once criminal cases become fandom. Victims become props, defendants become mascots, witnesses become targets, and tragedy becomes content for people whose audiences reward outrage over accuracy. The Karen Read circus did not teach people to question authority; it demonstrated how easily public certainty can be manufactured before factual certainty has been earned. If that blueprint continues spreading, the justice system risks becoming another spectator sport driven by algorithms, personalities, money, and whichever crowd can scream the loudest.


to contact me:


[email protected]

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-moscow-murders-and-more--5852883/support.