Epstein's victim recruitment operated on a pyramid model:
- Primary recruiters (paid): Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen, Nadia Marcinkova, Lesley Groff, Haley Robson
- Secondary recruiters (paid per referral): Victims themselves, incentivized to bring friends ($200-$300 per referral)
- Access channels (unpaid/institutional): Victoria's Secret, MC2 Model Management (Jean-Luc Brunel), Mar-a-Lago, school outreach
- Geographic targeting: Working-class neighborhoods in Palm Beach, inner-city Miami, Eastern Europe (via Brunel and MC2), Paris
Financial structure (from RICO-06):
- Western Union payments to recruiters: documented
- Cash payments: $200-$300 per "massage" to victims
- MC2 wire: EFTA01358241 (DB to MC2, grand jury sealed)
Evidence Grade: A1 (victim testimony, court filings, WU records), A2 (bank records)
For non-victim targets (potential patrons, political contacts, scientists), the recruitment mechanism was:
- Dinner party invitation at the townhouse — intimate gathering with interesting people
- Offer of value — funding, connections, introductions
- Gradual exposure — from dinners to flights to island visits
- Compromising material — surveillance recorded interactions at properties
Not every guest was compromised. Not every associate was a co-conspirator. The genius of the model was that it made it impossible for outsiders to distinguish between innocent dinner guests and active participants.
Evidence Grade: A1 (surveillance infrastructure documented in NYDFS), C1 (victim and witness descriptions), D (operational model is inference from documented facts)