Epstein survivors say financier lured them with promise of college education
Source: The Guardian
Sun 18 Jan 2026 07.00 EST
Last modified on Sun 18 Jan 2026 07.02 EST
A New York City artist who said Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell shopped her around to men is among the survivors claiming that Epstein used the lure of a university education to ensnare her in their sexual abuse network.
Rina Oh was a 21-year-old art student when she was introduced to Epstein in 2000 by Lisa Phillips, a model and Epstein survivor who has since emerged as a powerful voice in the survivors’ network pressuring for full accountability in the long-running money, sex and power scandal. “He told me: ‘You’re really talented. I think you should be in school,’” Oh recalled.
Epstein invited her to come sit down next to him. “He explained that he was a philanthropist, known by so many people, a very generous man, and had sent so many young people to university, often the kids of women he’d been at school with. I completely believed him.” Oh says Epstein told her she need a bachelor of fine arts degree to make it in the art world and was offering her a scholarship to New York’s School of Visual Arts “with no strings attached”.
But, Oh said: “He attached a lot of strings to that scholarship. When I wouldn’t do all that he wanted he took it away.” Oh, who spent roughly two years in Epstein’s network, is one of a number of survivors coming forward to detail how Epstein used offers to help enrol and sometimes pay for tuition at prestigious universities to maintain his sway over them.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/18/jeffrey-epstein-lure-victims-college-education
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... had few financial resources on their own. They were from working-class families, or they were runaways, some were high school dropouts . He preyed on their dreams of going to college, or becoming a model or an actress. These girls were susceptible to his false promises.
Compare these girls to the ones who were typically modelling in the teenage beauty pageants run by Chump back in the 1980s and 90s, and there's a big difference. Candidates in the beauty pageants would normally be hovered over by parents, and watched carefully by guardians around the clock. Epstein had no interest in girls who were carefully watched over. Chump saw profits in the girls' parents, because they coughed up big money for their daughters' pageant entry fees and "modelling school" fees etc. For Epstein it was the chance to fool around, and he had the money to spend on them.
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