Transcription
A new report by a local outlet in South Carolina is adding even more legitimacy to a woman's story who was credibly accusing President Donald Trump of sexually and physically assaulting her when she was as young as 13 years old.
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Hey, it's JT Saskowski with Status Coup. A new report by a local outlet in South Carolina is adding even more legitimacy to a woman's story who was credibly accusing President Donald Trump of sexually and physically assaulting her when she was as young as 13 years old in the early to mid 1980s. Let's get into it.
This is the report from the Post and Courier out of Charleston, South Carolina, which is where this woman was living at the time of the alleged abuse when she was in Hilton Head, South Carolina. And their headline is: "Three Years on Hilton Head Leave Trail of Mysteries in Alleged Jeffrey Epstein Affair." Jimmy Atkins swept into town in the blur of the 1980s when investors were transforming the once sleepy sea island into a mecca, mecca of luxury homes, beachfront hotels, and world-class golf courses. Atkins' business back in Ohio was running trade schools, but on Hilton Head, he took over a small company that specialized in long-term rentals. Property in the island's gated subdivisions called the plantations, in reference to the local antebellum history, attracted vacationing families and wealthy retirees. Corporate executives and global finance seers descended by private plane to survey the frenzy some two decades into the island's transformation at Harbor Realty and Rentals with an office near Colony Beach.
Atkins came into contact with a teenage girl who would later claim to the FBI that she was sexually assaulted by him and a young Jeffrey Epstein, the infamous and now deceased sexual predator. She alleged to agents that the two men also conspired to extort her mother to embezzle money. The mother eventually ended up in prison. And it's these details about Jimmy Atkins that are really at the center of this story and what is so important about the revelations in this story.
This woman made a lot of detailed claims in some interviews she gave to the FBI. More on those in just a minute. But all those claims, right, at first, none of them were publicly verified. Since the Post and Courier has then verified some, I've been trying to do my own digging here at Status Coup to try and figure out where is any of these women's claims just false on their face? Not specifically the allegations she makes against President Trump, which we'll also get into here in a minute, but any of the claims here in the story, can any of them be debunked? Because it might say that some of the other claims, like those that she makes against President Trump, are not true. But that's not the case. So far, nothing that this woman has claimed has proven to be untrue.
She detailed her claims in a series of four FBI interviews in 2019. The first of which chronicled her allegations of rapes, beatings, and other torture at the hands of Epstein. Accounts from the other three meetings remained hidden from public view for weeks. The US Department of Justice said it was a clerical error. Critics called it part of a cover-up. When finally released, the interviews revealed her searing accusations of sexual assault against Atkins and the current president of the United States. And that is why these claims about who Atkins was are so crucial, because if they bear out, then it lends more credence to her accusations of sexual assault against Jeffrey Epstein, Atkins, and potentially President Donald Trump.
Her assault claims against Epstein, Atkins, and Donald Trump remain unproven, and the White House has vigorously denied the assertions about the president. No direct evidence has been uncovered supporting the assault claims. And that is crucial here because the only real contemporaneous support that this woman had for her story was that she told her mother at the time. Her mother has since died, and she also told a childhood friend. But this woman declined to go forward with any investigations against President Donald Trump with the FBI. The FBI wanted to pursue further investigations, but this woman said no. That she didn't see that there was a point to it because she was worried about statute of limitations and, of course, blowback on her as someone making these allegations against a very, you know, wealthy and powerful person, the president of the United States. So, she did not go forward with those investigations. And that's why we don't have more information on this from the FBI. Although, there might still be stuff within the unreleased Epstein files. We know that there are at least 30 unreleased pages from the Epstein files.
Getting back here to the story, an ongoing investigation by the Post and Courier has uncovered new details of Atkins' intersection with Hilton Head and the woman's family caught up in emotional and financial turmoil. The newspaper found records that corroborate the alleged victim's account of Atkins' background as an educator, his physical appearance, and his involvement in the woman's teenage years. The former Hilton Head teen correctly told the FBI that Atkins was affiliated with a college in Ohio, perhaps as a dean or money guy. She also provided other details that panned out, including his age, hair color, and direct associations with the mother's embezzlement charge. That would be a lot to make up and just get right by happenstance here in this story, which is why I think it lends so much credence when you're getting it down to the hair color and who this guy was, what his affiliations were. We're about to explore that a little bit more here.
Local resident Phil Later, president of the Sea Pines Company and later an executive vice president of Sir James Goldsmith's US Holdings based on Hilton Head, hosted the first Renaissance weekend on the island in 1981. The invite-only retreat drew a crowd of intellectuals, scientists, businessmen, and politicians, including then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Later served as Clinton's admin in it, Clinton's administration when he was elected president and eventually became ambassador to the United Kingdom. In 2011, Epstein was asked if he knew about the Renaissance weekend, according to an email released by the US Department of Justice. "Quote, 'Of course,' he replied. I think that is perhaps the biggest revelation in this entire document is that Epstein was aware of going on on Hilton Head at least in 2011, and that, of course, meaning that he is intimately familiar with it. Why is that important? Because Epstein's brother said that Epstein never visited Hilton Head Island where this alleged abuse took place against this woman in the early to mid 1980s. This would seem to contradict that, meaning that Epstein was at least familiar with Hilton Head Island and some of the goings-on there, which could imply that he also spent time there. It's not a definite link, but it does again add credibility, and I have to give hats off to the Post and Courier here because it had seemed that there was no, you know, direct connections between Epstein and Hilton Head Island. They have now found one here in the Epstein files, finding this email correspondence with Epstein where he says, 'Of course,' in reference to the Renaissance weekend that was hosted on Hilton Head Island as early as the early 1980s, starting in 1981. And of course, the abuse was alleged to have happened sometime between 1983 and 1985.
Multi-millionaires from New York, Ohio, Georgia, and California bought into the exclusive development on Hilton Head. A retired Coca-Cola executive brought along the, uh, uh, bought along the winding clubhouse road, and basketball legend Michael Jordan briefly called a three-bedroom home his hideaway. After sunset, members gossiped over elegant full-service dinners. I just call that out to show that this was, you know, a playground for the rich and powerful, for people who would eventually, you know, be in Epstein's circle. Not those people that I just named out of the story, but that wealthy billionaire class that Epstein palled around with was hanging out on Hilton Head Island. Again, adding another connection. Let's get back into the meat of the story.
Days after authorities in 2019 arrested Epstein at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, a woman called into an FBI hotline saying that New York financier abused her as a teen in South Carolina. A month later, Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in what authorities ruled as a suicide. Federal agents on the West Coast, where the alleged victim lived at the time, quickly arranged a meeting at her attorney's law office. She told the FBI that Epstein requested her babysitting services when she lived in Hilton Head around 1984. Instead, she said he plied her with drugs and alcohol and then raped her. Epstein abused her as many as 20 times, she said, even inviting other men to participate at least once. Her most explosive charge, still unproven, is that Epstein introduced her to Trump, then a developer and casino owner, during a trip to the New York area in the mid-1980s. She told investigators that Trump forced her to perform oral sex. He was in his first term as president at the time of the interview.
A lot of that is just background understanding. We've covered it in depth here at Status Coup, including some of the Post and Courier's other reporting on this topic, but I just wanted you to have that basis for her accusation against President Trump. And again, so far, all of the story either cannot be corroborated, meaning could be true, could be false, or has been directly corroborated, meaning that there's not anything in this story so far that can just be dismissed out of hand. By the way, where the hell is the corporate press on this story? Why is it the Post and Courier, a local outlet in South Carolina, that is running ahead with this? And again, hats off to them. They are doing incredible work on this. And I looked into their ownership. They are a family-owned company that owns Post and Courier and just a handful of other outlets there in the South Carolina area. I don't think it should shock anyone that this is not a, you know, big corporate conglomerate of, you know, nationwide holdings. It's none of those outlets. It's none of the massive corporate outlets in this country that are doing this investigative work. Why? Well, maybe it'll have something to do with the fact that they have business before the Trump administration in terms of their ongoing mergers and acquisitions in order to further consolidate control of the media ecosphere in this country under just a few billionaires in this country. So, it's left to these what stands in for mom and pop operations in the media landscape in this day and age, these local outlets and independent media like Status Coup to do these investigations and to cover these very important stories that allege criminal sexual misconduct by the president of the United States at the hands against a minor in the early 1980s, though it should not fall to us.
The alleged victim told the FBI she first encountered Atkins in her mother's office. She thought he was married and described him as a "quote pervert" with gray hair and big ears. She believed he was connected to Epstein, who she claimed was staying at the Sea Pines villa he had secured through her mother's company. I'm going to pause there just to note that her description of him is accurate based on photos that the Post and Courier says that it reviewed. So, her descriptions of this man, check out another point in the column of her story being given credibility.
Atkins came off as a "quote rich prick." She told the FBI he dated her mother for about a year, flying back and forth for visits. The woman told federal agents he thought her family home was not nice enough to visit. She said she alleged that Atkins sexually assaulted her more than once and looked at her like she was a "quote piece of meat." He was rude and a heavy drinker. She said while the Post and Courier was not, has not independently verified a connection between Atkins and Epstein, the New York financier had many Ohio connections, including his billionaire client Les Wexner, who owned The Limited and Victoria's Secret retail empires, and his early advisor Goldsmith, the British mogul who held business interests in the Buckeye State. Epstein owned a luxury estate in a Wexner development in New Albany, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. I think that those are very important distinctions to draw. It was one thing that myself and Jordan here at Status Coup immediately clued in on this woman's story about James Atkins, that the fact that he had these Ohio connections was like, wait, like Ohio meaning Les Wexner, who's also from Ohio. Hmm. You know, and this guy's also in the education realm. He owned and operated for-profit colleges, as it turns out, according to the Post and Courier. But Les Wexner was also heavily involved in education. He, you know, he even has his name on a building at Ohio University. So, the fact that there are all these parallels between these different alleged Epstein associates really, I think, adds another degree of credibility to this woman's story.
Atkins ultimately helped Epstein extort money from her mother to stop him from circulating nude photos of the girl. The alleged victim told the FBI. Epstein took illicit Polaroids of her during sex, she told the FBI. She said in the interviews with agents that she discovered the photos in his condo. She said she told her mother about the photos and confessed her relationship with Epstein only to her mother and a school friend. She also maintained that Atkins and his accountant helped her mother fix the fix the real estate books to embezzle funds to pay Epstein. Atkins turned the woman in to local law enforcement, which charged her with embezzling $22,000, equivalent to about $70,000 today. She was ordered to pay restitution. When she fell behind in payments, she went to prison in Colombia for two years. By the way, all of this is publicly verifiable and again adds credibility to the woman's story. She claims all of this happened, and from what we can tell through public records, "Yes, it did."
The family then had moved to Somerville, and the mother had started drinking again. Her daughter told the FBI. Watching her mother's life spiral, the alleged victim said she called Atkins at his Ohio college to ask for help. Atkins, she said, told her he did not care if she and her mother end up in the gutter. "Don't ever contact me again." I'll note that then the Post and Courier's reporting goes on to say that Atkins died in 2003 after his public, excuse me, his private college empire had begun to, uh, dissolve, fade, and fall apart.