The House Oversight Committee will interview Sarah Kellen on Thursday, the longtime personal assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, as her role in Epstein’s alleged abuse has proved particularly controversial—with her being both singled out as a potential “co-conspirator” to the financier while also arguing she was instead another victim of his sexual abuse.
Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Sept. 8, 2004.
Corbis via Getty Images
Kellen is testifying Thursday as part of the House Oversight Committee’s ongoing investigation into Epstein and his alleged abuse, in a closed-door hearing that will not be broadcast publicly.
She worked for Epstein for more than a decade starting in 2001, according to MS Now, and has been under public scrutiny since being listed as one of four “co-conspirators” in the 2007 non-prosecution agreement Epstein reached with law enforcement, which said prosecutors would not bring charges against Kellen and other co-conspirators as a condition of the deal.
Epstein victims have alleged Kellen helped schedule and prepare massages in which Epstein allegedly abused women, and documents show prosecutors investigated Kellen following Epstein’s 2019 indictment and subsequent death and considered charging her with witness tampering.
Kellen alleged she was not aware that any of the women Epstein saw were underage and alleged she was also sexually abused by the late financier, with one document saying she told prosecutors she had sexual contact with him “pretty often,” and was at one point “aggressively raped.”
No charges have ever been filed against Kellen, with her attorney Kathleen Cassidy telling MS Now that after Kellen disclosed Epstein’s abuse of her, “prosecutors recognized her as a victim and declined to prosecute.”
Her role in Epstein’s abuse has remained controversial and some lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee have condemned her actions, with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., telling Politico, “If you’re an adult female and you’re recruiting underage girls, you’re not a victim. You’re a prostitute, a child predator, and a sex trafficker.”
While Kellen’s interview Thursday will not be open to the public, the House Oversight Committee has traditionally released transcripts of its Epstein-related interviews to the public in the days following the testimony.
In a 2020 email to prosecutors, Kellen’s attorneys argued the former assistant should not be prosecuted because “we see her basically as a cog in Epstein's wheel, acting entirely at his direction and doing what she did at a time that she herself was a very vulnerable victim.”
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