About ten years ago, while taking a leisurely late-afternoon stroll on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Tim Malloy, a friend and collaborator of mine, nearly ran into a trim, silver-haired neighbor from Palm Beach.

The man was walking down Madison Avenue, and several things about him were striking. For one thing, he was wearing slippers. Expensive, embroidered, monogrammed slippers. But slippers all the same.

For another, he was accompanied by two attractive girls. Even in Manhattan, an island that attracts beautiful people from all over the world, these young women stood out.

Tim followed, keeping a respectable distance, as the threesome made a right onto 71st Street and headed toward an enormous townhouse - a house that was almost a fortress - right in the middle of the block.

The house, and, quite possibly, the two girls, belonged to Jeffrey Epstein, a rich and powerful man who was also a registered sex offender.

Epstein was alleged to have abused dozens of young women, or, more accurately, girls. He'd settled potential lawsuits with some of them. He'd done a bit of prison time for his crimes. A bit of time. And now here he was, out in the world again.

Accompanied by two beautiful young women.

Jeffrey Epstein's arrest had made headlines in papers all over the world. But in Palm Beach, it caused a scandal that continues to set off aftershocks.

I had followed Epstein's case in the media. I wondered why it had taken so long for the Palm Beach police to catch up with him. And, once they did, why he'd served so little jail time.

Epstein had powerful friends. He'd rubbed shoulders with heads of state, Nobel Prize winners, royalty, and any number of billionaires.

Were any of these connections the reason that Epstein was now a free man?

I wanted to know. Journalist Tim Malloy and I began to investigate. We partnered with John Connolly, another tough, no-nonsense journalist who had once been a cop with the NYPD and was also following the Epstein news.

I was shocked at the insane story we uncovered: 30, 40, 50 girls, and police reports on most of them, yet this guy is barely punished.

Jeffrey Epstein was right up there with the worst characters I've ever created. Probably even worse - if this was fiction, I would've had to tone it down. Nobody would've believed a character so over the top.

The result of our investigations was Filthy Rich: The Jeffrey Epstein Story - originally published in 2016 and re-released this month, revisiting the case a decade later and confronting the questions that still haven't been answered.

In it, I also name the rich, powerful, and famous who attempted to shield him from exposure.

Once Epstein and his lawyers caught wind of our book, they tried to stop its publication. They didn't want this book written, and basically tried to intimidate us.

You don't know what you're involved with here. You should back off.

But I wasn't about to run scared. I never had any issue with this story because it was true.

Instead of backing off, I requested the chance to talk to Epstein, to hear his side. I hoped to interview him myself, to look directly into the eyes of the man we were writing about.

Epstein declined to sit for an interview. 

In crime writing, there is the first view and the long view.

There never was any doubt that Jeffrey Epstein was guilty. He admitted as much in the non-prosecution agreement he agreed to sign in 2007. The question is, what exactly was he guilty of?

Working together, Tim Malloy and I interviewed Epstein's friends, going all the way back to his childhood. Many of those friends and associates spoke with us on the condition that they not be quoted. We interviewed law enforcement officers who'd worked on the investigation in Palm Beach and lawyers on all sides of the resulting court cases.

We met with Epstein's acquaintances, employees, neighbors, and business associates, and finally with the families of his victims.

Combined with a range of evidence obtained from other investigations, we began to put the pieces together.

Then, on November 19, 2025, the Epstein Files Transparency Act became law. On January 30, 2026, came the release by the Department of Justice of more than three million pages of records, documents, files, images, and videos related to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Despite heavy redactions, the names and images of numerous Epstein victims were identifiable. So were the once private words and thoughts of some of the world's most famous and powerful individuals. Most notably, Jeffrey Epstein himself.

When Epstein first learned of Filthy Rich, he gauged his response by conferring with his inner circle. After his threats failed to stop the publication, he began looking to others for advice on how to get ahead of it.

'Let['s] talk strategy,' he emailed the journalist Michael Wolff on March 16, 2016.

Two days later, Wolff warned Epstein with a call to action, part of which mentioned me.

From: Michael Wolff

To: Jeffrey Epstein

Subject: Patterson

Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016

A few things to think about: [. . .] you do need an immediate counter narrative to the book. [. . .]

My worry is that Patterson can be counted on to produce a bestseller, and [the 2016 election] angle will amp up the attention 10-fold, in fact, possibly, a hundred fold. Possibly more than anything you've encountered before.[. . .]

Some of Epstein's celebrity friends advised him to disregard the book entirely.

'I see him as no threat to you,' Woody Allen texted Epstein about me, claiming the book would be only 'foolish tabloid writing.'

'Thx,' replied Epstein.

New age guru Deepak Chopra advised: 'After much thought best stratum on the James Patterson book is to totally ignore it[.] Do not give it an ounce of attention/energy[.] So it will be a wisp of memory like our whole life is anyway.'

But Epstein decided to play it for laughs instead. When his brother, Mark, emailed him on September 20, 2016, saying: 'Haven't seen your name in the media for a while. You still alive?' Epstein jokingly replied: 'Just give it time,' adding: 'Book coming out oct. 10 [I'm] trying to decide whether or not to have a book signing party.'

Bloomberg News reported that Epstein personally purchased at least 17 copies of Filthy Rich. Lesley Groff, his executive assistant, placed a box of the books in his office closet just in case any of his friends wanted to read it.

Epstein didn't stop there. He staged a stunt photo op in a bookstore.

Filthy Rich's cover photo, courtesy of the Palm Beach Police Department, shows his 2006 mug shot. Epstein plucked a hardcover from the new release section, held it in front of his face, and posed for the camera.

I keep a copy of that photo in my office as a reminder. This was a man who never thought he'd suffer any real consequences for his actions.

'Clearly, the rich have the big advantage when they go to court,' we told the Wall Street Journal around the release of this book's first edition in 2016. 'Money can do a lot of things.'

That hasn't changed.

But Epstein's victims haven't been silenced. They're only beginning to find the power of their voices.

Excerpted from Filthy Rich: The Jeffrey Epstein Story: Ten Years Later by James Patterson and John Connolly with Tim Malloy, published by Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.