One of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistants has fiercely denied she was an accomplice of the convicted sex offender during a congressional interview, claiming she was “sexually and psychologically abused” by the late financier.

“I am here today to answer your questions, to dispel rumors and conspiracies, and to tell you the truth,” Sarah Kellen told lawmakers on the House of Representatives oversight and reform committee on Thursday morning, as part of its ongoing review of the federal investigation into Epstein.

A copy of her opening statement was provided to the Guardian.

Kellen, 46, testified behind closed doors after lawmakers on the committee requested her apperance as part of its inquiry. Earlier this week, she participated in an interview with MS NOW, in which she claimed she was also a survivor of Epstein’s abuse.

Kellen was employed by Epstein as a personal assistant for more than 10 years beginning in 2001, and has faced public scrutiny for years since it emerged that she was listed as one of the four women named as possible “co-conspirators” and granted immunity from prosecution in Epstein’s controversial 2007 plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida.

Under that agreement, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor, served just 13 months in county jail and avoided a federal sex-trafficking indictment.

On Thursday, Kellen told lawmakers in her prepared remarks that she “worked for, and was sexually and psychologically abused by, Jeffrey Epstein for over a decade”.

“He groomed me, sexually and psychologically abused me, controlled me, manipulated me, dominated me, and gaslit me until I could no longer tell which thoughts were mine and which were his,” she said. “It was like living with a permanent virtual reality headset on.

“I was reminded every day how powerful he was – how influential he was – and that to turn on him or disobey him would mean losing everything: my job, my home, everyone I knew in the world, even my life.”

Articles labeling her as a “lieutenant” of Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, are a “gross misrepresentation”, Kellen claimed. “I was a literal indentured slave; in fact, she even referred to me as her slave and minion. I had zero power or authority, I was there only to serve and to submit.”

“I will not catalogue every assault; it would take too much time, but I want this committee to know that the abuse happened on average on a weekly basis, and was at times violent,” said Kellen.

The abuse continued while Epstein was serving a jail sentence in Florida for soliciting prostitution from underage girls, she alleged, describing how the financier “even Skyped me from a computer inside the Palm Beach County Stockade and ordered me to undress for him on camera”.

Over the years, in lawsuits and also during Maxwell’s trial, several Epstein survivors have accused Kellen of arranging and scheduling massages and sex sessions for Epstein, and helping him recruit girls. According to Department of Justice records, reported by ABC News, Kellen has claimed she was given directories of names she was told to call, and denied knowing that some girls who came to the house were underage.

After Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, it has been reported that federal prosecutors in New York considered possibly bringing charges against some in his orbit, including Kellen. She was never prosecuted or charged.

In 2020, a spokesperson for Kellen told CBS News that she had “scheduled appointments for Epstein and Maxwell ‘at their direction’”, and that Epstein had abused Kellen for years.

Kellen told lawmakers on Thursday that she was not aware of the 2007 plea agreement at the time, adding that “no one from law enforcement ever spoke with me, ever heard my side, ever asked me a single question”.

“I did not even know my name was in that agreement until after it had been signed and released to the public,” she said. “The federal government of the United States branded me a criminal in a secret deal with my own abuser, without ever once speaking to me.”

Also during her remarks, she told the panel: “I know some of you are wondering why I did not leave. I had nowhere else to go. I had no money, no family, no education and no sense that I deserved any better.”

“This is why it is so important for people to be educated on how the grooming process works, how trauma bonds form,” she added. “I can provide more information about how I was groomed, but I will not speak for or about other victims.”

Epstein “made certain I knew that defying him would cost me my life”, said Kellen. “He knew everyone in the highest echelons of society and everyone catered to him.”