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Thursday June 04, 2026
(WASHINGTON) -- House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) on Thursday asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations of sexual abuse raised by a former assistant to Jeffrey Epstein during her interview with the committee last month, according to a letter from Comer and three other Republican lawmakers.
Sarah Kellen, a longtime personal assistant to Epstein, told the Oversight Committee that she was sexually abused by Epstein for over a decade, and disclosed for the first time allegations that she was also abused by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's convicted accomplice, and by two other men in his orbit, according to a transcript of Kellen's interview made public Thursday.
Kellen alleged that celebrity hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai and Phillip Levine, a wealthy businessman who was later elected mayor of Miami Beach, were the other men who had also abused her.
Comer's letter asks the DOJ to "use all available tools, including immunity for certain witnesses, to investigate the allegations against, and any other criminal conduct committed by, Phillip Levine and Frédéric Fekkai." The committee also asked the DOJ for an explanation as to why Kellen was never interviewed by law enforcement until Epstein's arrest in July of 2019.
Both men, through their representatives, denied the allegations in statements to ABC News.
Kellen's closed-door appearance before the Oversight Committee, which took place May 21, was part of the panel's ongoing inquiry into the federal government's handling of investigations into Epstein and his alleged co-conspirators.
One of four women named as potential co-conspirators in Epstein's controversial 2007 non-prosecution agreement, Kellen was previously a subject of criminal investigations in Florida and New York. She has never been charged -- due, in part, to her own allegations of persistent sexual abuse at the hands of the disgraced financier, according to court documents and records released earlier this year by the Justice Department.
"I was there only to serve and to submit. Only after Jeffrey confirmed that I would submit to his sexual abuse did he begin paying me," Kellen told the committee in her opening remarks.
Kellen said she did not know her name was included in Epstein's non-prosecution agreement until the document was made public a few years later. The deal allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges for alleged sexual crimes involving dozens of underage girls.
"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," Kellen said. "I have spent every year since trying to live underneath that piece of paper."
'A terrible scenario'
Kellen appeared before the committee voluntarily, accompanied by two attorneys. The scope of her appearance was limited -- by advance agreement with the committee -- and focused primarily on her own alleged victimization. On advice of her counsel, she largely declined to answer questions about other alleged victims and about Epstein's scheme to recruit underage girls for massages -- the core activity that led to Epstein's criminal charges.
"She's not going to answer questions about other victims and questions specific to massages in Palm Beach [that] could implicate other victims," said attorney Kimberly Hamm, citing privacy concerns and Kellen's constitutional rights.
Kellen told the lawmakers she would be "a hundred percent" willing to answer more questions if given immunity by Congress or the Justice Department.
In advance of Kellen's appearance, Comer told reporters that committee members were split on their perceptions of her, given the allegations that Kellen was involved in scheduling some of Epstein's massages.
"There are some that believe she was 100% a victim or survivor, and then there are some that think she was a victim and victimizer. So, it's just a terrible scenario," he said.
After the interview Comer said he believed Kellen "was a victim" and called her appearance "the most substantive, productive interview that we've had."
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the committee's top Democrat, used his time to query Kellen about her knowledge of Epstein's previous relationship with President Donald Trump, who had a friendship with Epstein until they had a falling out around 2004 and has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein's crimes.
Kellen said she recalled Epstein "using the gym a lot" at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate during the early years of her employment, and assumed Epstein and Trump were friends based on photographs Epstein displayed in his homes. She said she met Trump just once, during a brief encounter at Mar-a-Lago in 2001 or 2002.
"Jeffrey introduced me to him," she said. "That was my only encounter with him during my employment."
'He took advantage of me'
One of the committee's central interests was whether Kellen had directly witnessed any inappropriate sexual activity by prominent individuals linked to Epstein -- and in each case, Kellen said no.
But when asked if anyone associated with Epstein had abused her, Kellen named Maxwell, Fekkai and Levine.
Kellen alleged that Fekkai, now 68, abused her before she began working for Epstein. She told the panel that in the early 2000s, when she was trying to get modeling opportunities, Fekkai invited her to a fashion show in Hawaii. When she arrived, there was no show.
"I didn't have any money to get my own hotel room or fly back, and he took advantage of me that night," she said, according to the interview transcript. Kellen said was in her early 20s at the time. She said that Fekkai later introduced her to Epstein, who he described as a model scout for Victoria's Secret.
A representative for Fekkai denied Kellen's allegations in a statement to ABC News.
"Mr. Fekkai was astonished to?read of?Ms. Kellen's testimony. Mr. Fekkai never abused anyone. He never?participated?in any illegal behavior, He knew nothing about Epstein's repugnant depravity or trafficking. He did nothing wrong," the spokesperson, Mark Herr, said in the statement.
The incident involving Levine, Kellen said, allegedly occurred during a summer trip to France around 2003, when Levine was a houseguest at a property Epstein and Maxwell had rented in Saint-Tropez. After Epstein and Maxwell had gone to sleep, Kellen claimed Levine "basically forced himself" on her.
"He came up to me, and he was like, 'You know, must be so lonely for you, working with them, because you're with them all the time, and you can't have your own life, so you must be really lonely,' and he basically forced himself on me," she said.
She claimed it happened again during a walk on the beach when Levine "grabbed my hand and pulled me" into a wooden shack.
A spokesperson for Levine, 64, denied Kellen's allegations in a statement to ABC News.
"Nearly a quarter century ago, our client had a brief intimate encounter with another consenting adult," the statement said. "Any allegation suggesting otherwise is not true."
Levine has previously said that he "never had a friendship or business relationship" with Epstein, according to a report in the Miami Herald.
Kellen told the committee she did not know what, if anything, Epstein and Maxwell knew about either alleged incident. She did not report them at the time, and said she had not considered pursuing legal action against Levine.
'Cold sheets'
Kellen, 47, said she began working for Epstein and Maxwell around 2001, after being approached about the job by a co-worker at a hotel in Hawaii. She said she had no idea it was Epstein until she arrived at his private island.
Kellen described Epstein to lawmakers as controlling every dimension of her life -- dictating her clothing, her haircut, her hair color, and where she lived. She said he had a code phrase, "cold sheets," that meant she was to come to his residence and sleep with him. He referred to her, she said, as his "human hot water bottle."
"I was being paid, in part, to be raped," she told the committee.
The assaults, she said, occurred on average once a week. Even during his Florida jail sentence, she said, Epstein made a video call to her from inside the Palm Beach County Stockade and ordered her to undress on camera.
Maxwell, Kellen said, was present and participated in her abuse on one occasion on the island. "And I just remember her touching me and showing me how to touch Jeffrey and what he liked," Kellen said. Maxwell was also, she said, a pervasive psychological force -- repeatedly reinforcing Epstein's power, allegedly calling Kellen her "slave" and "minion."
"She just fed him and catered to every whim that he wanted," Kellen said of Maxwell, adding: "I always felt like she turned him into the monster that he became."
Maxwell -- who is serving a 20 year sentence at a federal prison camp in Texas -- could not be reached for comment. She has maintained her innocence and has argued that the government prosecuted her as a substitute for Epstein, following his death in custody in 2019.
Kellen described two incidents suggesting possible efforts by Epstein to obstruct the first investigation into his conduct during the mid-2000s. While on Epstein's private island in 2005, she said she overheard Epstein on the phone instructing another assistant to go to the Palm Beach house and remove computers.
The following February, she said, Epstein summoned her to his New York townhouse and directed her to collect all of his printed contact directories and certain framed photographs and bring them to his lawyers. She said she did not know what happened to the items afterward or why she was asked to gather them.
Kellen also said that in 2007 -- as she and another woman were leaving Epstein's private island -- an airport employee informed them that FBI agents wanted to speak with them. Epstein told them to wait, walked over to the agents himself, and returned ten minutes later. "OK, let's go," he said, according to Kellen.
Kellen also told the committee that she had received gifts from Epstein through the years, including jewelry, luggage and clothing, as well as a New York City apartment to stay in. She said Epstein gave her money to help pay for her wedding in 2013, and $250,000 in late 2018, after the Miami Herald had published in-depth reports on Epstein.
After Epstein's arrest in July 2019, federal prosecutors cited the $250,000 payment to Kellen to suggest that Epstein was attempting to buy her silence.
Kellen claimed to the committee that the money was to assist her and her then-husband after he had health issues, and was not connected to the Herald articles, which she said Epstein dismissed as "old news.. She acknowledged that Epstein told her not to tell anyone about the payment, but didn't say why.
"I had no idea. I didn't know if he maybe didn't want to make other people jealous or something," she said.
'A very vulnerable victim'
Kellen's appearance on Capitol Hill came as the committee ramps up for a busy stretch of its investigation, officially launched in February of last year. Other notable witnesses scheduled in the coming weeks include another longtime Epstein assistant Lesley Groff, former Goldman Sachs chief counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, Epstein's former personal banker Jes Staley, and billionaires Bill Gates and Leon Black.
Comer has indicated that a report on the committee's findings will be produced before the end of the year.
Following Epstein's death in custody in July 2019, federal prosecutors in New York investigating possible collaborators engaged in discussions with Kellen and her attorneys that spanned more than a year. Documents released by the DOJ earlier this year included prosecutors' internal assessments of a potential case against Kellen and emails from her attorneys arguing against charges.
"We feel that given [Kellen's] abuse, and given the fact that 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, a [non-prosecution] would be the appropriate disposition," an attorney for Kellen wrote in the spring of 2020.
According to DOJ records, the government did not dispute that Kellen "was herself a victim of abuse by Epstein." Prosecutors detailed in a proposed "statement of facts" sent to Kellen's attorneys in late 2020 that several "minor victims reported to federal agents that Epstein paid them for sexualized massages ... including during massages that [Kellen] scheduled."
Kellen claimed to prosecutors that she was provided a directory of names and instructed by Epstein on who to call, and denied having knowledge that some who came to the house were underage.
She told prosecutors she viewed the "masseuses as her peers -- i.e. young adults ... and it never [crossed] her mind that any of them were minors," government lawyers wrote in a December 2019 memo summarizing their investigation.
Kellen said she "only learned that Epstein was sexually abusing minors when news articles started coming out about it" in the mid-2000s, and recalled being "shocked, angry, and disappointed," the records said.
Federal prosecutors ultimately decided against charging Kellen, though the internal deliberations that led to that outcome remain redacted in the publicly available versions of the DOJ records.
Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend and associate, remains the only other person charged in connection with Epstein's crimes. She is presently seeking to have her conviction vacated or her sentence reduced.
When Maxwell was sentenced in 2021, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan said the evidence showed that Maxwell supervised Kellen, who Nathan described as a "criminally responsible participant" in Epstein's scheme. Kellen was not called as a witness by the government or by Maxwell.
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