“All you had to do was go on Google” 

Before conductor Frédéric Chaslin asked her if she would be interested in meeting Jeffrey Epstein, the former French philosophy student, who was 21 at the time, had only exchanged a handful of messages on Facebook with him. One day in 2013, Chaslin asked the student, who requested anonymity, if she would like to interpret for Epstein during a three or four-day trip to Paris. 

The student was surprised by the request. Why would Epstein, whom Chaslin introduced as a “very, very rich American,” have trouble finding a translator? 

“He never looks for ‘professional’ assistants like secretaries with offices, but rather cultivated students who can teach him something,” Chaslin told her. “I thought of you because you’re bilingual and cosmopolitan.”

It sounded like an interesting job. Then, the former student told VAN, “I went on Google and typed in Epstein’s name.” 

On Wikipedia, she found details about Epstein’s crimes. By then, he had served 13 months on charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18. 

In a statement following our initial article, Chaslin said he was “absolutely not” aware of Epstein’s prior convictions. When VAN asked him a day later if he stood by that characterization, he said, “I knew nothing of his past, because I, as a French citizen, do not read any American tabloids or crime reporting.” 

But according to Facebook messages reported today by the French magazine Le Canard enchaîné, as well as a chat between Chaslin and the student obtained by VAN, he did indeed know Epstein’s history. 

“Hmm, just to clarify: is it the J. Epstein from Wikipedia born in 1953? Because there’s a rather unflattering article about him concerning a morals case,” the student asked Chaslin in one message.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Yes, I know, and yes, there is some truth to it, but it’s a very American kind of story: the girl who sued him had been his girlfriend for EIGHT years, from 16 to 24, and she suddenly remembered she was a minor… 15 years later, when she was 39 and found out he had made a fortune,” Chaslin answered. “As a result, a whole bunch of other ‘girlfriends’ jumped on the bandwagon. But he’s not DSK [Dominique Strauss-Kahn—Ed.], he’s a real gentleman… I recommend him…!!!!”

The student gave Chaslin her email, and in the fall of 2013, Epstein’s assistant asked if she would be available for a Skype meeting with him, describing the financier as a friend of Chaslin and his fiancée. (“My acquaintance with Mr. Epstein was based exclusively on his long friendship with my fiancée at the time,” Chaslin said, adding that they had only met in person three or four times, and that his fiancée was always present at those meetings.) 

The student had a bad feeling about the situation, however, and told Epstein’s assistant she got another job in the same time frame and wouldn’t be available after all. This was just an excuse to avoid the meeting, she told VAN.

After she told Chaslin she didn’t plan to interpret for Epstein, he answered, “Fine, if you want I can introduce you to him ‘just like that’…you can make up your own mind about him.’

“In any case,” he added, “In Paris, he would ask me for someone to go visit the opera, go shopping, translate conversations, and then quietly go back home afterward.”

That didn’t convince the student, and Epstein’s assistant didn’t pursue the matter. A short time later, the student cut ties with Chaslin as well. “I found it very unsettling to be offered the chance to meet someone who, even back then, seemed clearly worrying, even dangerous,” she told VAN. “All you had to do was go on Google.”

“Epstein required a translator who spoke perfect English to visit the Louvre and other museums in Paris,” Chaslin said. “All I did was exchange their email addresses and allow them to communicate with one another. Later, the translator called me to tell me that she wasn’t happy with the telephone conversation with Epstein, and wrote to him to reject the assignment offered to her (which, I repeat, was an interpreting assignment).” The emails in the Epstein files appear to confirm the student’s versions of events, in which she never Skyped with Epstein but emailed briefly with his assistant. 

Chaslin told Epstein in one email that the student “looks a little like [R]oman Polanski’s current wife,” Emmanuelle Seigner. The files also show that Epstein’s last known girlfriend and heir, Karyna Shuliak, sent Epstein a picture of the student taken from her Facebook page, in which she is looking directly at the camera. (Her face has been redacted.) Chaslin did not respond to VAN’s question about why he thought it was necessary to mention the student’s looks to Epstein.  

That was the end of the story, until the January 30 release of new documents in the Epstein files. “Like you, I discovered the Chaslin messages where my name appears,” the woman told VAN, “and I was very unsettled by the way he presented me: With my age and physical appearance and nothing about my intellectual qualities, except for the fact that I’m multilingual.” ¶