Jeffrey Epstein has come to signify so many things to so many groups that it’s hard to get a handle on the truth. Warring partisan factions fought to make him a symbol of what’s wrong with their pet issue in America, be it Democrats, Republicans, Wall Street, Hollywood or anything else. And then, of course, his shocking death fractured the narrative even further. But at the center of it all, what we know remains horrific enough: a powerful, well-connected man who did evil things to young women spent years publicly slipping through America’s criminal justice system.
A new Netflix docuseries will try to bring at least some of the truth to light. Filthy Rich debuts May 27, and will attempt to shed light on what it calls “one of the worst failures of the criminal justice system.” That failure goes well beyond Epstein’s horrors and to a system and network of powerful people who protected and even aided him until the Miami Herald finally brought the house of cards crumbling in 2018.
