Island staff recount alleged age concerns and smuggling refusals while working for Jeffrey Epstein

concerned about their ages. A few of them looked very young and I couldn’t help but wonder if their mothers knew where they were. ‘One very young-looking girl was called Tila. I just thought, “You really shouldn’t be here”, but I made myself switch off as I had no proof.’ The couple, who have been married for 24 years, still Island guest: Model Naomi Campbell stayed as a guest on . . . Epstein's Caribbean island find it hard to comprehend that Epstein is a convicted ° sex offender. ‘He was a very kind man and, while I don’t approve of things he’s been accused of, I liked him very much,’ says Miles. While Cathy says she was always suspicious about the girls’ ages, Miles insists: ‘I took the view that what went on behind closed doors was not my business and it is not my place to judge. If anything was going on we didn’t want to know. ‘Our job was about discretion. We have a clear conscience that we didn’t witness anything untoward. Whatever went on at the other houses — and yes, we heard things from other members of staff — it didn’t, to my knowledge, happen at our property.’ Miles also says that on several occasions he refused Epstein’s requests to smuggle female guests in by boat, to circumvent the strict immigration policies of St Thomas, the island with authority over Little St James, which would have meant logging names and passport numbers. But he was aware that Epstein found others to do his bidding. For as the couple were told when they were hired: ‘What Jeffrey wants, Jeffrey gets.’ The words came from Ghislaine Maxwell, who was then Epstein’s girlfriend. She flew to South Africa with Andrew Shannon, a lawyer, to interview the Alexanders in 1998, after they had replied to a small ad for ‘management couple sought to run private island’. After apparently passing the interview, they were invited to meet Epstein in New York. ‘It was very strange,’ said Miles. “We were taken by a driver to an office near Madison Square Garden. A gentleman wearing a polo shirt and jeans stepped out of the lift, asked if we had a good trip, shook our hands and left. That was it. Then Miss Maxwell came back and said we had the job.’ Ghislaine then took them to ‘the big house’ in Manhattan, which is said to have been the scene of sex parties and where young girls were allegedly hired as playthings for Epstein’s wealthy male friends. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022971