Epstein Girlfriend Dubin Says Her Kids Called Him ‘Uncle F’
Ghislaine Maxwell Defense Calls Epstein Ex-Girlfriend Eva Andersson Dubin
(Bloomberg) -- Eva Andersson-Dubin, an ex-girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein called by Ghislaine Maxwell to testify at her sex-trafficking trial, told the jury she was comfortable with her own children’s relationship with the financier and that they even had a term of endearment for him.
Andersson-Dubin took the witness stand on Friday after the judge rejected the defense’s efforts to call a host of other witnesses. The defense rested its case shortly afterward.
An internist by training, Andersson-Dubin is the wife of former hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin. Dubin retired from running Engineers Gate in 2020, five months after a previously sealed deposition drew the billionaire into the scandal surrounding Epstein.
After Andersson-Dubin, in a black suit and horn-rimmed glasses, took the stand, defense lawyer Jeffrey Pagliuca questioned her about her family.
“Were your children fond of Mr. Epstein?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Were you and Mr. Dubin comfortable with the relationship Mr. Epstein had with your children?” he asked.
“Yes, we were,” said Andersson-Dubin, who went on to say that she and her family often traveled with Epstein on his private planes.
Pagliuca asked if she ever saw “any inappropriate conduct between Mr. Epstein and teenage females.”
“I did not,” Andersson-Dubin said.
Pagliuca showed Andersson-Dubin photos Palm Beach police recovered from Epstein’s Florida estate after a 2008 search, including two of young girls with Epstein. She identified one photo of Epstein with her youngest daughter and a second with her eldest daughter.
The lawyer asked if she’d ever seen the photos before, prompting her to say both times, “I have never seen this photo before.”
“Did they have a nickname for Mr. Epstein?” he asked.
“They called him Uncle F,” she said.
“F as in Frank but short for Jeff?” Pagliuca asked.
“Yes,” she said.
The day before Epstein hanged himself in a Manhattan jail, allegations involving the Dubins made headlines. A woman who said she had been Epstein’s “sex slave” years earlier claimed she’d been forced into an encounter with the Dubins. The couple called the allegations “demonstrably false.”
During the defense questioning of the accuser known as Jane earlier in the trial, Maxwell’s lawyers asked her about a series of women’s first names and whether she told investigators she witnessed group sexual encounters with these other women, including one named Eva and another named Michelle.
On Friday, in an effort to cast doubt on the reliability of Jane’s testimony, Pagliuca asked Andersson-Dubin if she had ever participated in such an encounter with Jane.
“I have not,” she said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe then stepped up for cross-examination.
“Are you the only Eva in the whole wide world?” she asked.
“It’s a very common name in Scandinavia and in Europe,” said Andersson-Dubin, who is Swedish.
“Do you know the first name of every person Jeffrey Epstein ever met?” Moe asked.
“Absolutely not,” Dubin said.
Also while under cross-examination, Andersson-Dubin acknowledged she was having problems with her memory due to a medical condition and that it was “very hard for me to remember anything far back, and sometimes I can’t remember things from last month.”
Setbacks to Defense
Earlier, at a hearing before the jury arrived in the Lower Manhattan courtroom, the defense lost a bid to question federal investigators about the steps the government took in its investigation of Epstein and Maxwell.
Maxwell’s lawyers also got pushback when defense attorney Christian Everdell told U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan the defense hoped to continue its case on Monday. He said that would allow the defense to call a witness from the U.K. who could testify that Maxwell didn’t live in a London townhouse when the accuser known as Kate said she visited the British socialite there and that Maxwell forced her into a sexual encounter with Epstein.
“Our client’s life is on the line and we are given one day” to make our arguments, defense lawyer Laura Menninger told Nathan.
“I have a rule,” the judge said, adding that the defense had ample time to prepare. “You call your next witness or you rest.”
The case is U.S. v. Maxwell, 20-cr-00330, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.