They Use It to Find Us

On page 6 of a handwritten scrapbook produced for her attorneys, a teenage victim pasted clippings from America Online into the margins. Beneath the clippings, she wrote seven words that have never been publicly reported.1

"That company does not protect kids!"

And then:

"They use it to find us!"1

The scrapbook — EFTA02731465, marked "CONFIDENTIAL FOR ATTORNEY'S EYES ONLY" — is one of two journals that name more than thirty men the victim was directed by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to have sexual encounters with. Among those names are four of AOL's top five corporate executives.2

The victim did not paste random clippings. She pasted AOL clippings. And she accused the company — by name, in a document produced for litigation — of being a tool used to find and target girls like her.

The Platform

In the year 2000, America Online was the internet for most Americans. AOL had over 25 million subscribers — more than a quarter of all U.S. households with internet access. Its chat rooms were where teenagers met strangers, explored identity, and — as every parent of the era feared — encountered adults who should not have been there.

AOL's chat rooms were organized by topic and age group, but enforcement was minimal. Predators routinely entered rooms designated for teenagers. The company's response to child safety concerns was consistently reactive — addressing incidents after they were reported rather than building systems to prevent them.3

This is the context for the victim's accusation. When she wrote "they use it to find us," she was writing from inside a system where AOL was not a neutral platform. It was the dominant tool through which adults accessed minors online, and its top executives were simultaneously named in her journal as men she was provided to.

The Four Executives

The concentration of AOL leadership in the victim journals is unlike anything else in the Epstein corpus.2

Jim Kimsey — the founding CEO of AOL. Described by the victim as "deranged."4 Named in the "flights of horror" passage alongside Epstein himself. Owned a $1.2 million condominium in the US Virgin Islands — the same territory where Epstein's Little St. James island is located.5 Listed on the Trilateral Commission as "James Kimsey, Founding CEO of AOL."6 Died in 2016 before the EFTA disclosures.

Steve Case — the CEO who led AOL through the Time Warner merger. Named in the "flights of horror" passage.4 Attended multiple Edge Foundation billionaire science dinners alongside Jeffrey Epstein over several years — exclusive gatherings where the guest list included Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk.7 Listed as a Deutsche Bank Wealth Management client.8

Ted Leonsis — AOL's vice chairman. Named in the most specific allegation in either journal: "Why would they all allow Mr. Leonsis wait this long? Why would he bring a friend and make a video?"9 This is an accusation of filmed sexual abuse with a third-party participant. Also named in the "flights of horror" passage.4

George Vradenburg III — AOL's Senior Vice President for Global and Strategic Policy. Named on EFTA02731465 p.5 among those who "dont care if this happens."10 Vradenburg's specific role at AOL — overseeing the company's government relations and safety policy — gives his inclusion particular weight. He was the executive most directly responsible for AOL's position on child protection, and he appears in a victim's journal accusing AOL of failing to protect children.

The Money Trail

The documentary evidence connecting these men to Epstein extends beyond the journals.

Dan Snyder — the fifth member of the D.C. cluster, owner of the Washington NFL franchise — was a client of Deutsche Bank's Wealth Management division.11 This is the same division that opened 76 accounts for Epstein's shell entities after his 2008 sex offender conviction and was later fined $150 million for compliance failures. Internal Deutsche Bank documents discuss "$25mm managed investments" for Snyder and "strategic lending" including boat loans and stadium financing.12 Multiple event lists place Snyder and Epstein at the same Deutsche Bank client gatherings.13

Steve Case was also a Deutsche Bank client, listed as "Steve Case, Revolution LLC (former Chairman of AOL)."8

The Deutsche Bank connection matters because it establishes a financial nexus. These men were not merely social acquaintances who appeared at the same parties. They shared the same private banking infrastructure — a bank that demonstrably prioritized revenue over compliance when it came to Epstein.

Meanwhile, in Epstein's files, investigators found a blank aircraft passenger release form from Joe Gibbs Racing, Inc. — the NASCAR team owned by Joe Gibbs, the Redskins' head coach whom the victim described as "so nice" on the same journal page where she called Snyder "a pig."14 The form suggests shared private aviation access between the Redskins' social circle and Epstein's operation.

What "Find Us" Means

The victim's accusation — "they use it to find us" — sits at the intersection of two facts that the EFTA documents independently establish.

First: AOL's chat rooms were, in the early 2000s, the most common online environment where adults encountered minors. Child safety advocates, law enforcement, and parents all recognized the risk. The platform's leadership made policy choices about how aggressively to monitor, moderate, and restrict access. Those policy choices had consequences.

Second: four of the five executives who made or oversaw those policy choices are named in a victim's journal as men she was sexually exploited by, alongside the most prolific sex trafficker in American history.

The victim did not accuse a random company. She accused the company whose executives she was being provided to — and she accused it of the specific failure that made her exploitation possible. She physically cut AOL clippings from a newspaper or magazine and glued them into her journal as evidence of what she was alleging.

The scrapbook page containing this accusation (EFTA02731465 p.6) also contains her account of being pregnant at "over 20 weeks" while underage, with Epstein and Maxwell fighting over whether to terminate, and no one making a plan because "he does not want a procedure and she does."1 The AOL accusation appears directly below this account — as if the victim, in the act of documenting the worst thing that was happening to her, was also documenting who she held responsible for making it possible.