Jeffrey Epstein’s digital cleaning crew

Between dealing with royalty and world leaders and abusing children and young women, Jeffrey Epstein apparently regularly Googled himself. Across several batches of documents relating to the convicted sex offender that have been made public, we see Epstein sending emails to associates, complaining that his digital footprint includes factual information about his crimes.

I want to clean up my google page (November 5, 2010)

Mike ‹ Can you upload my wiki page (April 18, 2011)

Any way to clean up my wiki page (September 17, 2013)

Epstein regularly directed his complaints to the Sickles, a type of fixer who repeatedly appears in Epstein’s files and promises to bury news articles and other content suggesting his abuse. But Seckel didn’t do it alone. From thousands of documents, it’s clear that multiple people — SEO consultants, science contacts, and even unrelated acquaintances — helped hide Epstein’s past whenever someone searched for him online. Even after Epstein pleaded guilty to trafficking a child for prostitution, making him a registered sex offender, his network was happy to offer him services and reputation management companies took him on as a client. Reputation management services aren’t necessarily a tool to cover up crimes — it’s standard PR practice — but in Epstein’s case, the agencies were aware of his abuse, since that’s what they were hired to try to minimize.

In October 2010, Seckel developed an overview For the group’s plan of attack to defend Epstein’s online reputation. The situation, as Sickle described it, was such that a search would turn up “over 75 pages of offensive material,” and that one would be “hard-pressed to find any ‘positive’ references.” “To counterbalance the one-sided negative opinion that has spread so widely online,” Sickel said, the team will need to flood the area with content they can control, specifically pointing to creating websites with original content related to Epstein’s ties to science and charities. Seckel will be an unpaid “team leader” along with other unpaid consultants. A guy named Michael Kiessling would be paid $25,000 to buy web domains and host them, hire a “Filipino crew” that would post cool links around the web, and other tasks. An anonymous group of “hackers” will be paid $2,500. $2,500 will be paid to “Stephanie Horenstein (Fred Horenstein).” Leave positive comments On news articles related to Epstein. EdgeThe messages were sent to Michael Kiessling who works in SEO From West Hollywood It went unanswered.

During this time frame, Epstein and his team discussed the matter Edit his Wikipedia page To remove references that he was a sex offender and child molester, replace his photo with other photos, and push out news articles they didn’t like. Among the recently released files numerous Wire Transfers to Keisling for a total of $22,500. Elsewhere, Kiesling too Mentioned Received “more than $20,000 in cash” from Seckel without a receipt.

By 2013, Epstein was in the market for another “good reverse SEO person,” like him books In an email, a person named Tyler Shears was recommended. Within a few weeks, it was Shires Make a 30-day plan — at $125 an hour — and begin tactics like boosting content about a different Jeffrey Epstein “to help remove some of our negative Epstein findings.” By February 2014, he had become Epstein’s accountant male That Shears had run up a bill of more than $50,000 and that Epstein wasn’t “sure what had changed” since he hired Shears. He did not respond to the person with the same name and company EdgeRequest for comment.

Epstein also shopped around reputation management companies and, according to emails, was denied several times. In 2010, Seckel sent Epstein an exchange he had with a company called Infuse Creative.

Gregory Markel, the company’s founder, wrote to Seckel: “We have no problem helping someone innocent of the accusations or a true victim of circumstances, but if there is truth to these allegations and conviction, I’m afraid we have to pass it on.” “Do you personally know how true these allegations are?”

Elsewhere, a colleague whose name was redacted in the files Epstein said That Reputation.com couldn’t represent him “because of his background” but another company, Integrity Defenders, would (also files Include a paid invoice of $2,449 from Integrity Defenders).

“Please ask him or anyone else to never click on any of the negative links again as this may keep them lingering on the first page,” an account manager at the company wrote in an email. The Defenders of Integrity website is inactive and Edge He was unable to contact the company.

When it came to trying to cover up Epstein’s online crimes, many people, whether paid or unpaid, knowingly or unwittingly, helped whitewash the crimes. In 2010, after Sickel and his team created websites focusing on Epstein’s ties to science and his philanthropy in an attempt to mask media coverage, the intermediary began sending emails to acquaintances asking for favors. The request was simple: Could they link to Epstein’s sites on their own websites? Sickle asked Scientists associated with the University of California, numerous Physicistsand others in the scientific community. The idea, At least from an SEO perspective.is that obtaining valuable links from trustworthy sources such as academic institutions would signal to Google that new Epstein sites should appear to anyone searching for him. Part of how Google determines which pages will rank highly in search results is by looking at whether other sites link to a page; It appears that Epstein’s camp was trying to reduce negative search results by securing valuable links from outside entities.

One acquaintance who agreed to add links back to Epstein’s websites is Mark Tramo, an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience at UCLA. Who said SF portal And that he “never heard anything (about) the rape of minors or the involvement of minors, and I never saw him with young girls, and I never visited the island, and I never flew on his planes.” But in 2010, Tramo was eager to acquiesce to Sickle’s request for links.

“What great ideas!” He repliedbefore going on to describe the “support” (including anonymous support) Epstein provided for his work.

“Links around the world and in major institutions are rising,” Sickle said He wrote in another Epstein thread. Even after Epstein pleaded guilty to trafficking a girl under the age of 18 for prostitution, the International Criminal Court rejected it. The industry he worked his way into He was happy to keep up the ruse.