JAMES PATTERSON

F

gotten into more fights there, growing depressed and withdrawn from her sister and parents. Helplessly, her parents watched her spiral out of control. As they neared the end of their rope, they sent her out of state. But after the move, Mary had fallen apart completely. She used drugs, fell in with a bad crowd, ran away from her relatives, and shacked up with a gang of drug dealers.

When the gang was busted by local police, the dealers blamed Mary for snitching and put out the word that they wanted her dead.

"We had to move her again," Mary's father explained. "We finally got her into therapy-she's still seeing the therapist. And worst of all, she developed HPV. She's already had to have a seri- ous operation."

Mary's troubles didn't end there. On June 28, she was brought in front of the grand jury. She hadn't been briefed by the state attorney-she hadn't even met the prosecutors-and she had no idea what she would be asked.

Almost immediately, she found that she was being treated more like a criminal than like a witness or victim.

"The prosecutor produced a printout of our daughter's Myspace page," Mary's father recalls. "Mary was stunned. She began to cry. The prosecutor accused her of all sort of things; it was like she was working for Epstein.

"All this time, we knew that we were being watched. Creepy guys. Private investigators from Miami. They would follow us, scaring the hell out of my wife and Mary's sister. My car was van- dalized. It was like living in hell."

By this point, Epstein's defense dream team included Jack Goldberger, Alan Dershowitz, and Gerald Lefcourt. All of them had excellent track records. Dershowitz and Lefcourt were two

of America's most famous
celebrity lawyer-Ken Sta
had had Bill Clinton impeac
team.

As far as Mary's parents walked into an ambush. Eve playing defense on the side ond girl Alison, who cla never testified in court at al

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{"people":["james patterson","jack goldberger","alan dershowitz","gerald lefcourt","bill clinton","kenneth starr"]}