Lesley Groff

Lesley Groff is an American former executive assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, who worked for him in his New York office for more than eighteen years, from 2001 until she resigned after his arrest in July 2019. She is one of the four women named in the co-conspirator clause of Epstein's September 2007 non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, a clause she has called her "scarlet letter." Victims have said she scheduled their appointments with Epstein; she has denied any knowledge of his crimes and has never been charged.¹²

Employment

Groff managed Epstein's calendar and travel from New York. A 2005 Chicago Tribune article reported salaries of about 200,000 dollars for Epstein's assistants and quoted Epstein describing them as "an extension of my brain."³

Allegations and Denials

Marina Lacerda, who has said she dropped out of school before the ninth grade and was abused by Epstein as a minor, has said she "had to go through Lesley Groff," who called repeatedly to arrange massages. A victim who was a minor at the time told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she "felt it was pretty obvious Lesley knew what was going on." Groff's attorney Michael Bachner has said that she "never knowingly booked travel for anyone under the age of 18" and "had no knowledge of the alleged illegal activity whatsoever," and that after the 2019 arrest she "felt betrayed and disgusted."²

Groff was a named defendant, with Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Sarah Kellen, in the federal sex-trafficking suit filed in January 2017 by Sarah Ransome, who alleged that the four told her Epstein would secure her admission to the Fashion Institute of Technology in exchange for massages. The suit was dismissed with prejudice by stipulation on December 20, 2018.⁴

Immunity and the 2019 Investigation

The 2007 agreement provided that the United States would not charge "any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, or Nadia Marcinkova." In 2024 the Second Circuit held, in rejecting Maxwell's reliance on the clause, that it bound only the Southern District of Florida.¹

Four days after Epstein's July 2019 arrest, Bachner informed the government that Groff "would invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination" if called before a grand jury. She spoke with investigators about two years after the 2019 subpoena and told them that scheduling massages was "around 1%" of her duties. She was not charged.²

Congressional Interview

In June 2026 Groff was interviewed by the House Oversight Committee. She said she wished to "dispel the false notions" that she "knowingly enabled or conspired with him to commit his evil acts," adding: "Nothing could be further from the truth." She called Epstein a "master manipulator and deceiver," said of the 2007 clause, "I am not a conspirator and I never would have agreed to this language," recalled that Epstein had described the accusations against him as "a shakedown" for money, and said of his accusers, "I believe them." She also said: "In hindsight, I wish he had fired me."²