Jeffrey Epstein ‘led a campaign of intimidation against journalists’

Jeffrey Epstein led a campaign of intimidation against journalists investigating his sordid life, according to a former Vanity Fair reporter, who says the magazine’s editor-in-chief Graydon Carter discovered a cat’s head on his lawn in 2006. 

Graydon Carter made the gruesome discovery when a reporter for the magazine began investigating Epstein after authorities compiled accusations against the disgraced financier in Palm Beach, Florida.

But on the day the stringer reporter, named John Connolly, sat down with a woman who had worked for Epstein to be interviewed, Carter found the severed head on his front lawn, in what Connolly described as definitely being ‘done to intimidate’.

Jeffrey Epstein (left) led a campaign of intimidation against journalists investigating his sordid life, according to a former Vanity Fair reporter, who says the magazine’s editor-in-chief Graydon Carter (right) discovered a cat’s head on his lawn in 2006 

‘It was done to intimidate,’ Connolly told the New York Post. ‘No question about it.’ 

The reporter said he decided to stop reporting on Epstein and later wrote a book about the pedophile with bestselling crime novelist James Patterson. 

Carter said that his publication never ceased its investigations into Epstein because of any intimidation or perceived threat.

Nor what that the first time Epstein has tried to intimidate reporters. A few years prior, Carter assigned a reported, named Vicky Ward, to investigate the source of the disgraced billionaire’s wealth, and why he spent so much time with young women.

Ward had interviewed two sisters, Maria and Annie Farmer, who claimed Epstein and his alleged madame Ghislaine Maxwell sexually exploited them in an Ohio apartment. 

Epstein reportedly showed up at Vanity Fair’s office and accosted the editor-in-chief who demanded the journalist stop digging into his affairs.   

‘He was torturing Graydon,’ Connolly said.

Vanity Fair eventually ran a story in march 2003, titled, ‘The Talented Mr. Epstein’, which omitted the sexual abuse allegations made by the two sisters.      

Ward had interviewed two sisters, Maria and Annie Farmer, who claimed Epstein and his alleged madame Ghislaine Maxwell sexually exploited them in an Ohio apartment

After the publication, Connolly said the editor-in-chief found a bullet on his doorstep at his Manhattan home. ‘That wasn’t a coincidence,’ Connolly said.

However, Carter counter-claimed and said the bullet did not immediately appears after the story, and that he thought it came from a George W. Bush supporter. 

Carter said in a statement that the magazine never backed off any of its reporting because of the threats.

‘During my 25 years at Vanity Fair, we took the legal requirements for reporting incredibly seriously on every story, particularly pieces in which the subject was a private person and therefore rigorously protected by libel laws,’ he said. 

‘And the fact remains that Ms. Ward’s reporting on this most important topic did not meet our legal threshold when we published the piece in 2003.’