Matthew Steeples reacts to finding himself mentioned in the latest #EpsteinFiles release; he isn’t complaining, but now understands why Ghislaine Maxwell’s family and associates so objected to his making “mucky madam” references of the deviant daughter of the pension pot plunderer prior to her 2021 trial and conviction
I first wrote of grubby groper Ghislaine Maxwell after encountering her at a ritzy rendezvous to launch a female-only car rally at the sadly since shuttered Bibendum restaurant in London in June 2019.
The evening had been setup by a social climber and self-declared ‘entrepreneur’ named Julie Brangstrup purportedly to raise funds for victims of sex trafficking. With hindsight – given its now most infamous attendee is rotting in a Tallahassee clink for the most sordid of sex crimes – the money-minded Cash & Rocket fundraiser most definitely can now be considered beyond crass.
That summer night, as I dined on sumptuous seafood and Paris Hilton rambled round the room, little did I realise that the ocean obsessed lover of Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor would be the weird woman present whose story would hurl me down a rotten rabbit hole that would give even the cast of characters of Alice in Wonderland nightmares. I unexpectedly started to delve into a dark, dark world that very moment and most definitely remain in that dark, dark world still six years on.
Many years prior, over a beverage or five at Tosca Café in San Francisco at the start of the ‘War on Iraq’ in the early 2000s and during one of many visits for the city’s annual International Film Festival, I found myself discussing not only art and architecture, but also arms and anger with a fascinating gent named Dale Djerassi. This trustafarian filmmaker son of the ‘father of the pill’ Dr Carl Djerassi had been married to a woman he named only as ‘Isabel’ and occasionally recounted information about her when not telling me of his ‘art colonies’ and other projects. They had divorced a few years earlier.
The former Mrs Djerassi progressed to establish the Internet search engine Magellan, but it was not until later that I realised that she was originally Isabel Maxwell and her son, Alexander, was thus a grandson of the pension pot plunderer Robert Maxwell. Alexander Djerassi went on to work for Hillary Clinton and now terms himself, like many in the web of which I now recount, a “diplomat, policy expert, and entrepreneur.”
In early 2004, the “MySpace for Millionaires” that was ASmallWorld came into being. I cannot recall how I came to be included, but I was amongst the earliest of members. An uber connected online club that sadly was subsequently destroyed when Harvey Weinstein heaved his almighty girth upon it, this was a place that features in the latest Epstein files release an astonishing 147 times. Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were both active ASmallWorlders and their missives there with amongst others the property tycoon and now treasurer for Nigel Farage’s Reform party Nick Candy have begun to emerge in the latest US Department of Justice dump.
Particularly prevalent on the site in its early years also were Epstein and Maxwell’s mates Flavio Briatore and Naomi Campbell; they are, of course, infamous for a St Tropez birthday bash to which the late sex trafficking victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre was taken to shimmy on a gin palace alongside amongst others the coffin dodging convicted criminal and poisonous dwarf Bernie Ecclestone. Back then, it transpires, birds of a rotten feather used ASmallWorld for all sorts of curious conversations; today, it’s just a tacky travellers’ talk room.
Now, after chapters in which I have come into contact with everyone from pontificating PR peddlers for Ghislaine Maxwell including the anything but bashful Brian Basham – a man best known for his association with Robert Mawell and the infamous ‘Dirty Tricks’ campaign run by British Airways against, ironically, Jeffrey Epstein’s pal Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin back in the 1990s – to the poor, unfortunate victims abused by both her and her late lover, this week I was informed that I had been mentioned in the most recent release of what is known as the ‘Epstein Library’ in ‘Tactical Intelligence Report’ documents prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Little to my prior knowledge – thanks to information given to me by a crusading columnist and Daily Mail journalist known for finding the needle in even the highest of haystacks – my writings about Ghislaine Maxwell’s former home at 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia had been considered relevant for inclusion at her 2021 trial by the FBI. More importantly, this since shamed ‘socialite’s’ involvement with a “person of interest” in that trial, a “disgraced solicitor” named Malcolm Grumbridge, was the focus of attention in a four-page document also presented in a series of files listed in what the Twitterati hashtag the #EpsteinFiles.
Struck-off, rule breaching Grumbridge, like many associated with the sidelines of this saga, is someone you’ve likely and have no rational reason to have heard of either. I believe that he has connections to the funnel of the missing £500 million plundered by Robert Maxwell and he piqued my interest after James Hurley for The Times, in August 2021, observed:
“[Grumbridge] has been a mysterious figure during his more than four-decade legal and business career… [who has been] at the heart of the Maxwells’ opaque finances, setting up and owning companies on behalf of the brothers Kevin and Ian Maxwell.”
The Steeple Times follow-up to this feature, delved deeper and generated a series of curious emails from individuals associated with Grumbridge and the Maxwells; I had clearly touched a nerve, but little did I know it would be the “mucky madam” reference that would so grate the ire of the decidedly deranged offspring of the ‘Bouncing Czech’ Robert Maxwell.
Most I have spoken with featured in the latest and prior ‘Epstein Library’ releases have unsurprisingly been horrified to find themselves there. Innocent and not-so-innocent exchanges, what were considered to be private pictures (and ones of Peter Mandelson in his undercrackers) have horrified; German venture capitalist and Matt Hancock and Ehud Barak associate Nicole Junkermann bantering: “Will you have a baby with me?” to the croaked paedophile Epstein and simpering and stupid Sarah Ferguson wanting to marry him have shocked and sickened.
For me, this appearance has not done me an iota of harm. Off-record, a television personality and author who was amongst the few to encourage me to go off the Maxwells and their missing money since 2019 when many slammed me with “there’s no story here, find something else” enthused: “You didn’t give up, you haven’t given up and now you must continue. You’re not even 45% out of this rotten rabbit hole yet.” As Lewis Carroll’s character herself concluded: “[It’s all going to get] curiouser and curiouser!”
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