Jeffrey Epstein’s butler speaks

The world’s best holiday islands | How the liberal elite ruined education

 ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏

Unsubscribe

Open in browser

Saturday, 9 August 2025 Welcome to From The Editor – the very best from our newsroom delivered to your inbox daily. Jeffrey Epstein’s butler has declared there is “no way” the disgraced financier committed suicide in August 2019. In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Valdson Vieira Cotrin has broken the silence he has kept since that day. Henry Samuel, our Paris Correspondent, gives an unmissable account of the conversation below. P.S. You can enjoy three months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. Today’s headlines Putin to meet Trump in Alaska next week Vance warns Lammy: Don’t go down dark path of censorship British farmers face ‘catastrophic’ harvest, warns Jeremy Clarkson Israel gives Gazans until Oct 7 to evacuate ahead of full occupation Police in free speech row over ‘shoplifters are scumbags’ sign Nicola Sturgeon addresses lesbian affair rumours We believe in freedom Free press. Free speech. Free markets. If you share these values, join us today. Enjoy three months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. Subscribe now   Valdson Vieira Cotrin with Jeffrey Epstein on his private jet in 2019 Henry Samuel Paris Correspondent   Valdson Vieira Cotrin, Jeffrey Epstein’s former butler of 18 years, has kept silent since the man he called “Monsieur” and “Patron” was found hanged in his New York prison cell in August 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges. In an exclusive conversation over rum, rosé and Brazilian cheese balls, which he tells me were a hit with Bill Gates, the majordomo proudly recalls serving Epstein’s high-profile guests, from Prince Andrew (five or six times) to Woody Allen and Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel. He never met Donald Trump, but he says his late boss boasted that the US president offered him a job in his new administration just after his 2016 election, some eight years after Epstein was convicted of procuring a minor. While the president’s entourage has dismissed the alleged claim, it is likely to fuel the clamour from his increasingly tetchy Maga supporters to open the “Epstein files”. Trump is not the only US president to get a mention; Cotrin proudly shows a photo of himself and Bill Clinton in one of Epstein’s jets in 2002 after a trip to Africa. Bill Clinton on board Epstein’s private jet in a new picture obtained exclusively by The Telegraph Cotrin insists that his former employer would never have taken his own life and had been in good spirits before his death. It’s a sentiment that reveals a deep loyalty – one born of years spent managing Epstein’s opulent Paris apartment, and serving him in his New York mansion and private Caribbean island, Little Saint James. “If someone could have seen something, it’s Valdson, there’s no one else,” he says with a broad smile. Despite the well-documented accusations against Epstein of abusing underage girls, Cotrin insists that he only saw young women giving Epstein massages or cutting his nails – nothing more – and that they were not minors in his book. He questions the deaths surrounding Epstein, especially Virginia Giuffre, who was one of Epstein’s most vocal accusers and who was found dead in April, aged 41, after apparently committing suicide. He holds on to the belief that Epstein was misunderstood. Cotrin’s story is one of contradictions – a man caught between serving his boss and facing the darker truth of the world he inhabited. It is likely to only further fuel the ongoing mystery surrounding Epstein’s life and death. Continue reading ➤   Opinion and analysis   Allison Pearson Award-winning journalist and Telegraph columnist Our complicit elite is to blame for every sexual assault by an illegal migrant Continue reading ➤     Charles Moore Former Telegraph Editor Trump has never tried to stop Putin, but with our help Kyiv can hold off Moscow Continue reading ➤     Annabel Denham Acting Comment Editor & columnist Reeves has driven Britain to the brink. Full-blown crisis will soon be upon us Continue reading ➤   Sharpen your talking points Explore incisive opinion from Britain’s leading comment writers Enjoy three months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. Subscribe now   Must reads How ‘progressive’ teaching destroyed our education system – and threatens to return under Labour The world’s best holiday islands, ranked Kenny Logan: ‘It’s thanks to Gabby that I caught my prostate cancer in time’ The changing faces of England’s 2005 Ashes heroes Where to buy a house in France for less than £100,000     The best of the Telegraph   The ‘gentle soul’ believed to have cut doomed Air India flight’s fuel supplies Sumeet Sabharwal was planning to retire to spend more time with his father Sumeet Sabharwal was either a “sad sack” or a “hero”, depending on who you ask. The 56-year-old veteran pilot of the doomed Air India flight on June 12 did not drink alcohol, never swore, was a committed captain and a doting son to his elderly father. Underneath his “melancholic eyes”, though, he was weighed down by the death of his mother, navigating life after separating from his wife and wanting to quit the airline to spend more time at home. In July The Telegraph visited Mumbai to build a picture of the man at the controls of flight AI171 that left 260 people dead. Continue reading ➤   Discuss Every day, our journalists discuss the day’s biggest issues with subscribers on our app and on our website. Today, Tom Harris replies to a remark on his article: Ali’s resignation shatters Starmer’s promise to end the ‘chaos’ Treading Carefully Let’s put it this way: Politics is a dirty game, most MPs have some sort of alternative private income or “side hustle”, MP’s salary is icing on the cake, and it gives them something to do. Their private income comes first, so the likelihood of two worlds colliding is very high, hence their register of interests.   Tom Harris None of this is true. In 14 years as an MP, my only additional income was from the occasional article in a newspaper, and most of the time I wasn't even paid for them. Very few of my Labour colleagues had any additional income streams. That may well have changed in the last year, but for most MPs, their MPs' salary is their main source of income.   Get full access Unlock Britain’s best news app and our award-winning website Enjoy three months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. Subscribe now   Listen Click below to enjoy one of our agenda-setting podcasts   Newsletters Read and sign up to our newsletters Telegraph Money • Wednesday Want to be richer? Make your money work harder with our experts + Sign up   Ukraine: The Latest • Friday Critical insights from the hosts of the world’s most listened-to podcast on the war + Sign up   Business Briefing • Daily Step inside the C-suite with the City’s best-connected journalists + Sign up   Three months’ free access Subscribe now

We have sent you this email because you have either asked us to or because we think it will interest you. Unsubscribe from this newsletter. Update your preferences. For any other questions, please visit our help page here. Any offers included in this email come with their own Terms and Conditions, which you can see by clicking on the offer link. We may withdraw offers without notice. Telegraph Media Group Holdings Limited or its group companies - 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT. Registered in England under No 14551860.