AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Danielle Bensky was an aspiring ballerina when she met Jeffrey Epstein. From there, her world would turn upside down. Bensky alleges Epstein sexually abused her, threatened and coerced her. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors but died by suicide before the case could go to trial. Bensky has been speaking out against the Justice Department's decision not to release any additional documents to the public. Though just yesterday, President Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to the case. Danielle Bensky joins us now. Thank you so much for being here with us.
DANIELLE BENSKY: Thank you for having me. This is really important. Thank you.
CHANG: I just want to start - if you're comfortable, can you tell us what you went through with Epstein?
BENSKY: Yeah. So I was a ballet dancer, and I went to a professional performing arts school in the city. And I was recruited at a very young age. I was not quite 18 at the time. And I met Epstein, and at first, it wasn't - you know, the abuse didn't start until a little bit later. And my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She had an acoustic neuroma. I had been to the mansion before, and I knew that he had a model of a brain that was in - it was in sculpture form. So nobody knew where his money had come from at that point. All I knew was that he was a very powerful person, and it felt very intimidating, and he often manipulated us to feel that intimidation.
So I didn't know where the money came from, and I thought that it came from neuroscience. And so when my mom had discovered that she had a brain tumor, I had gone to him and showed him the brain scans. And when I did, that was when everything evolved and the world kind of came crashing down for me in that he said, basically, OK, well, what will you do for this? He had said, you know, I know the top brain surgeons at Mount Sinai. You know, I have all of this power, and I can use it to help you, or I can make it really difficult for your mother.
For myself, I was a teenager, and I was a young teenager, and I just felt like I had to go along with it for her safety, and so I did. And it was - that was when the abuse turned for me.
CHANG: I am so sorry you went through all of that.
BENSKY: Thank you.
CHANG: What went through your mind when you found out that the Justice Department was essentially closing the case and had decided not to release further information to the public, apart from what President Trump asked for last night?
BENSKY: It is a level of sadness that I don't think people quite grasp because there's depression involved, there's - disassociation happened for me for quite some time. There's this level of, like, retraumatization that happens regularly when this stuff kind of resurfaces. It's so important to get stories like this out because we don't want it perpetuated, and if history is erased, then we don't have anything to point to. So for me, I feel it's incredibly saddening, but also, you know, it's the reason why I felt the need to speak up.
CHANG: Yes. Well, as we said, President Trump has asked the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to release all pertinent grand jury testimony. What did you make of that particular request? - because even though grand jury testimony is not the full scope of the Justice Department's files on Jeffrey Epstein, do you see that request as a good development, a productive development?
BENSKY: Honestly, the grand jury proceedings - I mean, they'll be highly redacted, I'm sure, and it's a far cry from making information available to the public. And, I mean, there's so much that we will be missing out on, and it's...
CHANG: What would you...
BENSKY: ...Yeah, very sad.
CHANG: ...Be hoping to learn if the files on Jeffrey Epstein were to be fully released to the public? - though redacted, I'm sure, in large portion.
BENSKY: I think it's all about accountability. I think that if we have names, we kind of can get more of a sense of the inner workings. You know, as a young teen, when I was there, there were so many eyewitnesses. There were people everywhere in his house, you know, from the housekeeper, to the maid that brought me upstairs - all of this, right? And it always baffled me of, like - especially in my older years now - how? How is this possible, that nobody spoke up? And I just feel that without having a list of names, or even - not even a list of names. I think just to have the files and be able to see the scope of it, just to be able to get more insight on the inner workings, I think, would be beneficial for everybody.
CHANG: Right. The Justice Department had concluded that there is no so-called client list, but we have seen a lot of backlash to the Justice Department's conclusions about the case - backlash among President Trump's supporters - which has brought, of course, this case back into the headlines for the past several days. What has that been like for you, to watch this case politicized in that way?
BENSKY: You know, I think we've had multiple presidents since we began unraveling all of this. And for me, I think that the case transcends politics, and we have to remember that these are human stories, right? And we're just looking for closure, and it doesn't ever seem to come. So to put it into the media and make it this, like, politicized event, it's really disheartening to - you know, I think we're losing a bit of the humanity in it.
CHANG: Well, in the Justice Department's conclusion, it did acknowledge Epstein harmed more than 1,000 victims, and the department said, quote, "one of our highest priorities is combating child exploitation and bringing justice to victims." Given how you're feeling in this moment, do you think the government has brought justice to victims here?
BENSKY: Yeah, I don't believe that they have. I think that we sit with all of these thoughts, and we sit with - all of this lives in the darkest places of ourselves. And I think that without the accountability piece, we're never going to be able to fully heal. And we're never going to be able to see accountability if we're not looking at the full scope of the case. And how can we do that if everything is constantly redacted?
CHANG: Well, Danielle, you've been dealing with the personal consequences of meeting Jeffrey Epstein for several decades now.
BENSKY: Yeah.
CHANG: Can I just ask how you're doing? With all this renewed public attention on the case, how heavily does this still weigh on you?
BENSKY: I think that your past informs your future. And after the abuse with Jeffrey, I couldn't look at myself in a leotard and tights for quite some time. I did not want to do ballet. I did not want to do much of anything 'cause I was so disassociated from who I was. So I started on this journey of choreography, and I realized how important movement therapy is and feeling in control of my body again and telling stories. And so I've moved into this world of choreography with youth repertory theater. And, you know, my intention now is to create a very holistic performer who understands how to prevent injury, who understands how to meditate and keep themselves very whole.
And so I think it informs me in the way that I want to be the person that I didn't have at that age. And so it's been a really beautiful time to come back to the parts of myself that were lost when I was a kid and try to really build kids up in the sense that they can feel whole so that this doesn't happen to them.
CHANG: Danielle Bensky, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
BENSKY: Thank you. I really appreciate the time and the light shed on us survivors.
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