It was the summer of 1997 and Amber, a student at Interlochen, an elite arts school in Michigan, was on a lunch break from class. As she walked down a winding path linking the school’s cabins, the 14-year-old was approached at a wishing well by a couple and their Yorkshire terrier. Amber remembers them asking if she was enjoying her studies and whether she planned to return the next year. She wasn’t sure, she told them—it would depend on whether she was able to secure a scholarship. That couple were Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
In hindsight, Amber, who has requested anonymity, realized they were seeking a “perfect candidate” for abuse. “I guess what they were sensing at that moment was that I was financially vulnerable,” she told The Times of London. “I was from another country, I couldn’t afford to come back.” She would spend years in Epstein’s orbit, locked in a cycle of abuse and control.
