Juliana Cruz Lima
Jan 2, 2026
Rina Oh tells The Sun that what began as a promised prestigious degree became a system of control, manipulation and fear
RINA Oh was 21 and dreaming of becoming an artist when she was drawn, step by step, into Jeffrey Epstein’s warped sex empire.
A quarter of a century later, she is watching the thousands of pages of Epstein files being dumped by the US Department of Justice, and said she’s ready to reclaim her story.
It comes as 11,000 new documents related to the case of Epstein were available last week on the DOJ’s website.
For years, Epstein’s most famous accuser, Virginia Giuffre, dominated the narrative of his twisted network.
Oh, who also knew Epstein and Giuffre in the early 2000s, claimed that came at a cost to her.
She told The Sun: “Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a choice because Virginia Giuffre, wrote an entire chapter about me in her unpublished memoir.
“She falsely portrayed me, made up a lot of stories. The entire chapter was actually fabricated minus like one shopping trip.”
Oh says that portrayal, plus a wave of online harassment, forced her into the open.
“I was robbed of telling my truthful story and I have been dealing with the backlash and false allegations for six years now,” she said.
“I ended up filing two lawsuits against her [Giuffre] to have to prove that I’m a victim.”
Oh previously confessed she introduced Epstein to three women but denies she took part in any abuse.
According to previous legal filings reported by The Times, Oh sued Giuffre for defamation in 2021.
Giuffre countersued, accusing Oh of assault, and the battle rumbled on until Giuffre’s death. Oh is now pursuing claims against Giuffre’s estate.
She said the aim is to clear her name for the sake of her two children and establish, in court, that she was a victim of Epstein, not a perpetrator in his network.
“Now I’m ready to finally tell my story the way I want it to be heard, and I’m going to be releasing this book in 2026.”
Meeting Epstein
Oh’s account of how she met Epstein matches a pattern now grimly familiar: a powerful man presenting himself as a benefactor to a vulnerable young woman.
“I kept going in and out of school. I was a troubled teenager,” she said.
She had been a star at LaGuardia High School, the elite New York arts school, but her South Korean immigrant parents sent her to a community college instead as they didn’t approve of her going to art school.
By the time Epstein appeared, offering a way back into the art world, she was adrift.
Oh recalled: “I was just really unhappy… If I don’t love something, I’m just not going to participate. By the time I met Jeffrey Epstein, I was not in school.”
Then came the hook.
“He offered me a scholarship to obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts [BFA],” she said.
“He said, ‘I’m a philanthropist. I’m going to pay for your school, pay for you to graduate with a four-year degree from a prestigious art school, and I’ll get you in and everything.’ And that’s how he lured me.”
Despite being over 18, she stressed how young and naïve she felt at the time, explaining: “I had just turned 21, I was young. Most people think at that age it’s your fault that you went back.”
And inside Epstein’s world, she says, there was a “protocol”.
Oh explained: “When I was around Jeffrey Epstein, most people were going there having conversations with him and, you know, like they would, everybody ended up in that massage room.
“Like that’s just ‘protocol’, that’s was just what he did and it’s really horrible.
“Most of us didn’t know how many there were and it’s really horrifying and scary that there are so many of us.
“The number just keeps growing because they keep coming out, and I studied everything surrounding him.”
As an artist, Oh described how she could watch him closely and note details that not many girls would be able to.
She said: “I was studying the books that were on the coffee table, the facial expressions that he would make, whoever he was talking to on the phone, things like that. I don’t think most people study those things.”
Last Tuesday, a trove of 300,000 Epstein documents were released.
Among the material was a postcard that appeared to be written by Epstein to Nassar, the disgraced former team doctor of the US women’s national gymnastics team.
However, the DOJ says the postcard was flagged as fake years ago and should not be treated as authentic.
The fake postcard, dated August 13, 2019 – three days after Epstein’s body was found – begins with: “ Dear L.N.”
“As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home,” he wrote.
“Good luck!”
The text, reportedly written by Epstein, continues with: “We shared one thing … our love & caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential.”
From benefactor to punisher
Oh said it took years to name what happened to her.
“It took me a long time to realise that what happened to me was sexual abuse. I blamed myself for years,” she admitted.
At first it was just unease, with Oh explaining: “It started feeling sketchy, like something is wrong here, something is off about this man.”
The “scholarship” that had felt like a lifeline quickly became, in her telling, a leash.
Oh said: “He took the scholarship away immediately when I didn’t volunteer to go see him.
“He was like, ‘well, you’re not being obedient, so I’m going to take that away’.”
She insists she was not chasing Epstein for money or access, adding: “I never, not even once, picked up the phone and called his people and said, ‘I want to come and see Jeffrey Epstein.’
“He always had to call me… sort of chase me.”
When she pulled back, she says, he changed tactics.
“He tried something new, so he commissioned me to make a painting. Then that didn’t work either.”
Then came what she calls a “sketchy” job offer.
Oh recalled: “One day he offered to pay for my salary.
“He said something like, ‘Now I’m going to get you a job – let’s see if this works… ‘I’m going to donate money to the charity and they’re going to pay you.’
“I’d never heard of anything like that before.”
The feeling, she said, was of being owned, “like strings being entangled on me… like this guy wants to buy me.”
It took me a long time to realise that what happened to me was sexual abuse. I blamed myself for yearsRina Oh, Epstein survivor
All this sat in sharp contrast to what Epstein had promised.
“He told me in the beginning, ‘I’m offering you a scholarship with no strings attached, you never have to see me again.’
“But he kept calling me to see him again.”
Eventually Oh found work in fashion PR on her own terms, with nothing to do with Epstein.
She described the new gig as the opportunity to break away and become independent because she didn’t “like the idea of someone controlling me.”
But according to her, Epstein still tried to follow her into that new life.
“He got really excited… I was shocked that he knew the names of the designers. He wanted to go to the fashion shows.
“‘Invite me to the fashion shows,’ he said. And I never invited him.”
‘I didn’t have a choice for what I wanted’
Oh knows the public question that’s coming.
“I know I’ll get criticised by the public saying, ‘If you knew that these girls are going to the house, why did you go back?’,” she said.
“But I didn’t have a choice for what I wanted. I wanted help with my art career, and my parents were not helping me.”
Her early support came from art foundations, whose guidance helped develop her talent in a way she wishes her parents had.
And while still involved with those foundation mentors – after nearly a decade of working with them – she met Epstein and, being young, realised she would eventually need to establish herself independently.
He took the scholarship away immediately when I didn’t volunteer to go see himRina Oh, Epstein survivor
Epstein presented himself as that next step, she claimed.
According to Oh, “He just seemed at the time to be very legitimate.”
“I did see a lot of artwork that he collected, and he has a private jet, private island, he owned the largest single-family residence in New York City…
“The minute you walk in and you see this Greek sculpture that is probably priceless, so I immediately associated that with a serious art patron.”
The artist, who lives in New Jersey, said Epstein used her ambition as a cover for his twisted crimes.
“He wanted updates on my project, then he would take me into a room and something would happen.
“I was so young that I didn’t realize this was wrong, this is not a normal relationship.
“I just figured he was a guy with a lot of money who was going to help me with my art career.”
Epstein files release
Back in 2018 and 2019, while Jeffrey Epstein’s plea deal in Florida was under fire and prosecutors were under renewed pressure, Oh said she began posting strategically about what she knew, hoping to push the system into action.
She recalled: “Starting in 2018, I began reading stories about the injustice because of the way the criminal case was handled in 2007. And in 2019, I went on an information dump.
“I wanted him to get arrested. Unfortunately for me, I sacrificed my own safety. I sacrificed my own anonymity.”
Oh withdrew from public life, but kept going for one reason, saying: “I helped those girls, that was my mission.
“I waived my anonymity back then because I wanted to give those girls a push.”
Now, after the federal government published the most extensive official record yet of Epstein’s crimes and connections, Oh is watching closely.
“I think it [the release] will help explain what really happened,” she said.
“We’ll be able to see more clues and where investigators need to go next.”
Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Department of Justice is legally required to release all unclassified federal records related to Epstein by the end of December 19, 2025 – a deadline written directly into the law and signed by President Donald Trump.
The legislation, passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities, forces the release of the Justice Department’s own investigative backbone, spanning two major FBI probes: the 2006 Florida investigation that ended in a notorious non-prosecution deal, and the New York case that led to Epstein’s 2019 federal sex-trafficking indictment.
Epstein pleaded not guilty and died in custody while awaiting trial.
The trove – reportedly more than 300 gigabytes – includes FBI case files, search-warrant material from raids on Epstein’s properties in Florida, New York and Little Saint James.
It also includes interview memos, financial and travel records, internal Justice Department communications and documents relating to Epstein’s death.
The law sharply limits redactions.
Material cannot be withheld to avoid embarrassment, reputational damage or political fallout – even for presidents, billionaires or foreign dignitaries.
Only victim identities, child sexual abuse material, classified information or details tied to active investigations can be shielded, and every redaction must be publicly explained.
In the days leading up to the deadline, pressure had intensified.
Thousands of pages of records were released, along with multiple batches of images and videos from Epstein’s estate and private islands.
One dump, published just hours before the deadline, included maps, travel documents, financial records and photographs featuring high-profile figures – with no allegation of wrongdoing attached.
A week earlier, photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate showed several elite figures from former Prince Andrew to Donald Trump, Woody Allen and Richard Branson.
And on December 3-4, dozens of previously unseen images and videos from his private island, Little St James, became public.
The island photos, taken in 2020 after Epstein’s death, include a room with a dentist’s chair and masks on the wall, plus a landline phone with names on speed dial.
On December 19, another release included court records, footage and images, also included new photos of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor at Balmoral and Ascot with Epstein and Maxwell.
Thousands of PDF links lead to pictures showing other famous figures – such as former president Bill Clinton who can be seen in one image relaxing with Epstein and a mystery woman in a hot tub.
Another picture shows Clinton and pop star Michael Jackson posing alongside an unidentified woman.
One of the images also shows a topless Epstein pictured at his notorious paedo island home with what appears to be a toddler’s foot.
Among the thousands of pictures released, one shows Andrew, 65, at a black-tie event with Ghislaine Maxwell.
The humiliated ex-royal was pictured lying across the lap of five women, whose faces have all been redacted.
After looking at some of the images herself, Oh thinks that even the government appears overwhelmed.
She said: “It needs to come out very slowly in increments. They can’t all come out at once and everyone going at it.
“It’s a lot of information to process. I think even to our government – they don’t really know what they’re looking at.”
Oh was also adamant that the public should not expect a neat, typed “client list” to appear.
She said: “The government doesn’t have in their possession all the files. They’re sending out subpoenas to different organisations where they know information is stored.
“When Pam Bondi said they don’t have the client list, I actually believe her… no one ever made a client list.
“These people were working covertly, they didn’t want to get caught.”