The Epstein Emails: Jerky

Were Epstein and Crew Really Talking about Jerky in Hundreds of Emails?

If you search the Epstein Library for the term “jerky,” you’ll get 380 results, most of which are emails that come from JEE (Jeffrey E. Epstein) or JEEVacation, both of which are Epstein himself. We have already established that Epstein liked to write some stuff in code, and it appears that either his emails are in code or Epstein was singularly preoccupied in 2012 and 2013 with jerky.

Jerky, as we know, is dehydrated meat, usually prepared in sticks or small pieces. Beef jerky is probably the most popular form, but there are also other types like turkey jerky. Jerky is usually considered a snack food rather than a main dish. It’s dehydrated and requires no refrigeration. It’s ubiquitous in the United States and actually is part of a $2.4B industry in America.

Here are some emails from the Epstein files, and you can decide for yourself whether Jeffrey Epstein and his organization truly were obsessed with jerky or whether that was a code word for something they did not want to mention.

Francis, mentioned in the above email, is Francis Derby, described online as being the “opening chef” (whatever that is) at a restaurant called The Cannibal. He gained a reputation for what is called a “butcher-driven menu” and has been the celebrity chef at numerous fancy restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. He left The Cannibal in May 2017. He’s frequently mentioned in the Epstein emails. His social media—as best I can tell—is now scrubbed.

Here is an email from Francis; JE stands for Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein has six bags of jerky, which seems like a lot. I do not think I have ever had even two bags of jerky on hand. He’s also keeping this jerky in the freezer, which is an unusual storage method for dehydrated meat. After all, one of the characteristics of jerky is that it needs no refrigeration, let alone freezing. It also sounds like Francis Derby is making a distinction here between “regular food” in Jeffrey’s diet and “jerky.” But isn’t jerky regular food?

There are lots of emails like this, making sure Jeffrey Epstein had a steady supply of jerky that had to be specifically and specially prepared for him. The author of this email is Karyna Shuliak. She is a dentist by trade, Belarussian by nationality, and by reputation (sans confirmation) the last official girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein. (I know that Epstein and Maxwell worked closely together and even had an amorous relationship, but it was not monogamous on either side.)

We don’t know who this is from, but apparently Jeffrey Epstein wanted somebody besides Francis Derby to be able to make the jerky he seemed to like so much. It sounds like the author is asking for more than a recipe—maybe some techniques?

Jeffrey Epstein lived in luxury—private planes, private island, sumptuous estates, daily massages, beautiful super models at his beck and call. And yet his guests remark on “beef jerky” for lunch? I have never in my life even considered serving a guest beef jerky. I don’t know who wrote this, but the Steve here is like Steve Hanson; he’s featured in a lot of the jerky emails. Hanson is a restaurateur based in New York City who founded the BR Guest Hospitality company that owns, among other brands, Dos Caminos and Blue Water Grill.

Hard to say who wrote this next email, but Francis is being asked for some more jerky. And Jeffrey apparently wants it FedExed.

The top email is heavily redacted but it went to Steve Hanson, the restaurateur. The author of the email is informing Hanson that Jeffrey prefers the recipe Francis Derby uses for jerky. LSJ stands for Little St. James, also known as “Epstein Island.” I do not know who Jen is. Virginia Roberts Guiffre went by the name Jenna and Jen when she was enthralled to the Epstein organization—but she escaped in 2002, a decade before this email was written.

Notice the Steve Hanson mentions that he was addressing a specific issue: “the type of beef that Jeff likes.” If this is such an important point in the recipe, it is odd that Hanson does not go into detail about which type of beef it was.

The Eva mentioned in this email is likely Eva Andersson-Dubin, a former Miss Sweden. She had been Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend for about a decade, and he paid for her to go to medical school—and she is technically Dr. Andersson-Dubin. She is married to Glenn Dubin, a billionaire. She helped to found the Dubin Breast Center at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital.

We can’t see who is asking whom—but apparently Jeffrey Epstein likes jerky and muffins. Very specific jerky and very specific muffins. I think that is an odd combination, but it certainly doesn’t prove anything.

I know some pretty dramatic people and I have never been involved or even heard of a “jerky situation.” Apparently, in the Epstein organization, jerky is pretty serious stuff. I can’t be sure who Rich B is but some have speculated this is Sir Richard Branson. By the way, there isn’t much talk about other foods—no talk about hamburgers or lamb chops or steak or tacos or fried shrimp or lobster. When it comes to food, it’s pizza, hot dogs, and jerky. Not exactly luxury-lifestyle fare.

Lesley Groff was an administrator, secretary, and travel manager for Epstein’s organization. Although she indirectly assisted Epstein and Maxwell in their human trafficking, it is not clear how much she actually knew about what was going on in the massage rooms or aboard the Lolita Express. They kept her pretty busy in the office.

Apparently, Rachael Bova was a counterpart to Lesley Groff. Rachael worked for Steve Hanson, the restaurateur, and Rachael has had the jerky tested for nutritional value. Is it just me or do they seem a little preoccupied with jerky? And if this jerky was prepared by renowned chefs—why would it need to be specially tested?

We do not know who wrote this email, but it is addressed to Jeffrey Epstein. Apparently both Francis Derby (chef) and Steve Hanson (restaurant owner) are making jerky for Jeffrey Epstein. These are pretty high-end talents to be taking time to make jerky for some doofus in the Caribbean. Jeffrey Epstein preferred Derby’s jerky over Hanson’s jerky.

The reference to the “freezer at 71st” refers to Epstein’s Manhattan mansion (it’s on 71st Street). It is likely that whoever is writing this is neither Francis Derby nor Steve Hanson. Somebody—not sure who—is going to try to duplicate Francis’s version of the jerky. Frighteningly, the author of this email is working with somebody “about raw ingredients and the original recipe.” There is only one main raw ingredient in jerky and it’s meat.

380 Results

This is by no means the entire trove of “jerky” emails from the Epstein downloads but it does give you a good introduction to a rather odd food fixation on the part of Jeffrey Epstein and those in his orbit.

Virginia Roberts Guiffre in her book Nobody’s Girl wrote that Jeffrey Epstein was extremely finicky about his diet, the foods he ate, and keeping slim—and he imposed these same standards on those around him. So it is possible that Epstein really was just passionate about jerky. Whatever it was, Epstein devoted a lot of time, effort, and energy to getting his own chef-prepared version of a product that is commercially produced and very easy to buy anywhere in the United States.

But conspiracy theorists wonder if “jerky” is not a code word. After all, even the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has recognized that code words in certain underground pervert networks. These are words like “pizza,” “hot dogs,” and “cheese pizza.” Pizza came up a lot in Hillary’s emails. Some people saw this as a deft way to talk about something controversial without saying its name.

Kind of like a code—and we know Epstein liked codes. All sinister groups like code words. Remember in The Godfather how we were told Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes? That was code. Drug dealers have all sorts of fanciful code words for their products: blow, boy, girl, white, candy, crystal, scag, dillies, and on and on.

So the question is: what is this “jerky” they keep talking about? Is it just chef-prepared dehydrated meat? Some conspiracy theorists are speculating—and that’s all this is—that this is a roundabout way of talking about cannibalism.

• There is no hard evidence that these emails are talking about cannibalism, that is, there is no decoder system that proves jerky is related to cannibalism.

• On the other hand, secret codes are, by definition, secret. So if jerky is a secret code word for cannibalism, Epstein wouldn’t tell us.

• Epstein defenders (of which there are surprisingly many) argue that Epstein talked about gross, creepy stuff openly and say if he were involved in something like cannibalism, he would have stated it openly.

• I am not sure that even cannibals feel comfortable discussing cannibalism in emails, but that’s just me.

• Epstein’s preoccupation with jerky—having it FedExed to him and specifically supplied to him on a plane ride—seems odd, but then again, so does running an international human trafficking ring.

• Around 2013 (in the general time frame of these emails), artist and ghoul Marina Abramovic hosted a “Spirit Cooking” dinner, where she “performed” while eating what was alleged to have been a large cake but what appeared to look like a human corpse. The Spirit Cooking are event was first performed in 1996 and then a Spirit Cooking dinner was reprised in 2013. It is well documented; Lady Gaga was one of the celebrities in attendance. Marina Abramovic and Jeffrey Epstein certainly had intersecting social orbits, but I have not yet researched their connections. There are 9 mentions of her in the Epstein Library but I did not yet find any where Epstein and Abramovic corresponded directly.

• So just because Epstein ran in the same circles as an artist who did work celebrating cannibalism doesn’t mean anything, unless, of course, it does.

What Does It Mean?

It means we need to keep looking. This is just my second installment at poking around in the Epstein library. It’s a dark place.

And please use discernment. This may mean nothing more than Epstein was an eccentric man and obsessed with jerky, which he sometimes kept frozen and once sent to a lab for nutritional testing. You know, just like we all do.