Early Epstein Accuser: Police Could Have Stopped Him in 1997

Early Epstein Accuser: Police Could Have Stopped Him in 1997
Alicia Arden arrives on the red carpet at the 54th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, on Feb. 12, 2012. AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File
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SANTA MONICA, Calif.—More than two decades before Jeffrey Epstein took his own life, a woman went into a California police station and filed one of the earliest sex-crime complaints against him: that he groped her during what she thought was a modeling interview for the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Alicia Arden said she never heard back from investigators about her complaint. No charges ever came of it. And to this day she sees it as a glaring missed opportunity to bring the financier to justice long before he was accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls and women.