Since then, Marcinko has disappeared from public view. Social media posts suggest she had been, at least up until last year, an active member of a Zen Buddhist centre in New York. Previously, her lawyer has said that she wants to eventually speak out about her victimization and help other survivors, but is currently “working on her healing”.
But the immunity given to Marcinko and the other three women in the 2008 plea deal is now being questioned. US congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican member of the House Oversight Committee, said in February, apparently after seeing unredacted Epstein documents: “All of these women engaged in the trafficking of minors as adults. They were working and complicit with Jeffrey Epstein’s operation.”
Marcinko, who appears to have remained loyal to Epstein even after their break-up, at an event in New York in 2014
Though Kellen and Groff are about to give testimony, it appears that the committee has yet to decide whether to call Ross or Marcinko.
The judgement as to how far a victim can also be termed an accomplice is nuanced, says Bridgette Carr, professor of clinical law at Michigan University, who has worked extensively with victims of human trafficking.
She tries to discern whether a victim has continued to commit crimes after escaping the control of a perpetrator, bearing in mind the control may continue even if the perpetrator is not physically present in the victim’s life.
“The line I draw is whether the victim has ever been away from the power and control of the perpetrator.”
The question is “whether it’s reasonable that [the victim] would believe that that perpetrator [still] has power over them”.
What choices Nadia Marcinko had, if any, in the course of her long association with Jeffrey Epstein, it is impossible for an outsider to know. Documents in the files provide only glimpses of her life. But one email from 2012 is perhaps more revealing than most.
“I do not want to be with you, but it upsets me to see you use the same exact patterns to seduce, manipulate, and ultimately control and hurt other girls. I don’t even like them and I actually feel guilty about knowing how they will end up,” she wrote.
“I know what you are capable of and I will always be protective of you out of pure loyalty and stubbornness, but my conscience is far from clear.”
