Some of the stories about Jeffrey Epstein are horrific. This is deeply uncomfortable.
Newly released documents related to the late sex offender have resurfaced a bizarre anecdote involving a friend of Donald Trump and his then-wife Marla Maples, TMZ reports.
Marla Maples and Donald Trump on January 7, 1991. /Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images
(Sonia Moskowitz)
The accusation is closely related to the infamous shoe fetish scandal of the 1990s, but it’s unclear whether the incidents involved the same person.
In a 2016 email to author and New Age guru Deepak Chopra, Epstein claimed that Maples could tell “stories about her friends who got caught having sex with shoes.” The email is part of the latest Justice Department document dump.
Jeffrey Epstein responded to Deepak Chopra with a sexual shoe-related anecdote about Marla Maples, according to a newly released email. /Ministry of Justice
When Chopra asked Maples if she was wearing the shoes at the time, Epstein clarified that she was not. Instead, he claimed the man cut a hole in the back of Maples’ high heels and was caught having sex with the heels.
Epstein did not name the person or explain how he knew the story. He just dismissed it as gossip — something he said Maples himself could confirm.
Marla Maples / Nordin Catic / Getty Images for University of Cambridge
This account is very similar to a real and widely reported case from the early 1990s involving former Maples publicist Chuck Jones, who was convicted in connection with the disappearance of dozens of shoes.
At trial, Jones admitted to having what he described as a “sexual relationship” with Maples’ shoes.
Maples testified that Trump’s organization installed hidden security cameras in her apartment after her shoes went missing several times, according to contemporaneous reports.
On July 13, 1992, Jones was reportedly caught on camera rummaging through her closet. When confronted, he allowed a search of his office, where investigators found more than 70 pairs of Maples’ shoes.
“We really felt he needed help,” one juror told the New York Post after convicting Jones of burglary, calling him “paranoid” and “dysfunctional.”
Jones himself testified that he became sexually aroused by the “footprints” inside the shoe.
Marla Maples’ publicist Chuck Jones leaves court in 1993. /Najlah Feanny/Corbis via Getty Images
The New Yorker captured the surreal tone of the trial in a 1994 “Talk of the Town” column, describing a witness who was brought in solely to assess the value of the seized shoes.
As she inspected shoe after shoe in the courtroom, the judge interjected: “Next case. Uh, next shoe.”
The magazine reported that Jones scratched Maples’ boots “to better see the marks on her feet.”
Epstein’s emails made no mention of Jones, the trial or previous reporting. It’s unclear whether he was referring to the same incident, a different individual, or simply repackaging a well-known scandal as inside gossip.
What’s new is Epstein’s retelling years later as evidence of his close ties to Trump’s world.
Donald Trump and Marla Maples, May 11, 1994. /Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty
Trump and Maples were married from 1993 to 1999, which overlapped with Trump’s well-documented social relationship with Epstein.
While the shoe story is one of those that strangers claim has resurfaced in the documents, it fits a familiar pattern: Epstein traded in secrets, rumors and bizarre anecdotes to present himself as an informed insider to people who later insisted they barely knew him.
