‘How will people learn?’: A statue of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein briefly installed in New Mexico
At a time when activists across America are tearing down statues, pranksters have put a new one up. A monument to sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein popped up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then vanished just as mysteriously.
What looked like a bronze statue – depicting a young man in a polo shirt, pants and loafers – appeared on Wednesday outside the old city hall. Local reporters received pictures of the ‘monument’ described as Epstein, but it had vanished by the time a camera crew arrived on the site.
Mystery Jeffrey Epstein statue found in Downtown Albuquerque https://t.co/LzN5A78GSb
— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) July 1, 2020
The statue was “actually a painted mannequin,” according to KOAT-TV, which also had pictures of the plaque affixed to its pedestal. It described Epstein as someone who “started as a teacher and worked his way up from a low level assistant to being one of the top financial advisers” in the US but “also a rapist who died in prison.”
It was signed as a gift to Bernalillo County by the ‘Antlion Entertainment Art Collective’.
The plaque also references Zorro Ranch, a property Epstein owned about an hour’s drive away from Albuquerque. The 10,000-acre desert property was home to a massive mansion, and multiple women accusing Epstein of rape and sexual abuse have named it as the key site in his sex trafficking operation.
Epstein himself told scientists he “hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women” at the ranch, according to a July 2019 New York Times report.
The viewer who sent photos of the statue to KRQE journalist Rachel Knapp said the person who put it up kept yelling: “If we don't have a statue of Epstein, how will people learn?”
A viewer sent this to me- they said it is a statue of Jeffrey Epstein and that it was placed in downtown ABQ Wednesday morning. The viewer said the person who placed it there kept yelling: "If we don't have a statue of Epstein, how will people learn?" @krqe pic.twitter.com/vwAe5Smjwo
— Rachel Knapp (@RachelKnappNews) July 1, 2020
Epstein, who mysteriously accumulated substantial wealth, rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful for decades until he was charged with rape and sex trafficking last year. He died inside a New York jail cell last August, officially from suicide. However, much of the American public believes “Epstein didn’t kill himself,” according to the widespread expression.
The Albuquerque stunt comes as protesters and activists across the country have been tearing down monuments, in what began as protests over the death of an African-American man in Minnesota during a botched arrest by police. Initially going after Confederate generals from the Civil War, they have since moved to target the explorer Christopher Columbus, author of the American national anthem Francis Scott Key, and presidents George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt, among others.
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