Jena-Lisa Jones was desperately trying to impress her new high-school companions when she claims she was savagely attacked by Jeffrey Epstein at just 14-years-old.

Having grown up in poverty in West Palm Beach, Florida, Jena-Lisa was forced to steal money from her friends' bags simply to pay for lunch. Her turbulent upbringing led her to fall in with "the wrong people." Then, on one fateful afternoon, her life was changed forever within the space of just a few hours.

She spent considerable time at a new friend's house, frequently hiding beneath the bed to avoid returning home. At 14-years-old, she went to drink and smoke with some of her new friends at a trailer park - and it was there she first heard about a "guy named Jeff."

The now-mother told Soft White Underbelly: "They started making fun of this guy named Jeff and talking about massages and stuff. He was a creepy old guy and they're laughing - they're making jokes."

There was one particular ringleader who left a lasting impression on Jena-Lisa.

She said: "The very popular girl - something about her to this day could make you do the craziest things. She's popular, she has it all together. She's outgoing. She can sell your own shoes right back to you type of personality.", reportsthe Mirror US.

"She was like, 'If you guys want to go, you can make 200 bucks.' I was stealing out of friends' backpacks in gym class to get lunch, so getting 200 dollars for giving a massage - which is what it was told to me as - didn't seem that bad. How else was I going to make that kind of money?" So the 14-year-old consented to give this man a massage.

Jena-Lisa said: "The girl was making it seem very fun - she was letting me wear her clothes from the mall." She explained she would never ordinarily have access to such clothing, as her grandparents were responsible for buying her outfits.

"She was telling me I was pretty and hyping me up. I didn't know why she was being so nice to me - now I do."

A taxi transported them to Palm Beach Island. It was a brief journey from Jena-Lisa's home, yet she was taken aback by the striking affluence situated so close to where she lived. She recalled: "I remember being really shocked seeing it - it was all this money that I knew was out there but had never seen it.

"She had warned us that we would each go up and massage him for 30 minutes and we would go up by ourselves - that's just how he likes it. And he might ask us to take our shirts off, but we didn't have to do anything we weren't comfortable with. But she tells us this in the cab - when we're already on our way."

Jena-Lisa noted there was an entire household of staff working. The girl took her friend upstairs first, though the friend remained there for only five minutes. Jena-Lisa was then brought up to Epstein before she could speak with her friend about what had occurred.

Upon being escorted to the massage room, she recalled finding it strange that Epstein was not already present.

The girl who had brought her there instructed her to remove her shirt "and pretty much tells me to get naked."

Jena-Lisa recalled: "She's like you can leave your underwear on - and I was just standing there and I was like do I take my shirt off do I not take my shirt off. But I didn't want to make this girl mad so - you pretty much do as you're told.

"So I'm just standing there waiting for him and he walks in in a towel, and lays face down and he directs me the whole time on what to do. It was very much demands and weird stuff - not talking and asking questions.

"He sets a timer - like an egg timer next to the massage table - for me that was like I knew how long I had to stay. I thought 'If I can just get through this thirty minutes.'

"In the beginning, it was just a massage. Then, a couple of minutes in, he flips over and its like - a crazy clown face is the best way that I can describe it - this normal man that had walked into the room to when he flipped over, there was excitement in his face. Like he knew what was about to happen and I had no clue.

"Then he takes his towel off - he pretty much tells me to take all of my clothes off. Then he does horrific things for me at that time because I hadn't even kissed a boy - not groped or touched or any of that.

"And now I had this old man taking control over me and I couldn't say anything or didn't know how to say anything. And where would I go? I was in the room by myself, and is my friend gonna be mad at me if I get upset?

"There's so many things at that moment at 14 - that I couldn't even process all of it. So you just keep looking at the clock and try not to make eye contact and do what you're told to and just get through this.

"The whole time I was dying inside - I was just dying inside - and I was so mad at my friend. There was no way she didn't know this was gonna happen - she knew - this wasn't her first time here.

"He sexually assaulted me. He touched me inappropriately and put his hands in places he shouldn't have. I feel bad when I say that - that it hurt me so bad - because I know that people get raped and I went there on my free will - so you hold that guilt that you set yourself up for that.

"He finishes - he does his thing - then he gets up his towel and walks out. I'm standing there - just hurry up and put my clothes back on. So I go back downstairs. My friend and her friend are hanging out by the pool when I was up there getting abused. I was so confused at so many aspects of what just happened to me.

"I pull my friend to the side in the bathroom and asked her what happened and she goes, 'He didn't like me because I was too developed.'

"So she didn't know what had happened and when she said that to me, I didn't want to tell her what happened to me because I was embarrassed of what happened.

"I felt like I got the damage and they got the money." Jena-Lisa was unaware of Jeffrey Epstein's true standing until many years later - she subsequently sought legal representation and devoted all her energy towards facing him in court. He was then found dead in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors.

"I wanted my day in court," she told Shadow Sessions podcast. "I didn't get that, and we were so close to it, it really got ripped from us, and then after [Epstein] passed, everything just went into a circus show."

Jena-Lisa revealed she supported Trump in the 2024 election on the strength of his pledges to release the Epstein files - and now feels utterly betrayed.

She said: "Trump ran his whole freakin' election on the release of these freakin' files. And it sparked it back all up again, gave us hope, gave me hope at least.

"He runs his campaign on this, and he runs it really, really hard to the point that a lot of us voted for him.

"As soon as he gets in, we started pushing for the release of the files, and now it's a 'Democratic hoax'," she said, referring to Trump's dismissal of some calls to the release additional Epstein files.

For Jena-Lisa, justice is straightforward.

She said: "For me now, is America taking the predators that are here in our country, yes, take them down in every country, but I would like to see some of that, that would give me a little bit more faith and that we're doing the right thing and that we're protecting our children."

She added: "When you do speak out, they eat you alive - you have a lot of support, but you also have a lot of crazy people that are out there," adding that she has faced "death threats for speaking out".

"Every time I share my story, and a young girl reaches out to me, sends me artwork she's made, writes me a letter, tells me how important it is that I'm fighting and speaking out, [it] reminds me every freakin' day exactly why I'm doing this, and will not stop doing this, even after I get whatever justice looks like for me in my case."