How many victims testified or gave statements to investigators about Jeffrey Epstein by 2019?

1. The unmistakable count: 23 women gave statements in the August 2019 federal hearing

A widely cited, contemporaneous report records that on August 27, 2019 twenty‑three women appeared in open court to deliver statements accusing Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Richard Berman — an event scheduled to give prosecutors, defense and alleged victims an opportunity to be heard before the charges were dismissed after Epstein’s death ^[1]. That number — 23 — is the clearest, specific tally in the record for victims who publicly spoke in court in 2019 ^[1].

2. Investigators had contact with "many more" victims, but public documents don’t give a single total

Separate investigative tracks created a much larger, if indeterminate, universe of victim interviews: the FBI and other prosecutors opened multi‑jurisdictional inquiries that involved "multiple accusers" in Florida, New York and elsewhere, and state and federal files and sealed materials contain interviews, victim names and records gathered over years ^{[2] [3]}. Reporting notes that dozens of underage girls described similar abuse in civil and criminal files dating back to the 2000s even though the 2008 federal plea dealt with a narrower subset of allegations ^[3]. The documents unsealed in 2019 and later releases ran to thousands of pages, but publicly available snippets and redactions mean those files do not produce a single authoritative count of every victim interviewed by investigators by 2019 ^{[3] [4]}.

3. Why 23 is not the whole story: hearings, sealed grand jury work, civil suits and police probes

The 23 statements in the August 2019 hearing are distinct from the many interviews conducted in sealed grand jury proceedings, state police investigations, civil lawsuits, and FBI probe files; the Justice Department’s releases around that period and the long history of Palm Beach and federal inquiries make plain that victims were interviewed in different forums over many years ^{[3] [2]}. For example, reporting emphasizes that hundreds or thousands of pages of material were sealed or redacted to protect victims’ privacy when documents were released, which obscures an exact aggregate count of interviewed victims in the public record through 2019 ^[3].

4. Competing narratives and the limits of public disclosure

Advocates and journalists pressed for a fuller accounting; Congress and courts later forced partial disclosures, but the Justice Department and FBI redacted or withheld materials that could identify victims, and media accounts note continuing frustration from survivors seeking transparency about investigative records ^{[3] [5]}. At the same time, the August 2019 public hearing provided a concrete, verifiable cohort of 23 women who spoke on the record — a figure that has been widely quoted even as other investigative contacts remain incompletely tallied in available documents ^{[1] [3]}.

5. Bottom line: a verifiable minimum, and an unresolved total

The verifiable minimum number of victims who publicly gave statements in 2019 is 23, based on the federal court hearing that month ^[1]. Beyond that minimum, investigators had interviewed numerous other alleged victims across police, grand jury and civil processes stretching back years, but the available sources provided here do not supply a single, authoritative total count of victims who had given statements or testimony to investigators by the end of 2019 ^{[2] [3]}. Any claim to a precise overall number would require access to the sealed or redacted investigative files and grand jury records that remain partially withheld or only selectively released ^{[3] [4]}.