LOS ANGELES — An alleged victim of the late Jeffrey Epstein who filed a police report against him in 1997 in Santa Monica for sexual battery called Monday for “transparency” and urged House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files.
Alicia Arden, 56, says she was sexually assaulted by Epstein at Shutters on the Beach hotel in Santa Monica in 1997 when she was 28 and an aspiring Victoria’s Secret model.
Arden, speaking at a news conference Monday at the side of her attorney Gloria Allred, said Epstein told her he was a model scout for the Victoria’s Secret catalogue and invited Arden to his hotel room to look at her portfolio.
The actress said that after Epstein asked her to sit closer, “he started touching me … and said, ‘Let me manhandle you.’ It was becoming apparent I would be involved in a situation I didn’t want to be in. He was touching me and groping me and taking my clothes off.”
Arden claims she went to the nearby Santa Monica Police Department and filed a police report against Epstein for alleged sexual battery but never heard back. She’s called for justice for years.
Arden is known for acting in Baywatch, General Hospital and Red Shoe Diaries as well as in movies.
Allred, who says she represents 27 alleged victims of Epstein, said she called the Los Angeles news conference with Arden to urge lawmakers in the House to vote in favor of releasing Justice Department documents collected on the late billionaire financier and convicted sex offender.
In a reversal of his long-running campaign to keep the Epstein documents sealed, President Donald Trump is suddenly urging lawmakers to vote to release the entire file. The vote is expected Tuesday.
“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax,” Trump wrote Sunday night on Truth Social, adding, “I DON’T CARE! All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT” discussing economic issues.
“Speaking as a victim, I beg you to release these files, once and for all,” Arden said Monday. “There is no valid reason not to do so. This should be a really easy bi-partisan issue. Why would there be a single ‘No’ vote?”
She added, “Vote to release these files so we can finally see who else helped Jeffrey Epstein.”
The bill would force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, and any information about the investigation into his apparent suicide by hanging in a federal lockup in New York in August 2019.
“Survivors have made it clear … they want transparency and they want truth,” Allred said.
The Los Angeles Daily News contributed to this story.
