Ex-Miami Beach mayor accused of sexual assault by Epstein assistant
Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime personal assistant testified Thursday that she was sexually assaulted by former Miami Beach mayor and 2018 Florida gubernatorial candidate Philip Levine, the Miami Herald has confirmed.
Sarah Kellen, a key member of Epstein’s inner circle, told the House Oversight Committee she was assaulted by Levine, and she named two other men — celebrity hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai and famed fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier — whom she alleged were also involved in abusing her, according to four sources who were in the room during her testimony.
The Herald reached out to Levine several times on Thursday evening and Friday morning but was unsuccessful in reaching him. The Herald has also reached out to a law firm that previously represented Fekkai but has not yet received a response.
Demarchelier died in 2022.
Kentucky Rep. James Comer, Republican chairman of the committee, called Kellen “very believable, intelligent and brave.”
Kellen, 46, was not sworn in to testify for the interview, which was conducted behind closed doors. But it is against the law to lie to Congress, so she can be prosecuted if her statements are found to be untrue. A full transcript of Kellen’s remarks is expected to be released next week, possibly as early as Tuesday.
It is the first time a victim has testified about Epstein before Congress.
“Jeffrey made sure I knew that defying him would cost me my life,” Kellen told the committee in an opening statement.
“He knew everyone in the highest echelons of society and everyone catered to him. He knew everyone in the fashion industry, academics, finance, government, powerful world leaders, dictators and everyone in between. From the beginning, he showed me he was more powerful than basically anyone in the world.
“I sat in a room in Cuba with him and Fidel Castro. I was taken to Asia and Africa with President Bill Clinton, including a lunch at the home of the Sultan of Brunei. I was at Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday party at Windsor Castle and at the desert home of the Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai. I sat across the table of Ehud Barak in Israel.
“Jeffrey was able to fool and manipulate the brightest minds in the world. Us victims didn’t stand a chance.”
Four sources who heard her testimony said that Kellen did not provide details of the alleged sexual assaults, but that she came across as credible.
“She was a very good, sincere and a helpful witness,” Comer said during a break in the testimony on Thursday. “I can’t say enough good things about her.”
He noted that she had never been interviewed by law enforcement or prosecutors before Epstein’s arrest in 2019. That fact alone, he said, showed once again, that “the government failed the victims.”
“Of all the people we’ve interviewed so far, this interview was by far the most substantive and productive interview that we’ve had,” Comer said. “She was very brave coming forward. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for her to go into detail about the abuse she endured at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell.”
He added that her naming three other “alleged abusers” was a “positive” step, and that the “whole world will be able to see that, and we’ll move forward.”
The names of the three men were first reported Thursday night by The Red Letter.
Levine, who became mayor of Miami Beach in 2013 and ran as a Democrat for Florida governor in 2018, has previously said he “never had a friendship or business relationship” with Epstein, who was charged with child sex trafficking in 2019 and died in his jail cell later that year.
Epstein had more than a dozen contacts for Levine in his so-called “little black book.” Days after Epstein’s death, Levine told the Herald he had met Epstein “a couple of times” but had “no clue” how they’d met.
“We probably met probably 15-20 years ago at a social event in NY — and probably exchanged biz cards,” Levine told the Herald in 2019. “I really don’t recall where and when. Never had any interactions with him and didn’t meet beyond that.”
Since that time, however, more emails have surfaced showing that Levine was close to both Epstein and Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, including one in which Levine joked about the size of his penis.
He exchanged several other sexually suggestive emails with Maxwell, who was later found guilty of facilitating Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation. Up until now, Levine had not been accused of any illegal activity and has denied any involvement in Epstein’s crimes.
Kellen, 46, worked for Epstein for about 15 years, starting in about 2001. She herself was recruited to work as a personal assistant when she was about 21 years old. She was called to testify before the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein’s criminal network.
In a statement she read before the committee, Kellen said that she was sexually and emotionally abused by Epstein for almost the entire time she worked for him. She traveled all over the world and met many powerful people, including former president Bill Clinton and former Cuban president Fidel Castro.
But at one point she mentioned that she was sexually abused and harassed by some of the prominent people in Epstein’s world, including Levine and Fekkai — whom she said both sexually assaulted her. Demarchelier, a photographer so well known that his name is mentioned in the movie “The Devil Wears Prada,” exposed himself to her, Kellen alleged.
Philip Levine’s emails with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell
Files released by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year indicated that Levine had a closer relationship with Epstein and Maxwell than he had previously let on — including an exchange in which Levine and Maxwell joked about Levine being “hung like a horse.”
The emails show that Levine remained friendly with Epstein even after his 2008 conviction in South Florida.
In July 2010, as Epstein’s probation period was ending after a sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors, Levine sent Epstein an email calling him “a great guy” and signing it, “Your friend, Philip.”
The files also revealed flirty and sexually suggestive emails between Levine and Maxwell from the early 2000s. In an October 2001 message, Levine told Maxwell to tell a woman whom Levine was planning to meet “that the rumor is that I am hung like a horse...not a rumor!!!”
Maxwell wrote to Levine the same day: “I told her that you were hung like a horse and she sd [sic] that she would like to see it at breakfast - I told her to take pictorial evidence for me.”
Last year, Maxwell told the Department of Justice that Levine was her “very good friend” and that she had been introduced to Clinton “because of Philip Levine.”
Levine denied introducing Maxwell to Clinton, saying last year that his relationship with Maxwell “was that of a friend to my wife and I, nothing more and nothing less.” Levine married his longtime girlfriend in 2018.
Levine told the Herald in a statement earlier this year: “As I have stated previously, my only connection to Jeffrey Epstein arose solely through my former friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell. I met Epstein only a few times. I never conducted business with him, never visited his island and never flew on his aircraft. I regret ever meeting him.”
The other men
A 2018 Boston Globe investigation described interviews with seven models who accused Demarchelier of assaulting them, harassing them and preying on young women, some of whom said they were teenagers at the time.
Before his death, Demarchelier denied all the allegations in a statement to the Globe. One of the models wrote an email to Vogue editor Anna Wintour about his advances, according to the Globe, and Conde Nast formally cut ties with Demarchelier after the Globe contacted the company with questions.
In April 2012, Epstein wrote in an email to a person whose name is redacted that he planned to accompany Demarchelier and Russian Vogue to St. Petersburg.
Fekkai, owner of a famed New York City salon, has also been tied to Epstein for years, going back to the early 2000s. Maxwell described Fekkai as “friendly, very friendly,” in an interview with the Department of Justice last year.
Epstein offered models trips to his salon, emails released with the DOJ’s Epstein Files show. He paid the salon for haircuts up until just months before his arrest — paying $367.84 for a woman’s haircut and eyebrow tweeze in April 2019.
In a November 2010 email to Latvian model Lana Zakocela, Epstein said that he had known Fekkai for 10 years.
“He’s at my house now,” Epstein wrote. “I helped his company form.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
This story was originally published May 22, 2026 at 11:59 AM.