1. United States
2. Md.
3. Letter

I am writing to demand a comprehensive federal investigation into the FBI's apparent cover-up of sex trafficking cases connected to Jeffrey Epstein's network, specifically involving missing and murdered women from Ohio. Recently released Epstein Files, particularly document EFTA00172828, reveal deeply troubling evidence that the FBI under the Trump administration suppressed information about at least two cases of missing and murdered girls from Ohio who had been sexually trafficked. Forensic intelligence analyst Angela Clemente conducted an 11-year investigation uncovering a sex trafficking ring operating out of Portsmouth, Ohio, headed by the late Michael Mearan, a former Portsmouth city councilman and lawyer. Mearan is mentioned five times in the latest Epstein files dump. On January 22, 2020, Clemente invoked the Freedom of Information Act and the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Act, requesting all Epstein files that might link Epstein to this Ohio sex-trafficking ring. The FBI, under Bill Barr's direction, refused her request nine days later. When Clemente sued, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brenda Gonzalez Horowitz argued the FBI would invoke exemptions citing ongoing prosecutions, yet no prosecutions materialized for the most serious crimes Clemente documented. Clemente's investigation revealed that victims, predominantly poor, white, drug-addicted women from blighted Ohio and Kentucky towns, were flown to Palm Beach, Florida, New Jersey, and other states in partnership with a larger trafficking ring. During her investigation, Clemente interviewed a paid FBI informant embedded in Mearan's operation who confessed to participating in the murders of two trafficked women or girls. One victim was found murdered; the other remains missing. Despite reporting these findings to law enforcement, nothing was done. The trafficking operation used recruitment tactics resembling Epstein and Maxwell's pyramid-scheme structure. Clemente's findings inspired the award-winning 2017 documentary "Gone: The Forgotten Women of Ohio" directed by Joe Berlinger. Since her investigation, a judge has been suspended and retired, the defense attorney is under investigation for human trafficking, and detectives have resigned or been removed from task forces, yet the FBI has taken no meaningful action on the murders and disappearances. I urge you to demand a full congressional investigation into why the FBI refused to provide documents to Clemente, why no federal prosecutions resulted from her evidence of murder by an FBI informant, and what connections exist between Epstein's network and the Ohio trafficking ring. These victims and their families deserve justice, and the American people deserve answers about why federal law enforcement appears to have protected traffickers and murderers.