This article was on the front page recently: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9534

So at least some lay people easily realized he wasn't worth getting involved with.

He was arrested for sex trafficking minors and convicted procuring a child for prostitution.

> not of minors, right?

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1180481...

"The victims described herein were as young as 14 years old at the time they were abused by Jeffrey Epstein... Epstein intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18, including because, in some instances, minor victims expressly told him their age."

> why do we assume that the people he was hanging out with knew the details of what he did wrong?

Some of them were emailing long, long after his conviction.

He pled to Procuring Person under 18 for Prostitution.

He ran a sex-trafficking ring that involved hundreds of girls and women. Possibly over a thousand. He wasn't keeping it all to himself.