Verification of the facts: Tom Hanks is not recorded in Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs – Reuters

Social media posts claim that Tom Hanks flew Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane to his Caribbean island. This statement is false.

Examples of these messages can be found here, here and here.

The late financier Jeffrey Epstein pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls in his mansions in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, after his arrest on July 6, 2019. He had escaped federal prosecution by pleading guilty in 2008 to the prostitution charges of the State of Florida, an agreement now widely considered to be too lenient. Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Manhattan Detention Complex on August 10, 2019.

The financier once counted President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, Duke of York as friends. None of them have been charged with crime (here). The private planes that Epstein used to travel to his Caribbean island, Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands, were called in the media the “Lolita Express” (here).

In July 2019, the New York Times reported that pilots who had flown Epstein’s planes, including flights to his Caribbean island, had published flight log records from 1995 to 2013, including the names of those who had traveled on planes (here).

Copies of these flight logs can be viewed online, downloaded from Gawker.com here and from Factcheck.org here. Business Insider also provided a searchable database of all known flights by Jeffrey Epstein’s private aircraft, available here for subscribers.

Reuters could not find Hanks’ name or initials in the flight log documents.

The Reuters Fact Check team previously refuted a statement circulating on social networks that Bill Gates had also visited Epstein Island several times (here).

VERDICT

False. Tom Hanks’ name does not appear in Epstein’s flight logs.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Find out more about our work to check social media posts here.