Early in 2019, Julia Molchanova opened a credit-monitoring app on her phone. It showed credit cards and spending that she didn’t recognize. She had spent years as one of the young women Jeffrey Epstein called his “assistants,” a cover Molchanova said he used to hide his sexual abuse. She started to suspect that Epstein was also using accounts set up in her name for his own purposes and pushed back for the first time. “I feel uncomfortable to discuss future,” Molchanova wrote to Epstein on April 4, 2019, sweat soaking into her shirt as she nervously typed the message. She told Epstein she didn’t know anything about the accounts and that she wanted to “have my normal life.” In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, Molchanova publicly discussed her ordeal for the first time, revealing that she was the lead Jane Doe plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against Bank of America. “I’m going forward to prove that women have a voice and the ability to rebuild themselves, move forward and do good things in life,” said the 37-year-old, who recently started a fashion brand and plans to advocate for crime victims. The lawsuit, filed last year, said Jane Doe was abused by Epstein for several years and held accounts at Bank of America that Epstein used to facilitate his sex trafficking. The suit accused the bank of ignoring suspicious transactions. Molchanova said the legal process was grueling, including sharing her private medical history, but she said she feels good knowing it may have spared other victims. “The man was supposed to be in jail. It was the system that failed us,” she said. A federal judge recently approved a $72.5 million settlement with Bank of America that will be distributed to dozens of Epstein victims. The judge said the case “brought actual justice, although partial” for the women. Read more: