A former Kansas City pastor was suspended by her Methodist church’s conference last week after her name was spotted some 1,800 times in the scandalous Epstein files.

The Rev. Stephanie Remington was suspended March 12 by the Missouri Conference of The United Methodist Church for failing to disclose her employment with Epstein. 

Remington, 50, worked for Epstein in the U.S. Virgin Islands as his administrative assistant and later as the temporary manager of his private island, according to United Methodist News. Her employment was reportedly from August 2018 to May 2019, which was two months before Epstein’s second arrest and three months before his death. 

Remington was also working as a part-time remote research manager for the Lewis Center for Church Leadership – a branch of United Methodist’s Wesley Theological Seminary – in 2017 and 2018, which overlapped with her employment by Epstein. 

United Methodist’s clergy members are required to report their employment settings in annual paperwork, but Remington didn’t report her affiliation with Epstein in any of them, the church said in a statement. She told UM News she reported the employment last year, but the conference insists there’s no information about Epstein in any of her reports.  

“The Missouri Conference had no knowledge of the individual’s association with Mr. Epstein,” the statement says. “The Bishop or district superintendent were not contacted about the individual’s interest in or acceptance of the Epstein-related position.”

Remington served in various church capacities in Missouri for more than 15 years, and in one instance from 2011 to 2016 she served as a pastor at First United Methodist Church in North Kansas City, Bishop Accountability reports. She took leave in 2016 after she and her husband divorced, UM news says. 

Fellow ordained pastor Rev. Elizabeth Glass Turner, a writer reviewing the Epstein files, discovered Remington’s name in them and reported it to United Methodist. 

Remington says she never saw Epstein do anything illegal during her employment and that even though he was a registered sex offender after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18, he had already served the time for his crime. 

“I never saw anything,” she told UM News. “I knew him for the last nine months of his life, well after he served time for the things that he was accused of doing.”

However, eyewitness accounts in a federal court document reveal Epstein was allegedly seen bringing numerous underage girls to the private island between January 2018 and June 2019, which was well within Remington’s term of employment. 

“On multiple occasions I saw Epstein exit his helicopter, stand on the tarmac in full view of my tower, and board his private jet with children – female children,” says one eyewitness, a former air traffic controller who worked at the island’s air strip. “One incident in particular really stands out in my mind, because the girls were just so young. They couldn’t have been over 16. Epstein looked very angry and hurled his jacket at one of them.” 

“There’d be girls that look like they could be in high school,” another employee said. “They looked very young.” 

The airstrip in St. Thomas, where Epstein’s island was located, sits in plain sight of a central highway, a nearby University of the Virgin Islands parking lot, and the other aircraft on the ground, the document says, noting the lack of effort to hide the girls he was traveling with. 

“The fact that young girls were getting out of his helicopter and getting into his plane, it was like he was flaunting it,” an employee said. “But it was said that he always tipped really well, so everyone overlooked it. …

“I could see him with my own eyes,” he remembered. “I compared it to seeing a serial killer in broad daylight. I called it the face of evil.”

He mentioned that other staff also saw Epstein’s interactions with children on the island, sharing that he and his coworkers would often guess “how many kids are on board this time?”

Remington was placed on a 90-day suspension from the United Methodist Church beginning March 12 while she’s investigated; there aren’t any current charges against her. 

“Clergy are called to uphold the highest standards of spiritual and moral leadership,” the conference writes. “Concerns of this nature are taken seriously and require careful review. We recognize the deep harm connected to Mr. Epstein’s crimes and remain in prayer for survivors who deserve healing and justice.”