Epstein Survivor Accuses ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ Producer of Sexual Assault

One of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein has accused a prominent video game executive of sexually assaulting her.

Sarah Ransome, who detailed abuse by Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell in a 2021 memoir, alleges that Leslie Benzies, a producer and lead designer of several games in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, sexually assaulted her. The allegation appears in a cache of emails sent by Ransome in the Department of Justice’s Jan. 30 Epstein files release.

In the email, dated Dec. 9, 2023, Ransome write that Benzies acted “as if he invented the throwing of money at a ‘prostitute’ on me, then sexually assaulted me afterwards.” The time of the alleged assault is unclear, though Ransome also wrote that Benzies gave her money for a plane ticket to New York on Sept. 1, 2006.

At that time, Benzies was at Rockstar North, the Edinburgh-based studio that’s part of Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games. He’s credited as the game designer of 2013’s Grand Theft Auto V and producer on a number of other games in the franchise; he was also the lead designer and executive producer of Red Dead Redemption.

Benzies has denied Ransome’s allegations, though he acknowledges having a relationship with her. His current company, Build a Rocket Boy, said in a statement, “Leslie Benzies has made clear these allegations are false. He had a consensual relationship with this person, and he has never met Jeffrey Epstein, nor ever visited his island, his properties or travelled on his plane. Any suggestion otherwise is misleading.”

Benzies is currently on leave from Build a Rocket Boy, which the company says is coincidental to the Epstein files release where he’s mentioned. “He is taking a long-planned holiday following an intense period of work leading up to the successful launch of the recent update,” the company’s statement reads. “This extended holiday was scheduled many months ago and he will return on March 1.”