United Methodist Church suspends clergy member over connection to Jeffrey Epstein

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, March 17, 2026

An ordained member of the United Methodist Church is defending her decision to work for late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein following her suspension over ties to the sex offender, who remains in the news years after his 2019 death due to ongoing investigations into his sex trafficking ring.

The Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church announced that it has suspended one of its ordained clergy because the individual had a working relationship with late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein from 2018 to 2019.

Epstein has dominated the news cycle over the past year as the U.S. Department of Justice has released the Epstein Files, communications documenting the extent of his sex trafficking ring and other communications.

Information contained in the Epstein Files includes flight logs, names of individuals and entities connected to the late billionaire, legal information and details about his death. Epstein died in custody on Aug. 10, 2019. While his death has been ruled a suicide, opinion polling shows that many Americans believe he was murdered in light of his ties to powerful politicians and figures in the U.S. and abroad.

The Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church did not explicitly name the suspended clergy, but the publication United Methodist News identified her as Rev. Stephanie Remington, who worked for Epstein as an administrative assistant from August to December 2018 and a temporary property manager from January to May 2019. 

The Missouri Conference stressed that it had “no knowledge of the individual’s association with Mr. Epstein” and clarified that Remington’s suspension began Thursday and will last for a period of 90 days while an investigation unfolds.

“In annual paperwork submitted to the Missouri Annual Conference, the individual represented that they were performing extension ministry through the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary during those dates and as recently as 2025,” the Missouri Conference stated. “In early review processes, Wesley Theological Seminary confirmed that the individual served as a part-time contractor in 2017 and 2018 and has not been employed by the seminary since that time.”

Remington told UM News that she "never saw anything,” referring to abuse.

“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," she was quoted as saying. 

While Epstein served a 13-month sentence in county jail on charges that he engaged in sexual activity with underage girls and registered as a sex offender more than a decade earlier, he was arrested in July 2019 and charged with engaging in child sex trafficking amid allegations that he sexually exploited underage girls at his homes in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York City.

Remington defended her decision to work for Epstein even though he had a criminal record.

“Jesus got into a lot of trouble for the company he kept, but he didn’t let that trouble pressure him into rejecting the people who, by their standards, did not deserve to be human,” she said. “Social death is just another kind of murder. He opened his heart and his mind to them, and they opened their tables and alabaster jars to him. Is Jeffrey not among their kind?”

Answering her own question, Remington added, “Of course, they didn’t deserve a second chance.” She also insisted, “None of us do,” and “That’s not how grace works.”

Acknowledging how Epstein had ties to both former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and President Donald Trump, a Republican, Remington asserted that “Jeffrey was very proud to have direct lines to all his presidents.”

“If association with sinners makes one guilty, then the Church is in an awful state. I have heard the confessions of the people in my pews. I know their stories. We’re just people. The humankind.”

Remington indicated to UM News that she prays for Epstein’s victims, lamenting that “there are many powerful men who have done despicable things with their privilege.” A search of the DOJ’s Epstein Library reveals that Remington’s name appears over 1,863 times.