United Methodist Church Bishop Robert Farr has suspended Rev. Stephanie Remington from her clergy responsibilities after learning that she had worked for Jeffrey Epstein, according to an update from UMN. The Rev. Stephanie Remington, a member of the Missouri Conference led by Bishop Farr, served as Epstein’s administrative assistant from August to December 2018 and then as a temporary property manager of his private island from January until May 2019—during the period when he was already a convicted sex offender but before his second arrest in July 2019 on sex-trafficking charges. Although Remington is not accused of any crime, she has been placed on a 90-day suspension while the episcopal office reviews the matter under church legal procedures, citing discrepancies in her story and actions.
Remington had served for more than 15 years as a pastor in various United Methodist churches before taking a leave in 2016 following her divorce from a fellow UMC pastor. Paragraph 344 of the Book of Discipline requires clergy in extension ministries to submit annual written reports to their bishop, district superintendent, and board of ordained ministry to evaluate how they are serving the church’s mission and fulfilling their ordination vows; they must also maintain membership in and send annual reports to a local church in their home conference. After her leave, Remington submitted paperwork stating that she was performing extension ministry at Wesley Theological Seminary’s Lewis Center for Church Leadership, which the conference approved. She later moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where she worked remotely and part-time for the seminary from 2017 to 2018 before leaving the position, all while continuing to claim she was still engaged in those ministry duties.
Neither her departure from the seminary role nor her subsequent employment with Epstein was ever reported to the conference, which had no knowledge of the association and stated it almost certainly would not have approved the position. In an official statement, the Missouri Conference said, “The Missouri Conference had no knowledge of the individual’s association with Mr. Epstein…No information indicating this association was disclosed in any of those reports. The Bishop or district superintendent were not contacted about the individual’s interest in or acceptance of the Epstein-related position.” The statement added that clergy are called to uphold the highest standards of spiritual and moral leadership, that concerns of this nature are taken seriously and require careful review, and that the conference remains in prayer for survivors of Epstein’s crimes who deserve healing and justice.
According to UMN, Remington maintains that she did file a report last year and later informed her district superintendent via Zoom about her time in the Virgin Islands, including her work with Epstein, though she was unsure whether the superintendent fully understood the reference. The conference, however, insists that no such disclosure appeared in any of her reports and that neither the bishop nor the district superintendent was contacted about her interest in or acceptance of the Epstein position. Remington also acknowledged that she went for a period without submitting any reports and that she never received follow-up from the conference; she further noted that no church leader reached out to check on her after her divorce.
Remington’s name appears more than 1,800 times in the Epstein files. She was primarily responsible for running the day-to-day operations of the island, including arranging travel for guests. While acknowledging the existence of a nondisclosure agreement, she told UMN that she never witnessed Epstein or anyone else on the island engage in abuse. “I never saw anything,” she said. “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.”
In a 2019 personal blog post written under a pseudonym, Remington spoke openly about grappling with the ethical implications of accepting the job. She described it as a dream opportunity—“I literally got paid well to sit in an air-conditioned glass-front beach office to play with numbers and organize information all day”—yet wrestled with Epstein’s reputation as a convicted scoundrel. Ultimately she took the position, explaining that her only obligation was to stand for what she believed was right, even if it differed from the world’s expectations. She drew on the example of Jesus, who befriended criminals and outcasts rather than the elite, and argued that withholding relationship from Epstein because of his past would contradict every message of hope and unconditional love she had ever preached and would betray her calling to be a healing presence for all people.
