For years, Ramsey Elkholy had a simple business proposition.

The New York City modeling agent had a roster of young women and an eye for opportunity. Jeffrey Epstein was a well-connected financier with ties to Victoria’s Secret, Vera Wang and the upper reaches of the fashion world. Elkholy would bring Epstein women, Epstein would help those women — and by extension, Elkholy — get work. Everyone, in theory, would benefit.

“Everybody wanted to be in the room with Epstein,” Elkholy told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “It’s just the kind of thing where everyone’s trying to get something out of it.”

The Justice Department’s release of Epstein’s files has already claimed high-profile casualties, triggering resignations and public shaming among the financier’s most prominent associates. But a review of those files by the Post reveals a parallel story — one populated not by celebrities and heads of state, but by lesser-known operators like Elkholy who quietly built Epstein’s access to young women in the years after his 2009 release from jail.

Elkholy described potential introductions in explicitly sexual terms, sending photos of women and assessing their physical attributes using crude language, and while he is now “ashamed” of what he wrote, the former agent insists he’s “1,000 percent sure” he did nothing illegal and claims that Epstein never paid him.

“The reason why all of this bodes so terribly for me is because of my potty mouth,” Elkholy told the Post. “I was just being stupid, actually, because all of that language was not based on anything that was happening.”

Elkholy’s emails with Epstein span more than a decade and discuss potential meetings with at least two dozen women, including one as young as 18. In one message sent shortly after Epstein’s release from jail, Elkholy described a potential introduction as a “coming out gift,” calling the woman’s body “amazing.” In another, he noted that a 23-year-old might be “on the old side” for Epstein — a comment he has not directly addressed.

He has, however, addressed nearly everything else. In an hour-long interview with the Post, Elkholy insisted he never facilitated abuse, always chaperoned the women he introduced to Epstein, and was motivated entirely by professional ambition. He said two models he represented secured Victoria’s Secret deals after meeting Epstein — deals from which he would have earned a 10 percent commission.

Read More: Modeling agent scrambles to explain his ‘potty mouth’ emails to Epstein