The woman who said she was Victim-1 said in her lawsuit that her circumstances made her an easy target for Mr. Epstein.

Image Jeffrey Epstein was facing federal sex trafficking charges when he killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell last month. Credit... New York State Sex Offender Registry, via Associated Press

She said she had a “difficult childhood,” was always worried about money and wanted to do what she could to help a sister with a serious medical condition.

She was about 14, she said, when an older teenage girl from her neighborhood told her “about an opportunity to earn money and offered to introduce her to a wealthy man.”

That man, the suit said, turned out to be Mr. Epstein.

The woman said that her family was going through an especially rough stretch at the time. Her mother and sister were sharing a bedroom and renting the family’s second bedroom to boarders. She was staying with friends and looking for odd jobs, the suit said.

The lawsuit described the woman’s initial trip, accompanied by the girl who recruited her, to Mr. Epstein’s mansion on East 71st Street, which she recalled as resembling the castle in “‘Beauty and the Beast,’ one of her favorite Disney movies at the time.”

“Minutes later, Epstein entered the room wearing only a robe,” the suit said. “He introduced himself as ‘Jeffrey,’ and asked Doe her name. Epstein also asked Doe her age, and she responded truthfully. Epstein then removed his robe and laid face down on the massage table.”

That first massage quickly turned sexual, as was typical for Mr. Epstein, according to prosecutors. When it was over, the suit said, he “put on a robe and retrieved three hundred-dollar bills from his robe pocket, which he handed to Doe.”