MIAMI — The House Oversight Committee on Thursday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate sexual assault allegations made by a former assistant of Jeffrey Epstein against former Miami Beach mayor and 2018 Florida gubernatorial candidate Philip Levine. The committee called on the Department of Justice to “use all available tools, including immunity for certain witnesses,” to look ...

Philip Levine concedes and thanks supporters after his campaign for Florida governor in Miami on Aug. 28, 2018.

Al Diaz/adiaz@miamiherald.com/Miami Herald/TNS

MIAMI — The House Oversight Committee on Thursday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate sexual assault allegations made by a former assistant of Jeffrey Epstein against former Miami Beach mayor and 2018 Florida gubernatorial candidate Philip Levine.

The committee called on the Department of Justice to “use all available tools, including immunity for certain witnesses,” to look into the claims by Sarah Kellen against both Levine and celebrity hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai.

Also on Thursday, the committee released a transcript of Kellen’s testimony on May 21, revealing the details of the alleged encounter between Kellen and Levine. The Miami Herald reported the day after the testimony that Kellen had accused Levine of sexual assault.

According to the transcript, Kellen said that, in the summer of 2002 or 2003, Levine came to stay at a house that Epstein had rented in Saint Tropez. After Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, had gone to bed, Kellen and Levine were still awake, Kellen said. Kellen was working for Epstein and Maxwell at the time.

Kellen testified that Levine “came up to me, and he was like, ‘You know, must be so lonely for you working with them because you’re with them all the time, and you can’t have your own life, so you must be — must be really lonely,’ and he basically forced himself on me.”

Kellen said that no one witnessed the abuse and that she didn’t tell anyone. She said she was “not sure” whether Levine abused anyone else.

A spokesperson for Levine told the Herald on Thursday: “Nearly a quarter century ago, our client had a brief intimate encounter with another consenting adult. Any allegation suggesting otherwise is not true.”

Kellen worked for Epstein for about 15 years, starting in about 2001. She herself was recruited to work as a personal assistant when she was about 21 years old. She was called to testify before the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein’s criminal network.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said in a press release that the committee “received serious allegations of criminal misconduct” involving Levine and Fekkai.

“The Oversight Committee is not a law enforcement entity, and our role is not to determine guilt or innocence,” Comer said. “We are referring these allegations to the Department of Justice, which has the tools to investigate criminal misconduct. We will continue to follow the facts and ensure accountability for survivors.”

In its letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the committee noted that “Levine’s name appears over 600 times” in files related to Epstein that have been released by the Department of Justice.

Levine, who became mayor of Miami Beach in 2013 and ran as a Democrat for Florida governor in 2018, previously said he “never had a friendship or business relationship” with Epstein, who was charged with child sex trafficking in 2019 and died in his jail cell later that year.

Epstein had more than a dozen contacts for Levine in his so-called “little black book.” Days after Epstein’s death, Levine told the Herald he had met Epstein “a couple of times” but had “no clue” how they’d met.

But files released by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year indicated that Levine had a closer relationship with Epstein and Maxwell than he had previously let on — including an exchange in which Levine and Maxwell joked about Levine being “hung like a horse.”

In July 2010, as Epstein’s probation period was ending after a sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors, Levine sent Epstein an email calling him “a great guy” and signing it, “Your friend, Philip.”

The files also revealed flirty and sexually suggestive emails between Levine and Maxwell from the early 2000s. In an October 2001 message, Levine told Maxwell to tell a woman whom Levine was planning to meet “that the rumor is that I am hung like a horse...not a rumor!!!”

In another, undated email, Maxwell wrote to Levine: “I told her that you were hung like a horse and she sd [sic] that she would like to see it at breakfast - I told her to take pictorial evidence for me.”

Last year, Maxwell told the Department of Justice that Levine was her “very good friend,” and that she had been introduced to former President Bill Clinton “because of Philip Levine.”

Levine denied introducing Maxwell to Clinton, saying last year that his relationship with Maxwell “was that of a friend to my wife and I, nothing more and nothing less.” Levine married in 2018.