A little Epstein history [View all]

Nov. 28, 2018

How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime

A decade before #MeToo, a multimillionaire sex offender from Florida got the ultimate break.

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Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life.

But on the morning of the breakfast meeting, a deal was struck — an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein’s crimes and the number of people involved.

Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal — called a non-prosecution agreement — essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes, according to a Miami Herald examination of thousands of emails, court documents and FBI records.

The pact required Epstein to plead guilty to two prostitution charges in state court. Epstein and four of his accomplices named in the agreement received immunity from all federal criminal charges. But even more unusual, the deal included wording that granted immunity to “any potential co-conspirators’’ who were also involved in Epstein’s crimes. These accomplices or participants were not identified in the agreement, leaving it open to interpretation whether it possibly referred to other influential people who were having sex with underage girls at Epstein’s various homes or on his plane.

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Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html#storylink=cpy


Why the Jeffrey Epstein charges came now, more than a decade later

July 9, 2019

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In addition, the exact time and place of the arrest – on a Saturday, as Epstein arrived on a private jet to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey – was unusual and suggests there is more to the case that has not been made public.

“That they got to him straight from the plane indicates obviously a sense of urgency,” former federal prosecutor Jaimie Nawaday explained.

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According to the indictment, Epstein ran a trafficking enterprise between 2002 and 2005 in which he paid hundreds of dollars in cash to girls as young as 14 to have sex with him at his Manhattan home and his estate in Palm Beach. The indictment also says he worked with employees and associates to lure the girls to his residences and paid some of his victims to recruit other girls for him to abuse.

“In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit, often on a daily basis,” Berman said in a statement.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/09/us/jeffrey-epstein-arrest-why-now