Epstein’s heavy-hitting lawyers
Via Screechy Monkey in the Miscellany Room, the Miami Herald on the plea agreement that spared Jeffrey Epstein a long prison sentence:
On a muggy October morning in 2007, Miami’s top federal prosecutor, Alexander Acosta, had a breakfast appointment with a former colleague, Washington, D.C., attorney Jay Lefkowitz.
…
[Lefkowitz’s] client, Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 54, was accused of assembling a large, cult-like network of underage girls — with the help of young female recruiters — to coerce into having sex acts behind the walls of his opulent waterfront mansion as often as three times a day, the Town of Palm Beach police found.
He was also suspected of trafficking young girls for “parties” with his friends.
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.
Acosta even agreed that the deal would be kept secret from the victims – which violates federal law.
Now President Trump’s secretary of labor, Acosta, 49, oversees a massive federal agency that provides oversight of the country’s labor laws, including human trafficking. He also has been on a list of possible replacements for former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who resigned under pressure earlier this month.
Trump was one of his partying friends back in the day, as was Bill Clinton.
“This was not a ‘he said, she said’ situation. This was 50-something ‘shes’ and one ‘he’ — and the ‘shes’ all basically told the same story,’’ said retired Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, who supervised the police probe.
Now there are two unrelated civil law suits that could turn up what was buried ten years ago.
Federal prosecutors, including Acosta, not only broke the law, the women contend in court documents, but they conspired with Epstein and his lawyers to circumvent public scrutiny and deceive his victims in violation of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. The law assigns victims a series of rights, including the right of notice of any court proceedings and the opportunity to appear at sentencing.
“As soon as that deal was signed, they silenced my voice and the voices of all of Jeffrey Epstein’s other victims,’’ said Wild, now 31. “This case is about justice, not just for us, but for other victims who aren’t Olympic stars or Hollywood stars.’’
As most of us aren’t.
Despite substantial physical evidence and multiple witnesses backing up the girls’ stories, the secret deal allowed Epstein to enter guilty pleas to two felony prostitution charges. Epstein admitted to committing only one offense against one underage girl, who was labeled a prostitute, even though she was 14, which is well under the age of consent — 18 in Florida.
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“It’s just outrageous how they minimized his crimes and devalued his victims by calling them prostitutes,’’ said Yasmin Vafa, a human rights attorney and executive director of Rights4Girls, which is working to end the sexual exploitation of girls and young women.
“There is no such thing as a child prostitute. Under federal law, it’s called child sex trafficking — whether Epstein pimped them out to others or not. It’s still a commercial sex act — and he could have been jailed for the rest of his life under federal law,” she said.
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A close look at the trove of letters and emails contained in court records provides a window into the plea negotiations, revealing an unusual level of collaboration between federal prosecutors and Epstein’s legal team that even government lawyers, in recent court documents, admitted was unorthodox.
Acosta, in 2011, would explain that he was unduly pressured by Epstein’s heavy-hitting lawyers — Lefkowitz, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, Jack Goldberger, Roy Black, former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, Gerald Lefcourt, and Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater special prosecutor who investigated Bill Clinton’s sexual liaisons with Monica Lewinsky.
Did you catch those? Dershowitz, who is now prostituting himself for Donald Trump? Starr, the scourge of Bill Clinton? Yet Clinton himself was reportedly one of Epstein’s buddies.
But Epstein did get some chastisement, yes?
Not really.
Unlike other convicted sex offenders, Epstein didn’t face the kind of rough justice that child sex offenders do in Florida state prisons. Instead of being sent to state prison, Epstein was housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County jail. And rather than having him sit in a cell most of the day, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office allowed Epstein work release privileges, which enabled him to leave the jail six days a week, for 12 hours a day, to go to a comfortable office that Epstein had set up in West Palm Beach. This was granted despite explicit sheriff’s department rules stating that sex offenders don’t qualify for work release.
12 hours in a nice office, 8 sleeping…so that leaves four hours awake in a cell.
In 2011, Epstein petitioned to have his sex offender status reduced in New York, where he has a home and is required to register every 90 days. In New York, he is classified as a level 3 offender — the highest safety risk because of his likelihood to re-offend.
A prosecutor under New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance argued on Epstein’s behalf, telling New York Supreme Court Judge Ruth Pickholtz that the Florida case never led to an indictment and that his underage victims failed to cooperate in the case. Pickholtz, however, denied the petition, expressing astonishment that a New York prosecutor would make such a request on behalf of a serial sex offender accused of molesting so many girls.
“I have to tell you, I’m a little overwhelmed because I have never seen a prosecutor’s office do anything like this. I have done so many [sex offender registration hearings] much less troubling than this one where the [prosecutor] would never make a downward argument like this,’’ she said.
Epstein has a book full of names.
The story is book-length. Much dirt to shovel.
Really great reporting job by the Miami Herald. Clearly a lot of legwork went into that in terms of reading court records, interviewing many witnesses, and getting all the details right because a lot of those big names are ready to sue if you don’t. (And maybe even if you do.)
Shame on everybody who hung around with Epstein, even if they didn’t “partake” in his hobby. Look at some of the photos in that story of the girls at the age they fell into Epstein’s influence, and tell me that you could plausibly believe that they were all 18. (And frankly, even if the ones that any given Epstein pal saw were all 18 and had photo IDs hanging around their necks to prove it, that only reduces the grossness and illegality a little.) I mean, I think it’s creepy when old dudes “date” one barely-legal adult, let alone maintain an entire harem. But I guess that’s further confirmation that I’m not among the elite and powerful men.
Screechy, it all fits with something I’ve been noticing in recent years. I’m finding it harder and harder to read current fiction written by men, because so much of it consists of middle-aged to older men falling into bed with nubile, often illegal, young girls who are just dying to screw older men. The men who write these books create their own dreams and put them on paper. I know there are books out there that aren’t like that, but I’ve been burned by enough with decent sounding blurbs by respectable writers that I just shudder to pick up fiction novels by contemporary men any more.
I’m sure it turns on a lot of men who have hit middle age to believe that hot young girls are dying to spend their day moving from middle-aged man to middle-aged man, but frankly, as a woman who was once a young girl, and had my boundaries violated more than once by unwanted advances, all i can say is Yuck. And, stop it already.
Guess I’ll stick with non-fiction, where I only encounter men claiming that science justifies older men taking what they want from younger women because, well, evolution or something. Those books leave me cold, too.
Iknklast, one thing I have observed as a middle aged man (if I squint hard enough – which needing glasses I generally do anyway) is that I have become utterly invisible to nubile young girls, or women. Indeed, I now regard us as non-overlapping Magisteria, to abuse a phrase. Even if I had the time, money and power to do what some men do in that regard I wouldn’t want to.
iknklast — maybe we need a B&W book club!
iknklast, I first noted that middle-age man – young woman thread in fiction in the ’80s. It was James Herbert’s horror stories, and each one had basically the same sex sub-plot, and in each case the story with the much-younger woman was pretty much identical to the point that I can tell with absolute certainty not only what Herbert’s ideal woman looks like, but exactly how his perfect sex session would go.
I don’t read fiction much anymore, nor watch tv a great deal, but it’s nice (not!) to know that at least one literary tradition is alive and perving.
Rob, I feel similar, and generally when I do notice women or girls it’s in a context of whether or not I might appear threatening to them (do I need to cross the road, wait for the next lift, etc).
AoS, I’ve certainly become more aware in recent years of trying to be sensitive to women who may find my presence threatening – and then I try to pre-emptively adjust for that. It’s interesting. I sometimes see men commenting online that they are affronted by the need to do that because they worry that otherwise they will somehow be falsely accused of being pervy, or worse. I only feel empathy, not fear. I’m sure there is a tell there somewhere.
I will confess to feeling the occasional twinge of regret that I’ve become invisible. After all, it’s sometimes nice to feel you’ve caught someone’s eye. But I certainly don’t expect it and especially not from young women. In fact I’d probably be thoroughly confused if I did catch their eye. And relieved. It reduces the mocking from Mrs Rob.
Rob, I wouldn’t say I was invisible as such, but it’s a safe bet that when I’m out walking my dog, 99.99% of the women I pass could later describe my mutt far better than they could describe me.
I think that a lesson men in general need to learn when it comes to reducing fear in women is that of course the vast majority of them have no intention of hurting the women they meet, but that’s no reason to not change their behaviour because the women themselves have no idea of the men’s intent, and not only that but women have also learned that it’s safer to assume the worse of men who, however innocently or unintentionally, behave or appear threatening.
Something in the OP struck me as somewhat incongruous.
First, we are told that Acosta was “Miami’s top federal prosecutor”, yet Acosta himself stated that he was “unduly pressured by Epstein’s heavy-hitting lawyers”. How in Hell does one claw one’s way up to be a State’s ‘top federal lawyer’ yet is able to be cowed by big-name lawyers?
Also, why is a NY district prosecuter arguing for Epstein before the NYSC? Much kudos to Judge Ruth Pickholtz for displaying the moral fortitude that Acosta clearly lacks. I do wonder how many male NYSC judges would have made the same call. I suspect not as many as ine would hope.
Oops, I meant top federal prosecutor, not lawyer, at the end of the first paragraph.
Acolyte, Rob, I remember being all too visible when I was younger, to the point that I ended up locking myself inside for several years (that, and a lot of other things leading to depression). Now, as an older woman, I am about as invisible as it is possible to be, though, as a college professor, I do have students who are required to notice that I exist, that I am talking to them, and that I hold a bit of power over their future, when their young selves find themselves unable to pass my class because they did the usual thing and ignored an older woman.
I always thought when I was young that invisible would be better than visible when you are an attractive woman. I was actually right about that. It can be revolting to be ignored, talked over, mansplained, etc, but it’s better in a lot of ways than being fanny grabbed, leered at, groped, “accidentally” bumped into, and just in general bothered. I don’t know if it’s better for men being invisible, though. I often suspect the reason so many middle aged men write those awful sexist books is that the young women aren’t paying attention to them, so they have to invent women who do pay attention to young men so they can believe they are still a hot stud in the eyes of young women.
I agree with Screechy – we need a book club. I’ve gotten some good recommendations from this set in the past, and I would be happy to listen to recommendations for fiction that might be of interest. I don’t like genre fiction particularly.
“A prosecutor under New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance argued on Epstein’s behalf,”
The same guy who refused to prosecute Harvey Weinstein. Small world.
“Also, why is a NY district prosecuter arguing for Epstein before the NYSC?”
Men’s Club?
Miami Herald does good work. And yes, Judge Pickholtz deserves kudos for not only refusing the request, but for calling it out the absurdity of it.
On books:
I remember when I went from being vaguely bored and just reading to finish the series with Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series to being so disgusted I threw the final book across the room. While the previous books had included lots of sexist horseshit (including, of course,a sequence where we’re told that Man As Predator, Woman As Prey is the ultimate Natural Truth, and that women should be grateful for the effects of civilization in keeping men’s rape-instincts in check), he waited until Book 7 to actually declare that a 40-something judge sleeping with a 14-year-old prostitute (of course) was totally okay because “All older men secretly crave young flesh.” I was a shallow, desperate 20-year-old guy with the sort of social frustrations that would have made me a target for recruitment by the incels, if they’d existed back then, and I STILL could see how utterly disgusting that book was.
Yes, me too. You’re a prosecutor with the power of the state behind you. Either you’ve got a case or you don’t. Who gives a fuck how “high powered” the other side’s lawyers are? Unless, of course you want to curry favour in hopes of working with them in the future.
Maybe it depends on who’s in the club. Wouldn’t a prosecutor usually want to add a case like this to their CV? Wouldn’t locking up pervs look good on one’s record? I wonder who we’d find on Epstein’s client list? I wonder if these people are being protected because they are rich and powerful? Can’t be too careful about stepping on powerful toes. It seems like a lot of careful tiptoeing just to be easy on Epstein alone. There must be other Names and Reputations at stake and powerful forces in play.
Look, here’s a photo of Trump from 2000 taken at Mar-A-Lago with someone he’ll probably now claim he never knew.
https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/from-left-american-real-estate-developer-donald-trump-and-news-photo/700334384
Jimmy Saville redux?
Why was Acosta pressured? My guesses:
First, you don’t necessarily “claw your way up” to becoming a U.S. Attorney, and Acosta certainly didn’t. It’s a political appointment. Generally, presidents of both parties do a decent job of making sure that they appoint capable, experienced prosecutors to those posts, but there’s a certain amount of political considerations at work. Acosta, as the Herald notes, worked in the W Bush White House, and was then appointed U.S. Attorney by W (who, you may recall, was not above playing political games with those positions) before he was 38 years old.
Don’t get me wrong — Acosta has very solid credentials. According to Wikipedia, he graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for then-Judge Alito, then worked for a big-name law firm for around 5-6 years before taking various positions in the Bush Administration. But he doesn’t seem to have much direct criminal law experience prior to being appointed U.S. Attorney — his private law firm job appeared to be focused on employment law, and his time in the Attorney General’s office was in the civil rights division (which I think technically brings some criminal actions, but I believe is mostly civil). Presumably he worked on some criminal cases during his clerkship, but that’s at the appellate level.
So, not saying he wasn’t qualified for the position or anything, but I can see how he could be a little overwhelmed at the heavy hitters on the other side. He certainly wasn’t selected because he had a track record of winning criminal trials.
Second, although I think this is less true of the feds than state district attorneys, prosecutors have limited personnel and resources and can get stretched thin. A billionaire like Epstein can effectively outgun a prosecution team, or at least force them to allocate a lot more resources than they’d like to. That’s probably at least part of the reason why there are so few white collar criminal prosecutions — multimillionaires can put up a much tougher fight than “street criminals.”
Freemage, your comment got me thinking about how it’s always the excuses for pervy behaviour that change with the times rather than the behaviour itself changing.
It used to be said* that the ‘craving for young flesh’ was not about pervy old men at all, it was a natural, evolved preference for males to want to mate with the females most likely to bear healthy offspring, and of course it was healthy young girls barely through puberty that were the prime breeding stock. Well, they had to be if it were an attempt to normalise ephebophilia, at any rate!
I was still in school, no older than 15, when I first heard that bullshit claim. Shockingly, it was from a teacher in response to one of my female classmates calling another teacher a pervert because of the way he spoke and acted around the girls**. During the class discussion*** that followed it was pointed out by several kids that the men who lusted after pubescent girls had no desire to make babies, they just wanted sex with schoolgirls, to which the teacher (yes, he was a middle-aged man; how did you ever guess?) declared that our modern morals couldn’t undo millions of years of evolutionary hard-wiring. I doubt that his ‘evolutionary theory of perverse behaviour’ would have stood up in court, which is precisely where more than a couple of our teachers would have ended up had they been teaching nowadays rather than back when the lecherous behaviour of the male teachers in the St. Trinian’s films was just men being men and the age of consent was merely advisory (everybody knew that age mattered less than whether or not she’d started having periods, or ‘if they’re old enough to bleed, they’re old enough!’)
*and may still be claimed, though I haven’t heard it said for many years.
**I still remember the incident that led to my classmate, Maxine (not her real name) complaining. It was at the end of a History lesson; the teacher had told us that our homework was to write an essay about any one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, adding ‘and although it certainly is a joy to behold, Maxine’s arse is off-limits only because it is a wonder of the modern world. Class dismissed!’.
*** read ‘near-riot by15-or-so outraged girls ((and a smattering of boys mature enough to understand the girls’ outrage)) who had basically just been told that it was a compliment to be leered at by men old enough to be…well….their teachers’).
AoS, I often wonder if the people (mostly men) who use the ‘evolution made me do it’ excuse realise how weak and pathetic that makes them sound? Not at all manly, virile and alpha. It’s akin to religionists claiming that there is no morality without god(s). It’s both clearly horse shit and the entire point of claiming to be a thinking adult is that even if you feel an urge you can resist it. God knows, over the decades there have been people I have wanted to hurt (badly) and people I have wanted to [censored], but somehow I have managed to keep a more or less straight face and get on with life without either making an ass of myself or ending up in prison. It’s actually not hard being a semi-decent person if that’s what you decide you want to be.
As far as teachers leering at, let alone hooking up with students, that has to be one of the most verboten of all behaviours/relationships.
Iknklast @10, what do you mean by genre fiction? Isn’t all fiction (all writing) in one genre or another?