Jeffrey Epstein, the well-connected multimillionaire who was sentenced to just more than a year in jail to resolve allegations that he molested dozens of young girls, has been taken into custody in New York on new charges having to do with sex crimes involving minors, a person familiar with the matter said.
The precise nature of the charges — and how they differ from the previous allegations to which Epstein, now 66, pleaded guilty in 2008 — could not immediately be learned. Epstein attorney Martin Weinberg did not respond to a request for comment late Saturday. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, where Epstein is expected to appear in federal court this week, declined to comment.
The latest charges add a significant new wrinkle to the considerable political and legal saga surrounding Epstein. The wealthy financier — who counted among his friends President Trump and former president Bill Clinton — pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of soliciting prostitution in a controversial arrangement that allowed him to resolve far more serious federal allegations of molesting young girls.
His case was the subject of an investigation by the Miami Herald, which detailed how then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, now Trump’s labor secretary, shelved a 53-page federal indictment that could have put Epstein behind bars for life. The arrangement is now being investigated by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which is seeking to determine whether the attorneys involved committed “professional misconduct” in bringing about its close.
The person familiar with the matter said the new charges against Epstein are for conduct similar to those that brought about his plea deal. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the specific counts remain under seal.
Attorney Paul Cassell, who represents Epstein victims who argued in federal court that prosecutors broke the law by not informing them about the plea deal, said he was not informed about the arrest.
“If today’s report is true, it only proves that Epstein should have been charged by federal prosecutors 12 years ago in Florida,” Cassell said. “With his money, Epstein was able to buy more than a decade of delay in facing justice — but fortunately he wasn’t able to postpone justice forever.”
The Daily Beast first reported Epstein had been taken into custody.
Epstein’s victims and others had long raised concerns that he was treated too leniently because of his political connections, with much of their ire focused on Acosta. The former U.S. attorney has defended his handling of the case, saying at his March 2017 confirmation hearing for labor secretary that state prosecutors considered a charge that could have resulted in “zero jail time, zero registration as a sexual offender and zero restitution for the victims in this case.”
The arrangement that resulted in Epstein’s guilty plea, Acosta said, “guarantees that someone goes to jail, that guarantees that someone register generally and that guarantees other outcomes is a good thing.”
Notably, though, Epstein avoided federal charges entirely — until now — and his time in jail was limited, considering the allegations he faced. The Herald reported that he was allowed work release privileges, which let him leave jail six days a week for 12 hours a day to work in an office he had set up.
His obligations to register as a sex offender were also eased because when he pleaded guilty, the only minor he was convicted of soliciting was 16 years old at the time the offenses began. A federal investigation found scores of potential underage victims, including a 14-year-old girl who first flagged police.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who has questioned how the Justice Department handled Epstein’s case, said in a statement that Epstein “received a pathetically soft sentence last time and his victims deserve nothing less than justice.”
Sasse added: “Justice doesn’t depend on the size of your bank account. This billionaire can’t be let out just because he can cut a bail check. The Justice Department needs to see this through.”
Prosecutors could face significant challenges if the new case is premised on conduct that was covered as part of Epstein’s plea deal, no matter how unsavory it might be. But if investigators discovered wrongdoing they did not know about previously or that was not covered by the plea — even if it occurred years in the past — they would be allowed to bring new charges.
A person familiar with the matter said prosecutors do not have significant double jeopardy concerns or concerns about Epstein’s previous plea, meaning the charges probably involve new victims or new alleged wrongdoing. (This is the article in its entirety.)
Last November the Miami Herald published a three-part series about Epstein, starting with this:
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.
It was an unusual meeting for the then-38-year-old prosecutor, a rising Republican star who had served in several White House posts before being named U.S. attorney in Miami by President George W. Bush.
Instead of meeting at the prosecutor’s Miami headquarters, the two men — both with professional roots in the prestigious Washington law firm of Kirkland & Ellis — convened at the Marriott in West Palm Beach, about 70 miles away. For Lefkowitz, 44, a U.S. special envoy to North Korea and corporate lawyer, the meeting was critical.
His 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.
The eccentric hedge fund manager whose friends included former President Bil Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew was also suspected of trafficking minor girls, often from overseas, for sex parties at his other homes in Manhattan, New Mexico and the Caribbean, FBI and court records show.
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.
As part of the arrangement, Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims. As a result, the non-prosecution agreement was sealed until after it was approved by the judge, thereby averting any chance that the girls — or anyone else — might show up in court and try to derail it. (Read more here.)
Click here to read the Miami Herald's current reporting on this story.
This is a sample of what's showing up in my Twitter feed:
It was an unusual meeting for the then-38-year-old prosecutor, a rising Republican star who had served in several White House posts before being named U.S. attorney in Miami by President George W. Bush.
Instead of meeting at the prosecutor’s Miami headquarters, the two men — both with professional roots in the prestigious Washington law firm of Kirkland & Ellis — convened at the Marriott in West Palm Beach, about 70 miles away. For Lefkowitz, 44, a U.S. special envoy to North Korea and corporate lawyer, the meeting was critical.
His 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.
The eccentric hedge fund manager whose friends included former President Bil Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew was also suspected of trafficking minor girls, often from overseas, for sex parties at his other homes in Manhattan, New Mexico and the Caribbean, FBI and court records show.
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.
As part of the arrangement, Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims. As a result, the non-prosecution agreement was sealed until after it was approved by the judge, thereby averting any chance that the girls — or anyone else — might show up in court and try to derail it. (Read more here.)
Click here to read the Miami Herald's current reporting on this story.
This is a sample of what's showing up in my Twitter feed:
He knew. pic.twitter.com/XVkN0KYcyM— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) July 7, 2019
SDNY requires a defendant who wants a cooperation deal to tell the truth about all crimes he knows of. If Epstein doesn’t want to spend a very long time in prison, perhaps the rest of his life, in prison, his path to a reduced sentence may well be through Trump. https://t.co/525MLz2jz7— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 7, 2019
Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested for child sex trafficking— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 7, 2019
Remember, a judge ruled in February that Alex Acosta, Trump's Labor Secretary, BROKE THE LAW to give Epstein a sweetheart deal in 2007
How is Acosta still a member of Trump's cabinet?
When Acosta was nominated, I should’ve known, but didn’t know details & his role in giving Epstein a sweetheart deal. It’s gross. Acosta sided@w/the powerful predator instead of victims. Epstein needs to go to jail. Victims deserve justice. #FireAcosta https://t.co/Heel62FEOi— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) July 7, 2019
There has been speculation for years that some of the rich and influential men who frequented Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion — including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew — may have participated in the alleged abuse https://t.co/VusMFegHu5— The Cut (@TheCut) March 12, 2019
I can only imagine how ugly this could get.
Update: Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who has been covering the Epstein story for years, had this to say on MSNBC this morning, as reported at Real Clear Politics:
Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown, who has done original reporting on details of the alleged sex trafficking crimes of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein for the past several years, joined MSNBC Sunday morning to discuss the evidence against Epstein and the "rogues gallery" of rich, powerful, and famous people who are suspected to have used his services. Epstein was arrested Saturday in New Jersey on sex trafficking charges.
"I've felt a lot of pressure," Brown said. "Needless to say, these are very powerful people and I think that they're sweating a little bit, especially today. We don't know how much, how deep this went, how far-reaching it went in government, but there have been a lot of names that I could see on these message pads [listing clients] on a regular basis as part of the evidence. These message pads where they would call and leave Epstein messages, such as, 'I'm at this hotel.' Why do you do that, unless you're expecting him to send you a girl to visit you at your hotel? So there are probably quite a few important people, powerful people, who are sweating it out right now. We'll have to wait and see whether Epstein is going to name names."
She said Epstein's relationship with fellow Palm Beach resident Donald Trump was "friendly." "They went to dinner parties at each other's houses, Trump was also on his plane. Probably not as much as a lot of other people because, you know, Trump had his own plane. But they had a lot of social relationships. And the other interesting thing is Trump had a modeling agency, and Epstein also had a stake in a modeling agency, which they suspect he used to bring in underage girls from overseas."
"There is a comment in one of the court files where Epstein is quoted as saying, 'I want to set up my modeling agency the same way Trump set up his modeling agency.' I don't know what that means, but it is curious he was trying to do something similar to Trump." Brown said.
President Trump has commented on the case:
(Note that this is an old 10-second clip of Donald talking to Sean Hannity, saying that Bill Clinton has a "lot of problems" with Epstein. Update on July 10: Vanity Fair says this conversation is from February, 2015: Perhaps the most revealing commentary Donald Trump has offered on Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who pleaded not guilty this week to sex trafficking and conspiracy, occurred in late February 2015, onstage at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Trump, then flirting with a presidential run, was fielding softballs from Fox News host Sean Hannity when a lightning round of questions turned to a favorite topic: Bill Clinton. “Nice guy, Trump said. “Got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein,” he added, seemingly veering off topic. “Lot of problems.” Read the article here.)
"I started this story before the #MeToo movement, before the Harvey Weinstein story broke," she said. "But I think the story and my journalism benefited from the #MeToo movement because we're at a point in our culture where we're giving these cases a lot more scrutiny. I also think the reason why this case has touched a lot more nerves than some of the others is that these cases involve vulnerable girls -- 13,14,15-year-old girls."
"There are a lot of powerful people --men and women, by the way-- who take advantage of poor vulnerable women, whether they are underage, or even women who are young and come to this country trying to make a life for themselves, and really it is up to authorities to nail these cases and start to go after them, but it has been spotty," she also said. (Click here to watch the video segment.)
And yes, there's (circa 2000) art, from Newsweek:
From left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images) PHOTO BY DAVIDOFF STUDIOS/GETTY IMAGES/GETTY
Update #2 on Monday morning. There's a lot being written about this story this morning, no surprise. Here's Trump biographer Timothy L. O'Brien, writing at Bloomberg, in an article titled "Epstein Arrest Is a Worry for Donald Trump." This is the article in its entirety:
At some point in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, Jeffrey Epstein, a prominent money manager who owns sprawling homes in Palm Beach, New York, the Virgin Islands and other locales, is likely to be charged as a sex trafficker and pedophile by federal prosecutors.
Epstein, who has been accused repeatedly over the years of manipulatingand molesting underage girls, was arrested at a New Jersey airport on Saturday, according to multiple media reports. The Daily Beast, which broke the news of Epstein’s arrest, said prosecutors will accuse the financier of luring minors and other women to his homes by offering cash for massages and then sexually molesting them.
In an interesting twist, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan has put its public corruption unit in charge of the Epstein case – not, as might be expected, its human-trafficking team (although the latter unit is being consulted reportedly). It’s likely, at least in part, that the case is being handled by corruption prosecutors because of a controversial and lenient plea deal struck between Epstein and federal law enforcement officials in Florida back in 2008. The financier was being investigated at the time for having sex with underage girls – many of them orphans or runaways – at his Palm Beach mansion.
The Justice Department said in February that it planned to investigate “allegations that Department attorneys may have committed professional misconduct in the manner in which the Epstein criminal matter was resolved” in Florida. Later that month, a federal judge ruled that the same group of attorneys broke the law by not telling Epstein’s victims that the plea deal existed. The Miami-based prosecutors had prepared a 53-page federal indictment against Epstein, but his deal allowed him to plead guilty only to a state charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution. He served 13 months in a Palm Beach prison that allowed him to leave six days a week to work. The deal also granted immunity to any of Epstein’s potential co-conspirators, who otherwise might have been swept up in his abuses.
Alexander Acosta, who is now President Donald Trump’s labor secretary, was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in 2008 and he supervised the group of lawyers that forged the Epstein deal. Members of Acosta’s team from that period have said that they lacked the evidence to prove Epstein had violated federal law and did as much as they could to see that justice was served. But Julie Brown, a Miami Herald reporter, publisheda series of stories last fall that raised questions about Acosta’s independence and prompted the new federal probes of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami.
Brown’s stories took note of the extensive network of political, business and legal allies assembled by Epstein over the years and questioned the extent to which that network may have protected him or helped cushion his fall. It included: A former president, Bill Clinton; the U.K.’s Prince Andrew; powerhouse attorneys such as Alan Dershowitz, Kenneth Starr, and Roy Black; and business contacts such as Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, and Leslie Wexner, the owner of retailer Victoria’s Secret. Several years ago, Gawker published a copy of Epstein’s address book and it was packed with marquee names from Hollywood, Wall Street and Washington.
Trump’s name was among them, too.
Seeing the president’s name mixed in with dozens, if not hundreds, of other well-known personalities is hardly unusual. He has had a certain form of celebrity for a very long time. But for a while Trump was more than just a casual acquaintance of Epstein.
The financier was a member of Trump’s Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago, and the men dined at one another’s homes. Trump flew on Epstein’s plane at least once. According to Brown, Epstein is quoted in court papers as saying he wanted to set up his modeling agency – which prosecutors believe he used to get access to underage girls – “the same way Trump set up his modeling agency.”
Although a court filing says Mar-a-Lago eventually dumped Epstein from its ranks after he approached an underage girl there, Trump has generally spoken about Epstein fondly – to me and to others. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, an unidentified young woman filed a suit against Trump in which she alleged that he raped her when she was 13 at a party at Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse in Manhattan. Trump denied the claims and the woman later dropped the suit because, her lawyer said, she was intimidated by death threats. The Trump camp described her allegations as “untrue.”
There’s a strong likelihood that Epstein will end up trying to flip for prosecutors as the reality of a lengthy prison sentence approaches, but it’s unclear how much he has that would be interesting to the feds. If he has anything sordid or compromising that he’s willing to trade about Trump, however, the president could be in for an uncomfortable summer. The public may be interested in that kind of stuff even if prosecutors aren’t.
Update #3 on Tuesday morning. Last night Bill Clinton's press secretary tweeted out a statement:
Statement on Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/98ha9YYd1l— Angel Ureña (@angelurena) July 8, 2019
Update #4 on Thursday July 18: I'm a little behind in posting this but Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigned last Friday:
President Donald Trump announced Friday that Labor Secretary Alex Acosta has resigned, a move that comes after furor over a plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein.
Acosta has been under renewed scrutiny over his previous role as the US attorney in Miami, during which he negotiated the 2008 plea deal with Epstein. Epstein, a well-connected multi-millionaire, avoided a federal trial at the time and served only 13 months in prison for state prostitution charges over his involvement with underage girls. A Miami Herald investigation published last November described the plea deal, negotiated by Acosta, as the "deal of a lifetime." (From an article at CNN posted on Friday, July 12, read more here.)
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