WASHINGTON — Former South Florida US Lawyer Alex Acosta testified to Home lawmakers final month {that a} federal prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein foundered within the mid-2000s due to an absence of victims keen to testify that may have made trial a “crapshoot,” The Publish has discovered.
Acosta mentioned the evidentiary and different challenges prosecutors confronted throughout a six-hour interview with Oversight Committee members and workers on Sept. 19.
“Finally, the trial was a crapshoot, and we simply wished the man to go to jail,” Acosta informed members of the Oversight panel, in keeping with a transcript of the interview during which he defended his workplace’s non-prosecution settlement that noticed Epstein sentenced to 18 months in jail after copping to state fees of soliciting intercourse from a minor.
In accordance with Acosta, the case was additionally dogged by ways from Epstein’s formidable protection group — which included famed advocate Alan Dershowitz and former impartial counsel Kenneth Starr — that the ex-US Lawyer claimed skirted the road of misconduct and that his colleagues purportedly discovered irritating and “distasteful.”
“We put him in jail, he registered as a intercourse offender, and the victims had a possibility to recuperate. And that was a win,” Acosta emphasised. “ all of this, the last word judgment was, ‘Do you roll the cube?’ and if he will get away with it, you’re sending a sign to the group that he can get away with it.”
“A billionaire going to jail sends a powerful sign to the group that this isn’t acceptable, that this isn’t proper, that this can not occur,” he added. “His registering as a intercourse offender places the world on discover — whether or not the world listened or not we are able to put to 1 facet — nevertheless it places the world on discover that he was an offender and a sexual offender.”
That evaluation was backed by fundamental prosecuting lawyer Marie Villafana, the chief of the workplace’s prison division Jeffrey Sloman and his successor, Andrew Lourie.
“All favored a pre-trial decision. It was across-the-board,” Acosta harassed, mentioning that an officer from fundamental DOJ’s Little one Exploitation and Obscenity Part additionally visited from Washington, DC, and “mentioned that there have been severe evidentiary points,” referring to a doable trial additionally as a “crapshoot.”
“Many victims refused to testify. Many victims had altering tales. All of us understood why they’d altering tales, however they did. And protection counsel would have — cross-examination would have been withering,” he defined.
“A lot of them had points of their background. They’d MySpace pages; they’d priors that may’ve been used towards them by protection counsel. And that was a time when, in all candor, protection might be a lot, a lot harder on victims on the stand.”
Elsewhere, Acosta famous that the Palm Seashore State Lawyer’s Workplace had tried to get at the least three victims to testify to a state grand jury — and just one confirmed up.
In accordance with the DOJ’s report, there was “nice consternation” within the state lawyer’s workplace over the likelihood that a few of Epstein’s alleged victims might themselves face prosecution.
Acosta went on to function President Trump’s labor secretary throughout his first time period and denied in his Oversight interview that the forty fifth and forty seventh commander-in-chief was ever checked out as a part of the investigation.
Requested at one level by Oversight rating member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), he denied the characterization that Epstein acquired a “sweetheart deal” — regardless of criticizing the failure of the Palm Seashore County Sheriff’s Workplace and State Lawyer’s Workplace to uphold the phrases of the settlement.
“Simply since you draft an indictment doesn’t imply you suppose it’s a slam dunk,” Acosta additionally mentioned of a 60-count draft that Villafana authored, which sought a 14-to-17.5-year jail time period for Epstein.
The financier, who was charged in 2019 with federal intercourse trafficking offenses however was discovered useless in his Manhattan lockup whereas awaiting trial in August, solely ended up serving 13 months, a part of which was on work launch.
Acosta informed Oversight members that his workplace was given “assurances” of “steady confinement” — and slammed the Palm Seashore sheriff as an “unreliable associate,” who approved the work launch “underneath a factual state of affairs that’s sketchy at finest.”
“That was the Palm Seashore sheriff’s determination. Once we came upon about it we objected. We objected in writing. We objected totally. And in order that was underneath the authority of the State,” he defined.
In one of many extra surprising exchanges throughout the testimony, an Oversight staffer revealed to Acosta {that a} former member of his workplace filed articles of incorporation for a regulation apply that shared house with the nonprofit the place Epstein accomplished his work launch.
That lawyer, Bruce Reinhart, is now a federal decide within the Southern District of Florida and famously signed off on a search warrant of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property for categorized paperwork and different materials in 2022.
Reinhart left Acosta’s workplace in January 2008, however had filed the articles of incorporation the earlier October. He then started representing a few of Epstein’s associates, together with feminine assistants who have been being probed as co-conspirators.
“As an moral matter, as an expert matter, all of us thought that it was deploring,” Acosta mentioned of the state of affairs, whereas pointing to a 2020 DOJ Workplace of Skilled Accountability report that “discovered no impropriety. They discovered no improper affect. They discovered that everybody acted as they need to have.”
The textual content of the non-prosecution settlement fashioned the premise of Epstein confederate Ghislaine Maxwell’s unsuccessful enchantment to the US Supreme Courtroom to have her intercourse trafficking conviction overturned this 12 months.
The 2020 DOJ report additionally discovered no victims expressing robust opinions that Epstein himself needs to be prosecuted.
