South Florida federal prosecutors pitched a 60-count indictment of Jeffrey Epstein on costs together with little one prostitution and intercourse trafficking within the late-2000s — however fretted that their case can be undone by among the pedophile’s alleged victims, in accordance with newly launched information.
The Justice Division made public 20 further paperwork associated to the disgraced financier Thursday night, together with for the primary time memos laying out the aborted Florida case towards Epstein, who died in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 whereas awaiting trial on separate intercourse trafficking costs.
Three memos drafted by the workplace of then-South Florida US Legal professional Alex Acosta recommended taking Epstein into custody as early as Might 2007 and in search of the seizure of his Palm Seashore, Fla. house and two non-public jets. Nonetheless, the paperwork additionally outlined traces of assault that will be utilized by Epstein’s all-star authorized group to position cheap doubt within the minds of a possible jury.
High of the record of potential weaknesses was the woman whose dad and mom initially flagged Epstein’s proclivities to the Palm Seashore Police Division in 2005.
“Copies of a MySpace web page credited to [redacted] had been supplied to the State Legal professional’s Workplace and to our workplace,” reads the “attainable credibility challenges” part from a February 2008 model of the prosecuting memo. “On that web page, [redacted] states that she is 21 years’ [sic] previous, she drinks and has taken medicine, she shoplifts, and she or he earns $250,000 every year. The MySpace web page additionally reveals an image of [redacted] wrestling together with her boyfriend and {a photograph} of a unadorned woman mendacity on a seaside … Throughout her first classes with the police, she additionally minimized what occurred with Epstein, denying that he touched her.”
The memo then sought to deal with every of these issues, noting that the accuser denied the MySpace web page was hers — a declare investigators may neither affirm or refute — and including that prosecutors had secured two consultants to testify that intercourse abuse victims “decrease what occurred to them till they really feel safer in regards to the interviewer.”
One other accuser was flagged for having “introduced a number of ladies to Epstein’s house — understanding that they had been underage — and she or he has been given immunity for her testimony,” whereas a 3rd was talked about as a credibility threat after an arrest whereas a juvenile for “marijuana possession and shoplifting.”
Within the 2008 memo, prosecutors famous {that a} fourth sufferer had given testimony to a state grand jury, throughout which she “exhibited no hostility in the direction of Epstein and stated that she testified solely as a result of she was subpoenaed to look.
“Her statements are effectively corroborated by the phone data, and many others.,” prosecutors stated of this accuser, “however, as with the opposite ladies, her previous is just not pristine.”
Showing earlier than the Home Oversight Committee in September 2025, Acosta advised lawmakers that securing a responsible verdict towards Epstein would have been a “crapshoot.”
“In the end … we simply wished the man to go to jail,” he stated of a much-derided non-prosecution settlement that noticed Epstein serve fewer than 13 months on a state cost of soliciting intercourse from a minor, with a lot of that point spent on work launch.
“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,” Acosta added.
“Lots of them had points of their background. They’d MySpace pages; they’d priors that will’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.”
With the non-prosecution agreeement, Acosta stated: “We put him in jail, he registered as a intercourse offender, and the victims had a possibility to get well. And that was a win.
“ all of this, the final word judgment was, ‘Do you roll the cube?’ and if he will get away with it, you’re sending a sign to the neighborhood that he can get away with it.”
