Epstein victims’ lawyers push for ruling on nonprosecution deal

Dec. 11, 2018 / 7:15 PM GMT

By Dareh Gregorian

Lawyers for two of politically connected sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s victims are pushing a federal judge in Florida to finally rule on their request to void the moneyman’s controversial nonprosecution deal with the feds.

Attorneys for Courtney Wild and a woman known only as “Jane Doe” filed their motions asking Judge Kenneth Marra to rule on the decade-old case over a year ago, but the judge has not yet done so.

On Monday, the lawyers filed a motion noting that it’s been well over 90 days since all the paperwork has been filed on both sides of the case — nudging the judge to issue his long-awaited ruling.

The victims’ lawyers’ filing was first reported by the Miami Herald.

Epstein’s case returned to the headlines in recent weeks after a detailed investigation by the Herald highlighted former U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida Alexander Acosta’s role in agreeing to the deal.

Acosta is now President Donald Trump’s secretary of labor.

Epstein had been investigated for sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls in his West Palm Beach mansion in the early 2000s. He eventually struck a deal where he pleaded guilty to state charges involving a single victim in 2008. One of the conditions of that deal was the much larger federal investigation into Epstein and the people who helped him in his scheme would be dropped, according to filings in the victims’ lawsuit against the government.

Epstein, now 65, wound up serving 13 months in jail, where he was allowed to leave almost daily through a work-release program.

The victims’ suit argues that the deal was illegal because dozens of Epstein’s victims were never told about it ahead of time, in violation of the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA). The government maintains it didn’t have to tell the women about the deal because Epstein hadn’t officially been charged with assaulting them.

If the judge finds there were was a violation of the CVRA, he could void the agreement and Epstein could again be exposed to federal charges.

The Herald investigation has prompted Congressional requests for DOJ to investigate how it handled the case, and why it agreed to such a lenient deal for Epstein, a financier who was friends with the likes of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., in a series of letters last week asked the Justice Dept. to respond to requests about the Epstein prosecution by Dec. 7.

Sasse, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts, in one letter asked that the DOJ’s inspector general review how the department handled Epstein’s case and whether there was any misconduct; and in another demanded a briefing on the agency’s “decision-making process.” in the case.

“We need answers on this epic miscarriage of justice,” Sasse wrote.

The DOJ has not commented on the requests and Sasse’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., was one of 15 Democratic lawmakers who sent a letter to DOJ on Nov. 30th demanding an investigation into the circumstances of the agreement as well. Her office said Tuesday that the agency has yet to respond.

One of Epstein’s lawyers, Roy Black, has previously said there was no conspiracy to violate victims’ rights, and the plea agreement was “no sweetheart deal by any stretch of the imagination.”