EPSTEIN MINISERIES IN THE WORKS
U.S. TV actress Patricia Heaton to produce upcoming project on the convicted pedophile
LOS ANGELES Actress-producer Patricia Heaton will produce a TV miniseries based on Perversion of Justice, a series of articles in The Miami Herald that exposed convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein as a serial child molester, says a source with knowledge of the project.
The project is in the works at Storied Media Group, which represents the film and TV interests of the Herald’s parent company, McClatchy. Storied founder and CEO Todd Hoffman is reportedly also producing. Sources say Chris Gerolmo, best known for writing the 1988 Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe drama Mississippi Burning and creating the FX Iraq War series Over There, has been brought on to adapt the articles.
The three-part series of articles, written by investigative journalist Julie K. Brown, was published in November 2018 and featured interviews with several victims of Epstein’s abuse. News of the prospective series comes only days after Epstein was found in his Manhattan prison cell dead by an apparent suicide. The investigation into Epstein’s death is ongoing. Results of his autopsy and an official cause of death have not yet been released.
Although Epstein’s death dissolves criminal charges against him, investigations into his activities and possible co-conspirators are continuing.
Epstein’s case has attracted a great deal of media attention in part because of his network of friends in Hollywood, Wall Street and Washington, including his social and financial ties to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Epstein’s legal troubles have caused issues for people in the entertainment industry and in politics. Alexander Acosta, whose sweetheart plea deal with Epstein a decade ago was exposed in the Perversion of Justice articles, was forced to resign last month from his post as Trump’s U.S. labour secretary.
Peggy Siegal, a publicist routinely employed by film studios and TV networks as a party planner, has suffered an exodus of clients after news broke that she had arranged for Epstein to attend premières and arranged social functions for him in exchange for free travel.
Under a controversial deal Acosta brokered as Miami district attorney in 2008, Epstein avoided multiple federal charges of sex trafficking and assault of underage girls in exchange for a light sentence on a single state-level charge and minimal jail time.
He was required to register as a sex offender.
In new charges filed in July, Manhattan federal prosecutors charged Epstein with sex trafficking girls as young as 14 years old and collecting child pornography. He pleaded not guilty, but a judge denied bail after ruling he posed a significant flight risk. If convicted, Epstein had faced up to 45 years in prison.
The prospective Heaton project isn’t the only one centring around the Epstein case. Lifetime announced in July that a docuseries titled Surviving Jeffrey Epstein is currently in development.
Heaton is set to make her broadcast TV return this fall with the CBS sitcom Carol’s Second Act, which she will also executive produce. The actress is best known for her iconic performance as Debra Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond.
In related news, A New York woman who says Epstein raped her when she was 14 is suing the dead financier’s estate in the start of an expected wave of lawsuits.
Jennifer Araoz, 32, says in her complaint filed Wednesday that she was starting out in high school when an Epstein associate brought her to his massive mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, beginning a grooming process that led to months of sexual abuse, including what she calls a “brutal rape.”
The other three unnamed defendants in Araoz’s lawsuit, all women who allegedly worked for Epstein in New York, are a maid, a secretary and a “recruiter” who allegedly helped procure underage girls for him.
The lawsuit also names Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell — whom Araoz has never met — as someone who facilitated Epstein’s abuse of several girls by overseeing their recruitment and “ensuring that approximately three girls a day were made available to him for his sexual pleasure.”
Dan Kaiser, a lawyer for Araoz, said holding Epstein’s “adult enablers” responsible was “a very large part of this story.”
A lawyer who had represented Epstein did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Maxwell did not immediately respond to similar requests.
Variety.com/Reuters