Epstein charged with sex trafficking minors
The case comes more than a decade after he cut a deal with prosecutors to dispose of similar allegations.
NEW YORK >> In a startling reversal of fortune, billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was charged Monday with sexually abusing dozens of underage girls in a case brought more than a decade after he secretly cut a deal with federal prosecutors to dispose of nearly identical allegations.
The 66-year-old hedge fund manager who once socialized with some of the world’s most powerful people was charged in a newly unsealed federal indictment with sex trafficking and conspiracy and could get up to 45 years in prison if convicted.
The case sets the stage for another #MeToo-era trial fraught with questions of wealth and influence.
Prosecutors said the evidence against Epstein included a “vast trove” of hundreds or even thousands of lewd photographs of young women or girls, discovered in a weekend search of his New York City mansion. Authorities also found papers and phone records corroborating the alleged crimes, and a massage room still set up the way accusers said it appeared, prosecutors said.
Epstein, who was arrested Saturday as he arrived in the U.S. from Paris aboard his private jet, was brought into court Monday in a blue jail uniform, his hair disheveled, and pleaded not guilty. He was jailed for a bail hearing next Monday, when prosecutors plan to argue that the rich world traveler might flee if released.
His lawyers argued that the sex-crime allegations had been settled in 2008 with a plea agreement in Florida overseen by Alexander Acosta, who was the U.S. attorney in Miami at the time and is now President Donald Trump’s labor secretary.
“This is ancient stuff,” Epstein attorney Reid Weingarten said in court, calling the case essentially a “redo” by the government.
But U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of New York said that the non-prosecution agreement that spared Epstein from a heavy prison sentence a decade ago is binding only on federal prosecutors in Florida, not on authorities in New York.
The alleged victims “deserve their day in court,” Berman said. “We are proud to be standing up for them by bringing this indictment.”
Epstein was accused in the indictment of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York from 2002 through 2005.
He “intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18,” prosecutors said. He also paid some of his victims to recruit additional girls, creating “a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit,” prosecutors said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Rossmiller said that while there is some overlap between the Florida and New York cases, one of the counts is based entirely on New York victims.
Federal authorities said new accusers have come forward since Epstein’s arrest, and they urged other possible victims to contact the FBI.
Some of Epstein’s accusers welcomed the indictment.
“The news of my abuser’s arrest today is a step in the right direction to finally hold Epstein accountable for his crimes and restore my faith that power and money can’t triumph over justice,” Sarah Ransome said through her lawyer.
Prosecutors in New York are seeking the forfeiture of Epstein’s mansion, a seven-story, 21,000-squarefoot townhouse less than a block from Central Park. The home, formerly a prep school, is across the street from a home owned by Bill Cosby and has been valued at approximately $77 million.
Epstein’s powerful friends over the years have included President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew. His arrest came amid increased #MeToo-era scrutiny of the 2008 non-prosecution agreement, which caused a furor in recent years as the details came to light, many of them exposed in a series of stories by The Miami Herald.