$77M-CELL PLEA
Epstein to court: Can I stay home till trial?
Jeffrey Epstein proposed locking himself up in the $77 million Upper East Side mansion where he is accused of sexually abusing underage girls while he awaits trial.
The plan for Epstein to remain in his seven-story townhouse on E. 71st St., monitored by private security guards, was part of a 16-page memo outlining a possible bail package. The government argues that Epstein is a flight risk and that he should remain in federal lockup on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking.
Epstein said he would post his townhouse, which is one of the largest homes in Manhattan, as collateral, wear a GPS monitor and ground his private jet.
“Mr. Epstein stands ready and willing to pay for 24-hour private security guards should the court deem it necessary and appropriate,” Epstein attorney Reid Weingarten wrote in the memo.
He pointed to Epstein’s compliance with the terms of his sex offender status since 2008, when he pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges in Florida as a result of a controversial deal with the feds.
“During the years since his release from incarceration in connection with his Florida guilty plea, Mr. Epstein has been a law-abiding citizen without a single allegation of criminal misconduct during that period and has focused his efforts on business and philanthropy,” Weingarten wrote in a memo filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
“Mr. Epstein respectfully submits that his conduct over the past 14 years proves that he poses no risk of flight or threat to the safety of the community.”
Judge Richard Berman will hold a hearing on the proposed bail package Monday. The judge rejected a similar request from Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who was charged in a money laundering case three years ago. In that case, Berman wrote that a similar bail package for Zarrab would have helped “foster inequity and unequal treatment in favor of a very small cohort of criminal defendants who are extremely wealthy.”
Epstein’s request is complicated by the fact that he wants to be held at the scene of his alleged crimes. The 66-year-old financier is accused of abusing girls between 2002 and 2005 — many of them in a massage room that he allegedly said is his favorite room in the mansion. The FBI also recovered a trove of nude photographs of girls who appear to be underage from a safe in the mansion, prosecutors said.
Epstein pleaded not guilty and argues that the new charges are “a redo” of allegations covered by his guilty plea back in 2008. Manhattan prosecutors say they are not bound by that deal.
“If the government is correct that the [nonprosecution agreement] does not, and never did, preclude a prosecution in this district, then the government will have to explain why it purposefully delayed a prosecution of someone like Mr. Epstein, who registered as a sex offender 10 years ago and was certainly no stranger to law enforcement. There is no legitimate explanation for the delay,” Weingarten wrote.
At least a dozen new victims have come forward since Epstein’s arrest Saturday at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, the Miami Herald reported Thursday.
Four of those women approached New York lawyer David Boies, and a number of others have approached other lawyers who have represented Epstein victims in the past, the Herald said.