Keep him cell-ibate
Judge nixes bail for 'uncontrollable' Jeff
Jeffrey Epstein doesn’t just pose a huge risk of jumping bail — he also has “uncontrollable” urges that make him a serious danger to underage girls and young women, a judge said Thursday.
During a brief hearing in Manhattan federal court, the multimillionaire financier and convicted pedophile was denied his request to be released on bail with confinement to his $77 million Upper East Side mansion while he awaits trial on child sex-trafficking charges.
Judge Richard Berman later issued a written ruling in which he said letting Epstein loose could create “new victims” because Epstein’s perverted sexual appetite “is not likely to have abated or been successfully suppressed.”
“Mr. Epstein’s alleged excessive attraction to sexual conduct with or in the presence of minor girls — which is said to include his soliciting and receiving massages from young girls and young women perhaps as many as four times a day — appears to be uncontrollable,” Berman wrote.
Earlier, Epstein — who has been jailed since his July 6 arrest — kept his hands folded on the table in front of him and showed no emotion as Berman denied his bail request and summarized the reasons for his decision.
Berman noted the “compelling testimony” at a Monday hearing by accusers Annie Farmer and Courtney Wild, with the latter calling Epstein “a scary person to have walking the streets.” Neither woman was in court Thursday.
Berman also cited “evidence of intimidation and threats, and compensation paid to potential witnesses,” as well as questions about whether Epstein “has been compliant in legal obligations as a registered sex offender.”
During Monday’s hearing, the judge noted a front-page July 11 Post report that Epstein never checked in with the NYPD despite a 2011 order by Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Ruth Pickholz requiring him to do so every 90 days.
In his written ruling, Berman said he had also read a report in Wednesday’s Post that quoted a lawyer for several accusers who alleged that Epstein had sex with young women while on work release from a Florida jail.
Epstein’s defense lawyers declined to comment following the court hearing.
Prosecutors argued that Epstein posed an “extreme” risk of flight, citing his immense wealth, which they said included “piles of cash” and “dozens of diamonds” stashed in a locked safe in his townhouse.
The feds also said they found a trove of photos of young women in the safe, as well as a passport that bore Epstein’s image but a different name and listed his address as in Saudi Arabia.
Epstein was indicted in the wake of an award-winning series of stories last year by the Miami Herald that revealed how he scored a sweetheart plea bargain in 2008 following similar allegations in Florida.