Blame to go around
Did R. Alexander Acosta mishandle the case a decade ago of Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy and politically connected financier who was accused of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of underage girls at his pink waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla.? Well, either he did or someone did, it seems—because Epstein was arrested last week on very similar charges.
Frankly, this wasn’t the failure of one prosecutor alone, but of the entire system of criminal justice that has too often been rigged to protect the rich and famous from criminal prosecution. In this case, it failed the dozens of teenage girls, some as young as 13, who say they were sexually used by Epstein over the course of many years, just as it has failed women preyed on by other powerful men for many years.
More recently, the #MeToo movement has ushered in a major cultural shift, helping redefine the playbook for how sexual misconduct is viewed and treated. And it’s healthy that as part of it, we reevaluate how such allegations of abuse have been handled.
And why didn’t prosecutors—including
local Miami authorities—work harder to build a strong case? Why was The Miami Herald able to get the goods a decade later, putting together a case so persuasive that it apparently goaded prosecutors back into action?
No doubt Epstein’s enormous wealth and his fabulous connections with people such as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew influenced his case. It’s easy to forget how just a few short years ago our system routinely protected powerful men from allegations of sexual misconduct. These were, and still are to a degree, difficult cases to investigate and prosecute, in part because victims feared that they would be attacked and impugned on the stand by the army of high-powered lawyers hired by the wealthy accused. Shamefully, that is exactly what happened to the women who, as girls, accused Epstein a decade ago.
Thanks in large part to investigation by The Miami Herald—and perhaps to new attitudes toward sex crimes—the case has been reexamined and revived, and once again Epstein faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. This time, it’s unlikely that prosecutors will offer him a sweet deal.