Epstein Lawyers Reveal Risky Defense Strategy

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Fund manager Jeffrey Epstein is facing as many as forty five years behind bars if convicted on all charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy, and announcing the charges yesterday, Manhattan US Attorney Jeffrey Berman anticipated that Epstein would raise a federal non prosecution agreement as a defense. Jeffrey Epstein entered into a non prosecution

agreement with the Southern District of Florida. That agreement only binds by its terms, only binds the Southern District of Florida. The Southern District of New York is not bound by that agreement and is not a signatory to that agreement. Now, the plea agreement that he's talking about was signed in September two thousand seven, and it was approved by now Labor Secretary Alex Acosta when he was the top federal prosecutor for Southern Florida. Joining me as Patricia Hattado Bloomberg

News legal reporter. Pat start by explaining a little more that Florida deal that Epstein made. Well, it's a little murky still and people are trying to unearth the details.

But from what we understand is he played guilty to state charges and a federal investigation essentially went away, and he got a non prosecution agreement with the Southern District of Florida, and the U s attorney was Alex Acosta, who's now Labor Secretary, and in you know, yesterday in the press conference, which is kind of unusual of the Manhattan US attorney said that defense is not going to work,

anticipating the defense and saying that it's just not gonna work. Yeah, I mean, he's The government has been criticized by the victims, these women victims and their lawyers about the steal that made the case go away and the victims were never notified, and a federal judge in Florida has already also criticized the deal. Under the law, victims are entitled to know that there's a proceeding in their case, that something's happened in it, and they're entitled to talk and get their

comments and get restitution, and this didn't happen. So the judge in that case, as a civil suit, ruled that there had been a violent constitutional violation for their lights um and it's still being reviewed, and he anticipated he was going to get criticism for why are you bringing this case when it already happened. Does it make a difference that the prosecutors say there's new evidence and victims

outside of that Florida the original Florida investigation. Yeah, the government says they have new evidence and one of the counts has nothing to do with the previous allegations. That they have new complaints and they also invited new uh, anyone who has new evidence or wants to come forward and say they're either a victim or a witness to anything he has done, they would like to invite them to come come and help their case. So they insist

that they're on strong legal grounds. So Jeffrey Epstein's bail hearing is going to resume on July, and the prosecutors have set forth several different reasons why they think that he should not get bail. Tell us about those. Yeah, they have said a variety of things, including that um Epstein after he gets this deal. Uh basically threatened and harassed and tried to intimidate either personally or through his

um through his uh adverse. You know, his allies try to including run off the fall of one of his victims off the road. So this kind of threatened intimidation, they say, is not It's not appropriate for someone in his with his wherewithal and he's very wealthy and he has six homes and owns his own island and the

US Virgin Islands. So someone like that who has the ability and the means to flee and could go anywhere in the world, could could get out of the country and is a prosecution pet if you know or any other people likely be charged in this because the court papers indicate that at least three of his employees were involved in this alleged trafficking scheme. Yes, and some of my smart colleagues at the press conference peppered the U S attorney with how come no one else has been charged?

Where they were named, it sounded like employees of his were suggested that had involvement or knowledge or awareness, and he wouldn't say whether they were cooperating or if they were under investigation, So that may be stay tuned to see if someone else gets charged and if anyone else comes forward as well. Now he's been under scrutiny for more than a decade, and you know, there have been

years of accusations in addition to the Florida charges. Do you know, is there any reason that you know of why prosecutors in the Public Corruption Unit in the U. S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan decided to you know, pull the trigger,

so to speak. Well, I guess um the reason there they might be involved could be that it's the kind of thing where, if you can imagine it in evolves the highest you know, defense lawyer Read Weingarten said yesterday that some people at the highest level at main Justice, Okay, this plea deal between federal prosecutors in Florida as well

as state prosecutors in Florida. So someone looking over the shoulder of what was done in the past might need to have someone with a finesse of handling public corruption cases. I mean, that's just one of the idle guess as some people I've been speaking to have suggested, did this come as a surprise because there was a lot of talk that it's going to happen it's going to happen. But when it finally did, it seemed to be a

surprise to me. I don't know, but for you in the court house, Uh, well, you know what it was kind of I guess it was a surprise to many people, including maybe Epstain, because he didn't seem to if he

was aware that he was under criminal investigation. He may have, and I'm only guessing here, but he seemed to have a comfort level that he didn't mind keeping in a safe all these hundreds, if not thousands with the government said they had conducted a search at his East seventy one Street mansion and in a safe in there they found hundreds of not thousands, of pictures of nude and semi nude young women, many who appeared to be miners.

So he had a comfort level that he had no problem keeping that stuff around if he knew he was under investigation. Now do I understand the Justice Department is also attempting to seize that residence. Yes, and they're going after everything he owns, including his uh two jets to private jets, UM six property funds, apparently at home in Paris, two homes in the British Virgin Islands, the private island, you know, I mean, I'm the US Virgin Islands, the

private island. He owns a lot of property, so they're going after everything, all right, Well, thanks so much for keeping up on all this. Pad always at the courthouse, they're following the cases. That's Patricia Hurtado, Bloomberg News Legal reporter. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg