A decade ago, a Miami Beach father who
traveled to Cambodia to pay for sex with three underage girls was found guilty
in federal court and convicted of sex tourism involving children.
Kent Frank, 50, was sentenced to 40
years in prison. Miami’s U.S. attorney at the time, Alex Acosta, declared in a news release
that society “cannot permit such individuals to seek sanctuary in our
community.”
“We will prosecute sexual abuse of
children aggressively, both when the targets are children in our community and
when the defendants travel to target children abroad,” he vowed.
But Acosta, now President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of labor, made a very different call in another, far more
sordid case just months later. The agreement Acosta approved for Palm Beach billionaire
Jeffrey Epstein, his Palm Beach mansion is pictured above, a “sweetheart plea deal,” according to attorneys for
Epstein’s victims — could come back to haunt his Senate confirmation hearing if
any senators question
Acosta’s judgment in one of the most high-profile cases of his career.
Using his private staff to coordinate
the illicit sexual activity, Epstein had paid dozens of girls cash to engage in
nude massages, masturbation, oral sex and intercourse in his palatial mansions
in Palm Beach, New York City and the U.S. Virgin Islands between 1999 and 2005.
Epstein, then 55 and defended by an
all-star legal team, pleaded guilty to a state charge of soliciting minors for
prostitution. He registered as a sex offender in Florida and agreed to pay
damages to 40 female
victims ranging in age from 13 to 17 years old. As part of the plea
agreement negotiated by Acosta’s office, Epstein wouldn’t be charged in federal
court, even though the feds
had drawn up a proposed 53-page indictment that carried potential punishment
ranging from a mandatory 10 years in prison up to a life sentence.
Epstein
ended up serving just over a year in a Palm Beach County Stockade while local
authorities allowed him during his incarceration to go to work or do whatever
he wanted for six days out of every week.
Acosta’s
“non-prosecution agreement” — initially kept
secret from Epstein’s victims — was signed by the billionaire and his lawyers
in September 2007 and amended through
the end of that year. The deal
also immunized several of his co-conspirators from federal prosecution, a rare
bonus.
“Clearly, Epstein received preferential
treatment due to his wealth, race and political connections,” said Miami
attorney Joel DeFabio, who, citing the Epstein case, tried unsuccessfully to
obtain similar treatment for two clients accused of running
prostitution rings involving minor girls.
“The charges against Epstein were
outrageous, and the evidence was more than enough to obtain a conviction at
trial. The fact that Epstein’s wealth enabled him to hire a stellar legal team
should not be a valid reason for such a gross disparity in treatment,” DeFabio
said. “This matter should be explored by the [Senate] confirmation committee to
ensure that Acosta will be committed to equal treatment under the law of all
Americans and that he will
never give preferential treatment to the wealthy and politically connected.”
Whether to look into the Epstein case
will be up to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions,
which is tasked with considering Acosta’s labor nomination. Although he has
been confirmed by the Senate three times in his career, the 48-year-old,
Harvard-educated Acosta has never been questioned about decisions made during
his four years as U.S. attorney, the last position he held in the federal
government. He’s currently
dean of Florida International University’s law school.
Trump’s first labor nominee, fast-food
executive Andy Puzder, withdrew his nomination last month after
it became clear that a series of controversial revelations had killed his
chances of confirmation. Labor unions, which campaigned hard against Puzder and
celebrated his withdrawal as a victory, quickly welcomed the Acosta pick.
“Working people changed the game on
this nomination,” Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement
after Trump named Acosta. “In one day, we’ve gone from a fast-food CEO who
routinely violates labor law to a public servant with experience enforcing it.”
Top members of the Senate HELP
committee did not respond to requests for comment about Acosta’s handling of
the Epstein case, though a spokesman for Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee and the committee
chairman, said Alexander “believes Mr. Acosta is a well-qualified nominee with
an impressive record.”
The White House did not respond to a
request for comment. Acosta has not granted any interviews since his
nomination.
But in the past, the Epstein case has
plagued Acosta, a bona fide conservative who has developed a reputation as
being both pragmatic and shrewd in stints as a National Labor Relations Board
member, a top Justice Department administrator and U.S. attorney.
Shortly into his tenure as the head of
the Justice Department’s civil-rights division, Acosta launched an anti-slavery
initiative, citing the case of a 14-year-old Mexican girl
held captive and forced to have sex with up to 30 men a day.
“It is evil. It is hideous,” Acosta
said. “It is one of the most horrendous crimes of our society.”
Three years after Epstein’s guilty
plea, Acosta broke his silence about the case amid simmering fallout over the
billionaire’s plea deal. In a 2011 letter intended for news reporters
and the public, Acosta defended his decision to let state authorities charge
Epstein instead of the feds.
Acosta noted that the Palm Beach County state attorney’s office had initially charged Epstein in 2006 with only soliciting a prostitute, a misdemeanor offense with no jail time. He asserted that his office and the FBI strengthened the Epstein case to enable state prosecutors to charge him additionally with soliciting minors for prostitution, resulting in jail time for 18 months (reduced to 13 months under a credit system), registration as a Florida sex offender and restitution to victims.
“Some may feel that the prosecution
should have been tougher,” Acosta, by then two years into his tenure as
law-school dean, wrote in March 2011. “Evidence that has come to light since
2007 may encourage that view.”
But the plea deal’s results were
“better” than to “risk a trial with a reduced likelihood of success,” he wrote.
“I supported that judgment then, and
based on the state of the law as it then stood and the evidence known at that
time, I would support that judgment again,” Acosta, who served as U.S. attorney
from 2005-09, said in the letter, in which he also described the “year-long
assault” on prosecutors from Epstein’s “army of legal superstars.”
Terry O’Neill, president of the
National Organization for Women, called the letter a “disturbing” sign that
Acosta could “buckle under extreme pressure from high-powered attorneys in a
slam-dunk, sex-with-underage-girls case.”
Court records show Acosta’s office also
held back on filing a pair of proposed obstruction of justice charges against
Epstein. The first would have accused him of harassing two of his personal
assistants to thwart FBI agents from serving investigation subpoenas. The
second would have accused him of dissuading a female victim from talking with
agents.
Epstein, who rose from humble
beginnings on Coney Island to become a wealthy Wall Street money manager, once traveled the world in circles that
included former President Bill Clinton and England’s Prince Andrew.
Epstein’s secret world of sex with
underage girls was exposed in 2005 when the parents of a
14-year-old complained to police that their daughter was paid $300 to give a
massage to a man on Palm Beach island. Investigators would eventually find 27
girls who went to Epstein’s mansion on El Brillo Way to perform “massage
services,” according to court records.
“During all of these massages, Epstein
masturbated himself and he would touch the girl performing the massage, usually
fondling their breasts and touching their vaginas — either over their clothing
or on their bare skin,” according to a summary written by the lead federal
prosecutor, Ann Marie VillafaƱa. “Epstein often used a vibrator to masturbate
the girls and digitally penetrated a number of them. For the girls who saw him
more often, Epstein graduated to oral sex and vaginal sex.
“Epstein sometimes brought his
assistant/girlfriend … into the sexual activity,” the prosecutor wrote. “One of
the girls described [her] as Epstein’s ‘sex slave.’ ”
Palm Beach police turned over their
investigation to the state attorney’s office, then headed by Barry Krischer,
asking that Epstein be charged with paying minor girls to have sex with him.
Epstein’s lawyers pushed back, countering that the billionaire did not know the
girls were under 18. Krischer’s office backed off, settling on charging Epstein
with a misdemeanor of soliciting a prostitute, with no jail time.
Krischer, now in private practice, did
not respond to a request for comment.
Palm Beach investigators, frustrated
with the outcome, turned to the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office in 2006 in what
would turn into a fiercely fought — and sometimes nasty — showdown with
Epstein’s powerful defense team. It included Harvard law professor Alan
Dershowitz, Miami criminal defense attorney Roy Black and Kenneth Starr, the
independent counsel in the Clinton-Monica Lewinsky investigation.
During negotiations for a plea deal in
2007, Epstein’s lawyers wrote dozens of emails to VillafaƱa, the lead
prosecutor; Acosta and his first assistant, Jeffrey Sloman, making a series of
demands to limit the legal and public-relations damage to their wealthy client.
They repeatedly insisted their client’s female victims not be notified of the
U.S. attorney’s non-prosecution agreement with Epstein. Acosta’s office held
off on notifying them until after the terms were approved by both sides in fall
2007.
But
Acosta would not budge on the eventual state charge accusing Epstein of
soliciting minors for prostitution, because the U.S. attorney insisted that
Epstein be required to register as a sex offender.
“To require registration based on the
facts of this case, however, simply does not make sense,” defense attorney Jay
Lefkowitz, with the influential Kirkland & Ellis law firm, argued in a
September 2007 email to Acosta. “Registration is a life sentence and the FBI’s
involvement in this case and their interest in vindication for their efforts
cannot justify a punishment harsher that what Mr. Epstein deserves.”
Epstein and his defense team soon
signed the federal non-prosecution agreement, which deferred to the state
attorney’s office to file the charge of soliciting minors for prostitution. But
months passed before he finally pleaded guilty in June 2008. The agreement also allowed 40 of
his female victims to pursue damage claims in federal court, which were
resolved confidentially.
But days after Epstein’s guilty plea, a
handful of his victims sued the U.S. government to force South
Florida federal prosecutors to break their agreement not to charge Epstein and
others who worked for him with running an alleged sex ring that exploited
underage girls. The four plaintiffs, now adult women, said they could sue under
the Crime Victims’ Rights Act because they were not notified by prosecutors
when they cut the secret non-prosecution agreement that immunized not only
Epstein but also his co-conspirators from federal charges.
Last year, a federal judge presiding
over the lawsuit ordered both sides to negotiate a settlement, which failed.
Fort Lauderdale attorney Bradley Edwards, who represents the women, declined to
comment, citing the ongoing legal battle. But during a court hearing, he
described Epstein as a serial sexual predator.
“Because
of his deviant appetite for young girls, combined with his extraordinary wealth
and power, he may just be the most dangerous sexual predator in U.S. history,”
Edwards told U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra in 2008.
“The plea bargain that was worked out
for Mr. Epstein in light of the offenses that he committed is clearly unfair to
the point that if anybody looks at the information, it is unconscionable.”
The judge, seemingly at wit’s end,
declared: “That’s not my role. That’s the prosecutor’s role to apply, would it
not? I can’t force them to bring criminal charges.”
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