How the Epstein saga could've been ended years ago: To his first prosecutors, victims were prostitutes

Jane Musgrave, John Pacenti and Lulu Ramadan | The Palm Beach Post

Show Caption Hide Caption Epstein's connection to Trump and Acosta, explained Jeffrey Epstein has had a long list of friends from high places, including the likes of Stephen Hawking, Bill Clinton and President Trump. But did Epstein leverage these connections? We explain.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida – Ever since Jeffrey Epstein became a pariah for abusing dozens of teenage girls at his Florida mansion, federal prosecutors have been blasted for engineering “the deal of the century” for the uber-wealthy sexual predator.

But the twisted saga started and could have ended with the public official originally handed the case: former Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer.

The veteran prosecutor set the stage for this international outrage by crippling his own case more than a decade ago, a Palm Beach Post investigation found.

Krischer acted as if Epstein’s teenage accusers were prostitutes who eagerly sold their bodies to buy clothes at the mall instead of treating them like high school girls who said they had been sexually assaulted by a man four decades their senior.

Krischer decided he didn't believe them, but based on a review of the state attorney’s investigative files, no one from Krischer's office ever interviewed the girls or their parents. His lead prosecutor declared more than once that there were “no victims” in the case, according to documents obtained by The Post.

Finally, Krischer found a secret way to sink the case: He took it to a grand jury where only one victim testified. It was the first time a sex crimes case was presented to a grand jury by his office.

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Thirteen accounts of Jeffrey Epstein exploiting underage girls

Thirteen teens gave police nearly identical accounts of how the politically connected financier used his wealth to exploit the girls. Yet the task of convincing jurors that Epstein was a predator fell on the shoulders of one 14-year-old girl.

Krischer’s office then undermined its own witness, who had told police she had been fondled by a naked Epstein while she gave him a “massage,” sources close to the grand jury proceedings told The Post.

Prosecutor Lanna Belohlavek peppered the girl with questions about her social media pages, the sources said. The girl’s MySpace account, supplied to prosecutors by Epstein’s lawyers, portrayed her drinking liquor with boys and talking about sex.

Unmoved by her testimony, the grand jury came up with one charge of solicitation of prostitution – what a “john” would face.

How the grand jury came to that conclusion has led The Post to file suit to get the transcript of the secret proceedings. In its action filed last week, The Post argued that in the interest of justice, the public should see how vigorously Krischer’s team pursued its case.

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Jeffrey Epstein's secret deal

One month after Epstein was arrested in June 2006 and dismayed by Krischer’s failure to charge Epstein with child sex crimes, Palm Beach police went to the FBI. Two years later, South Florida U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta negotiated the much-maligned secret deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prison.

The agreement hinged on Krischer adding a second charge: soliciting a minor for prostitution. Epstein pleaded guilty to both state charges.

Krischer has insisted he had nothing to do with the covert pact, but The Post found he played a crucial role as a go-between, talking to federal prosecutors and Epstein’s defense team on the eve of the agreement, newly released documents obtained by The Post show.

To the scores of Epstein’s victims – many of them poor and from troubled homes – the deal was nothing short of betrayal. By labeling them prostitutes, Krischer confirmed their beliefs that no one cared.

“I never had a chance for my voice to be heard,” said Courtney Wild, recruited by Epstein when she attended a nearby middle school. “My voice was muted by the same government that was supposed to protect me.”

Krischer, a Democrat, retired in 2009 after a 16-year run as state attorney in which he was feted by community groups for being a staunch advocate for sexually abused children.

The 75-year-old remains tight-lipped about his handling of the chaotic case. Neither he nor Belohlavek, a prosecutor on Florida’s west coast, responded to requests for comment.

Krischer’s silence may soon end, however.

In August, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered an investigation into how Palm Beach County authorities handled the case. The 66-year-old financier killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell on Aug. 10 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The Florida investigation means Krischer could be forced to finally explain why he didn’t vigorously prosecute the man one attorney dubbed “the most dangerous sexual predator the country has ever seen.”

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When ‘it all took a turn’

Initially, Krischer and his top prosecutors were outraged by Epstein’s behavior.

“He said this is somebody we have to stop,” Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter said of the state attorney in a 2009 deposition.

But then in late 2005, famed attorney Alan Dershowitz swooped in.

Armed with copies of the teens’ MySpace pages, the Harvard law professor seeded doubt about the girls’ trustworthiness. The girls said on the pages that they drank. They hung out with boys. They said they liked marijuana.

Krischer thought their posts on social media – a novelty at the time – destroyed the girls’ credibility, documents show.

But the evidence against Epstein was mounting, said Detective Joseph Recarey, who died last year at age 50. Thirteen underage girls described nearly identical circumstances – right down to Epstein’s pink and green couch – in which they were molested or sexually assaulted. The number of victims would later grow to more than 40.

In statement after statement, the teens also recounted how Epstein used other teens to lure them to his mansion with the promise of earning $200 each for a “massage.”

Recarey also amassed 17 witnesses to bolster Krischer’s case. Among them were eight girls who said Epstein molested them when they were minors. Because they were over the age of 15 and weren’t penetrated, by law, none could be considered victims of a sex crime.

As the case wore on, Recarey said, Krischer and his prosecutors stopped returning his calls. Then Recarey learned Krischer had agreed to let Epstein plead guilty to felony aggravated assault and serve no jail time.

Recarey, incensed, put together an arrest warrant charging Epstein with four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and one count of lewd and lascivious molestation. The charges were punishable by maximum 30- and 15-year sentences, respectively.

Again, his efforts were greeted with silence from Krischer’s office.

On May 1, 2006, a frustrated Police Chief Reiter asked Krischer to step down from the case.

“I must urge you to examine the unusual course that your office's handling of this matter has taken and consider if good and sufficient reason exists to require your disqualification,” he wrote.

’No victims here’

Epstein rejected Krischer’s deal of no jail time over concerns he would have to register as a sex offender. So Krischer took the case to the grand jury, which heard it in July.

Witnesses got two days’ notice. One of the three victims called to testify was in Jacksonville, her mother told the process server. Then a college student, she never received the subpoena.

One, who said she had sex with Epstein, didn’t show.

That left the 14-year-old girl to take down a man who counted future President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Britain’s Prince Andrew and other powerful men as friends.

The girl’s MySpace postings took center stage with Belohlavek channeling Epstein’s attorneys, sources familiar with the grand jury proceedings told The Post.

Recarey said he wasn’t surprised the grand jury didn’t indict Epstein on serious sex crime charges because Belohlavek had tipped her hand.

As she was preparing the case, she made a startling observation. “There are no victims here,” he recalled the veteran sex crimes prosecutor telling him.

“I had a feeling she was trying to brush this case under the carpet,” Recarey said in a deposition.

For 16- and 17-year-old victims, Krischer also told the police chief “it was the policy of the state attorney's office not to charge molestation type cases or even a sex type battery case when it was consensual,” Chief Reiter testified in a deposition. The age of consent in Florida is 18.

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No evidence of victim interviews

The bulk of Krischer’s 2,800-page investigative file contains dirt Epstein’s defense team gathered against the teens and even Palm Beach police. The documents provided to The Post don’t contain any indication that the State Attorney’s Office interviewed a single accuser.

There are no memos or emails from Krischer to his prosecutors. There is no correspondence to or from Krischer or Belohlavek or anyone involved in the case. Instead there are scores of copies of the teens’ MySpace pages.

Until this summer there was also no mention of Krischer’s participation in Acosta’s efforts to craft the nonprosecution agreement that allowed Epstein to escape federal charges.

Acosta, on national TV in July, said Krischer went soft on Epstein.

Krischer shot back, accusing Acosta of trying to “rewrite history.”

“The State Attorney’s Office was not a party to those meetings or negotiations, and definitely had no part in the federal Non-Prosecution Agreement,” Krischer said in a statement.

But newly released documents obtained by The Post show Krischer helped broker the September 2007 deal – a pact that eventually led to Acosta’s resignation as secretary of labor.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie Villafana, who handled the negotiations for Acosta at the time, sent Krischer an email, warning him that Epstein was having second thoughts.

Epstein wanted to plead guilty only to state charges, she said.

Krischer responded that he had spoken with Epstein’s attorney Jack Goldberger. With gain time – time shaved off his sentence for working and other good behavior – the 18-month sentence promised to Epstein would shrink to 15, he said.

“Glad we could get this worked out for reasons I won’t put in writing,” Krischer wrote Villafana. “After this is resolved I would love to buy you a cup at Starbucks and have a conversation.”

After Krischer retired, Goldberger tried in April 2010 to get the state attorney to drop his client’s probation and release him from house arrest.

“This dragon just keeps raising its ugly head!” Assistant State Attorney Barbara Burns wrote to Krischer’s successor as state attorney, Michael McAuliffe.

“I don’t know how to convey to him anymore than I already have that his client is a registered sex offender that was fortunate to get the deal of the century,” Burns wrote.

McAuliffe said he wouldn’t get another one.

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