Under mounting criticism from the public and state lawmakers, the Palm Beach County sheriff announced Thursday that he had launched a criminal investigation into the incarceration and work release program of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The criminal probe will be in addition to the internal affairs inquiry the sheriff initiated last week.



just received this from @PBCountySheriff re: Epstein’s work-release (11years after the fact)



•internal investigation was ordered on July 19th

•criminal investigation instituted criminal investigation on July 23rd @CBSMiami @ccoddcbs4news @joanmurraycbs4 pic.twitter.com/11wqJ8AW3S — liz roldan (@lizroldancbs4) July 25, 2019

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, who was first elected to his position in 2004, released a statement Thursday he had “instituted an active criminal investigation in addition to the internal investigation.”

Last week, Bradshaw’s office announced that he’d “ordered an internal affairs investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein matter.” The sheriff claimed that he “takes these matters very seriously” and that he wanted to figure out if the actions taken by the Palm Beach sheriff’s deputies who were assigned to monitor Epstein during the work release program “violated any agency rules and regulations.”

Epstein served out his sentence at the Palm Beach County Stockade in 2008, but for at least part of that stint, he was allowed out of jail on work release for as long as 12 hours per day and six days per week at his West Palm Beach office or even at his home. This is despite Bradshaw’s office having a policy that did not let sex offenders take advantage of work release opportunities.

Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, apparently wrongly claimed last week that Epstein didn’t have to register as a sex offender until July 22, 2009, which was the day after his sentence ended. This is contradicted by the fact that Judge Deborah Dale Pucillo of the Palm Beach County Circuit designated him as a sex offender when he accepted his plea deal in 2008.

Bradshaw promised in recent days that “all aspects of the matter will be fully investigated to ensure total transparency and accountability.”

Democratic Florida state Sen. Lauren Books reached out to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week, asking him to direct the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the actions taken by the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. “If Epstein was able to abuse young girls while under supervised work release, we need to understand very clearly when and how these egregious lapses and abuses occurred so they cannot be repeated,” Books said.

Bradshaw released a statement claiming he shared Book’s concerns, which he says is why he is attempting to determine “if in fact the system failed 11 years ago” and wants to “hold those accountable for any failures and ensure that it won’t happen again.” Bradshaw was Palm Beach’s top cop when Epstein was in his office’s custody during that time over a decade ago and so the events in question happened under his watch.

And DeSantis acknowledged receiving the letter from Books and said that he would “certainly consider” having them examine the way that the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office handled Epstein’s jail stay, saying that he has to “figure out the proper role” for state police but that “when you look at how that happened, if even 10% of the things about him are true, then that whole agreement was obviously suspect and willfully below what he should have faced.”

Alex Acosta, the former U.S. attorney for Southern Florida and recently resigned Labor Secretary, reached an agreement in 2008 with Epstein’s attorneys where Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to two state-level prostitution solicitation charges. Epstein served just 13 months of an 18-month stint at a Palm Beach County jail, paid restitution to certain victims, and registered as a sex offender. The agreement was reportedly struck before investigators had finished interviewing all the alleged victims and was kept secret from some of Epstein’s victims. Acosta left his Cabinet position in the wake of Epstein’s recent indictment and amid increased scrutiny of the sweetheart deal that he struck.

Thousands of pages of records related to that deal and other Epstein-related matters were recently ordered by a federal court to be unsealed, which will likely happen in the coming weeks.

Bradley Edwards, a lawyer representing more than a dozen of Epstein’s alleged victims, says that Epstein was allowed to have “improper sexual contact” while out on work release, but he’s not aware of Epstein having any visits from minors during that time.

The new 14-page unsealed indictment against Epstein from earlier in July alleges he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations” between 2002 and 2005 and perhaps beyond. Some of the victims were reportedly as young as 14 at the time the alleged crimes occurred.

The federal judge presiding over Epstein's case denied him bail last week, agreeing with prosecutors that the seriousness of his crimes, his mysterious wealth, his international travel, and his possession of a foreign passport with a fake name from the 1980s all make him a threat to the community and a serious flight risk.