Plea deal, involving Alexander Acosta who became Trump’s labor secretary, saw financier avoid severe penalty for abusing girls

The US justice department has now opened an investigation into federal prosecutors’ handling of a plea deal in which Jeffrey Epstein avoided potentially severe penalties for sexually abusing teenage girls in favor of a relatively light state conviction.

The department’s Office of Professional Responsibility wrote in a letter Wednesday to the Republican senator Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, that it would examine whether professional misconduct occurred in the highly publicized case of Jeffrey Epstein.

The letter cited a series of recent articles by the Miami Herald that focused new attention on how the deal came about.

Epstein, now 66, reached a non-prosecution deal in 2008 with the office of the then-Miami US attorney, Alexander Acosta, to secretly end a federal sex abuse investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls that could have landed him behind bars for life.

He instead pleaded guilty to state charges, spent 13 months in jail, paid settlements to victims and is a registered sex offender.

The plea deal awarded to Epstein guaranteed immunity to "any potential co-conspirators" of Epstein -- a provision that signaled prosecutors' willingness to effectively end the federal investigation into potential crimes committed by Epstein associates.

And the deal was kept under seal, meaning potential victims would have difficulty finding out about it and objecting to its terms. Some reportedly only found out about the deal from hearing about it on television.

Sasse, a member of the Senate judiciary committee who has twice asked the justice department to investigate the case, welcomed the news.

“Jeffrey Epstein is a child rapist and there’s not a single mom or dad in America who shouldn’t be horrified by the fact that he received a pathetically soft sentence,” Sasse said in an email. “The victims of Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring deserve this investigation and so do the American people and members of law enforcement who work to put these kinds of monsters behind bars.”

Watchdog groups say the DOJ's independent inspector general, Michael Horowitz, should be spearheading the probe, rather than OPR -- which is run by internal agency lawyers.

Earlier this week, Horowitz urged lawmakers to swiftly pass legislation that would enable the IG's office to take control of probes into possible prosecutorial misconduct.

Acosta, now Donald Trump’s labor secretary, has defended the deal as appropriate but has not commented since the recent round of stories. He was asked about the case during his Senate confirmation hearings for the cabinet post.

“At the end of the day, based on the evidence, professionals within a prosecutor’s office decided that a plea that guarantees someone goes to jail, that guarantees he register generally and guarantees other outcomes, is a good thing,” he said.

Jeremy Funk, a spokesman for the watchdog group Allied Progress, said in a statement to Fox News:

“Secretary Acosta doesn’t just believe it was appropriate to let a wealthy, connected man involved in rampant child sex abuse walk away with a slap on the wrist, he actually considers it a ‘point of pride’ – even worse, a ‘good thing.’”

The US attorney’s office in Miami had no immediate comment Wednesday on the new investigation. An attorney for Epstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Epstein allegedly operated his sex ring at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, a residence in New York City, and his private island estate on the 72-acre Virgin Islands home dubbed by some “Orgy Island” or "Lolita Island*.

According to court papers, underage girls were brought to his Florida mansion for what they were sometimes told were massage sessions but turned into sexual exploitation and rape. He allegedly had female fixers who would look for suitable girls, some local and others recruited from eastern Europe and other parts of the world.

Before the scandal broke, Epstein was on friendly terms with Trump and was a member of his Mar-a-Lago club.

Trump told interviewers:

"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,'' Trump booms from a speakerphone. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

One of Epstein's main accusers - Virginia Roberts - said she was 15 years old and working at Mar-a-Lago as a locker room attendant when Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell approached her. Trump threw Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago only when the former approached the daughter of another club member.

Court documents obtained by Fox News in 2016 showed former President Bill Clinton took at least 26 trips flying aboard Epstein's private jet, known as the "Lolita Express," and apparently ditched his Secret Service detail on some of the excursions. Jeffrey Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was invited to Chelsea Clinton's marriage ceremony.

Some of his accusers are pursuing a separate legal effort to nullify the plea agreement and, they hope, expose him to federal prosecution again.

The lawsuit in West Palm Beach federal court contends their rights as victims were violated because they were not consulted or informed about the non-prosecution agreement before it was finalized.

Last year, Epstein settled a defamation lawsuit brought against him by some of the accusers’ lawyer, Bradley Edwards, who said Epstein tried to derail his representation of the women and ruin his career. In settling, Epstein apologized and agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to Edwards.

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Epstein is member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. His attorneys claimed that he was part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global Initiative. Epstein has supported the Clinton Foundation financially. He also used to be on the board of the Rockefeller Institute.