michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: Prosecutors in New York are accusing Jeffrey Epstein of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls and asking them to recruit other underage girls. Pati Mazzei on what happened in a similar case against Epstein over a decade ago. It’s Tuesday, July 9.

archived recording (geoffrey berman) Good morning. I’m Geoff Berman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Today, we announce the unsealing of sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein.

michael barbaro

Pati, tell us about what happened in New York on Monday.

patricia mazzei

So on Monday morning, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, holds a press conference where he announces new federal criminal charges against Jeffrey Epstein.

archived recording (geoffrey berman) Epstein was taken to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. And later today, he will be presented before a magistrate judge.

patricia mazzei

Epstein is a former hedge fund manager who made his wealth in Wall Street. He’s got a palatial townhouse in the Upper East Side of New York. He’s got a mansion on Palm Beach Island. He’s got property at the United States Virgin Islands. And he is friends with the rich and powerful, including President Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew of York in England.

archived recording (geoffrey berman) Epstein was arrested this past Saturday evening at Teterboro Airport aboard his private jet that had just landed from Paris, France.

michael barbaro

And what is the U.S. attorney in New York alleging that Epstein did?

archived recording (geoffrey berman) Epstein is charged in a two-count indictment — first, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, and second, the substantive crime of sex trafficking of underage girls.

patricia mazzei

According to prosecutors, Epstein created this network between 2002 and 2005.

archived recording (geoffrey berman) The victims were all underage girls at the time of the alleged conduct.

patricia mazzei

In which he invited girls — underage girls — into his mansion in New York and in Palm Beach, and he paid them to give him nude massages.

archived recording (geoffrey berman) These massages became increasingly sexual in nature and would typically include one or more sex acts, as specified in the indictment.

patricia mazzei

Those encounters often ended in masturbation, oral sex and, in at least one case, rape.

archived recording (geoffrey berman) As alleged, Epstein also paid certain victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused.

patricia mazzei

And he also paid them to recruit more girls that could come to his house, therefore creating this sort of ever-expanding network of sex trafficking.

archived recording (geoffrey berman) The alleged behavior shocks the conscience. And while the charged conduct is from a number of years ago, it is still profoundly important to the many alleged victims, now young women. They deserve their day in court, and we are proud to be standing up for them by bringing this indictment.

patricia mazzei

And the prosecutors said that even though some of these encounters happened a long time ago, that some of this is old, these girls, who are now women, deserve their day in court.

archived recording (geoffrey berman) Thank you.

michael barbaro

So the prosecutor in New York makes a point of saying, this alleged behavior dates back years and years — basically to 2002. So why are we just seeing these charges today?

patricia mazzei

That’s the key question, Michael. Because what is stunning about this case when you listen to the U.S. attorney in New York on Monday is that it sounded so familiar to allegations made against Jeffrey Epstein in Florida more than a decade ago. In that case, the girls in Florida did not get their day in court. But the story of how the Florida case against Epstein unraveled is one of the reasons why we are here today talking about this case against him in New York.

michael barbaro

So what exactly is the story of what happened in Florida?

patricia mazzei

The story begins in 2005 when a girl and her parents go to the police in Palm Beach and tell them that she has been molested by Epstein and paid for it. And the police start investigating. And what they find is not just one girl, but many girls with stories about being molested by Epstein. And some girls just lead to more girls. And so they wind up with what they think is a very big case on their hands. They take it to the state attorney, but, eventually, the police feel like Epstein might not get as harsh of a charge as they would like, given the number of victims that they have seen. And concerned about that, they take the case to the F.B.I. and say, help us. We think there is a big case here.

michael barbaro

And why do the local police have that suspicion, that Epstein will not be appropriately charged? What exactly did they fear?

patricia mazzei

They become anxious that either because of Epstein’s wealth or name in the community or the fact that he didn’t have a criminal history, that he just might not be charged as strongly as they think he should be charged. For example, that instead of some sort of sex abuse charge, he might end up with something like soliciting prostitution that would elicit a less harsh penalty.

michael barbaro

So what does the F.B.I. do when the police bring this case to them?

patricia mazzei

The F.B.I. starts investigating and finds more victims and victims corroborating the stories that the police had found. Stories about massages and nude massages and payment for these massages that ended up in various sex acts and a web of recruitment where one girl would be paid by Epstein and his associates to bring in more girls to his Palm Beach house for these massages. And, eventually, the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami, which, at the time, was run by a man named Alex Acosta, drafts a 53-page indictment against Epstein.

michael barbaro

And what does this indictment say?

patricia mazzei

The indictment lays out these allegations of sex trafficking against minors and carries a potential punishment of up to life in prison.

michael barbaro

It’s a serious indictment.

patricia mazzei

Yeah, it was pretty thorough.

michael barbaro

And so what happens?

patricia mazzei

So weeks go by and then months go by. And finally, in 2008, the victims learn that there will be no federal criminal indictment against Epstein. Unbeknown to the victims, behind the scenes, Epstein and his high-powered defense lawyers had negotiated with federal prosecutors so that they would not charge him in federal court. They negotiated what is called a non-prosecution agreement. And so in the end, Epstein pleaded guilty to a single count of soliciting prostitution in state court. He had to register as a sex offender. He had to pay financial restitution to some of his victims. And he got 18 months in county jail, in which he could leave six days a week to go to work.

michael barbaro

Leave prison six days a week — just kind of walk out of jail and go to work?

patricia mazzei

Yeah, it was an extraordinary arrangement. It raised eyebrows even at the time, but the prosecutor said it was how they were going to guarantee that Epstein served some time in jail and that he register as a sex offender, which they viewed as important to help the community around him.

michael barbaro

So the local police brought this case originally to the F.B.I. because they were worried that the state attorney would be rolled over by Epstein — by his wealth, by all his connections, and his fancy lawyers — and that he would get a sweetheart deal.

patricia mazzei

Prosecutors would tell you that they did their best, and that meant sending Epstein to jail. But, in the end, he faced a prostitution charge in state court and not a sex trafficking charge in federal court. And that’s exactly what the Palm Beach police worried could happen at the start of the case.

michael barbaro

But with the F.B.I. and the federal prosecutors.

patricia mazzei

Right — the people who they had turned to for help.

michael barbaro

Pati, you said that this was unknown to the victims. Why would that be?

patricia mazzei

The victims were not given a chance to speak up against this agreement before it was signed. It was essentially just negotiated between Epstein’s attorneys and the prosecution. And so the victims didn’t find out until after the fact and after Epstein had already agreed to the plea deal.

michael barbaro

And what’s the reaction from the victims who have been cut out of this plea agreement and are now learning that he’s going to be facing an unusually light sentence?

patricia mazzei

The victims are outraged. And as soon as they find out about this non-prosecution deal in 2008, they go to court asking for the agreement to be nullified — for them to get their day in court. And this argument turns into years of legal battles over what was negotiated in secret that the victims did not know about.

michael barbaro

And what’s going on with Epstein during this time — as this battle over the plea agreement is playing out in courts?

patricia mazzei

Epstein gets out of jail about five months early. He reportedly has a party to celebrate his return to society. And he has to register as a sex offender. But, other than that, he basically goes back to his old life. He had his lavish lifestyle that he continued — traveling between his properties in New York and Palm Beach and the Virgin Islands. And the case kind of receded from public view for years, until President Trump asks Alex Acosta, the former top prosecutor in Miami who reached the secret deal not to indict Epstein with federal charges, to be his labor secretary.

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back.

archived recording Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will please come to order. This morning, we’re holding a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Alexander Acosta.

michael barbaro

Pati, what happens after Acosta is nominated as labor secretary?

patricia mazzei

With the Acosta nomination comes a lot of scrutiny into Acosta’s career — especially his time as a prosecutor. And so reporters like myself start looking into the case again.

archived recording I want to just read this. In 2007, Acosta signed a non-prosecution deal.

patricia mazzei

And, in fact, it comes up in Acosta’s Senate confirmation hearing for the Labor Department.

archived recording What is the reason why a deal of this kind has this specification that it will not be made part of any public record? archived recording (alexander acosta) Senator, I’ll answer your question, but if —

patricia mazzei

He says, as he had said in the past —

archived recording (alexander acosta) At the end of this case, I received a telephone call from the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.

patricia mazzei

— that they did the best they could.

archived recording (alexander acosta) And he called to just say, congratulations. This was really hard-fought and well-won.

patricia mazzei

And that the outcome was positive, because Epstein went to jail and had to register as a sex offender, and that that would help protect the community.

archived recording You are aware that Mr. Epstein served that 13 months. He was allowed out during the day, and he had to sleep at a county jail, but he was basically allowed to move and go around the community and do whatever he wants. And then that became a subject of significant criticism. archived recording (alexander acosta) And I am on record condemning that, and I think that was awful.

patricia mazzei

Despite those questions, Acosta gets confirmed by the Senate and becomes the labor secretary, which he still is now. But The Miami Herald, his hometown paper, decides that it’s going to dig even deeper into the Epstein case and see what happened, especially now that not only is Acosta the labor secretary, but that the #MeToo movement has happened. And that, perhaps, these victims, who are now young women, might be willing to talk publicly for the first time.

michael barbaro

And what does The Herald find?

archived recording The Herald is reporting that Acosta gave a sweetheart deal to a wealthy man accused of sex crimes, including sexually abusing underage girls.

patricia mazzei

The Herald’s investigation, which was published in late 2018, found a trove of documents showing how the secret non-prosecution agreement was negotiated.

archived recording The paper found that as a U.S. attorney in Florida in 2007, Acosta and another federal prosecutor struck a plea deal with Epstein’s legal team.

patricia mazzei

And the documents show Epstein’s defense lawyers being chummy with prosecutors on a first-name basis, while the victims didn’t know anything about what was going on.

archived recording I was young. I was scared. I knew these people were powerful. I didn’t know what would happen if I said no. I didn’t know what would happen if I reported them. That 16-year-old girl just let it happen.

patricia mazzei

In addition to that, The Herald finds more victims, and victims who are going on the record for the first time now that they’re adults.

archived recording It takes a long time to start the healing process. I mean, I will never heal. There are pieces for me that can never be put back together.

patricia mazzei

And the combination of the behind-the-scenes communications about this agreement and the additional victims and the victims putting a face and details to these allegations starts to build new public pressure for something to be done in the case. And it’s not long after that Miami Herald report that something else happens. That lawsuit that the victims in Florida had filed seeking to invalidate the secret non-prosecution agreement, a judge finally issues a ruling. And he rules in the women’s favor. He says the prosecutors made a mistake in not letting them know that this was being negotiated.

michael barbaro

And by prosecutors, you mean Alex Acosta, who is now the United States labor secretary.

patricia mazzei

That’s correct. The judge ruled that Acosta and his office violated the victims’ rights by not letting them know about this secret deal that they had negotiated with Epstein. And that’s where everything was until we got to Monday in New York.

michael barbaro

Is that what led the U.S. attorney in New York to bring these charges on Monday?

patricia mazzei

We don’t know, exactly. That case is still pending in Florida. What we do know is that the prosecutor in New York apparently found a new victim in his jurisdiction. And that seems to be a primary driver in his decision to pursue this case now. And it’s possible for him to also draw in some of the allegations from Florida into his case. We know that he went out of his way to say on Monday that the non-prosecution agreement in Florida does not apply to them in New York. But it is key to note that they have found a victim there, and so that gives a new dimension to their findings.

michael barbaro

So it’s possible that these girls, now women, in Florida, who alleged that Jeffrey Epstein had done these things to them and who were kind of boxed out of this non-prosecution agreement, that they may be drawn into this case and have their day in court here in New York.

patricia mazzei

Possibly. We’re going to have to wait and see, given this sort of tricky dynamic between having somebody in the Justice Department in New York signing off on a new case that had been sort of closed and done by somebody in the Justice Department in Miami.

michael barbaro

It seems like the U.S. attorney in New York is saying something about how the case was handled in Florida.

patricia mazzei

It sounded like the U.S. attorney in New York was implying that this case maybe wasn’t handled so well the first time around, either by his predecessors in New York or by his colleagues in Florida. And that now, he has another shot. They get a do-over here, and they plan to take it. And they have a chance to make things right for all these victims after all these years.

michael barbaro

Pati, you’ve been covering this case as a reporter in Florida for years. What do you make of these latest developments?

patricia mazzei

To me, it’s an illustration of how society has changed in the time since this case first came up and now. I think between the #MeToo movement that has exposed some very powerful men and their behavior towards women, I think some of society’s impatience now with, perhaps, wealthy people having a bigger say in the criminal justice system than people who don’t have money. And it’s also just interesting that the charge Epstein faced was for soliciting prostitution.

michael barbaro

Right. I’m so struck by the fact that the resolution of that first Florida case was a prostitution charge, which meant that prosecutors there essentially labeled a minor, who was allegedly paid for sex by Jeffrey Epstein, as a prostitute, not a victim.

patricia mazzei

Actually, the former police chief in Palm Beach, whose department first started investigating this, has said that what he would really like to see here, in addition to an apology to the victims, who did not get what he would consider timely justice, he would like to see lawmakers keep that from happening again. He would like to make it impossible for prosecutors to treat minors like prostitutes in future cases like this one, to prevent what he considers was a miscarriage of justice.

michael barbaro

Pati, where is Jeffrey Epstein right now?

patricia mazzei

He is in jail in New York — and not the kind of jail where you could leave every day to go to work like he was in Florida. And he faces the prospect of up to 45 years in prison if this case moves forward and he’s found guilty.

michael barbaro

Pati, thank you very much.

patricia mazzei

Thank you, Michael.

michael barbaro