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From: Darren Indyke
Sent: 5/10/2019 11:01:49 PM
To: jeeyacation@gmail.com; Martin Weinberg
CC: Darren Indyke [
Subject: Acosta plea deal in Epstein sex case defended by former aide I Miami Herald
Attachments: Jeffrey Sloman-Article-201401221517.jpg; alexander-acosta-ap071010029016-cropped.jpg
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https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article226168500.html
Top aide of Jeffrey Epstein
prosecutor Acosta: We acted with
integrity
February 15, 2019 12:17 PM
Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein is a free man, despite sexually abusing
dozens of underage girls according to police and prosecutors. His victims have never
had a voice, until now. By Emily Michot I Julie K. Brown
A former top prosecutor involved in the Jeffrey Epstein sex case is defending his old
boss, Alexander Acosta, whose decision to craft a secret plea deal with the wealthy
New York hedge fund manager has come under federal scrutiny.
In his first public comments on the 10-year-old case, Jeffrey H. Sloman — who at
the time was second in command under Acosta at the U.S. Attorney's Office in
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Miami — said prosecutors resolved the case based on the facts and evidence, and
what he called "legal impediments," including the belief that many of Epstein's
teenage victims were too "terrified" to cooperate in the case.
"Given the obstacles we faced in fashioning a robust federal prosecution, we decided
to negotiate a resolution," said Sloman, now in private practice. "We did not reach
this decision lightly and it came only after significant and often rancorous internal
debate."
Jeffrey Sloman, who was second-in-command to then-U.S. Attorney Alexander
Acosta when the latter was deciding whether to prosecute Jeffrey Epstein, says the
office handled the case properly. Aixa Montero Holt
In a lengthy opinion piece  submitted to the Miami Herald Editorial Board, Sloman
alleges that the attacks on Acosta's role in the controversial case are politically
driven by critics who failed to raise significant issues when Acosta was nominated
and confirmed as the U.S. secretary of labor in 2017.
Sloman's comments come two weeks after the Justice Department announced it had
opened an investigation over whether there was prosecutorial misconduct in the
case involving Epstein, who ran a sex pyramid scheme from his Palm Beach estate
that targeted scores of underage girls from 2001 to 2006.
About 30 members of Congress demanded the probe following a Miami Herald
series of stories, "Perversion of Justice," that detailed how federal prosecutors, led
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by Acosta, stitched together an unusual immunity deal that allowed Epstein to
escape what could have been a life sentence in federal prison.
U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta has been criticized for the plea deal he
worked out with Jeffrey Epstein. Acosta was U.S. attorney for Southern Florida at
the time. Alan Diaz
Instead, Epstein — whose friends included President Donald Trump, former
President Bill Clinton and other politically connected people — was allowed to
quietly plead guilty to prostitution charges in state court. He served 13 months in
the county jail, where he was allowed liberal work release privileges rarely given to
sex offenders in Florida and barred by the Palm Beach Sheriffs Department's own
rules.
He was released in 2009, but his victims — who were 13 to 16 years old at the time —
are still fighting more than a decade later to have his non-prosecution agreement
overturned.
In his op-ed, Sloman called Acosta "an outstanding public servant ... at risk of
becoming collateral damage in Washington's latest polarized conflagration," adding,
"I won't let it happen without first being heard."
Jeffrey Epstein apologizes, but not to his victims
Jeffrey Epstein, a multimillionaire who molested dozens of underage girls, and is
suspected of trafficking countless other girls around the world, issued a public
apology Tuesday. It was not to the victims of his abuse, but to one of their lawyers.
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"As additional details about Epstein's crimes have emerged, it is clear to me that we
should have pushed for much harsher terms," Sloman wrote. "That said, some have
mistakenly suggested that our office kowtowed to Epstein's high-priced defense
lawyers or, worse, that his lawyers corrupted or intimidated us into submission. ...
Nothing could be further from the truth."
Sloman did not directly address the chief complaint brought by Epstein's victims,
who are now in their late 20S and early 30s. Those who spoke to the Herald said
they felt betrayed by federal prosecutors, who sealed the non-prosecution agreement
from public view so that they wouldn't find out about it before he was sentenced. It
would be almost a year before they were successful in having it unsealed. By then, it
was too late to try to derail it.
They allege, in a federal lawsuit filed against the government, that prosecutors
deliberately kept the deal secret — in violation of federal law — to prevent them
from appearing at Epstein's sentencing to possibly undo the deal. Nor did Sloman
address why prosecutors also gave immunity to a number of Epstein's co-
conspirators, who have never been identified.
"They cut a deal which they have to know was a failure," said Marci Hamilton, a law
professor at the University of Pennsylvania and executive director of Child USA,
which advocates for children's civil liberties. " They kept it secret and they didn't
charge the co-conspirators. The horror of this is if you don't hold all the 'Johns'
accountable, then it doesn't stop. This case involved multiple girls, multiple men,
multiple recruiters, multiple times and he recruited girls to get other girls. That's a
trafficking organization."
Acosta has not commented since 2011, when he defended his decisions in a publicly
issued letter that can be found in the federal court file. In it, he described what he
called a "yearlong assault" on prosecutors by Epstein's "army of legal superstars,"
including Roy Black, Kenneth Starr and Alan Dershowitz, among others. In four
long paragraphs, Acosta detailed how defense attorneys relentlessly worked to
manipulate the negotiation process, often frustrating prosecutors.
"They would obtain concessions as part of a negotiation and agree to proceed, only
to change their minds, and appeal the office's decision to Washington," Acosta
wrote, adding that their tactics included delving into the private family lives of
individual prosecutors in an effort to discredit them and get them removed from the
case.
Wrote Sloman: "The Herald's 'Perversion of Justice' series presented a heartrending
portrait of Epstein's victims and made a strong case that he should have gone to jail
much longer, but never explained or substantiated its accusation that we schemed
with Epstein's lawyers."
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The Herald's series quoted a trove of letters and emails between prosecutors and
Epstein's defense team that showed that Epstein's lawyers were allowed to dictate
the terms of each deal that they drew up, and prosecutors repeatedly backed down
on deadlines. The lead prosecutor, Marie Villafaria, amid the negotiations wrote to
Epstein lawyer Jay Lefkowitz: "I thought we had worked very well together in
resolving this dispute. ... I feel that I bent over backwards to keep in mind the effect
that the agreement would have on Mr. Epstein."
Where are they now? The biggest players in the Jeffrey Epstein case
The girls who were abused by Jeffrey Epstein and the cops who championed their
cause remain angry over what they regard as a gross injustice, while Epstein's
employees and those who engineered his non-prosecution agreement have
prospered.
The email chain also shows that prosecutors sometimes communicated with the
defense team using private emails, and that their correspondence referenced
discussions that they wanted to have by phone or in person so that there would be
no paper trail, the Herald found. At one point, Acosta met privately with Lefkowitz,
who came from the same Washington, D.C.-based law firm, at a Marriott hotel in
West Palm Beach, the emails showed. It was at that meeting, the records show,
when Acosta agreed to keep the deal secret.
The correspondences also show that Sloman sought several times to have Epstein's
victims notified about the deal, as required under the Crime Victims Rights Act. But
after Epstein's lawyers aggressively objected and appealed to Acosta, it never
happened.
Sloman, however, insisted that Epstein's lawyers' aggressive defense had no bearing
on the office's decision to set aside what court records show was a 53-page federal
indictment it had prepared against Epstein. Sloman said the facts dictated that
Epstein should plead guilty to what he called "a crime in state court that reflected
his true conduct," adding that the case was "at heart, a local sex case."
"It is a gross mischaracterization to describe this as a local sex case," said lawyer
Jack Scarola, a representative of several of Epstein's then-underage victims. "There
was ample evidence that Epstein was operating on a large international scale. The
involvement of the federal government was a consequence of evidence that children
were crossing national and state borders for the purpose of prostitution."
At the time that the case was closed, FBI investigators had identified nearly 40
victims — and more were coming forward — who said they had been molested or
sexually assaulted by Epstein and some of his co-conspirators. One of those victims,
Courtney Wild, told the Herald that she brought at least 6o girls to his waterfront
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Palm Beach estate over time. She wanted Epstein prosecuted — and was willing to
testify — but prosecutors never gave her the chance, she told the Herald.
In addition, FBI records show that agents had traveled to New York and New
Mexico to interview other possible victims, the Herald found. The non-prosecution
deal that was struck was filed under seal. The result was that no one — not even the
judge — would know the full scope of Epstein's crimes and how many victims were
involved.
Acosta, who now heads a federal agency with oversight of international child labor
laws and human trafficking, was personally involved in the negotiations, records,
letters and emails show.
AG nominee Barr pledges to look into handling of Epstein case
Sen. Ben Sasse questioned attorney general nominee William Barr about the Jeffrey
Epstein case on January 15, 2019, getting the nominee to commit to having the
Department of Justice look into the handling of that case if confirmed.
By C-SPAN
Sloman reiterated Acosta's earlier contention that most of Epstein's victims
wouldn't cooperate.
"So somehow, had Epstein been a child molester of one or two victims, then they
would have prosecuted him?" said Wild's attorney, Brad Edwards, in an interview
with the Herald for its series published in November. "But because he molested
hundreds of victims and some of them wouldn't testify, then they are saying, 'we
can't prosecute.' How absurd is that argument?"
Edwards tried unsuccessfully to block the plea deal in federal court. In 2008, days
after Epstein was sentenced, he filed an emergency order, alleging that the
agreement was illegal because it violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act, which
grants crime victims certain rights, including the right to confer with prosecutors
and be notified of a plea deal. The lawsuit is still pending a decade later.
"There is a reason for the Crime Victims Rights Act — so that prosecutors don't
preempt a victim's ability to speak for themselves about a proposed plea bargain,"
Scarola said. "Here, the decision was being made secretly for them."
DARREN K. INDYKE
5300 W. Atlantic Avenue, Suite 602
Delray Beach, Florida 33484
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