Jeffrey Epstein

Report: Epstein Continued “Improper Sexual Contact” While in Prison

“It’s not like he’s an out-of-control rapist,” said his lawyer.
Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge MA in 2004.
Rick Friedman/Getty Images.

Last Friday, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigned on account of his decision, as a Miami prosecutor, to offer Jeffrey Epstein a sweetheart plea deal: 13 months in custody, including work release, after being charged with running an international sex trafficking operation. The deal was generally considered an outrageous move on Acosta’s part—in February a judge said it broke the law—seeing as it gave Epstein (and his co-conspirators) immunity, concealed the agreement from more than 30 victims, and let a sexual monster serve less than a year and a half in a county jail. (Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges and registered as a sex offender.) Oh, and it also might have allowed Epstein to basically carry on business as usual while serving his extra-light sentence. Per ABC News:

Attorney Brad Edwards, who represents Epstein accuser Courtney Wild and several other alleged victims, claims that Epstein’s 13-month jail sentence—the result of a plea bargain with federal prosecutors in Florida—failed to prevent the money manager accused of sexually assaulting numerous underage girls from having “improper sexual contact” with young women.

At a Tuesday press conference in New York, Edwards said that...Epstein was allowed by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to participate in a work release program that permitted him to spend up to 16 hours a day, six days a week at an office in West Palm Beach that housed his nonprofit organization, the Florida Science Foundation. “Most of the time was spent in an office, a private office that was adjacent to his lawyer’s office all day every day,” Edwards contended at the press conference. “And what you’re going to learn is he was not sitting there conducting some scientific research for the betterment of the community, but he was having office visitors, some who were flown to him from New York and continuing to engage in similar conduct, literally while he was in ‘jail.’”

Edwards said...he had interviewed one young woman who “personally visited” Epstein at his work release office. “It was not for some business arrangement, and it was for, if you’re in jail, improper sexual contact,” said Edwards, who declined to identify the woman.

Also on Tuesday, according to the New York Post, Edwards said that “one of the questions I’ve received many, many times is what Jeffrey Epstein actually did on a daily basis. What I’m telling you is, what he did on a daily basis is engage in these types of sex acts with young adults and children,” saying, “Sex was his full-time job.” (During a Monday hearing, one of Epstein’s lawyer’s, Martin Weinberg, told a judge that his client “didn’t reengage in this activity” after pleading guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida. “It’s not like he’s an out-of-control rapist,” Weinberg added, bizarrely.)

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