Filthy Rich

CHAPTER 40

Michael Reiter: January 2006

As far as Michael Reiter’s concerned, the case that his team has built against Epstein-slowly, meticulously, over the course of an entire year-is airtight. Even now, Detective Recarey’s finding new pieces of evidence. And already Reiter’s been laying the groundwork with prosecutors. State attorney Barry Krischer has a reputation for toughness. He’s known, nationally, for his prosecution of juvenile offenders. And Reiter’s been keeping him abreast of the investigation. With Jeffrey Epstein, it’s not simply a matter of seeing him punished. It’s a matter of getting a sexual predator off the streets of Palm Beach.

Krischer assures the chief that he’s taking this case very seriously.

The state attorney’s office will have Reiter’s back at every turn.

“I told him that we had an investigation that was very serious that involved a very noteworthy person and that involved a number of underage females,” Reiter would say in his deposition for the suit that was later settled by Epstein. “That it was of a sexual nature. I was concerned that we had not reached all of the victims, and we hadn’t, I’m sure, at this point. I told him that I felt like the suspect would probably become aware of the investigation at some point and that we should probably expect some contact from…Mr. Epstein’s lawyers. And I told him that I wanted to keep him very well informed on this and that I hoped that he would do the same. And that we would have to have more contact in making sure it was handled responsibly, intelligently, and appropriately as it moved forward.”

Reiter would say that Epstein’s name did not seem to ring a bell with the state attorney. But shortly afterward, the chief became aware that in certain powerful circles his investigation was being looked upon unfavorably. “I had many people-related conversations…on the cocktail-party circuit that suggested we approach this in a way that wasn’t necessary,” he would say.

Michael Reiter was a good cop. A good man. But he was about to discover that when it came to men with the power and influence Epstein wielded, fairness under the law was a relative, malleable concept.

CHAPTER 41

Detective Recarey: February 2006

For months, Joe Recarey’s been interviewing girls who’d been brought to Epstein’s house, subpoenaing telephone and car-rental records, conducting surveillance. Ultimately, according to a source within the Palm Beach PD, the department would identify forty-seven underage girls who’d been molested on El Brillo Way.

Recarey interviewed one of Epstein’s pilots, a man named David Rogers, as well as Epstein’s houseman, Alfredo Rodriguez. He also spoke to a woman who really was a massage therapist.

It turned out that Epstein paid just one hundred dollars for actual Swedish deep-tissue massages that the therapist provided for him and his friends, the lawyer Alan Dershowitz among them.

Did anything untoward ever happen? Recarey asked. Had Epstein ever asked the woman to rub his chest?

No, she told him. She wasn’t Epstein’s type. The girls she’d seen at his house were very thin and beautiful and did not have tattoos. This massage therapist had several tattoos that were visible, and on quite a few occasions Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had made negative comments about them.

According to a Palm Beach Police Department Incident Report filed by Recarey on July 25, 2006, the detective had also heard from Mary’s father, who said that a private eye had been to his house, photographing his family and chasing visitors away.

Mary’s dad had gotten the license plate-Florida E79-4EG.

Recarey traced it back to one Ivan Robles of West Palm Beach. Robles turned out to be a licensed private investigator.

Recarey informed the state’s attorney’s office.

Alison also contacted Recarey and told him that she’d been approached by someone who was in touch with Epstein. Alison had been told that she’d receive money if she would refuse to cooperate with the police.

Those who help him will be compensated, she was told, according to Detective Recarey’s incident report. “And those who hurt him will be dealt with.”

Recarey reassured the girl and told her that tampering with a witness in a case like this was a serious, arrestable offense.

Then he told an assistant state attorney.

The detective was leaving no i undotted and no t uncrossed.

But he did wonder if the state attorney’s office itself had become part of the problem.

CHAPTER 42

Barry Krischer: April 2006

State attorney Barry Krischer was an elected official, but before taking his post, he’d been a lawyer in private practice in and around Palm Beach. Elected twice to his office, in 1992 and 1996, he had run unopposed for state attorney in 2000 and 2004. During the course of his long career, which began in 1970 with a three-year stint in the district attorney’s office in Brooklyn, he received a number of awards: the pro bono award from the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County for his service with the juvenile justice system and for his work with the child protection team; the Peace at Home award, presented by Governor Jeb Bush, for his work with victims of family violence; a lifetime achievement award from the Florida Bar. He was a board member of the National District Attorneys Association. And he was not necessarily averse to going after the rich and powerful. In 2003, he launched an investigation into Rush Limbaugh’s use of, and means of obtaining, oxycodone and hydrocodone. (A few years after Limbaugh’s arrest, which coincided with Chief Reiter’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the talk-show host settled with prosecutors, agreed to submit to random drug testing, and gave up his firearms permit.)

Krischer himself, however, had been accused of sexual misconduct.

In October of 1992, Jodi Bergeron, a legal secretary who’d worked for Krischer, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him in the Palm Beach County circuit court. That suit was dismissed, but a few months later, the woman took Krischer to federal court, accusing him of making unwanted advances and demanding recompense for battery, negligence, invasion of privacy, and emotional distress.

Krischer had placed his hands, violently, inside her blouse, the woman said. He’d forcibly fondled her breasts, forcibly kissed her, and rubbed her shoulders while brushing her buttocks with his hands and knees, all while accompanying the gestures with verbal advances.

When she declined those advances, the woman claimed, Krischer fired her.

Krischer denied the allegations. At the time, he was making his first run for the state attorney’s office. The charges were politically motivated, he said. Members of a local chapter of NOW-the National Organization for Women-had stood by the lawyer, citing his efforts to stop domestic violence, among his other virtues.

“I am here to support Barry Krischer for the work his office did in my daughter’s case,” one woman said during a rally that took place in front of the courthouse. “Her murderer received the maximum sentence, a life sentence.”

The second lawsuit had also been dismissed-after Krischer’s former law firm agreed to pay Bergeron’s attorney seven thousand dollars in legal fees.

Now Chief Reiter and Detective Recarey were beginning to have their own questions about Barry Krischer. The Palm Beach PD wanted to charge Epstein with one count of lewd and lascivious behavior and four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor-felony charges that would have amounted to years behind bars in the case of a conviction. Wendy Dobbs and Sarah Kellen would be charged as accomplices.

This was not the plan that Krischer seemed to have in mind for Jeffrey Epstein.

In cases involving the sexual abuse of minors, prosecuting attorneys tend to have suspects arrested, then push for a trial. But instead of granting his approval for an arrest, Krischer told the police that he would convene a grand jury, which would be asked to consider a broad range of charges.

In a case such as Epstein’s, this was highly unusual. Not damning in and of itself. But very strange. In Florida, grand juries are only required in capital cases. At the state attorney’s discretion, they may also be called in controversial cases-for instance, cases involving crimes committed by public officials. But Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t a public official, and as far as the Palm Beach PD was concerned, the only controversial thing about the case they’d built was that Epstein was rich and well connected. In his deposition for B.B. vs. Epstein, Chief Reiter rel ayed Krischer’s concerns: the prosecutor had to make sure that his case was solid, beyond a reasonable doubt. And Krischer did have his doubts about the credibility of the young women who’d be called to testify against Epstein.

Even so, Reiter was beginning to wonder if Krischer was stacking the deck in Epstein’s favor-if, thanks to the sway prosecutors have over grand juries, assembling such a jury wasn’t an excellent way to let Epstein off with the lightest punishment possible.

Another unusual thing: the way Barry Krischer and the lawyers working for him ignored Chief Reiter’s multiple phone calls as well as Detective Recarey’s-even though the police had been hearing from Epstein’s own lawyers.

“[Krischer] and I had an excellent relationship,” Chief Reiter said in his deposition. “I was the speaker at his swearing-in ceremony. And that he wouldn’t return my phone calls-I mean, it was clear to me by his actions that he could not objectively look at this case.”

In the incident report he ended up writing, Detective Recarey remembered a phone call that he received from Guy Fronstin, one of the lawyers representing Epstein.

It was a message Epstein wanted to send, something central to the case that demanded explanation. The whole shit show swirling around him was just a misunderstanding-a misrepresentation-of Epstein’s actual interests and intentions.

Fronstin says Mr. Epstein is very passionate about massages, Detective Recarey would write.

And: Mr. Epstein had donated over $100,000 to the Ballet of Florida for massages.

And: The massages are therapeutic and spiritually sound for him. That is why he has had so many massages.

CHAPTER 43

Palm Beach Police Department Incident Report Filed by Detective Joseph Recarey: July 25, 2006

On April 13 and April 14, 2006, I attempted contact on several occasions with ASA [assistant state attorney Daliah] Weiss and ASA [Lanna] Belohlavek to ascertain when the victims needed to report for Grand Jury testimony. Messages were left on their voicemail. On April 17, 2006, during the hours of 9:00 am and 11:30 am I again left messages for ASA Weiss and ASA Belohlavek for either of them to return my call as I had not heard from the State Attorney’s Office as to the time and date of the Grand Jury.

At approximately 12:30 pm, I went to the State Attorney’s Office and Located ASA Weiss and ASA Belohlavek in their offices. I entered ASA Belohlavek’s office who informed me that she was going to return my call. She explained that an offer was made to the Defense, Atty Guy Fronstin and Atty Alan Dershowitz. The offer is 1 count of Agg Assault with intent to commit a felony, five years probation, with adjudication withheld. Epstein would have to submit to psychiatric/sexual evaluation and no unsupervised visits with minors. When asked about all the other victims, ASA Belohlavek stated that was the only offer made as to one victim, [Mary]. ASA Belohlavek[’s] cell phone rang and went to voice mail. She checked her voice mail and played the message on speaker. The caller identified himself as Atty Guy Fronstin and acknowledged the deal made between them. Fronstin stated in the message, he spoke with his client, Jeffrey Epstein, and would agree to this deal. Fronstin asked to call off the grand jury as they would accept this deal. Belohlavek stated a probable cause would be needed to book Epstein in the county Jail and would let me know as to when it was needed. I explained my disapproval of the deal and not being consulted prior to the deal being offered. However I expressed that was only my opinion and the final approval would come from the Chief of Police. She explained to have Chief Reiter call Barry Krischer about the deal. I left the area and returned to the police station where I briefed the Chief about the deal offered.

I checked my voice mail messages and discovered a message from [the] stepmother for the victim [Mary]. She was calling because the State Attorney’s Office still had not returned any of her calls as to when they are needed for this case. I then called ASA Belohlavek’s office and left messages for her to call the victims on this case and explain to them what the State Attorney’s Office had done.

CHAPTER 44

Michael Reiter: May 2006

A plea offer?

Chief Reiter is outraged. His team has logged thou-sands of hours of work. They’ve assembled mountains of evidence. But instead of going to trial, the state attorney wants to see Epstein get off with a misdemeanor, five years of probation, and a psych exam.

Why?

Alan Dershowitz has presented the prosecutors with his own pieces of evidence-printouts from the victims’ Myspace pages.

In her “About Me” column, under “Best physical feature,” Mary has written “Ass and eyes.”

Under “Ever drank” and “Ever smoked pot,” she’s written “Yeah.”

Under “Ever shoplifted”: “Lots.”

Under “Ever skinny dipped”: “Yeah.”

Under “[Do] you wanna lose your virginity”: “I already lost it.”

One of the victims has been caught with drugs and arrested. She’s also been caught stealing from Victoria’s Secret. From the state attorney’s perspective, these girls look like compromised women. And if what they say about Epstein is true, wouldn’t that make them prostitutes?

As witnesses, they would be weak, while the lawyers on Epstein’s side were exceptionally strong.

Alan Dershowitz had represented Claus von Bülow, the British socialite who was acquitted of the murder of his wife, Sunny. Dershowitz had been on O. J. Simpson’s team when the former football star was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and Nicole’s friend Ronald Lyle Goldman. And rich as von Bülow and Simpson had been, neither one had had the resources that Epstein was willing and able to deploy in his own defense.

Neither of them had been intimate friends with his lawyer.

As far as Reiter was concerned, none of that mattered. Even if Epstein thought that the girls he’d molested were eighteen years old-even if they had lied to him-it didn’t matter under Florida law. The chief grew worried that in Epstein’s case exceptions were being made, and he grew even more concerned with each unreturned call that he made to the state attorney’s office.

On May 1, the Palm Beach PD asked the state attorney’s office to issue an arrest warrant for Jeffrey Epstein.

That same day, Chief Reiter took the extraordinary step of writing Barry Krischer a letter all but demanding that he recuse himself from the case.

CHAPTER 45

Videotaped Deposition of Michael Reiter in B.B. vs. Epstein, a civil lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein: November 23, 2009

Q:At some point you sent a letter to state attorney Barry Krischer. Let me show you what we’ll mark as exhibit 3. Let me give you a chance to read through this letter again to help refresh your recollection.

A:I’ve read it.

Q:At this point, in May of 2006, I’m assuming based on what you told us before that you had had some conversations with Barry Krischer directly…by phone-correct?-prior to this letter.

A:I had conversations in person and by phone.

Q:Okay. But nonetheless in May-May 1, 2006-you felt the need to write this letter; is that correct?

A:Yes.

Q:Can you tell us why?

A:Well, I felt the handling-and just continued to feel that the way the state attorney’s office handled this case was extremely unusual. I knew that Mr. Krischer was making decisions about this case. I felt that his objectivity was lacking, and I felt that the appropriate way, after reading the statute that governed the assignment of cases to other circuits-I felt that his action met the standard. I used some of the words from the statute in here. And I attempted to call him, and he wouldn’t return my phone calls.

The detective attempted to contact-his contact in the state attorney’s office, Lanna Belohlavek, however you pronounce that…and she wouldn’t return his calls. So I wrote the letter in hope that he would think about his situation and realize that his objectivity was insufficient to prosecute the case and ask the governor to appoint someone else. And I felt like that was necessary for a fair prosecution of our case that had been submitted to him.

Q:Could you tell us, explain to us, why you felt that his objectivity may be lacking in regards to this prosecution…? In other words, what evidence did you see here, uncover, that you felt made it potentially nonobjective?

A:Well…when I first told him about the case, and I realized that it was a serious case, [that] there were multiple victims, [and] that the suspect was very well known, I told him about it. And we were-it was in person. I talked to him after a meeting that he and I were both involved in. And I had known him to be a victim advocate and to protect the rights of children. Well, I know that he even wrote a portion of the statute that addresses those issues. And when I told him originally, he said, “Let’s go for it; this is an adult male in his fifties who’s had sexual contact with children of the ages of the victims.” He said this is somebody who we have to stop. And whatever we need, he said, in the state attorney’s office, we have a unit that’s equipped to investigate and prosecute these kinds of cases. And I didn’t have too many facts early on when I talked with him, but I knew that there were multiple victims and to our detectives they were believable. So when time went on and Mr. Epstein became aware of the investigation and his lawyers contacted the state attorney’s office, they told me that.

And from that point on, and I believe it was Mr. Dershowitz initially, the tone and tenor of the discussions of this case with Mr. Krischer changed completely. [At] one point he suggested that we write [Epstein] a notice to appear, which would be for a misdemeanor. He just completely changed from not only our first conversation about this[-when] he didn’t know the name Jeffrey Epstein-till when he had been informed on Mr. Epstein’s reputation and his wealth, and I just thought that very unusual.

I feel like I know him or knew him very well, the state attorney, and I just felt like he could not objectively make decisions about this case: that is why I wrote it.

CHAPTER 46

Detective Recarey: May 2006

Chief Reiter’s letter to the state attorney had no perceptible effect.

Krischer did not recuse himself from the case. No arrest warrant was issued. And on the afternoon of May 3, Detective Recarey received a telephone call from assistant state attorney Daliah Weiss, who advised him that she had been taken off the Epstein case.

Weiss had been the perfect person to prosecute Epstein. As a member of the special victims unit, she focused on sex crimes and crimes against children, prosecuting high-profile cases involving rape, aggravated child abuse, and neglect. But Epstein had added another lawyer, a man named Jack Goldberger, and made Goldberger his attorney of record.

Goldberger was friendly with Barry Krischer-and an associate of Goldberger’s was married to Daliah Weiss.

If Epstein’s legal team had wanted to remove Weiss from the case, this would have been a good way to do it.

Nine days later, Detective Recarey met with ASA Lanna Belohlavek, who told him that her boss, Barry Krischer, had asked her again to take the case to the grand jury. Recarey told Belohlavek that he had already requested arrest warrants for Epstein, Sarah Kellen, and Wendy Dobbs. The Palm Beach PD had finished its investigation months earlier, he said, and had been waiting since then for the case to move forward. He asked her once more to issue the warrants. Once again Belohlavek declined, saying that the original offer her office had made to Epstein’s old lawyer had been resubmitted to the new lawyer. When Epstein’s reply came, she would call.

While waiting for that call, Recarey received several calls from Mary’s father, who told him that he was being followed by a green Chevrolet Monte Carlo-tailed so aggressively that other vehicles were being run off the road. Recarey ran the plates and found that the Chevy was registered to one Zachary Bechard of Jupiter, Florida.

Bechard was a licensed private eye.

“A funny thing happened in Palm Beach,” says Tim Malloy, who was working as a TV newscaster in South Florida at the time.

“This would have been right around the time that Michael Reiter sent his letter asking Barry Krischer to recuse himself from the case. I didn’t even know what Epstein looked like, really, at the time. We had pictures taken by the British tabloids, where the link to Prince Andrew first broke. But we didn’t have too many of them. What we did have was a contact in the hangar where Epstein kept his 727.

“I don’t know how much you know about Palm Beach International Airport. It’s the kind of place that has private hangars, valet parking, and waiting lounges that look as chic as anything you’ll see in Manhattan. It’s an airport for the rich, basically. Saudi princes, heads of state. Powerful men who value their privacy. You can bring limousines onto the tarmac. And we found out Epstein was very secretive about his dealings there. He didn’t want anyone to know the tail numbers on his planes.

“But our contact didn’t like Epstein. And he was horrified by how young the girls around Epstein were. So thanks to him, we had the 727’s tail number, and thanks to one other source-someone I won’t say too much about here-we had Epstein’s flight plan for a certain trip he was making. We knew he was going to land at the airport. And so our producer climbed into the station’s traffic helicopter and told the pilot to hover at five hundred feet a quarter mile south of the field.

“Our cameraman had a telephoto lens. The idea was to get a tight shot, on video, of Epstein deplaning. And for a moment we did get the shot: Epstein, with the collar of his cashmere coat flipped up over his neck, about to run down the steps into a cart that was waiting for him.

“Then he saw our helicopter, with the station’s markings.

“I was doing a live voice-over on Epstein’s arrival. It was the first video anyone had on him up to that point. But Epstein had run back onto the plane. Then, during the next commercial break, my producer told me through my headpiece: ‘Jeffrey Epstein wants us to stop taking his picture. In fact, he wants to talk to you.’

“The cameraman kept rolling. And eventually Epstein got out, got into a car with tinted windows, and was driven over the bridge to his home in Palm Beach. So in a sense we failed to get the story. But the fact that Epstein would call a news program from his plane and command them to order the program’s traffic helicopter away-that says something about the man’s arrogance. And maybe his temper.”

CHAPTER 47

Mary: July 2006

On June 29, assistant state attorney Lanna Belohlavek told Detective Recarey that despite his protestations, the case would be going to a grand jury after all. One had been convened for July 19.

On July 12, Recarey spoke with Mary’s stepmother, who said that she still hadn’t heard from the state attorney’s office. This, too, was odd, since Recarey knew that Mary would be called upon to testify.

She was back in Palm Beach now, after months of living with out-of-state relatives.

All in all, it had been a very tough year for Mary.

“What has happened to my daughter’s life is criminal,” her father would say.

Mary had been sent to a school for troubled children. For her it was the wrong place at the worst time in her life. She had gotten into more fights there, growing depressed and withdrawn from her sister and parents. Helplessly, her parents watched her spiral out of control. As they neared the end of their rope, they sent her out of state. But after the move, Mary had fallen apart completely. She used drugs, fell in with a bad crowd, ran away from her relatives, and shacked up with a gang of drug dealers.

When the gang was busted by local police, the dealers blamed Mary for snitching and put out the word that they wanted her dead.

“We had to move her again,” Mary’s father explained. “We finally got her into therapy-she’s still seeing the therapist. And worst of all, she developed HPV. She’s already had to have a serious operation.”

Mary’s troubles didn’t end there. On June 28, she was brought in front of the grand jury. She hadn’t been briefed by the state attorney-she hadn’t even met the prosecutors-and she had no idea what she would be asked.

Almost immediately, she found that she was being treated more like a criminal than like a witness or victim.

“The prosecutor produced a printout of our daughter’s Myspace page,” Mary’s father recalls. “Mary was stunned. She began to cry. The prosecutor accused her of all sort of things; it was like she was working for Epstein.

“All this time, we knew that we were being watched. Creepy guys. Private investigators from Miami. They would follow us, scaring the hell out of my wife and Mary’s sister. My car was vandalized. It was like living in hell.”

By this point, Epstein’s defense dream team included Jack Goldberger, Alan Dershowitz, and Gerald Lefcourt. All of them had excellent track records. Dershowitz and Lefcourt were two of America’s most famous lawyers, and before long, another celebrity lawyer-Ken Starr, the former solicitor general who had had Bill Clinton impeached for perjury-would join Epstein’s team.

As far as Mary’s parents were concerned, their daughter had walked into an ambush. Everyone in the courtroom seemed to be playing defense on the side of Jeffrey Epstein. And as for the second girl-Alison, who claimed that she had been raped-she never testified in court at all.

CHAPTER 48

Michael Reiter: July 2006

On July 28, the grand jury reached a verdict that floored the Palm Beach PD.

The original plea deal that Krischer had offered to Epstein had been bad enough. Now the grand jury was recommending that Epstein be charged with just one felony count of solicitation of prostitution.

There was no mention of underage girls. The original accusation-four felony counts of unlawful sex acts with minors and one felony count of lewd and lascivious molestation-had simply evaporated.

It wasn’t enough to send Epstein to prison.

Epstein was allowed to surrender on a Sunday, when no one would know he’d been arraigned. A few hours later, he was released on three thousand dollars bail.

The Palm Beach PD was not even notified.

Once again, Chief Reiter was outraged. So much so that he took the extraordinary step of calling the FBI and the federal prosecutor’s office.

At the time, the federal prosecutor of the Southern District of Florida was a Republican named R. Alexander Acosta. Chief Reiter recalls being present at Acosta’s swearing-in ceremony and remembers Acosta’s declaration that one of his goals would be the prosecution, to the fullest extent of the law, of anyone who takes advantage of the weak-especially perpetrators of sex crimes. Disgusted with Krischer’s laissez-faire attitude, Reiter recalls thinking he’d found his man.

In Acosta, the chief saw a prosecutor who wouldn’t shy away from confronting a man with Jeffrey Epstein’s resources and connections.

But it turned out that Acosta had worked under Ken Starr at Starr’s high-powered multinational law firm, Kirkland & Ellis. And while Acosta had a sterling résumé, which included a stint clerking for future Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, he had only argued two cases before a judge.

At the time, Reiter did not know this. All he knew was that someone had to look much more seriously into Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.

Reiter’s actions did not necessarily make him a hero-at least, not in every corner of the community he served.

“I had individuals suggest that the department’s approach to the investigation and my referral of the investigation to the FBI was more horsepower than the investigation deserved. And I had other individuals suggest that-yeah, the term ‘back off’ probably fits,” Reiter said in his deposition for B.B. vs. Epstein.

“I had people in the community in Palm Beach who either made comments directly to me or to others who relayed them to me that I didn’t need to take the tack in the investigation that we did, which is [to] completely investigate it and then refer it to the FBI after the state case was resolved,” Reiter said in the deposition. “I had one individual who came to see me a couple of times about this.”

According to the chief, the individual in question was a prominent Palm Beach politician.

“He said this wasn’t necessary; this was a case that was really very minor,” Reiter recalled. “The victims had lifestyles that don’t make them-shouldn’t make them believable to the police department.”

“I told him that those kinds of suggestions to me were improper and he should stop,” said Reiter. “That he had taken a couple of steps down the road toward something that could eventually constitute a crime. We talked several times. Early on it didn’t end favorably. You know, this is an individual [whom] I had to interact with in my official capacity and in his official capacity as well.”

The Palm Beach politician wasn’t the only one to pressure the police chief. “I received comments from a variety of different viewpoints…in some cases I had people tell me, hey, he’s a Palm Beacher, why are you investigating a Palm Beacher?” Reiter would say when deposed. “I had people that said it was an unfavorable career move for me to ask the state attorney to remove himself from the case and to refer it to the FBI…I had plenty of people that told me that that was a mistake.”

Reiter didn’t back off. To have done so would have been a betrayal-not only of the victims but also of his vocation and the community he had sworn he would serve.

“My responsibility was to protect everyone that lives in Palm Beach and preserve their constitutional rights and be the police department for all,” Reiter said. “And I think that under the law, particularly under the criminal laws, that all people have to, by the nature of our system, be treated exactly alike.”

But along with handing the case off to the FBI and the US attorney, Reiter took another unusual step. He wrote personal letters-on Palm Beach PD letterhead-to the parents of the victims in the case.

He delivered the letters by hand.

CHAPTER 49

Jeffrey Epstein: September 2007

In the winter of 2013, Scott Blake, a forty-seven-year-old middle school principal from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, would be sentenced to the minimum mandatory sentence-ten years in prison, with ten years of probation on top-for pleading guilty to one charge of soliciting sex with a minor.

Blake’s crime? He sent sexually charged messages to a Boynton Beach police officer who was pretending to be a fifteen-year-old boy. But in a sense, Blake was lucky: he could have been sentenced to life. The case was an interesting example of the kind of treatment regular Florida folks could expect just for soliciting sex with a minor. But nothing about Jeffrey Epstein was regular-and the plea deal he managed to strike in 2007 was simply extraordinary.

Epstein had bought himself one of the best defense teams ever assembled. His connections and contributions to Democratic causes had made him a player on that side of the political aisle. He had a famous Republican, Bill Clinton’s nemesis, Ken Starr, working the other side. And just to make sure they’d covered the bases, Epstein’s team also recruited Roy Black-the lawyer who’d cleared William Kennedy Smith of rape and kept Rush Limbaugh out of prison for his alleged illegal drug use-and Jay Lefkowitz, a defense attorney who’d worked with US attorney R. Alexander Acosta at Ken Starr’s law firm.

And so in September, the US attorney’s office reached a formal agreement with Epstein’s team: the United States would defer federal prosecution in favor of prosecution by the state of Florida.

A non-prosecution agreement (NPA) was drafted; among other things, it assured Epstein that he would not be prosecuted in the Southern District of Florida for felony offenses involving the sexual abuse of underage girls. (By that point, thirty known victims had been discovered.) Instead it allowed him to plead guilty to state felony offenses for solicitation of prostitution and the procurement of minors for prostitution. The NPA established a procedure that allowed Epstein’s victims to sue him in civil court and took the extraordinary step of ensuring that “any potential co-conspirators” of Epstein’s would be immune from prosecution.

“In consideration of Epstein’s agreement to plead guilty and to provide compensation in the manner described above, if Epstein successfully fulfills all of the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein,” the agreement stated, mentioning Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marcinkova by name.

“The parties anticipate that this agreement will not be made part of any public record,” the document concludes. “If the United States receives a Freedom of Information Act request or any compulsory process commanding the disclosure of the agreement, it will provide notice to Epstein before making that disclosure.”

Remarkably, despite assurances they’d received from the feds, none of the victims was consulted prior to the drafting of this NPA.

If Epstein did not sign the agreement, he faced a fifty-seven-count indictment and a decade or more in prison. But Epstein’s team of lawyers had gotten him a deal so sweet it could have rotted all the teeth in South Florida.

For all his protestations of innocence, there was every reason in the world to agree to an NPA.

On September 24, 2007, Epstein did sign it.

Once again, none of the victims had been consulted or notified.

CHAPTER 50

Jane Doe: February 2008

As a result of the non-prosecution agreement, a fifty-three-count indictment that federal prosecutors had prepared against Jeffrey Epstein-one that claimed he’d abused dozens of underage women-never was filed.

But as far as lawyers representing Epstein’s victims were concerned, the fact that those victims were not consulted about the non-prosecution agreement was inexcusable. The “government deliberately kept crime victims ‘in the dark’ so that it could enter into a plea arrangement designed to prevent the victims from raising any objections,” they would argue, in documents filed on February 10, 2016. For nine months, the lawyers claimed, from the time that the NPA was signed, on September 24, 2007, Krischer’s office, “doing Epstein’s bidding, [had] concealed the NPA’s existence from victim[s]” and continued to do so until the moment that Epstein had to plead guilty in court, which he finally did June 30, 2008.

In the interim, according to their lawyers, Epstein’s victims were only told, “This case is currently under investigation.”

A lawsuit that Bradley Edwards, a victims’ rights attorney in Fort Lauderdale, filed in July of 2008 cited the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, or CVRA (title 18, section 3771, of the US Code), which states that “victims of federal crimes have rights, including the right to be heard in court, and most particularly, not to be precluded from court proceedings, and the right to be treated fairly.”

According to him, prosecutors had violated the CVRA rights of the victims. Edwards, who said he was working pro bono, knew that this suit against the government would not allow for monetary recovery of any sort (including lawyers’ fees). But he also knew that if the government, urged by Jeffrey Epstein, had entered into a contract that improperly or illegally violated the rights of Epstein’s victims, then that contract, by nature, would have been improper in and of itself-in which case, the only remedy would have been to have the contract invalidated. And while it is difficult to know what, exactly, would happen if the contract is overturned, one possibility is that the government could prosecute Epstein for crimes against his victims, if the statute of limitations on those crimes has not expired.

At the time of this writing, that case is winding its way through the courts. It has all the earmarks of a modern-day Bleak House-the Charles Dickens novel about a legal case that is so massive and so complex that it drags on forever and drags everyone involved into the mire.

In the meantime, Epstein began to settle out of court with his victims.

In February of 2008, a Virginia woman who went by the alias Jane Doe #2 brought a fifty-million-dollar lawsuit against Epstein.

At the time of their meeting, she claimed, Epstein was fifty-two years old. She was a teenager, and her complaint, which was made public, gave the rest of the world an early glimpse of what Epstein, and the inner workings of his secret world, looked like from a victim’s perspective.

“Epstein is a financier and money manager with a secret clientele limited exclusively to billionaires,” the lawsuit alleged. “He is himself a man of tremendous wealth, power and influence. He maintains his principal home in New York and also owns residences in New Mexico, St. Thomas and Palm Beach, FL. The allegations herein concern Epstein’s conduct while at his lavish estate in Palm Beach.” The complaint continued:

Upon information and belief, Epstein has a sexual preference and obsession for underage minor girls. He engaged in a plan and scheme in which he gained access to primarily economically disadvantaged minor girls in his home, sexually assaulted these girls, and then gave them money. In or about 2004-2005, Jane Doe, then approximately 16 years old, fell into Epstein’s trap and became one of his victims.

Upon information and belief, Jeffrey Epstein carried out his schemes and assaulted girls in Florida, New York, and on his private Island, known as Little St. James, in St. Thomas.

Epstein’s scheme involved the use of young girls to recruit underage girls. (Upon information and belief, the young girl who brought Jane Doe to Epstein was herself a minor victim of Epstein, and will therefore not be named in this Complaint.) Under Epstein’s plan, underage girls were recruited ostensibly to give a wealthy man a massage for monetary compensation in his Palm Beach mansion. The recruiter would be contacted when Epstein was planning to be at his Palm Beach residence or soon after he had arrived there. Epstein or someone on his behalf would direct the recruiter to bring one or more underage girls to the residence. The recruiter, upon information and belief, generally sought out economically disadvantaged underaged girls from western Palm Beach County who would be enticed by the money being offered-generally $200 to $300 per “massage” session-and who were perceived as less likely to complain to authorities or have credibility if allegations of improper conduct were made. This was an important element of Epstein’s plan.

Epstein’s plan reflected a particular pattern and method. Upon arrival at Epstein’s mansion, the underaged victim would be introduced to Sarah Kellen, Epstein’s assistant, who gathered the girl’s personal information, including her name and telephone number. Ms. Kellen would then bring the girl up a flight of stairs to a bedroom that contained a massage table in addition to other furnishings. There were photographs of nude women lining the stairway hall and in the bedroom. The girl would then find herself alone in the room with Epstein, who would be wearing only a towel. He would then remove his towel and lie naked on the massage table, and direct the girl to remove her clothes. Epstein would then perform one or more lewd, lascivious and sexual acts, including masturbation and touching the girl’s vagina.

Consistent with the foregoing plan and scheme, Jane Doe was recruited to give Epstein a massage for monetary compensation. Jane was brought to Epstein’s mansion in Palm Beach. Once at the mansion, Jane was introduced to Sarah Kellen, who led her up the flight of stairs to the room with the massage table. In this room, Epstein told Jane to take off her clothes and give him a massage. Jane kept her panties and bra on and complied with Epstein’s instructions. Epstein wore only a towel around his waste [sic]. After a short period of time, Epstein removed the towel and rolled over exposing his penis. Epstein began to masturbate and he sexually assaulted Jane.

After Epstein had completed the assault, Jane was then able to get dressed, leave the room and go back down the stairs. Jane was paid $200 by Epstein. The young girl who recruited Jane was paid $100 by Epstein for bringing Jane to him.

As a result of this encounter with Epstein, Jane experienced confusion, shame, humiliation and embarrassment, and has suffered severe psychological and emotional injuries.

CHAPTER 51

Jeffrey Epstein: June 30, 2008

On June 30, 2008, more than three years after the start of Officer Pagan’s investigation into his dealings with underage girls, Jeffrey Epstein reported to the Palm Beach County jail.

A few days earlier, Epstein had taken a phone call from the New York Times. At the time, he’d been working, or vacationing (the line having long since blurred), at his compound on Little Saint Jeff’s.

“I respect the legal process,” Epstein had said. “I will abide by this.”

He’d spent years fighting the charges-fighting the state, then the federal government, in an effort to avoid a sentence that would have seen him emerge from prison an old man. But the battle had aged him. Mellowed him, even. Months earlier, he had all but boasted to a journalist from New York magazine.

“It’s the Icarus story, someone who flies too close to the sun,” that journalist said in reference to “the agony” of Epstein’s legal “ordeal.”

“Did Icarus like massages?” Epstein responded.

But after Epstein’s indictment, there were no more boasts. For the most part, he kept silent in public and retreated into his Eyes Wide Shut world. And when the New York Times did manage to get him to speak on the record, he spoke like a chastened man.

Sitting on his patio down on Little St. James, Epstein likened himself to the shipwrecked Gulliver after he washes ashore on Lilliput.

“Gulliver’s playfulness had unintended consequences,” he said.

On the eve of his departure, he had a few more things to say:

“That is what happens with wealth. There are unexpected burdens as well as benefits…”

“Your body can be confined, but not your mind…”

“I am not blameless…”

Outside of the agreement he’d signed with the prosecutor’s office, this was the closest Epstein had come to admitting his guilt. But strange details were sprinkled throughout the story. He had formed a “board of directors of friends” who would counsel him on his behavior. And, seemingly for the first time, he’d hired a full-time masseur-a man.

Readers of the New York Times might have wondered: Epstein was going to jail for eighteen months. What need would he have for a full-time masseur?

The story’s last line hinted at the answer: in preparation for incarceration, Epstein had set up an e-mail alert.

From then on, his automatic reply would read “On vacation.”

PART VIncarceration

CHAPTER 52

Jeffrey Epstein: June 30, 2008

The Palm Beach County Main Detention Center is on the west side of Lake Worth Lagoon, which separates West Palm Beach from the island of Palm Beach. Epstein’s home on El Brillo Way is five miles to the east. Mary’s high school is several miles to the west.

It’s fitting, somehow, that this jail-which is the jail Epstein ends up in, after turning himself in to the local sheriff-lies in between the two points.

The detention center’s inmates, their families, and their lawyers call it the Gun Club, a reference not only to the jail’s address, on Gun Club Road, but also to its population of hustlers, burglars, drug dealers, rapists, and murderers. There’s the occasional hooker as well. And, from time to time, Haitian refugees are lodged there.

There are three thousand inmates in all.

Some wait a year before making their way to the courthouse, their date with the public defender, and an appearance before the judge. Some get out much sooner, if only they can make bail. But there’s no bail without money-or at least collateral-and, of course, being without money is often what lands people in jail in the first place.

Jeffrey Epstein could have posted bail for every single inmate in the Gun Club.

But that’s just one of the ways in which Epstein is unlike his fellow inmates. He’s an admitted pedophile now. Even a famous one.

And, famously, pedophiles tend to fare poorly in jail.

Luckily for Epstein, Ric Bradshaw, the sheriff in charge of local jails, transfers Epstein to the infirmary, where he spends exactly one night before being transferred seven miles up the road to a much smaller, safer location: the Palm Beach County Central Detention Center-or, as it’s known, the Stockade.

“It’s not somewhere we’d put a serial killer,” Ric Bradshaw says.

Most of the residents here are addicts who take part in drug education programs, prostitutes, petty criminals, and drunks. It’s a far safer place for Epstein to be, and, unlike other inmates (except, of course, those being held in solitary), he’ll end up with his own cell, even his own wing, which he has to himself. Epstein’s allowed to pay for a security guard, who sits outside the cell and keeps watch. And he’s allowed any number of visitors.

For a convicted felon, it’s an extraordinary benefits package.

But according to Sheriff Bradshaw, who also oversees the Stockade, Epstein is incredulous over the treatment he is receiving.

“He was astonished that he had to go to prison at all,” Bradshaw remembers.

“Let’s just say he didn’t think he belonged there.”

CHAPTER 53

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw: June 2015

Our job,” says Ric Bradshaw, “was to make sure nobody killed him.”

Sheriff Bradshaw could have stepped off the set of a Western. Imposingly tall, with his cowboy hat, Kurt Russell mustache, and slow, southern drawl, he looks exactly like an old-school law officer-the kind you once would have found patrolling the streets of Tombstone, Deadwood, or Dodge City. He’s been a lawman for forty-four years, eleven of which have been spent as the head of the county’s jails. As a rule, he doesn’t talk to the media, and today, as he talks about Jeffrey Epstein, he’s clearly uncomfortable, fidgety, and ill disposed.

But here in his wood-paneled office on the first floor of the Gun Club, Bradshaw remembers Epstein quite well.

“We have a thousand sexual predators in the county,” he says. “When he arrived here, he was one of them. He definitely fit the category we have to ensure the general population is not going to take their anger out on.”

Although he understands that Epstein is a sex offender and has a sense of the scope of his alleged crimes, Bradshaw’s also aware that the actual conviction was for a “low-level felony.” At the request of Epstein’s attorneys-a request that is confirmed by a court order-Epstein is quickly granted “work release.”

What it means in practice is that six days a week, for up to sixteen-sixteen!-hours each day, Epstein is allowed to leave the Stockade to be driven by a designated driver in a car earmarked especially for him to any one of three places: his lawyer Jack Goldberger’s office in downtown West Palm Beach, the Palm Beach office of a science foundation that he’s established, and his house on El Brillo Way.

Despite the ankle bracelet he wears, it could be argued that as a fabulously rich prisoner with two of his own jets parked nearby, at the Palm Beach International Airport, Epstein might have posed a flight risk.

Instead, every day of the week save one, he’s allowed to go to his lawyer’s, to go to his office, or simply to go home.

Did the deputy in charge of Epstein go to the house on El Brillo Way?

Ric Bradshaw considers the question.

“Yes,” he says, “he did.”

Did the deputy go inside the house?

“Yes, he did.”

If so, the deputy might have encountered Nadia Marcinkova, who was staying on El Brillo Way at the time. He may also have met a suave short-haired gentleman who spoke with a distinct French accent.

That would be Jean-Luc Brunel.

For the duration of Jeffrey Epstein’s stay-or half stay-in the Stockade, Brunel’s taken up residence in the house on El Brillo Way.

CHAPTER 54

Jeffrey Epstein: June 30, 2008-July 21, 2009

According to Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, the treatment Jeffrey Epstein received in the Stockade was not preferential. By some measures, he isn’t wrong.

In 2010, millionaire polo mogul John Goodman killed a young man while driving drunk. He was convicted but was allowed to spend two years under house arrest while his appeal was being tried.

Like Epstein, Goodman was allowed visitors. But Goodman’s visitor list was nothing like Jeffrey Epstein’s.

Nadia Marcinkova is said to have visited Epstein in jail more than seventy times.

Epstein’s assistant Sarah Kellen also visited Epstein in the Stockade.

A Russian mixed martial artist named Igor “Houdini” Zinoviev was another visitor, as was a disbarred lawyer and financial fraudster named Arnold Prosperi, whose own prison sentence had been commuted by Bill Clinton on the day before Clinton left office.

Sheriff Bradshaw wants to be clear: none of these visits was conjugal.

But even US attorney Acosta, who negotiated Epstein’s unusual agreement with the government, would say that Epstein’s arrangement was highly irregular.

“Epstein appears to have received highly unusual treatment while in jail,” Acosta would say in a letter addressed to the general public. “Although the terms of confinement in a state prison are a matter appropriately left to the state of Florida and not federal authorities, without doubt, the treatment that he received while in state custody undermined the purpose of a jail sentence.”

And, of course, Epstein’s stay at the Stockade was subsidized by taxpayers.

CHAPTER 55

R. Alexander Acosta’s letter to the general public, March 20, 2011

To whom it may concern:

I served as U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida from 2005 through 2009. Over the past weeks, I have read much regarding Mr. Jeffrey Epstein. Some appears true, some appears distorted. I thought it appropriate to provide some background, with two caveats: (i) under Justice Department guidelines, I cannot discuss privileged internal communications among department attorneys and (ii) I no longer have access to the original documents, and as the matter is now nearly 4 years old, the precision of memory is reduced.

The Epstein matter was originally presented to the Palm Beach County State Attorney. Palm Beach Police alleged that Epstein unlawfully hired underage high-school females to provide him sexually lewd and erotic massages. Police sought felony charges that would have resulted in a term of imprisonment. According to press reports, however, in 2006 the State Attorney, in part due to concerns regarding the quality of the evidence, agreed to charge Epstein only with one count of aggravated assault with no intent to commit a felony. That charge would have resulted in no jail time, no requirement to register as a sexual offender and no restitution for the underage victims.

Local police were dissatisfied with the State Attorney’s conclusions, and requested a federal investigation. Federal authorities received the State’s evidence and engaged in additional investigation. Prosecutors weighed the quality of the evidence and the likelihood for success at trial. With a federal case, there were two additional considerations. First, a federal criminal prosecution requires that the crime be more than local; it must have an interstate nexus. Second, as the matter was initially charged by the state, the federal responsibility is, to some extent, to back-stop state authorities to ensure that there is no miscarriage of justice, and not to also prosecute federally that which has already been charged at the state level.

After considering the quality of the evidence and the additional considerations, prosecutors concluded that the state charge was insufficient. In early summer 2007, the prosecutors and agents in this case met with Mr. Epstein’s attorney, Roy Black. Mr. Black is perhaps best known for his successful defense of William Kennedy Smith. The prosecutors presented Epstein a choice: plead to more serious state felony charges (that would result in 2 years’ imprisonment, registration as a sexual offender, and restitution for the victims) or else prepare for a federal felony trial.

What followed was a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors. I use the word assault intentionally, as the defense in this case was more aggressive than any which I, or the prosecutors in my office, had previously encountered. Mr. Epstein hired an army of legal superstars: Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, former Judge and then Pepperdine Law Dean Kenneth Starr, former Deputy Assistant to the President and then Kirkland & Ellis Partner Jay Lefkowitz, and several others, including prosecutors who had formerly worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department. Defense attorneys next requested a meeting with me to challenge the prosecution and the terms previously presented by the prosecutors in their meeting with Mr. Black. The prosecution team and I met with defense counsel in Fall 2007, and I reaffirmed the office’s position: two years, registration and restitution, or trial.

Over the next several months, the defense team presented argument after argument claiming that felony criminal proceedings against Epstein were unsupported by the evidence and lacked a basis in law, and that the office’s insistence on jail-time was motivated by a zeal to overcharge a man merely because he is wealthy. They bolstered their arguments with legal opinions from well-known legal experts. One member of the defense team warned me that the office’s excess zeal in forcing a good man to serve time in jail might be the subject of a book if we continued to proceed with the matter. My office systematically considered and rejected each argument, and when we did, my office’s decisions were appealed to Washington. As to the warning, I ignored it.

The defense strategy was not limited to legal issues. Defense counsel investigated individual prosecutors and their families, looking for personal peccadilloes that may provide a basis for disqualification. Disqualifying a prosecutor is an effective (though rarely used) strategy, as eliminating the individuals most familiar with the facts and thus most qualified to take a case to trial harms likelihood for success. Defense counsel tried to disqualify at least two prosecutors. I carefully reviewed, and then rejected, these arguments.

Despite the army of attorneys, the office held firm to the terms first presented to Mr. Black in the original meeting. On June 30, 2008, after yet another last minute appeal to Washington D.C. was rejected, Epstein pled guilty in state court. He was to serve 18 months imprisonment, register as a sexual offender for life, and provide restitution to the victims.

Some may feel that the prosecution should have been tougher. Evidence that has come to light since 2007 may encourage that view. Many victims have since spoken out, filing detailed statements in civil cases seeking damages. Physical evidence has since been discovered. Had these additional statements and evidence been known, the outcome may have been different. But they were not known to us at the time.

A prosecution decision must be based on admissible facts known at the time. In cases of this type, those are unusually difficult because victims are frightened and often decline to testify or if they do speak, they give contradictory statements. Our judgment in this case, based on the evidence known at the time, was that it was better to have a billionaire serve time in jail, register as a sex offender, and pay his victims restitution than risk a trial with a reduced likelihood of success. I supported that judgment then, and based on the state law as it then stood and the evidence known at the time, I would support that judgment again.

Epstein’s treatment, while in state custody, likewise may encourage the view that the office should have been tougher. Although the terms of confinement in a state prison are a matter appropriately left to the State of Florida, and not federal authorities, without doubt, the treatment that he received while in state custody undermined the purpose of a jail sentence.

Some may also believe that the prosecution should have been tougher in retaliation for the defense’s tactics. The defense, arguably, often failed to negotiate in good faith. They would obtain concessions as part of a negotiation and agree to proceed, only to change their minds, and appeal the office’s position to Washington. The investigations into the family lives of individual prosecutors were, in my opinion, uncalled for, as were the accusations of bias and/or misconduct against individual prosecutors. At times, some prosecutors felt that we should just go to trial, and at times I felt that frustration myself. What was right in the first meeting, however, remained right irrespective of defense tactics. Individuals have a constitutional right to a defense. The aggressive exercise of that right should not be punished, nor should a defense counsel’s exercise of their right to appeal a U.S Attorney to Washington D.C. Prosecutors must be careful not to allow frustration and anger with defense counsel to influence their judgment.

After the plea, I recall receiving several phone calls. One was from the FBI Special Agent-In-Charge. He called to offer congratulations. He had been at many of the meetings regarding this case. He was aware of the tactics of the defense, and he called to praise our prosecutors for holding firm against the likes of Messrs. Black, Dershowitz, Lefkowitz and Starr. It was a proud moment. I also received calls or communications from Messrs. Dershowitz, Lefkowitz and Starr. I had known all three individuals previously, from my time in law school and at Kirkland & Ellis in the mid 90s. They all sought to make peace. I agreed to talk and meet with each of them after Epstein pled guilty, as I think it important that prosecutors battle defense attorneys in a case and then move on. I have tried, yet I confess that this has been difficult to do fully in this case.

The bottom line is this: Mr. Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire, served time in jail and is now a registered sexual offender. He has been required to pay his victims restitution, though restitution clearly cannot compensate for the crime. And we know much more today about his crimes because victims have come forward to speak out. Some may disagree with prosecutorial judgments made in this case, but those individuals are not the ones who at the time reviewed the evidence available for trial and assessed the likelihood of success.

Respectfully,

R. Alexander Acosta

Former U.S. Attorney

Southern District of Florida