itstargetnews
Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article was generated using artificial intelligence-based text-to-speech technology.
A US federal judge on Friday gave the US Justice Department permission to release transcripts of a grand jury investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s molestation of underage girls in Florida – a case that ultimately ended without any federal charges against the convicted sex offender.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith said the recently passed federal law ordering the release of Epstein-related records overrode normal grand jury secrecy rules.
Law signed in November U.S. President Donald Trump is forcing the Justice Department, the FBI and federal prosecutors to release later this month the vast amounts of material they collected during the Epstein investigations that go back at least two decades.
Friday’s court ruling related to the earliest known federal investigation.
The local police and the FBI
In 2005, police in Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a mansion, began questioning teenage girls who said they were hired to give the financier sexualized massages. The FBI later joined the investigation.
Despite the law requiring the release of Epstein’s files, they may not all become public. CBC’s Mike Crawley exposes a legal loophole that US President Donald Trump could use to prevent the release of some information.
Savezni tužitelji u Floridi pripremili su optužnicu 2007., ali su Epsteinovi odvjetnici javno napali kredibilitet njegovih tužitelja dok su tajno pregovarali o nagodbi koja bi mu omogućila da izbjegne ozbiljnu zatvorsku kaznu.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution of a person under the age of 18. He served most of his 18-month sentence in a work-release program that allowed him to spend his days in his office.
The U.S. attorney in Miami at the time, Alex Acosta, agreed not to prosecute Epstein on federal charges — a decision that angered Epstein’s accusers.
After the Miami Herald reviewed the unusual plea deal in a series of articles in 2018, public outrage over Epstein’s light sentence it led to Acosta’s resignation as Trump’s Secretary of Labor.
Ministry of Justice report 2020 found that Acosta had “poor judgment” in his handling of the investigation, but also said he was not involved in professional misconduct.
Epstein died before the trial
Federal prosecutors in New York filed sex-trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, mirroring some of the same allegations involving minors that were the subject of the aborted investigation.
Shortly thereafter, he died in a New York prison cell. His death was declared suicide.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant and ex-girlfriend, was then tried on similar charges, convicted and sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison.
Transcripts of grand jury proceedings from the aborted federal case in Florida may shed more light on federal prosecutors’ decision not to pursue it. Records related to the state grand jury proceedings have already been released.
The departure time is not known
It is not known when the documents will be published. The Justice Department asked the court to unseal them so they could be released with other records required to be disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The Justice Department has not set a timetable for when it plans to begin releasing the information, but the law set a deadline of Dec. 19.
The law also allows the Justice Department to withhold files it says could jeopardize an active federal investigation. Files may also be withheld if they are determined to be classified or if they relate to national defense or foreign policy.
One of the federal prosecutors in the Florida case did not return a phone call Friday, and another declined to answer questions.
The judge had previously refused to release the grand jury minutes, citing normal grand jury secrecy rules, but Smith said the new federal law allows for public release.
The Justice Department has separate requests pending to release grand jury records related to the human trafficking cases against Epstein and Maxwell in New York. Judges in those cases said they plan to rule expeditiously.
