FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida prosecutors knew that late millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein had sexually abused teenage girls two years before they reached a plea agreement that has long been criticized as too lenient and a missed opportunity to put him in prison a decade earlier, according to transcripts released Monday.
The 2006 grand jury investigation was the first of many law enforcement probes over the past two decades into Epstein’s rape and sex trafficking of teenagers, and how his ties to the rich and powerful helped him avoid prison or a stiff sentence for more than a decade.
The investigation found that Epstein had close ties to former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew, and that he was once friendly with former President Donald Trump and numerous others with great wealth and influence. They deny any wrongdoing and have not been charged.
The release of about 150 pages by Judge Luis Delgado on Monday came as a surprise, as a hearing on whether to release the graphic testimony was scheduled for next week. Gov. Ron DeSantis had signed a bill in February authorizing the release on Monday or at any time thereafter, as Delgado ordered. Florida grand jury transcripts are normally kept secret forever, but the bill created an exception for cases like Epstein’s.
The transcripts show that the grand jury heard testimony that Epstein, then in his 40s, had raped teenage girls as young as 14 at his Palm Beach mansion, often paying them to commit the rape or sexual assault. The teens testified, telling investigators they were also paid in cash or rental cars if they found him more girls.
“The details in the report will be scandalous to decent people,” Delgado wrote in his order. “The testimony heard by the grand jury relates to activities ranging from grossly unacceptable to rape — all of the conduct in question is sexually deviant, disgusting, and criminal.”
In 2008, Epstein cut a deal with federal prosecutors in South Florida that allowed him to avoid more serious federal charges and instead plead guilty to state charges of soliciting a person under 18 for prostitution and soliciting prostitution. He was sentenced to 1.5 years in the Palm Beach County jail system, during which he was allowed to go to his office almost daily as part of a work release program, followed by a year of home confinement. He was required to register as a sex offender.
Criticism of the deal led to the 2019 firing of Trump’s Labor Secretary, Alex Acosta, who had been the U.S. attorney for South Florida in 2008 and signed the deal. A 2020 Justice Department investigation concluded that Acosta exercised “poor judgment” in his handling of Epstein’s prosecution, but it did not rise to the level of professional misconduct.
The lead prosecutor in the Epstein case, former Palm Beach County District Attorney Barry Krischer, did not immediately respond to an email and voicemail seeking comment Monday about the release of the transcripts.
Current Palm Beach County District Attorney Dave Aronberg, who was not involved in the investigation, said in a statement that he was pleased the documents were released. He said he had not yet read the transcripts and so could not comment on whether Krischer should have pursued a more vigorous prosecution of Epstein.
Brad Edwards, an attorney for many of the victims, said in a statement that the transcripts show that Krischer’s office “brought the case to the Grand Jury with an agenda — to bring minimal, if not no, criminal charges against Jeffrey Epstein.”
“A fraction of the evidence was presented in a misleading manner and the office portrayed the victims as criminals,” he said. “It’s so sad, the number of victims that Epstein was able to abuse because the state carried water for him when they had the chance to lock him up.”
Epstein’s estate will pay $155 million in damages to more than 125 victims.
According to the transcripts, Palm Beach Police Detective Joe Recarey testified in July 2006 that the initial investigation began when a woman reported in March 2005 that her stepdaughter, who was in high school at the time, had said she had received $300 in exchange for “sexual activity with a man in Palm Beach,” Recarey testified.
Another teen, whose name was redacted from the transcript, told detectives she was 17 years old when she was approached by a friend who said she could make $200 by giving a massage at Epstein’s home.
When Epstein tried to touch her at home, she told him she was uncomfortable. He then told her he would pay her $200 if she brought “girls” home. “And he told her, ‘The younger the better,'” Recarey said.
Over time, she brought six girlfriends to Epstein’s home, including a 14-year-old, and in interviews in October 2005, she compared herself to Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss, Recarey said.
When she brought along a 23-year-old friend, Epstein told her the friend was too old.
“The more you did, the more money you made,” the detective said the teen told him. “She explained that there would be a massage or some possible touching, and that you would have to give the massage topless or naked.”
Another teen testified that she visited Epstein’s home hundreds of times in the early 2000s, starting when she was 16. She testified that Epstein paid her $200 every time she gave him a naked massage, rented her a car, and gave her $1,000 when he raped her.
A police search of Epstein’s mansion in 2005 turned up evidence that corroborated the girls’ testimonies. Epstein’s husband also told investigators that the teens who came to the mansion “were very young. Too young to be masseurs.”
Epstein was charged in 2018 with federal sex trafficking offenses in New York — where he also had a mansion that was a scene of abuse — after the Miami Herald published a series of articles that renewed public attention to the case, including interviews with some of the victims who filed civil lawsuits against him. Epstein was 66 when he committed suicide in a New York City jail cell in August 2019, federal officials said.
Delgado wrote in his order that the transcripts show why Epstein was “the most notorious pedophile in American history.”
“For nearly 20 years, the story of how Jeffrey Epstein targeted some of Palm Beach County’s most vulnerable has generated outrage and at times undermined public perception of the criminal justice system,” Delgado wrote.
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Associated Press reporters Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida, Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Stephany Matat in West Palm Beach, Florida, Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta contributed to this report.
