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Over the course of two decades, Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly appeared on law enforcement’s radar for sexual misconduct involving teen girls and young women. And over this same period of time, Epstein avoided serious and meaningful punishment for his crimes.
The US justice department’s recent disclosure of long-secret investigative files related to Epstein has once again raised the question of why he wasn’t interdicted sooner, despite numerous reports of misconduct. The issue has been the subject of many conspiracy theories, often focusing on the idea that Epstein – who lived at the center of a network of powerful people – enjoyed some form of protection.
Some never-before-seen documents recently released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, as well as previously public filings tucked deep into prior civil litigation included in these disclosures, spell out numerous missed opportunities to stop Epstein before his 2019 arrest and subsequent suicide in prison.
Longtime attorneys told the Guardian that there are multiple reasons why this might have occurred.
“The Epstein and Maxwell problem is twofold. First, law enforcement agencies, especially at the local level, do not communicate well with one another,” Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor, said. “Second, prosecutors are risk-averse and do not want to prosecute difficult cases.”
More, authorities can see sexual abuse cases as risky propositions in terms of success.
“Sexual assault and sexual abuse prosecutions are often ‘he said, she said’ cases where the defense argues consent, or that the sexual contact never happened,” Rahmani said, explaining that prosecutors are expected to win every time. “They may hesitate taking difficult cases to trial, especially against defendants with significant resources.”
“Cynics may also argue that Epstein wasn’t prosecuted because of his friendships with powerful elected officials. Some of this case has changed with #MeToo, more victims coming forward and being willing to testify, and more resources and changes in philosophy when it comes to prosecuting sex crimes,” Rahmani said.
“But it’s still not enough and the victims were let down.”
Indeed, the chronology of Epstein’s repeated mentions and investigations could suggest both an abject lack of communication as well as an overall lack of interest regarding complaints against him.
There was Maria Farmer’s FBI report in 1996. Farmer, whose sister Annie was abused by Epstein, told authorities that Epstein “stole” photographs and film negatives of her sisters, and was “believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers”.
While the case type was listed as “child pornography” in this report, police did not act. Epstein, unencumbered by criminal investigation, went on to abuse numerous teen girls in the following years.
Then came Alicia Arden’s police report in 1997. Arden said Epstein groped her during what was supposed to be a modeling interview for Victoria’s Secret.
Arden, who was 27 at the time, said Santa Monica police blamed her rather than take action. “They said I went up to the hotel room willingly and that I intimidate men because of my appearance. I told police that I did not ask or give permission to be touched or to have Epstein start taking my clothes off. I thought I was going to a legitimate audition.”
In 2001, Ghislaine Maxwell – who in 2021 was found guilty of aiding Epstein’s abuse of teen girls – drew police attention after accosting three Palm Beach college students. “Maxwell said she needed young, beautiful, unmarried women to answer phones and do office work at her home on Palm Beach,” the police report said.
At least one of the students went to the house on several occasions and “described the telephone calls as men call[ing] in saying when they were going to drop of[f] particular girls”. Police investigated, including searching Epstein’s trash for potential evidence, ultimately concluding that while there was unusual activity at his south Florida mansion, “at this time, no illegal activity has been reported or detected”.
Then came 2004. In August of that year, a taxi driver “flagged down” a police officer. The cabbie dropped off two females, who seemed to be 15 and 17, at a house that investigators would determine was Epstein’s.
“The taxi cab driver stated that he picked the females up in West Palm Beach and while traveling to Epstein’s residence he overheard the females discussing how much money they would make ‘dating’ in Palm Beach and possible drug use,” a police report said.
In 2005 and 2006, Palm Beach police interviewed numerous minor victims, and the FBI and US attorney’s office ultimately investigated abuse claims. But Epstein’s case was resolved with a cushy plea deal in 2008 that allowed him to avoid federal charges if he admitted to state-level prostitution charges.
Epstein and Maxwell did not disappear. In 2011, a victim of Epstein and allegedly, also of Maxwell, contacted south Florida federal prosecutors.
The woman, Virginia Giuffre, lived in Australia and was interviewed by an FBI agent there. Legal representatives for the late Giuffre, who had accused Epstein of trafficking her to high-profile men including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, met with a New York federal prosecutor to discuss Epstein.
Mountbatten-Windsor has vehemently denied all allegations of misconduct. The former Duke of York relinquished his royal title amid the Epstein controversy.
That prosecutor did not open an investigation following that meeting.
Epstein did not face serious charges until 2019, months after a Miami Herald investigation prompted controversy about his plum plea deal. Epstein killed himself in jail weeks after his July 2019 arrest and Maxwell was arrested the next year and convicted of luring teen girls into his abusive world.
Advocates for Epstein’s victims have repeatedly condemned local and federal law enforcement for failing to take victims’ claims seriously – enabling his abuse to continue years after initial reports.
Lindsay Richards, a criminal defense partner at Coffer and Connelly in Texas, pointed to communication issues, as well as attitudes about sex crimes that were pervasive in the 90s and 2000s. With reports to local law enforcement, “there’s a very good chance there was just no communication between agencies in any way, especially in the 90s”.
Federal agencies, on the other hand, “have always had decent communication, especially within the agency”, she said. “So once it became federal, I’m surprised there wasn’t more being done.”
The state plea deal, she said, “does seem to be kind of nefarious, in my opinion” but in her experience as a prosecutor who long pursued sex crimes cases, “I really do believe that there were a lot of agencies, and even ones that I worked with, [where] for decades, sexual assault was dismissed.”
The attitude with police agencies, she said, was: “You can report it, but these are so hard to prove and they’re so difficult that we’re just not going to really put a lot of time and energy into it.”
John Day, founder of John Day Law and a former prosecutor in New Mexico, pointed to seeming intelligence failures when it came to pursuing cases.
“Maybe the best explanation is rooted in why all the signals about Bin Laden were ignored until 9/11 – plenty of law enforcement [and] CIA analysts had him on their radar screens, but the information was never collated in a way that got understood until it was too late?” Day said. “Could this have been the equivalent for Epstein?”
Day said that investigative failures with Epstein were not equivalent to a 9/11 attack, but noted “these timeframes were roughly parallel”.
“I think you can make an argument that the failures of 9/11 to appreciate what information pointed to a pending attack were similar to the failures of law enforcement to understand what Epstein and Maxwell were up to.”
But, Day also said: “This is separate from understanding why Epstein got such a sweetheart deal in Florida from US attorney Alexander Acosta.”
