A grand jury in Palm Seashore County on July 19, 2006, heard from two alleged underage victims of Jeffrey Epstein, two law enforcement officials and an investigator with the state’s lawyer’s workplace in a continuing that lasted lower than 4 hours, in line with newly unsealed transcripts launched by a choose in Florida.
Through the testimony of the 2 alleged victims, every was confronted with questions on whether or not they understood that they’d engaged in prostitution and might be charged with against the law, in line with the newly launched transcripts.
“It was simply atrocious the way in which they dealt with it,” stated Spencer Kuvin, an lawyer who represented one of many alleged underage victims who testified. “They mainly tanked their very own case.”
The beforehand secret testimony was made public on Monday in response to a movement from the Palm Seashore Publish, joined by quite a few different information businesses. Earlier this yr, the Florida legislature handed a brand new legislation tailor-made to make sure that the Epstein paperwork have been made public due to the extreme public curiosity in understanding how the grand jury returned an indictment of Epstein on only a single cost of solicitation of prostitution. The transcript of the grand jury proceedings, nonetheless, doesn’t point out what charging choices have been offered to grand jurors earlier than they reached their resolution.
The grand jury was convened in 2006 by then State’s Lawyer Barry Krischer, who had for months resisted efforts by the Palm Seashore Police Division to cost Epstein with a number of felonies for his alleged sexual exploitation of underage women.
The opening witness earlier than the grand jury was Palm Seashore Police Detective Joseph Recarey, who led the investigation of Epstein and interviewed greater than a dozen alleged underage victims. Recarey recounted the onset of the investigation when the stepmother of a 14-year-old woman reported that her daughter had acquired $300 to therapeutic massage an older man on Palm Seashore Island.
Prosecutors then referred to as that teen woman, who had since turned 15. She testified that she went as soon as to Epstein’s mansion the earlier yr. She stated she was requested by Epstein’s assistant to strip right down to her underwear and to attend for Epstein to enter the room. She stated she massaged Epstein after which, at his request, agreed to permit him to make use of a vibrator on her for an additional $100. She admitted that she lied and informed Epstein that she was 18. Her dad and mom came upon about her journey to Epstein’s, she stated, as a result of she had gotten into an altercation in school and the cash was present in her purse.
Throughout her testimony, prosecutors requested the woman about her drug and alcohol use, physique piercings and postings on her MySpace web page wherein she boasted of shoplifting and lied about her age and her earnings, claiming to make $250,000. “Yeah, it is a joke,” she testified. “Like, all my pals do this, trigger it is sort of humorous and random and silly.”
A juror then requested the witness if she had “any concept deep down inside you that…what you are doing is fallacious?”
“Yeah, I did,” she answered.
“And also you’re properly conscious that what you are doing to your individual fame,” the juror requested.
“Sure, I do,” she recalled.
A prosecutor, Lanna Belohlavek, then requested the 15-year-old witness: “You conscious that you just dedicated against the law?”
“Now I’m. I did not realize it was against the law after I was doing it,” she replied. “Now, I suppose it is prostitution or one thing like that.”
Studying these exchanges on Monday, Kuvin — who represented the witness in the course of the Epstein investigation — stated he was appalled however not shocked.
“It simply reaffirmed what we at all times knew was occurring is that the state lawyer was afraid to prosecute him, and that they tanked their very own case by attacking their very own witnesses in the course of the grand jury continuing,” he stated. “It was virtually just like the grand jury continuing was an try to prosecute the youngsters and ignore Epstein.”
In subsequent testimony, Detective Recarey, who died in 2018, recounted the now acquainted deviant scheme wherein Epstein enlisted his assistants and his alleged victims to recruit different underage women to his properties for illicit massages. Recarey informed the grand jury that two alleged victims had intercourse with Epstein with out their consent whereas beneath the age of 18.
One alleged sufferer, Recarey testified, had gone to Epstein’s mansion over 100 occasions, and had acquired $200 every time, and items, together with a rented automobile for her use. He testified that on one event, Epstein had intercourse together with her with out her consent. “She screamed no,” Recarey stated when requested by a grand juror if the sufferer had requested Epstein to cease. Epstein stopped, apologized and paid her $1000, Recarey testified.
Belohlavek then questioned Recarey concerning the cash the alleged sufferer comprised of all her visits to Epstein’s dwelling.
“That day she took a thousand {dollars}. For instance it is solely $200 for 100 occasions; she’s – we’re speaking some huge cash she bought, at a minimal, plus a automobile,” the prosecutor stated. “Did you ask her what she did with all that cash?”
“I did ask her and he or she did not need to inform me,” Recarey replied. “She stated that it was too private.”
“After you – she’s simply described all these intercourse acts to you? Okay,” Belohlavek replied.
The one different alleged sufferer to testify earlier than the grand jury stated she went to Epstein’s mansion about 10 occasions, beginning when she was 16.
“He was properly conscious of my age from the very starting,” she stated.
The sexual exercise escalated progressively, she testified, till her final encounter when Epstein initiated intercourse. It was the day earlier than her 18th birthday, she stated. She testified that she didn’t need to have intercourse with him however didn’t ask him to cease.
The younger woman stated she was reluctant to testify and did not actually know if she wished to see Epstein prosecuted.
“You perceive that you just in impact have been committing prostitution your self,” a prosecutor requested.
“Sure,” the witness replied.
The ultimate witness of the day was an investigator with the state’s lawyer’s workplace who was guided by way of testimony masking the backgrounds of the alleged teen victims, together with shoplifting, arrests, ingesting and drug use. The investigator was additionally questioned concerning the MySpace pages of the alleged 14-year-old sufferer. A lot of that data had been offered to the prosecutor by Epstein’s protection attorneys in an try to dissuade the workplace from bringing expenses.
“And does her web site additionally embrace photos of her in skimpy apparel, ingesting alcohol and sexually provocative images?” the witness was requested.
“Sure, ma’am,” he replied.
Following this grand jury’s indictment on one cost of solicitation of prostitution — with no point out of minor victims — Epstein was arrested, booked and launched on bond. The result of the grand jury incensed then Palm Seashore Police Chief Michael Reiter, who publicly apologized to the victims and turned over the case to the FBI. Two years later, federal prosecutors crafted a cope with Epstein that allowed him to flee federal prosecution in alternate for his responsible plea to the unique grand jury indictment plus one extra cost of soliciting a minor into prostitution. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a non-public wing of the Palm Seashore County stockade. Epstein was additionally allowed liberal work launch, which permitted him to spend as much as 16 hours a day at his workplace in West Palm Seashore.
Following Epstein’s 2019 arrest in New York, Krischer pushed again on claims that his dealing with of the case greater than a decade earlier had pressured federal prosecutors to enter into that infamously lenient cope with Epstein.
“Regardless of how my workplace resolved the state expenses, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace at all times had the power to file its personal federal expenses,” Krischer stated in a press release on the time.