Justice delayed, but perhaps not denied

Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested in New York in a massive new underage sex trafficking case, according to law enforcement sources.

The hedge funder — who twelve years ago wriggled out of similar charges of abusing young girls — must appear in federal court in Manhattan on Monday on charges of trafficking dozens of minors between 2002 and 2005 in New York and Florida, where he has homes, the sources said Saturday night.

  NYPost

You think Alan Dershowitz is boarding a plane for some country with whom the US doesn't have an extradition treaty?

And Alex Acosta - the guy who let Epstein off (plus his unnamed co-conspirators!) is now Secretary of Labor.

About a dozen federal agents meanwhile broke down the door of Epstein’s $50 million mansion on East 71st Street on the Upper East Side at around 6:30 p.m. to execute search warrants, witnesses said.

“Me and my partner heard a big bang,” a doorman who works on the block told The Post of hearing the door come down.

“They broke the door down — FBI, cops,” some 20 law enforcement agents in total, he said. “They just went in with bags.”

The doorman, who asked not to be identified by name, said that even now, Epstein entertained a continuous parade of “girls” who came and went at all hours.

Because he's counting on a pardon, and I'm guessing he'll get one.  You know Trump was involved.

Bizarrely, Woody Allen, who’d been a father figure to teenaged Soon-Yi Previn before marrying her, lives nearby and is a pal of Epstein’s, the doorman said.

Allen was among the crowd of people ogling the fed’s raid, he said.

“Bill Cosby used to live here, too,” the doorman said. “Next to Woody Allen. We get all of them.”

[...]

The indictment will be unsealed Monday; it includes additional victims and witnesses who spoke to the Feds in New York over the past several months.

[...]

Epstein had been hit with a mere wrist-slap twelve years ago, after more than 30 underage girls came forward with accounts of being lured by money and threats to his mansions in Palm Beach, Manhattan and his Caribbean Island retreat.

There, they allegedly performed sex acts on the wealthy financier and his powerful friends ranging from erotic massages to statutory rape.

The charges then carried a potential ten years to life in prison.

In 2008, Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to state charges of soliciting only a single minor under the age of 18.

He was sentenced to 18 months in a Florida state jail and the federal investigation was ended.

[...]

“I’m not a sexual predator, I’m an offender — it’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel,” Epstein had cracked to a Post reporter after serving the time.

You're an offensive predator, asshole.

The plea deal was struck by Miami’s then-top federal prosecutor, Alexander Acosta, who is now secretary of labor.

The victims were not notified and the matter was kept under seal.

[...]

It was one of the most lenient sentences ever given to a serial sex offender in the US.

[...]

FBI investigators had alleged in that probe that between 1999 and 2006, he abused nearly three dozen girls, most of them ages 13 to 16, and most at his Palm Beach mansion.

He also used adult recruiters to help him schedule time with as many as three or four girls a day, the feds alleged.

For more than a decade, Epstein’s alleged abuse of minors has been the subject of lawsuits brought by victims, investigations by local and federal authorities, and exposés in the press. But despite the attention cast on his alleged sex crimes, the hedge-funder has managed to avoid any meaningful jail time, let alone federal charges.

[...]

Epstein will be charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors—which could put him away for a maximum of 45 years. The case is being handled by the Public Corruption Unit of the Southern District of New York, with assistance from the district's human-trafficking officials and the FBI.

[...]

An earlier version of Epstein’s plea deal included a 10-year federal sentence—before his star-studded lawyers threatened to go to trial in a case prosecutors feared was unwinnable, in part because Epstein’s team dredged up dirt on the victims, including social media posts indicating drug use.

[...]

Meanwhile, the financier flitted among his homes in Palm Beach, New York City, and the Virgin Islands, as well as his secluded Zorro Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, transporting young women on his private jet to facilitate the sexual abuse that’s gone unchecked by authorities, his alleged victims say.

In an announcement planned for Monday the FBI is expected to provide a number for other victims to contact the SDNY.

[...]

Epstein’s bust comes mere months after a federal judge ruled his 2007 non-prosecution agreement (NPA)—secretly inked under former U.S. Attorney and current Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta—violated federal law by keeping Epstein’s victims in the dark. Under the sweetheart deal, Epstein dodged federal charges that might have sent him to prison for life.

[...]

But in June, prosecutors for the government advised the judge to uphold the plea deal, saying that voiding it would “cause unintended harm to many of” the victims and jeopardize monetary settlements that more than a dozen of them received.

  Daily Beast

Subject to Bill Barr's direction.

The girls who were abused by Jeffrey Epstein and the cops who championed their cause remain angry over what they regard as a gross injustice, while Epstein's employees and those who engineered his non-prosecution agreement have prospered.

[...]

His arrest, first reported by the Daily Beast, comes nearly two weeks after the Justice Department announced that it would not throw out his 2008 non-prosecution agreement, even though a federal judge ruled it was illegal.

  Miami Herald

Suppose old Bill Barr was involved, too? Or is he simply carrying out Trump's orders?

He is in custody in New York and a bail hearing is set for Monday.

“That bail hearing will be critical because if they grant him bail, he has enough money that he will disappear and they will never get him,’’ a source in New York told the Herald.

Well, he came back from Paris, so I don't know. And if he knows he's getting a pardon, it won't matter.

Last November, the Miami Herald published a series of stories, titled Perversion of Justice, that described the ways in which the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta, worked in conjunction with Epstein’s lawyers to engineer the non-prosecution agreement — and keep it secret from Epstein’s victims, so they could not object.

[...]

Sources told the Herald that the indictment includes new victims and witnesses who spoke to authorities in New York over the past several months.

There's no non-prosecution agreement with new victims.

Acosta met one-on-one with Epstein’s lawyer, Jay Lefkowitz, in October 2007, at a West Palm Beach Marriott. Records reviewed by the Herald showed that it was at that meeting that Acosta agreed to a non-prosecution agreement that gave Epstein and others involved in his operation federal immunity.

Unheard of. And unconscionable.

As part of its investigation, the Herald was able to identify nearly 80 girls who were molested by Epstein. Four of the victims, now in their late 20s and early 30s, spoke on video about how they were traumatized first by Epstein, then by his lawyers and private investigators, and finally by the prosecutors themselves, who disposed of the case without telling them.

One of the victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said that she was forced by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with a number of wealthy and powerful politicians, academics and government leaders, including Dershowitz and Prince Andrew. She has never named the other men, largely because she has been afraid, her lawyers said.

[...]

Epstein’s primary residence is on Little St. James, an island off the coast of St. Thomas. Last year, he purchased a second larger island, Great St. James, where he has been clearing land in preparation for building. His plane records show that during the time he was abusing young girls, he was flying former President Bill Clinton, Harvard professors and administrators, Nobel-prize winning scientists, actresses, actors, philanthropists and a who’s who of wealthy and powerful people to his island.

His plane, nicknamed “the Lolita Express,’’ was also allegedly used to traffic women and girls from overseas, Giuffre told the Herald.

Put him in a cage, Trump?

UPDATE:



UPDATE:  What's going on here?



Staying out of it because it's going to get really sticky, and he's going to get a pardon anyway?  What's up?

UPDATE: