Like Epstein, Goodman was allowed visitors. But Goodman’s visitor list was nothing like Jeffrey Epstein’s.
Nadia Marcinkova is said to have visited Epstein in jail more than seventy times.
Epstein’s assistant Sarah Kellen also visited Epstein in the Stockade.
A Russian mixed martial artist named Igor “Houdini” Zinoviev was another visitor, as was a disbarred lawyer and financial fraudster named Arnold Prosperi, whose own prison sentence had been commuted by Bill Clinton on the day before Clinton left office.
Sheriff Bradshaw wants to be clear: none of these visits was conjugal.
But even US attorney Acosta, who negotiated Epstein’s unusual agreement with the government, would say that Epstein’s arrangement was highly irregular.
“Epstein appears to have received highly unusual treatment while in jail,” Acosta would say in a letter addressed to the general public. “Although the terms of confinement in a state prison are a matter appropriately left to the state of Florida and not federal authorities, without doubt, the treatment that he received while in state custody undermined the purpose of a jail sentence.”
And, of course, Epstein’s stay at the Stockade was subsidized by taxpayers.
CHAPTER 55
R. Alexander Acosta’s letter to the general public, March 20, 2011
To whom it may concern:
I served as U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida from 2005 through 2009. Over the past weeks, I have read much regarding Mr. Jeffrey Epstein. Some appears true, some appears distorted. I thought it appropriate to provide some background, with two caveats: (i) under Justice Department guidelines, I cannot discuss privileged internal communications among department attorneys and (ii) I no longer have access to the original documents, and as the matter is now nearly 4 years old, the precision of memory is reduced.
The Epstein matter was originally presented to the Palm Beach County State Attorney. Palm Beach Police alleged that Epstein unlawfully hired underage high-school females to provide him sexually lewd and erotic massages. Police sought felony charges that would have resulted in a term of imprisonment. According to press reports, however, in 2006 the State Attorney, in part due to concerns regarding the quality of the evidence, agreed to charge Epstein only with one count of aggravated assault with no intent to commit a felony. That charge would have resulted in no jail time, no requirement to register as a sexual offender and no restitution for the underage victims.
Local police were dissatisfied with the State Attorney’s conclusions, and requested a federal investigation. Federal authorities received the State’s evidence and engaged in additional investigation. Prosecutors weighed the quality of the evidence and the likelihood for success at trial. With a federal case, there were two additional considerations. First, a federal criminal prosecution requires that the crime be more than local; it must have an interstate nexus. Second, as the matter was initially charged by the state, the federal responsibility is, to some extent, to back-stop state authorities to ensure that there is no miscarriage of justice, and not to also prosecute federally that which has already been charged at the state level.
After considering the quality of the evidence and the additional considerations, prosecutors concluded that the state charge was insufficient. In early summer 2007, the prosecutors and agents in this case met with Mr. Epstein’s attorney, Roy Black. Mr. Black is perhaps best known for his successful defense of William Kennedy Smith. The prosecutors presented Epstein a choice: plead to more serious state felony charges (that would result in 2 years’ imprisonment, registration as a sexual offender, and restitution for the victims) or else prepare for a federal felony trial.
What followed was a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors. I use the word assault intentionally, as the defense in this case was more aggressive than any which I, or the prosecutors in my office, had previously encountered. Mr. Epstein hired an army of legal superstars: Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, former Judge and then Pepperdine Law Dean Kenneth Starr, former Deputy Assistant to the President and then Kirkland & Ellis Partner Jay Lefkowitz, and several others, including prosecutors who had formerly worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department. Defense attorneys next requested a meeting with me to challenge the prosecution and the terms previously presented by the prosecutors in their meeting with Mr. Black. The prosecution team and I met with defense counsel in Fall 2007, and I reaffirmed the office’s position: two years, registration and restitution, or trial.
Over the next several months, the defense team presented argument after argument claiming that felony criminal proceedings against Epstein were unsupported by the evidence and lacked a basis in law, and that the office’s insistence on jail-time was motivated by a zeal to overcharge a man merely because he is wealthy. They bolstered their arguments with legal opinions from well-known legal experts. One member of the defense team warned me that the office’s excess zeal in forcing a good man to serve time in jail might be the subject of a book if we continued to proceed with the matter. My office systematically considered and rejected each argument, and when we did, my office’s decisions were appealed to Washington. As to the warning, I ignored it.
The defense strategy was not limited to legal issues. Defense counsel investigated individual prosecutors and their families, looking for personal peccadilloes that may provide a basis for disqualification. Disqualifying a prosecutor is an effective (though rarely used) strategy, as eliminating the individuals most familiar with the facts and thus most qualified to take a case to trial harms likelihood for success. Defense counsel tried to disqualify at least two prosecutors. I carefully reviewed, and then rejected, these arguments.
Despite the army of attorneys, the office held firm to the terms first presented to Mr. Black in the original meeting. On June 30, 2008, after yet another last minute appeal to Washington D.C. was rejected, Epstein pled guilty in state court. He was to serve 18 months imprisonment, register as a sexual offender for life, and provide restitution to the victims.
Some may feel that the prosecution should have been tougher. Evidence that has come to light since 2007 may encourage that view. Many victims have since spoken out, filing detailed statements in civil cases seeking damages. Physical evidence has since been discovered. Had these additional statements and evidence been known, the outcome may have been different. But they were not known to us at the time.
A prosecution decision must be based on admissible facts known at the time. In cases of this type, those are unusually difficult because victims are frightened and often decline to testify or if they do speak, they give contradictory statements. Our judgment in this case, based on the evidence known at the time, was that it was better to have a billionaire serve time in jail, register as a sex offender, and pay his victims restitution than risk a trial with a reduced likelihood of success. I supported that judgment then, and based on the state law as it then stood and the evidence known at the time, I would support that judgment again.
Epstein’s treatment, while in state custody, likewise may encourage the view that the office should have been tougher. Although the terms of confinement in a state prison are a matter appropriately left to the State of Florida, and not federal authorities, without doubt, the treatment that he received while in state custody undermined the purpose of a jail sentence.
Some may also believe that the prosecution should have been tougher in retaliation for the defense’s tactics. The defense, arguably, often failed to negotiate in good faith. They would obtain concessions as part of a negotiation and agree to proceed, only to change their minds, and appeal the office’s position to Washington. The investigations into the family lives of individual prosecutors were, in my opinion, uncalled for, as were the accusations of bias and/or misconduct against individual prosecutors. At times, some prosecutors felt that we should just go to trial, and at times I felt that frustration myself. What was r
ight in the first meeting, however, remained right irrespective of defense tactics. Individuals have a constitutional right to a defense. The aggressive exercise of that right should not be punished, nor should a defense counsel’s exercise of their right to appeal a U.S Attorney to Washington D.C. Prosecutors must be careful not to allow frustration and anger with defense counsel to influence their judgment.
After the plea, I recall receiving several phone calls. One was from the FBI Special Agent-In-Charge. He called to offer congratulations. He had been at many of the meetings regarding this case. He was aware of the tactics of the defense, and he called to praise our prosecutors for holding firm against the likes of Messrs. Black, Dershowitz, Lefkowitz and Starr. It was a proud moment. I also received calls or communications from Messrs. Dershowitz, Lefkowitz and Starr. I had known all three individuals previously, from my time in law school and at Kirkland & Ellis in the mid 90s. They all sought to make peace. I agreed to talk and meet with each of them after Epstein pled guilty, as I think it important that prosecutors battle defense attorneys in a case and then move on. I have tried, yet I confess that this has been difficult to do fully in this case.
The bottom line is this: Mr. Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire, served time in jail and is now a registered sexual offender. He has been required to pay his victims restitution, though restitution clearly cannot compensate for the crime. And we know much more today about his crimes because victims have come forward to speak out. Some may disagree with prosecutorial judgments made in this case, but those individuals are not the ones who at the time reviewed the evidence available for trial and assessed the likelihood of success.
Respectfully,
R. Alexander Acosta
Former U.S. Attorney
Southern District of Florida
PART VI
Aftermath
CHAPTER 56
Jeffrey Epstein: July 2009
Jeffrey Epstein walks out of the Stockade on July 21, 2009, having served less than thirteen months of his eighteen-month sentence. One of the concessions his lawyers have gotten while working out his plea-deal guarantees is that the media not be alerted to the time and day of his departure.
But from now on, Epstein, who is fifty-six, will carry the mark of a level 3 sex offender—level 1 being the lowest, and level 3 indicating the highest possible risk of a future criminal act of a sexual nature. Wherever he goes, he will be forced to register as such.
Every ninety days, Epstein will have to check in with the authorities. Every year, the New York City Police Department will take his mug shot. And for a full year, Epstein will be under house arrest in Palm Beach.
This last prohibition doesn’t stop him from flying, with court approval, on his own planes to New York and to Little Saint Jeff’s, where the locals have taken to referring to Epstein’s 727 as the Lolita Express.
There are other restrictions, of course, that Epstein is supposed to abide by. He has to provide the state of Florida with a list of all the motor vehicles, boats, and airplanes he owns. The full list includes two Escalades, six Suburbans, two Ford F-150s, two Harley-Davidsons, a Land Rover, a Hummer H2, a thirty-four-foot JVC boat, and a thirty-five-foot Donzi powerboat.
Three of his five planes turn out to be registered to a company called Air Ghislaine, Inc.
As a registered sex offender, Epstein is legally obliged to undergo psychiatric treatment. This is a restriction he’ll get around by having his own psychologist submit a report to law enforcement officers.
Epstein is also prohibited from accessing pornography on the Internet and using social networking for sexual purposes.
For Jeffrey Epstein, there will be no Bangbros, Tinder, or Swingles.com.
There will be lawsuits.
Six weeks before probation ends, he settles with seven women who sue him in civil court. But Epstein can easily afford the settlement payments. He won’t be going back to jail, and in regard to further prosecution for any criminal actions, his troubles are behind him.
Not everyone who’s spent time in his company will be so lucky.
CHAPTER 57
Alfredo Rodriguez: August 2009
Epstein’s houseman, Alfredo Rodriguez, also ends up with a prison sentence.
In a sworn statement, Rodriguez talks about Epstein’s maid, Lupita, who had complained to him about having to clean up after Epstein’s “massages.” Lupita, who was a devout Catholic, had cried as she described the stained towel and sex toys.
Rodriguez was fired by Epstein, he says, when he called 911 after seeing a strange car—a “beater”—in Epstein’s driveway.
As it turned out, the car had belonged to one of Epstein’s masseuses.
On his way out of the house on El Brillo Way, he took some of Epstein’s papers, which he failed to produce when questioned by Chief Reiter’s investigators.
For years, Rodriguez tried and failed to find work as a house manager. No one wanted to hire someone who’d worked for Jeffrey Epstein. Finally, desperately, he tried to sell the information he’d stolen.
The papers named underage girls and the places where Epstein had taken them. The list included locations in California, Paris, New Mexico, New York, and Michigan. The papers also included the names, addresses, and phone numbers of famous individuals—Henry Kissinger, Mick Jagger, Dustin Hoffman, Ralph Fiennes, David Koch, Ted Kennedy, Donald Trump, Bill Richardson, Bill Clinton, and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak among them.
This was intriguing, if not at all damning. Epstein made a habit of collecting such information for future use. But information pertaining to the girls would have bolstered the state’s case against Jeffrey Epstein, and by withholding it from the Palm Beach PD and the FBI, Rodriguez had committed a crime.
In his defense, Rodriguez would say that the papers were an “insurance policy.” Without them, he believed, Epstein would have made him “disappear.”
But now Rodriguez needed the money. And so a few weeks after Epstein’s release from the Stockade, he approached a lawyer who was representing some of Epstein’s masseuses. He had the “holy grail,” he insisted. A “golden nugget.” The names of hundreds of girls, he said, who had been abused by Epstein.
The lawyer told Rodriguez in no uncertain terms that he was obliged to turn whatever he had over to the authorities. By demanding money for the information, Rodriguez was committing another crime.
According to a sworn statement by Christina Pryor, a special agent with the FBI, Rodriguez “persisted that he would only turn over the information in his possession in exchange for $50,000.”
Two months later, on October 28, the lawyer called Rodriguez, who insisted once more on being paid for the information. The lawyer told him that an associate would be in touch.
What the lawyer knew and Rodriguez did not know was that the associate in question was an undercover employee (UCE) of the FBI. A few days later, on November 2, the UCE calls Rodriguez and sets up a meeting, which takes place the following day.
“During the meeting, Rodriguez produced a small bound book and several sheets of legal pad paper containing handwritten notes,” Special Agent Pryor would say in her statement. She continues:
Rodriguez explained that he had taken the bound book from his former employer’s residence while employed there in 2004 to 2005 and that the book had been created by persons working for his former employer. Rodriguez discussed in detail the information within the book and identified important information to the UCE. In addition, Rodriguez admitted he had previously lied to the FBI. Rodriguez asked the UCE about the $50,000, took possession of the money, and began counting it.
Rodriguez was then detained for Obstruction of Official Proceedings, Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1512(c), and questioned. After Miranda warnings were administered by agents, Rodriguez waived his rights and signed a written waiver of those rights. Rodriguez admitted that he had the documents and book in his possession and had never turned them over to local law enforcement or the FBI. In addition, Rod
riguez advised he had witnessed nude girls whom he believed were underage at the pool area of his former employer’s home, knew that his former employer was engaging in sexual contact with underage girls, and had viewed pornographic images of underage girls on computers in his employer’s home. Rodriguez was then released from custody for further investigation.
The items that Rodriguez had attempted to sell to the UCE for $50,000.00 were reviewed by an agent familiar with the underlying criminal investigation. As Rodriguez had described, the items contained information material to the underlying investigation that would have been extremely useful in investigati[ng] and prosecuting the case, including the names and contact information of material witnesses and additional victims. Had those items been produced in response to the inquiries of the state law enforcement officers or the FBI Special Agents, their contents would have been presented to the federal grand jury.
Following his release, Alfredo Rodriguez was arrested again. He appeared in court on June 18, 2010, facing charges of corruptly concealing records and documents. Dressed in a blue jumpsuit and shackles, he apologized for his crimes and asked the court to be merciful.
He received a sentence of eighteen months.
It was the same punishment that Jeffrey Epstein had gotten for his crimes. But unlike Epstein, Alfredo Rodriguez served his time in a federal prison and did not ask for, or receive, permission to go on work release.
CHAPTER 58
Prince Andrew: 2011
Prince Andrew also fares poorly in the wake of Epstein’s imprisonment.
The two men are old friends. They have been ever since Ghislaine Maxwell introduced the prince to her then-beau, sometime in the 1990s. In 2000, Epstein had been invited to Windsor Castle to celebrate the queen’s birthday. Six months later, Epstein flew to Sandringham, the queen’s estate in Norfolk, England, for a party Prince Andrew threw for Ghislaine’s thirty-ninth birthday.