Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Fund manager Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein is facing as many as forty five years behind
Speaker 1: bars if convicted on all charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy,
Speaker 1: and announcing the charges yesterday, Manhattan US Attorney Jeffrey Berman
Speaker 1: anticipated that Epstein would raise a federal non prosecution agreement
Speaker 1: as a defense. Jeffrey Epstein entered into a non prosecution
Speaker 1: agreement with the Southern District of Florida. That agreement only
Speaker 1: binds by its terms, only binds the Southern District of Florida.
Speaker 1: The Southern District of New York is not bound by
Speaker 1: that agreement and is not a signatory to that agreement. Now,
Speaker 1: the plea agreement that he's talking about was signed in
Speaker 1: September two thousand seven, and it was approved by now
Speaker 1: Labor Secretary Alex Acosta when he was the top federal
Speaker 1: prosecutor for Southern Florida. Joining me as Patricia Hattado Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News legal reporter. Pat start by explaining a little more
Speaker 1: that Florida deal that Epstein made. Well, it's a little
Speaker 1: murky still and people are trying to unearth the details.
Speaker 1: But from what we understand is he played guilty to
Speaker 1: state charges and a federal investigation essentially went away, and
Speaker 1: he got a non prosecution agreement with the Southern District
Speaker 1: of Florida, and the U s attorney was Alex Acosta,
Speaker 1: who's now Labor Secretary, and in you know, yesterday in
Speaker 1: the press conference, which is kind of unusual of the
Speaker 1: Manhattan US attorney said that defense is not going to work,
Speaker 1: anticipating the defense and saying that it's just not gonna work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's The government has been criticized by the victims,
Speaker 1: these women victims and their lawyers about the steal that
Speaker 1: made the case go away and the victims were never notified,
Speaker 1: and a federal judge in Florida has already also criticized
Speaker 1: the deal. Under the law, victims are entitled to know
Speaker 1: that there's a proceeding in their case, that something's happened
Speaker 1: in it, and they're entitled to talk and get their
Speaker 1: comments and get restitution, and this didn't happen. So the
Speaker 1: judge in that case, as a civil suit, ruled that
Speaker 1: there had been a violent constitutional violation for their lights
Speaker 1: um and it's still being reviewed, and he anticipated he
Speaker 1: was going to get criticism for why are you bringing
Speaker 1: this case when it already happened. Does it make a
Speaker 1: difference that the prosecutors say there's new evidence and victims
Speaker 1: outside of that Florida the original Florida investigation. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: government says they have new evidence and one of the
Speaker 1: counts has nothing to do with the previous allegations. That
Speaker 1: they have new complaints and they also invited new uh,
Speaker 1: anyone who has new evidence or wants to come forward
Speaker 1: and say they're either a victim or a witness to
Speaker 1: anything he has done, they would like to invite them
Speaker 1: to come come and help their case. So they insist
Speaker 1: that they're on strong legal grounds. So Jeffrey Epstein's bail
Speaker 1: hearing is going to resume on July, and the prosecutors
Speaker 1: have set forth several different reasons why they think that
Speaker 1: he should not get bail. Tell us about those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have said a variety of things, including that um
Speaker 1: Epstein after he gets this deal. Uh basically threatened and
Speaker 1: harassed and tried to intimidate either personally or through his
Speaker 1: um through his uh adverse. You know, his allies try
Speaker 1: to including run off the fall of one of his
Speaker 1: victims off the road. So this kind of threatened intimidation,
Speaker 1: they say, is not It's not appropriate for someone in
Speaker 1: his with his wherewithal and he's very wealthy and he
Speaker 1: has six homes and owns his own island and the
Speaker 1: US Virgin Islands. So someone like that who has the
Speaker 1: ability and the means to flee and could go anywhere
Speaker 1: in the world, could could get out of the country
Speaker 1: and is a prosecution pet if you know or any
Speaker 1: other people likely be charged in this because the court
Speaker 1: papers indicate that at least three of his employees were
Speaker 1: involved in this alleged trafficking scheme. Yes, and some of
Speaker 1: my smart colleagues at the press conference peppered the U
Speaker 1: S attorney with how come no one else has been charged?
Speaker 1: Where they were named, it sounded like employees of his
Speaker 1: were suggested that had involvement or knowledge or awareness, and
Speaker 1: he wouldn't say whether they were cooperating or if they
Speaker 1: were under investigation, So that may be stay tuned to
Speaker 1: see if someone else gets charged and if anyone else
Speaker 1: comes forward as well. Now he's been under scrutiny for
Speaker 1: more than a decade, and you know, there have been
Speaker 1: years of accusations in addition to the Florida charges. Do
Speaker 1: you know, is there any reason that you know of
Speaker 1: why prosecutors in the Public Corruption Unit in the U. S.
Speaker 1: Attorney's Office in Manhattan decided to you know, pull the trigger,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Well, I guess um the reason there
Speaker 1: they might be involved could be that it's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing where, if you can imagine it in evolves
Speaker 1: the highest you know, defense lawyer Read Weingarten said yesterday
Speaker 1: that some people at the highest level at main Justice, Okay,
Speaker 1: this plea deal between federal prosecutors in Florida as well
Speaker 1: as state prosecutors in Florida. So someone looking over the
Speaker 1: shoulder of what was done in the past might need
Speaker 1: to have someone with a finesse of handling public corruption cases.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just one of the idle guess as
Speaker 1: some people I've been speaking to have suggested, did this
Speaker 1: come as a surprise because there was a lot of
Speaker 1: talk that it's going to happen it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But when it finally did, it seemed to be a
Speaker 1: surprise to me. I don't know, but for you in
Speaker 1: the court house, Uh, well, you know what it was
Speaker 1: kind of I guess it was a surprise to many people,
Speaker 1: including maybe Epstain, because he didn't seem to if he
Speaker 1: was aware that he was under criminal investigation. He may have,
Speaker 1: and I'm only guessing here, but he seemed to have
Speaker 1: a comfort level that he didn't mind keeping in a
Speaker 1: safe all these hundreds, if not thousands with the government
Speaker 1: said they had conducted a search at his East seventy
Speaker 1: one Street mansion and in a safe in there they
Speaker 1: found hundreds of not thousands, of pictures of nude and
Speaker 1: semi nude young women, many who appeared to be miners.
Speaker 1: So he had a comfort level that he had no
Speaker 1: problem keeping that stuff around if he knew he was
Speaker 1: under investigation. Now do I understand the Justice Department is
Speaker 1: also attempting to seize that residence. Yes, and they're going
Speaker 1: after everything he owns, including his uh two jets to
Speaker 1: private jets, UM six property funds, apparently at home in Paris,
Speaker 1: two homes in the British Virgin Islands, the private island,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'm the US Virgin Islands, the
Speaker 1: private island. He owns a lot of property, so they're
Speaker 1: going after everything, all right, Well, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: keeping up on all this. Pad always at the courthouse,
Speaker 1: they're following the cases. That's Patricia Hurtado, Bloomberg News Legal reporter.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can
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Speaker 1: and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.
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