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Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here is the thing.

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Speaker 1: Saturday's arrest of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein at Teterborough Airport got

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Speaker 1: me thinking again about journalist Julie Brown was un I'm

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Speaker 1: still I think the news outlets say that the arrest

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Speaker 1: might never have happened if it weren't for the work

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Speaker 1: of the Miami Herald. It's Brown's work they're talking about.

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Speaker 1: In three explosive articles, Julie Brown tracked having two thousand

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Speaker 1: eight the US Justice Department shut down an FBI investigation

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Speaker 1: that may have been on the verge of discovering the

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Speaker 1: full extent of a child sex trafficking operation run by

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Speaker 1: billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. That's after giving him a sweetheart plea

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Speaker 1: deal on the crimes that had been uncovered. The U

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Speaker 1: s attorney in charge of the case was none other

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Speaker 1: than alex A Costa, now the unit, it states, the

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Speaker 1: Secretary of Labor under Donald Trump. A couple of months ago,

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Speaker 1: Julie and I sat down in front of a live

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Speaker 1: audience at w n y c S Green Space to

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Speaker 1: talk about her Epstein reporting and what drove her to

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Speaker 1: pursue the story. I had so much for coming UM.

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Speaker 1: You first started reporting on this case when UM a

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Speaker 1: year and a half ago. But I knew about the

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Speaker 1: case for a long time, and you got involved in

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Speaker 1: the case. Why because I was I did a lot

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Speaker 1: of human rights reporting for the Miami Herald. I covered

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Speaker 1: the prisons, and I knew that Florida was one of

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Speaker 1: the states that had a huge sex trafficking problem. And

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Speaker 1: I always everything that I read was they were going

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Speaker 1: after little cases. But I knew that there were some

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Speaker 1: big fish, so to speak, in Florida, that we're probably

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Speaker 1: behind sex You knew that, how I just you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's just reasonable to think that they're are this.

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Speaker 1: It's a big money making operation. It's it's all over

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Speaker 1: the country, all over the world, really human trafficking and

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Speaker 1: sex trafficking. There really was nobody pursuing this at all

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Speaker 1: except for lawyers. And that was one of the other

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Speaker 1: things that didn't treat me about this case. You know,

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Speaker 1: you would read about it and then you say, you know,

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Speaker 1: how does this happen and why isn't anybody standing up

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Speaker 1: yelling and screaming. But the case has been ongoing for

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Speaker 1: quite a while before you got involved, well, it actually

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Speaker 1: had quieted down. I compare what I did in this

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Speaker 1: case to what a cold case detective does. Let's say

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Speaker 1: you have someone who disappeared, and the detectives come in

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Speaker 1: and they find a suspect, but they can't prove it,

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Speaker 1: and then they put it all away in a box.

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Speaker 1: And then somebody comes along who maybe just got hired

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Speaker 1: by the police department, and they just decide that they're

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Speaker 1: going to, uh, hey, I'm going to take a look

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Speaker 1: at this, and when time goes by. I know this

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Speaker 1: also from other stories I've covered, other people come out

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Speaker 1: of the woodwork, or there might be people that didn't

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Speaker 1: want to talk when it happened. We're afraid for one

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Speaker 1: reason or another in time has gone by, or yeah,

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Speaker 1: or what happened right? And and these girls were at

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Speaker 1: the time, you know, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old. Now

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Speaker 1: they're in their only thirties. Actually, what really launched the

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Speaker 1: piece was when Alexander Acosta, who was the prosecutor, the

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Speaker 1: federal prosecutor in Miami who handled this case, got nominated

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Speaker 1: by President Trump to be Labor Secretary. I thought I

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Speaker 1: knew about the case, and I thought, well, let's see

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Speaker 1: what happened, which involves to some degree prosecuting human trafficking. Right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was really the most the biggest scandal

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Speaker 1: of his career because he gave uh he really let

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Speaker 1: him almost walk away from this crime, and not only

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Speaker 1: walk away from it, but they covered it up. They

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Speaker 1: really made sure that no one really knew that know

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Speaker 1: the scope of this crime. Now, for those people who

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Speaker 1: don't know a lot of the details of the case,

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Speaker 1: so I want to start with that which is described

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Speaker 1: for people, who is Epstein and what was he charged with?

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Speaker 1: And what was the eventual outcome of the prosecution that

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Speaker 1: Acosta oversaw? Right, Well, he was a billionaire financier and

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Speaker 1: he had a hedge fund. He had a hedge fund,

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Speaker 1: and he dabbled in a lot of other financing things

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Speaker 1: like at one point he wanted to take over pan

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Speaker 1: m Airlines. There was a lot of different projects that

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Speaker 1: he invested money in and he made a lot obviously

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Speaker 1: made a lot of money. He owned, uh two jets,

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Speaker 1: and he owned homes in New Mexico, the largest single

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Speaker 1: residents here in Manhattan, home in Palm Beach, home in

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Speaker 1: um Paris. Uh So, he was extremely wealthy, very smart,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was a mathematician and Nobil Prize winning

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Speaker 1: scientists were in his circle here in New York. He

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Speaker 1: grew up in New York. He didn't finish college, but

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Speaker 1: he ended up getting a job at the Dalton School

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Speaker 1: uh teaching mathematic and they're through the students parents. He

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Speaker 1: ended up working for Bear Start and he sort of

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Speaker 1: left under mysterious circumstances there um and then opened his own, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, financial firm. And during the course of the trial,

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Speaker 1: was it did it become was it exposed or was

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Speaker 1: it revealed? How long he been doing this activity with

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Speaker 1: young girls. Assumed he'd been doing this ongoing and he

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Speaker 1: had people helping him. It was very organized. Described the operation.

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Speaker 1: It was like something if you saw a movie about it,

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Speaker 1: you would think, oh, yeah, right, this is really going

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Speaker 1: to happen. But it's exactly what he did. He had

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Speaker 1: a lot of money and he had a lot of

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Speaker 1: people around him. And what he he liked massages. So

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Speaker 1: what he would do is he had people go out

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Speaker 1: to various areas well. Initially it was like boss like.

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Speaker 1: In fact, one of the women that he recruited was

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Speaker 1: from our Lago, which is right around the corner from

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Speaker 1: his home uh in Palm Beach, and once he got

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Speaker 1: his hold on a couple of the girls, what he

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Speaker 1: would say to them is, you bring me a couple

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Speaker 1: more girls, and I'll give you the same amount of money.

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Speaker 1: So he would be paying that. They were paid for services, yes,

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Speaker 1: from massage, from massages, and then and then they were

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Speaker 1: paid as recruiters to bring in more people, right, and

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Speaker 1: the recruiters would recruit more, and it just went on

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Speaker 1: and on the pyramid, and it kept growing and growing

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Speaker 1: until they got to be by your estimation, how many

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Speaker 1: young women were coming in and out of that house

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Speaker 1: over time. I mean it had to be over at least,

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Speaker 1: and they got like if I read correct, and shopping

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Speaker 1: malls and different. Because what happened was once he got

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Speaker 1: his foothold into one of the high schools there, one

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Speaker 1: girl would tell another girl. And these were girls who

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Speaker 1: came from uh, you know, most people think of Palmp

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Speaker 1: Beaches everybody's wealthy, but they're really is West Palm Beach

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Speaker 1: is a very struggling blue collar area. And there were

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Speaker 1: girls who lived in vulnerable situations where they were in uh,

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Speaker 1: one step away from homelessness. One girl told me, for example,

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Speaker 1: you know, I've been wearing the same pair of shoes

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Speaker 1: for three years, and I thought, I'm gonna go give

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Speaker 1: him a massage. I'm going to get some money, and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to be abby to puy a pair of shoes,

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Speaker 1: which is really heartbreaking. Actually every time I think about

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Speaker 1: at that. I met a young woman once on the

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Speaker 1: set of the film who had been a prostitute, and

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Speaker 1: she said, and every time I had sex with somebody

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Speaker 1: for money, all I kept seeing was the new drapes

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Speaker 1: in my mother's house, and oh my god, what a

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Speaker 1: You know. The other thing is he sort of led

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Speaker 1: them to believe that he was going to help them

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Speaker 1: out of their misery, you know, like you're beautiful, I'll

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Speaker 1: get you. Yeah. And he had people, He had people,

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Speaker 1: you know, I have people that kind of thing, and

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Speaker 1: he did. He didn't know some people, and actually some

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Speaker 1: of them did. A couple of them did become actresses,

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Speaker 1: you know, And so he had some contacts, and he

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Speaker 1: led a lot of them to believe that that I'm

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Speaker 1: going to get you out of this. And I don't

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Speaker 1: think of any of those actresses one in Oscar. They

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Speaker 1: would thank Jeffrey Epstein to their acceptance. Probably not. Probably

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Speaker 1: did other victims come forward who wanted to make charges

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Speaker 1: against Epstein for events that predated Palm Beach. Yes, but

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Speaker 1: the problem is a statue of limitations. So there's there's

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Speaker 1: quite a number of girls in that category, and there's

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Speaker 1: really not a lot they can do because his activities

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Speaker 1: in that regard confined to Palm Beach, or didn't do

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Speaker 1: it in New York, And from the women that I interviewed,

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Speaker 1: he did it everywhere. He had an island in the Caribbean. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he would send one of the girls or probably more

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Speaker 1: than one, but one that I know of who I

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Speaker 1: interviewed out to for example, he had the island, so

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Speaker 1: they would take a furry or helicopter from St. Thomas.

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Speaker 1: What she told me was we would go to the

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Speaker 1: nightclubs in St. Thomas and I would just bring him

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Speaker 1: more girls. And Uh, there was Sarah Kellen who was

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Speaker 1: a scheduler. What did she schedule? She scheduled the girls.

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Speaker 1: Did you interview her? No, she hasn't spoken to anybody,

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Speaker 1: and she got immunity under the non prosecution agreement that

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Speaker 1: he worked out. So she's off the hook. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people are off the hook. We don't even know

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Speaker 1: that immunity for what she did, which only led to

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Speaker 1: a thirteen month jail sentenced for him with for him

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Speaker 1: and work released the whole time. They gave her that

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Speaker 1: for so little. Yeah, the person you did interview who

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Speaker 1: was a recruiter for him, how did they strike you? What?

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Speaker 1: What did they was it a man or woman? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, remember a lot of the girls were recruiters

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Speaker 1: for him too, and uh so they you know, it's

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Speaker 1: very sad to think about how this changed their lives.

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Speaker 1: Imagine being fourteen years old and you know, you basically

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Speaker 1: don't have any place to live, and you start doing

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Speaker 1: this and you're fourteen, and you know, now you're thirty

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Speaker 1: and you look back on it, and and it's very

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Speaker 1: painful to watch how much they blamed themselves. They're very ashamed,

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Speaker 1: and they blamed themselves for the other girls that they

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Speaker 1: brought into it, and they just didn't understand the ramification.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the people that you're referring to were

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Speaker 1: very young, whether they were uh you know, involved in

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Speaker 1: the massage and other related sex activities with Epstein or

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Speaker 1: the recruitment. Were there some grown women and men as

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Speaker 1: particularly women. I'm curious who were recruiters or we're helping

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Speaker 1: to kind of run the operations. Who should have known better. Well,

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Speaker 1: what he did was though when girls got older, he

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Speaker 1: didn't want them anymore, so then they turned into you know,

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Speaker 1: they stayed with him and started doing it. So we

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Speaker 1: don't really know those older women. We don't really know

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Speaker 1: how they got wrapped up into it. They could have

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Speaker 1: very well been trafficked the same way the younger girls

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Speaker 1: were at a younger age, but he kept them on.

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Speaker 1: Paint a picture of you will of who Epstein you

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Speaker 1: think is and why did he do this? Because apparently

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Speaker 1: not mistaken, he had a women coming in and out

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Speaker 1: of the house, and he was having sex with multiple

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Speaker 1: women day, yes, like three times a day sometimes. Correct.

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Speaker 1: What did you what kind of a picture did you

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Speaker 1: get at him? Well, obviously he had some kind of

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Speaker 1: an illness to be doing something like that. And I

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Speaker 1: think that the biggest thing that I came across from

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Speaker 1: reading everything and all the research that I did, was

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Speaker 1: he really felt that he was above the law. He

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Speaker 1: just seemed to know from the get go that he

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Speaker 1: was going to get away with it. Uh. He pressured, intimidated, bullied,

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Speaker 1: hired the best lawyers that his money could buy. And

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Speaker 1: when those lawyers didn't give him what he wanted, he

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Speaker 1: hired more lawyers. He hired politically connected people. He pressured

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Speaker 1: the girls, He hired private investigators who followed their parents. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He deposed the girls and and got her medical records,

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Speaker 1: saying that she had had portions, called her parents, who

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Speaker 1: were Catholic, and asked her Catholic parents what the goal

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Speaker 1: was to at the victim? Oh yes, and not only

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Speaker 1: just the victims. Actually the police who had been investigated

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Speaker 1: were followed, the prosecutors were pressured. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: what makes this a story, really is every step of

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Speaker 1: the way with the criminal justice system he powered his

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Speaker 1: way through to basically get away with some of the

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Speaker 1: people that you some of the lawyers involved in this case.

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Speaker 1: There's a left court and Dershowitz and and even ken Star.

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Speaker 1: I struggled to think that people at that level. I

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Speaker 1: struggled to think that people of that reputation, at least

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Speaker 1: in terms of their skills as attorneys or just in

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Speaker 1: this for a deep pockets litigant and and fees. I

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Speaker 1: wonder what else potentially were you led to believe there

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Speaker 1: might be something like Star, for example. I was kind

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Speaker 1: of taking it back because of course, here Star who

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Speaker 1: made his reputation going after Clinton for sex crimes, and

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Speaker 1: here he's defending Epstein. But with people like Dershowitz and

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Speaker 1: left Court and Star, what what do you think? What else?

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Speaker 1: What else do you think was behind it? If anything?

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Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to know. It was a different

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Speaker 1: First of all, it was a different time. It was

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Speaker 1: well before the mean too movement. Uh and what does

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Speaker 1: that mean? Essentially? Well, I'm not excusing any of it,

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Speaker 1: but I think that they sort of thought people can

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Speaker 1: still get away with Yeah. I think yeah. And here's

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Speaker 1: the big thing about it. Uh, they didn't care about

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Speaker 1: the girls. I mean, these were they felt these were

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Speaker 1: throwaway girls. These were prostitutes. Uh, they you know, essentially

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Speaker 1: what what was was Epstein's defense, correct which he said,

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Speaker 1: none of these women that came, they came as prostitutes,

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Speaker 1: were there for a reason. I paid them. If you

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Speaker 1: want to get me on a prostitution rap, that's one thing.

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Speaker 1: But to say I was involved in sex trafficking, which

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Speaker 1: is what they try to do, he said, that's not accurate.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to contend that they knew why they were there,

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Speaker 1: they knew what they were there to get paid for sex,

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Speaker 1: and that he also, if I'm not mistaken, you can

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Speaker 1: you can uh highlight this for us that he tried

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Speaker 1: to explain that he told everybody, don't bring me anybody

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Speaker 1: here who's under age, and he thought all of them

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Speaker 1: were of age. Is that correct? Yes? But I mean

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Speaker 1: the women that I interviewed who were involved in it,

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Speaker 1: was one of whom, by the way, was involved in

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Speaker 1: it for years, said that he made it very clear

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Speaker 1: he didn't want anybody who was older. All he wanted

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Speaker 1: was young girls, and the younger the better. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's basically what he always told them, the younger the better.

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Speaker 1: But of course you know, this is what they say,

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Speaker 1: and he and his lawyers, i'm sure would say that

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Speaker 1: they're lying and that that was not the case described

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Speaker 1: for everyone. Um, what happens in the case involved with

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Speaker 1: the costa in order to arrive at the decisions, they

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Speaker 1: arrived at the plea agreement, they arrived at well, the

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Speaker 1: state prosecutors in Palm Beach first had the case. The

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Speaker 1: police brought it to them, and with in a very

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Speaker 1: short time, all these lawyers that that Epstein had hired.

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Speaker 1: Uh began to UH pressure the state prosecutor to make

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Speaker 1: the case go away. And essentially the state prosecutor was

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Speaker 1: ready to make it go away, and and really he

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Speaker 1: was going to get anything except a misdemeanor. And the

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Speaker 1: police chief, to his credit, UH said, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: this isn't going to happen. Because at the time this

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Speaker 1: was happening more and more girls every time they entered.

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Speaker 1: To keep in mind, since it was a sex pyramid scheme,

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Speaker 1: you would interview one girl and the one girl would say, well,

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Speaker 1: these two girls brought me, and then they go to

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Speaker 1: those two girls and they would say these two girls.

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Speaker 1: So they were getting an avalanche of girls. And here

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Speaker 1: you have the state prosecutors saying, oh, we're just going

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Speaker 1: to let him off for a mr. Demeanor and the chief,

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Speaker 1: to his credit and the lead detective said no, and

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Speaker 1: they went to the FBI. So then it became a

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Speaker 1: federal case. And Alexander Acosta was the uh U s

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Speaker 1: attorney and Miami at the time and appointed by George W. Yes.

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Speaker 1: It was a Bush administration, was Republican administration. Now, uh

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Speaker 1: Epstein was very much of a Democrat and he had

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Speaker 1: supported Clinton and a lot of other democratic causes, but

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Speaker 1: he he was smart. It was a Republican administration, so

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Speaker 1: what do you do you hire a republican lawyer star

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Speaker 1: kind of star Uh you know, left court. And also

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Speaker 1: the other connection was Acosta had worked in the same

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Speaker 1: politically very important law firm of Kirkland and Ellis, which

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Speaker 1: was the same law firm that uh Star worked for

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Speaker 1: and left court work for. And so what they immediately

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Speaker 1: started doing was try to work out some kind of

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Speaker 1: a plea agreement with him, almost from the get go,

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Speaker 1: even though the FBI was uh on a parallel course

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Speaker 1: to charge him with sex trafficking, and we're getting more

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Speaker 1: and more information and but so there were too two

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Speaker 1: kinds of things happening. One was the FBI was really

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Speaker 1: going full steam, was trying to prosecute him. And then

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Speaker 1: you have the prosecutors who were essentially sending emails back

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Speaker 1: and for saying, well, why don't we charge him with this?

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Speaker 1: Or can we charge him with that? And it was

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Speaker 1: this sort of collegial thing going on between the processors.

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Speaker 1: They were asking defense attorneys almost like would you mind

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Speaker 1: if we charge him with this? Yes? They really I mean,

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Speaker 1: from what I read, I'm not an expert on this.

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Speaker 1: I've rarely heard I've really observed such a difference by

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Speaker 1: prosecutors to the subject of a crime. Yeah. And what

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Speaker 1: was amazing about the whole thing is if you follow

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Speaker 1: the whole thing, which this took me over a year

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Speaker 1: and a half to do, you to follow the sequence

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Speaker 1: of events here is that they would fight down and

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Speaker 1: say okay, we're gonna charge him with this, and and

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Speaker 1: and he'd say okay, we're going to do it. And

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Speaker 1: then you look at it and gong go no, I

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Speaker 1: want a better deal than that than they'd start all over.

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Speaker 1: And they manipulated. He manipulated the criminal justice system like

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Speaker 1: I've never seen before, because every time got him, which

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Speaker 1: was a pretty good deal, he would say, well, it's

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Speaker 1: still not good enough, go back again. What do you

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Speaker 1: think was behind Acosta? What do you think it was

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Speaker 1: behind I mean, because to me, the first thing that

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Speaker 1: come across is they want to bury this like it's

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Speaker 1: some kind of radioactive waste because there are other people,

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Speaker 1: big people. There's big names of people who are clientele

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Speaker 1: of Epstein's massage spa. Are there names of people you've

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Speaker 1: heard are big names that are buried in those files. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and what we are doing at the Miami Herald and

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Speaker 1: and my company that owns the Harold at McClatchy, I

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Speaker 1: have to give them a lot of credit because we're

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Speaker 1: the only news organization that has really done this, uh is.

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Speaker 1: We've been systemically going through these cases now and going

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Speaker 1: to the courts. We have a case right now here

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Speaker 1: in New York, uh involving Epstein and his madam so

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Speaker 1: to speaking, he had a woman that was helping him

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Speaker 1: allegedly uh with this uh here in New York here,

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Speaker 1: and was a recruiter in New York. Yes, and in

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Speaker 1: pomp Beach she worked to pump each to Gilan Maxwell. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this was a lawsuit involving her. And we're trying

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Speaker 1: to unseal the records because we feel that there's more

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Speaker 1: evidence in there. The New York case, that's a New

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Speaker 1: York and who wants to keep those records sealed? Maxwell

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Speaker 1: and Epstein, But who else? Well, there's a John says

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Speaker 1: indifferent to the is the New York Prosecutor's office, the

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Speaker 1: d A's office as in different toward letting the light

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Speaker 1: into those files as a custom wars. Well, we'll see,

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Speaker 1: I mean they knew. Let's face it, they knew that

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Speaker 1: this was going on. They had the US prosecutors here

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Speaker 1: in New York because he was doing in the same

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Speaker 1: deferential treatment as a democratic funds. Well, it's the difference. Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, It's hard to say, but we do

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Speaker 1: know that Vance did make an attempt to lower his

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Speaker 1: sex offender registration to a lower level. And that was

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Speaker 1: a real joke. I mean, because well, he that he

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Speaker 1: could do what the lower registration level giving him a

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Speaker 1: different codification or a different kind of a label, what,

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Speaker 1: given more freedom what? Well, he wouldn't have to check in,

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Speaker 1: you know, like to Dalton and teach kids math. Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I mean, in this day

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Speaker 1: and age, nothing would surprise me. But uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of like the Weinstein case, there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of complicity. There was a lot of

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Speaker 1: people that knew what was going on, and I think

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Speaker 1: that they looked the other way. Pivot for a minute

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Speaker 1: to your background in your life, you had a tough childhood. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I moved out of the house when I was sixteen,

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Speaker 1: became a mass paidd miner, lived with a bunch of

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Speaker 1: different friends for a while, worked the lampshade factory and

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Speaker 1: delivered flower as well. I finished school and then, you know,

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Speaker 1: I didn't have any money to go to college, so

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Speaker 1: I worked a bunch of jobs waitresses and did struggled

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Speaker 1: in to the point that I realized I better do

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Speaker 1: something because I don't want to work at kmart the

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Speaker 1: rest of my life. Was that something that that that

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Speaker 1: you think cause you to have great empathy for these girls? Yeah? Yes, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: I think personal Yeah, well that person. It's just for

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Speaker 1: the underdog because I haven't really only covered uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: women who have been abused. I I did a huge

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Speaker 1: for your project on the Florida prison system, and I've

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Speaker 1: never been in prison, but I know that. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of people out there who don't have

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Speaker 1: a voice in our criminal justice system, and they end

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Speaker 1: up in very bad places in our system disposes of

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Speaker 1: these people and then continues to mistreat them so they

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Speaker 1: never have a chance to to get ahead, even if

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Speaker 1: they do pay their debt to society. What is the

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Speaker 1: law the Crime Victims Rights Act, that's the law that

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Speaker 1: was set aside what happened to this victims writes law? Well,

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Speaker 1: the Crime Victims Rights grants crime victims certain rights, and

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Speaker 1: one of them is they have the right to confer

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Speaker 1: with prosecutors. Well, the prosecutors weren't telling them what was

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Speaker 1: going on. They weren't even returning their phone calls. What

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00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:14,320
Speaker 1: happened was they were telling these girls all along, we're

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Speaker 1: investigating this, We're going to prosecute him, you know, trying

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Speaker 1: to convince them to cooperate, you know, and of course

402
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:24,760
Speaker 1: they were all very scared. They felt a couple of

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Speaker 1: them claimed that he had even threatened them. More people

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Speaker 1: that were around him and threatened them, And so they

405
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Speaker 1: were saying, we're going to go after this guy. And

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Speaker 1: at the same time, they really were working out a

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Speaker 1: deal with him, and they weren't telling the girls. And

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Speaker 1: then before that they even knew it. Uh, he appeared

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Speaker 1: in court, he did a plea agreement, and they saw

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Speaker 1: it on TV and they said, what the heck happened?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I just talked to the prosecutor or the

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Speaker 1: FBI agent a week ago and they were still, you know,

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Speaker 1: working on the case. So, uh, they hired a lawyer,

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Speaker 1: and a lawyer said, what happened. They misled these girls

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Speaker 1: and their attorneys into believing they were going after this

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Speaker 1: guy when they really were working out a deal with him,

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Speaker 1: and left them in the dark, and left them completely

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Speaker 1: dark and never told them. And if there's a police bargain,

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Speaker 1: you have a right to at least know about the

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Speaker 1: police bargain. You have a right to appear at the sentencing.

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Speaker 1: They didn't tell any of the girls he's going to

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Speaker 1: be in court. You know, they found out about it

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Speaker 1: on the news. In fact, at the sentencing hearing, the

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Speaker 1: prosecutors essentially lied to the judge that the judge asked

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Speaker 1: the state prosecutor to to the victims know about this.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Judge, they know all about it, and they're

427
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Speaker 1: okay with this. Yeah, everything's okay. Well, they didn't know

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Speaker 1: about it. None of the girls knew about it. None

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Speaker 1: of their lawyers were told about it. Uh so he

430
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:57,480
Speaker 1: got this deal. And what is even more egregious, not

431
00:23:57,520 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: only did they keep it from them at the time

432
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,439
Speaker 1: that it happened, but then when they the girls a

433
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 1: couple of the girls final lawsuit saying you evaluated the

434
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: Crime Victims Rights Act, they didn't even turn over the

435
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:14,640
Speaker 1: non prosecution agreements. So it took them months before they

436
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 1: even knew what had happened because the government fought the girls.

437
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:21,640
Speaker 1: They were going to keep its secret. They did not

438
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 1: want to reveal it and it and they were hoping

439
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:28,160
Speaker 1: they would go away. Yeah. Yeah, And keep in mind

440
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 1: this crime victims rights case has nothing to do with money.

441
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 1: A lot of people thinking, oh, these are gold diggers,

442
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 1: are trying to get money. They don't get any money

443
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:38,199
Speaker 1: for the fact that they won this case. This was

444
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 1: not about money. It was about overturning a plee deal.

445
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: But too civil. Liigaans settled with him at the end

446
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: of last year. And my question for you is, like

447
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,479
Speaker 1: people that were involved, and again I'm not I'm not

448
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: judging them or criticizing them. I'm just wondering what your

449
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,200
Speaker 1: opinion is. But do these settlements do they stall justice

450
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 1: in the end when you have people taking money and

451
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,440
Speaker 1: they're the victims of these crime and they take money.

452
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: I think Rose McGowan took money from from Weinstein but

453
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: there was no NDA involved. She thought that does that

454
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 1: get in the way of us having real justice for

455
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,919
Speaker 1: the probibly But I feel like because our criminal justice system,

456
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: unfortunately in a lot of areas, is so heavily weighted

457
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 1: towards people who are powerful and wealthy. It doesn't give

458
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 1: them a lot of options because look what happened with

459
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: these girls. Uh, they they had no I mean, they

460
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: were treated basically like they were just I mean they

461
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: were thirteen fourteen year old girls. He was charged with

462
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 1: solicitation of prostitution of someone under the age of eighteen,

463
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: in other words, child. There really isn't any such thing

464
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: as child prostitution. You know that back then that was

465
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: still sex books in Florida, but it's no longer on

466
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 1: the books in Florida. Yeah, it's sex trafficking, but in

467
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: a lot of these people's mind that you know, Epstein's camp,

468
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: the people that worked for him, Uh, these girls were

469
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: processed and he didn't really do anything wrong. When we

470
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: returned Julie Brown on other men accused by Epstein's victims,

471
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 1: and one of those men, attorney and scholar Alan Dershowitz,

472
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: has his say in response. I also check in with

473
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 1: Julie Brown about the events of the past week. That's

474
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: in a minute from Here's the Thing. I'm Alec Baldwin

475
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the Thing. I spoke this

476
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: past spring with Julie Brown, the Herald reporter who dug

477
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: into the plea deal Jeffrey Epstein was given in two

478
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: thousand and eight by Alex Acosta, now President Trump's Labor secretary,

479
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: and even she has troubled expressing how singular his light

480
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: sentence really was. Florida has some of the toughest sex

481
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 1: offender laws in the country. Uh, they send these guys

482
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: to state prison and Florida state prisons, I can tell

483
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: you because they're they're vicious, you know. But he managed

484
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 1: to work it out so that he would go to

485
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: the Palm Beach County jail. He had his own private

486
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 1: little wing. Was a cost of responsible for that as well?

487
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 1: Have to that well, Acosta claimed he didn't. He had

488
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: no idea that that was going to happen, because what

489
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 1: a cost essentially did was he washed his hands of

490
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,400
Speaker 1: the case and gave it back to the state prosecutor.

491
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: And it didn't just stand there. I mean, he had

492
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: his driver picked him up. Explain about the work release. Yeah,

493
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: he got work released. Now spex offenders don't get work really,

494
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: the work release was what he was at. What I

495
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: read was he's out for twelve hours a day, six

496
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: days a week, six days. Driver picked him up, took

497
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: him to his nice waterfront office in West Palm Beach,

498
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 1: and uh, you know they had they did have sheriff's deputies,

499
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: you know, standing outside the office, but they were outside

500
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 1: the office, and on the inside of the office people

501
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: were coming and going all day, including women coming to

502
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:17,160
Speaker 1: visit him. I interviewed one of these deputies and I said, well,

503
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: did you even pay attention what he was doing in

504
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: the office? You know he had girls in there, And

505
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: he goes, oh, no, that was not our job. Yeah,

506
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: so he could have been continuing his activities during the

507
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: work release from the private jail cell of the Palm

508
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: Beach and which he just could have kept it going

509
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: and going and going. Yeah. Yeah. Now there are people who, um,

510
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: their names were pulled into this. Um. I'm not going

511
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 1: to say rightly or wrongly, but that is always a

512
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: really difficult consequence of these kinds of things, for people

513
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: to be wrongly accused and have their name dirtied up.

514
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: I mean, as I told you backstage, my name was

515
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: in Jeffrey Epstein's phone book, along with countless thousands of

516
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: people who were celebrities, are well known people. Remember when

517
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: people online would attack me about that. They'd say to me,

518
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: you perv you rapist? I mean to me, they said,

519
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: before my name was mentioned in anything to do with

520
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 1: the case, they'd write these things, and I would think

521
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: to myself, I literally said that away. Where the hell

522
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: did I ever meet Jeffrey Epstein? I couldn't put it

523
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: thought to myself in the nineties. Was he at some

524
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: event that was a fundraiser that I knew? And of

525
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: course I have a phone number that we give people.

526
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: That's what we in my office we called the Dummy line,

527
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 1: and it's a number we've given out to four maybe

528
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: five million people over the course of the last twenty

529
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: five years. But there are people who have had their

530
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: name pulled into this whole thing. Dersha Witz is one.

531
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: And do you think some of the people whose names

532
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: have been pulled through this are innocent or you're not sure?

533
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: I think with dershe Witz, his name was on flight

534
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: uh manifest flying to his on his plane. So before

535
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: he became counsel to Epstein, he was a guest of

536
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: Epstein's at his home. And I think that that's the

537
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: reason why Dershowitz is significant to a lot of people,

538
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: is that the idea is that he was Epstein's friend,

539
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: he stayed at his Palm Beach house, he vacationed at

540
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: his Palm Beach house, and then he represented him and

541
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: he helped fashion a plea deal that essentially not only

542
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 1: gave Epstein immunity, but gave his co conspirators both named

543
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: an unnamed immunity. So the implication is that you know,

544
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: and I you know. I'm not saying Deerschwitz, you know,

545
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: is guilty or not. I'm just saying the implication. The

546
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 1: reason why the lawyers representing one of the victims brought

547
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: it out was to demonstrate that if if you know,

548
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: it is true that he was involved, he definitely had

549
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 1: a conflict of interest. How how do people get immunity

550
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: as potential co conspirators? How do they have they continued

551
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 1: to get away with that in court? I mean, that's

552
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: I've talked to so many lawyers about this, and I

553
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: don't know of anybody that has ever heard of a

554
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: plea agreement like this before. You know, it's impert It

555
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: is unprecedented that did anybody, any of the women come

556
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: forward and accuse Dershowitz or anyone else. Two women said

557
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: he was a party to what happened yes, and nothing

558
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 1: has happened with that protected by immunity. Well no, I'm

559
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: not saying he's part of that because they didn't name

560
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: him so, and of course he denies that he had

561
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: anything to do with it, but he has been accused

562
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: of being involved in this. He insisted women, yes, by

563
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: two women, and uh he insisted their liars. And you

564
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: know he has uh you know, says that he has

565
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: proof that that this isn't true, but it's been Uh.

566
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the proof yet. You know. I'm still

567
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: trying to work with him on that, but he's he's

568
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: come out and attacked me pretty aggressively. Uh So we'll

569
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: see what happens. I try, you know, I try to

570
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: keep an open mind. You know, it must be a

571
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: terrible thing to be wrong if he's wrongly accused. To

572
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: be wrongly accused, this is a horrible crime. And you know,

573
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: I guess what I could say is I still try

574
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: to have an open mind, and I want to. I mean,

575
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: the truth is the truth is the truth, you know,

576
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: and only one person can really be telling the truth

577
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 1: in this case. And I don't think anybody really knows

578
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: because these are he said. She said in a lot

579
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: of cases. Uh so nobody. I mean, we might never know.

580
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: Do I have a picture of you that were you

581
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: sitting at a kitchen? I mean, I'm gonna be very

582
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: melodramatic now, but um, were you sitting at a kitchen

583
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: table at the end of some days and just staring

584
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: at a you know, a cup of tea or something

585
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 1: that's saying, you know you you just couldn't believe, not

586
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: not that this not just that this happened, and not

587
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: that's just that it was covered up, but the way

588
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: that it was covered up, and this is so insidious,

589
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: how this was done. And they gave this guy like,

590
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: uh like he went to camp for a while, an

591
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: extended trip to camp. Yeah. And with everything that I

592
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: uncovered a little by little, you know, it's like peeling

593
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: away an onion. And I get so tired because it's

594
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: a lot of dense court documents, you know, ten thousand

595
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: probably records, I mean, just so much and it's a

596
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: lot of it is so it's all legally's and I'm

597
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: not a lawyer, and trying to make heads or tails

598
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: out of it, which just gets so tired. For a

599
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: good point backstage, backstage, which you said the herold like

600
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: other newspapers, are not wealthy organizations and institutions anymore. So

601
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 1: this money meant a lot. They had spent a lot

602
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: of dough to do this legwork. Yeah. Yeah, they invested

603
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: a lot of money into this. They believed in me.

604
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: Be Bradley there in your story. Yeah, well it was

605
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: Casey Frank. I have to give him. He's my editor

606
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: who actually even went to bat with me. The police

607
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: chief to not want to go public. He had never

608
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: gone public with this before. He had been also, you know,

609
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:10,280
Speaker 1: his career was because he went after Hepstein to his career.

610
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 1: Uh was hurt by it. And well a lot of

611
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: people went after him, you know. And is he still

612
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:20,799
Speaker 1: the police chief. No, he retired and he wasn't taken

613
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 1: out of office removed, No, but it became hard for

614
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: him to be the police chief. And he he and

615
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: uh and the detective Joe Ry Carey who had who

616
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 1: after I interviewed him, unfortunately bested away. They were really

617
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: the only two people other than lawyers who risked their

618
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: careers really, uh for these girls, and uh, you know,

619
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 1: and as I was mentioning my he didn't want to

620
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: talk to me. It took me months to get him

621
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: to talk to me, because I said it has to

622
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: be on the record, you know, because he had he

623
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: had talked quite frankly. The reason why he didn't want

624
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: to talk to me, he said, he talked to a

625
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 1: lot of reporters off the record and sort of told

626
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 1: them where to go, and nothing ever happened. He was

627
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: convinced that a lot of media had squashed this story,

628
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 1: and he had was really at the point where he

629
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: was fed up and didn't want to talk to any

630
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 1: media anymore. And so I said, we're not going to

631
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: do it, and he said, no, somebody's going to call

632
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: your publisher and the next thing you know, you're going

633
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: to be assigned to the obit department. So I said, no,

634
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: you know, talk to so Casey called him up and

635
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: told him, is that the game show host of the

636
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: journalism department dement? Yeah, exactly, that's about it. Yeah, Um,

637
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: the like, what was the part that really just made

638
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:41,439
Speaker 1: you go, oh my god? It was really among many

639
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: things that I think, it was the fact that the

640
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:46,439
Speaker 1: government now think about, um, you know, we know about

641
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: the abuse in the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church

642
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 1: protected the priests, and we know about the abuse with

643
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: the Olympic gymnasts. The university had protected this doctor, but

644
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: this was our fermant, even after they knew what he

645
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 1: had done. The biggest thing that drove me was how

646
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:12,800
Speaker 1: they continued to fight these girls after they filed this

647
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: crime victims rights lawsuit. It was almost like they were Epstein.

648
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: The government was in Epstein's camp, they were his counsel. Yeah,

649
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: and they were saying, we're not giving you these documents.

650
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:26,319
Speaker 1: We're not going to tell you what we did, like

651
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 1: defense attorneys, and that just I mean, how do you

652
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: do that? How in good conscience do you do that?

653
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,839
Speaker 1: What can we do to help protect young women from

654
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:38,400
Speaker 1: this kind of sexual abuse? Well, there's a lot of

655
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: different things. Um. I think our law enforcement agencies, police officers,

656
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 1: prosecutors especially need to be better trained to handle these

657
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 1: kinds of cases. There's a whole different way you handle

658
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: trauma victims. You can't treat them like just any other victim.

659
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: They're in a different category because trauma does things to

660
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: your brain and it makes it so that you you

661
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,399
Speaker 1: you react to things differently. I mean, there's a whole

662
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:09,800
Speaker 1: science behind trauma and so a lot of law enforcement

663
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: people don't know how to question victims who are are

664
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: victims of sexual assault. They expect that they're going to

665
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,880
Speaker 1: go ask them a question, and when they hesitate, you know,

666
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 1: or they're not consistent in some of the answers, that

667
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: they're unreliable witnesses. But I've interviewed uh FBI experts who

668
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: have who have made their careers in this, and they

669
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 1: said that actually, you should expect that their memories are

670
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,719
Speaker 1: not going to be consistent, and if they are consistent,

671
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 1: that's a sign that that maybe they aren't telling the

672
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 1: truth because the consistency is that they suffer from trauma

673
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: and they won't remember exactly every detail the same way,

674
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: because that's the way your brain is. You you know,

675
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: I've been through some trauma and there are things in

676
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: my life that I can't remember. I mean, I'll never remember,

677
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:59,319
Speaker 1: you know. So uh, you know, you have to have

678
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,399
Speaker 1: law enforcement people who are really trained to understand that.

679
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: And there's a whole like I said, there's a whole

680
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: science behind it. Um, do we have any questions from

681
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 1: the audience from market? Um? You got the mic here

682
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 1: right over. UM. I just wanted to ask if you

683
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: had received any pressure similar to the people involved in

684
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: the case, to not continue the investigation, to not publish

685
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 1: the article. Uh well, I wouldn't phrase it that way,

686
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 1: but let's put it this way. There's a lot of

687
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 1: people who have been pretty aggressive with trying to uh

688
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:38,919
Speaker 1: discredit me in certain ways. Uh, so, you know, I'm

689
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 1: pretty tough. There are countless journalists that are killed all

690
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 1: over the world for fighting for the truth and for democracy. Um.

691
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: There are countless journalists right now being tortured in prisons

692
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: all over the world. And so anybody that every time

693
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: I you know, that question comes up, of course, you know,

694
00:38:58,320 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: you think about it in the back of your head,

695
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: but I think about all the other journalists out there

696
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:05,240
Speaker 1: that are just really risking their lives every single day.

697
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 1: On the end here, UM, thank you. I have two questions.

698
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:15,319
Speaker 1: First is did you have a chance to interview him?

699
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: And second question is what happened this moment? Now? Were

700
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 1: they doing in life? And if you touch with them

701
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:26,280
Speaker 1: an interview again? Yeah, thank you. I tried several times.

702
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: I went to his house when I knew he was there,

703
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 1: knocked on the door, wrote letters to him, certified letters,

704
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:34,959
Speaker 1: wrote wrote letters to his lawyers, reached out to people

705
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 1: that I knew knew him, but no, I I just

706
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 1: he probably just thought I was this little reporter from

707
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 1: the Miami Herald. It wasn't, you know, just like any

708
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: other reporter, just doing another rehash of the case. So

709
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: I you know, I don't think he felt that he

710
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: had to respond to me. And that's just my guest. Uh.

711
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 1: I still stay in touch with the girls, and and uh,

712
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: I was really touched. They were very young. Some never

713
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 1: even told their families that this happened. One of the

714
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 1: girls in that category who shared her story to me,

715
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: was scared to death about how her grandparents would read

716
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,720
Speaker 1: the story. And after the peace came out, she called

717
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: me and she said that her grandparents had we turn

718
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: said that they were really proud of her. You know.

719
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry, but that being really touched because it

720
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 1: takes a lot of courage to do that. She she

721
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:27,879
Speaker 1: she was really worried about what they would think of her.

722
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the girls, I'm sure field

723
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: that way. And uh and like I said, they feel

724
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 1: really ashamed. They really punished themselves. A lot of them

725
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: didn't turn out well. Some of them are dead. Um,

726
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: they've overdosed. Uh. Some of them became strippers, and you

727
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: know we're we're victims of violence addicts. The one girl

728
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 1: I interviewed, I interviewed her the first time I interviewed her.

729
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 1: She was in prison. She was serving a longer term

730
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 1: for selling drugs than he served for molesting underage girls.

731
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: So that that that's amazing. I want to go over

732
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 1: to this side this Showman and the r In the

733
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: Southern District of New York, there was a lawsuit brought

734
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 1: by a Jane Doe against Epstein and Trump. It had

735
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: previously brought in California. Uh, it was subsequently this continued.

736
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,839
Speaker 1: Uh do you know why it was? And have you

737
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 1: ever dealt with the Jane Doe in that case? And

738
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: what did you think of her? Nobody knows who that

739
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:30,919
Speaker 1: Jane Doe is. She's sort of disappeared after Uh that

740
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: came out. And you know, at the time, the lawyer

741
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: Lisa Bloom was representing her and had said that she

742
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: had been threatened in some way and decided not to

743
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 1: go through with it. I haven't been able to find

744
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: out who she is or find any evidence at all

745
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: that that that her story was true, which is why

746
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: most of the media has not really written about it

747
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: since because Uh, you know, we can't find any evidence

748
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: that any of it had been then it was right

749
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: at the time of the election. I think it was

750
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: a couple of days before the election. So there's a

751
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 1: lot of Yeah, there, there's a lot of people that

752
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: suspect it might have been politically motivated. I'm not saying

753
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: it was, but I've never been able to find out

754
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: any evidence that it's true. And I have looked into it,

755
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: and I've talked to a lot of people who were

756
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: affiliated with it, and I haven't just been able to

757
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 1: confirm it. And this gentleman way in the corner right First,

758
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: I have to say bravo for the work that you've dot.

759
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 1: I know, as a journalist you cannot pay sources, and

760
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: I didn't hear a whole lot about whistleblowers or leakers.

761
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: If we could incentivize leakers in government, there have to

762
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: be people there that despise what's going on, and it

763
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be possible if they could find a way

764
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: to get to you through a neutral source. Is that

765
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 1: at all possible? Well, you know there's these Uh I

766
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 1: have a pro proton email. I'm new to all this

767
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: kind of technology. Yeah, well, it's encrypted, uh email, thank

768
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:16,360
Speaker 1: you somebody. Other people know about this. I have younger

769
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: people fortunately on my staff, on our staff, who have

770
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:22,240
Speaker 1: helped me with this kind of new technology. So there's

771
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: ways for people to get me and not reveal who

772
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: they are, without you know, having to pay anybody to

773
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: do that. That lady weigh in the back. I want

774
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 1: to get back to the safety of journalists. What concerns,

775
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:41,759
Speaker 1: if any, do you have about your own personal safety.

776
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: I want to know what you do, what locks you have,

777
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: what the security is. Well, for a long time I

778
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 1: had a nice loud dog when I was covering the

779
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 1: Florida prison system, and there were some people that would

780
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 1: show up, you know, lurking outside my and the dog

781
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 1: would be so loud. It was my daughter's talk. So

782
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: now my daughter has her dog back, So I'm thinking

783
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: maybe I should get another dog. But uh, you know,

784
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 1: I don't really think about it until people ask me.

785
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:14,879
Speaker 1: Then I get worried. You just keep doing your job.

786
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: We think you're from Florida. Automatically you carry a gun,

787
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: don't you. Yeah, well I've had you know, I have

788
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: a lot of friends who are police officers. In fact,

789
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: my ex husband is a police officer. And they've all

790
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 1: advised me that I should have one, but I just

791
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: can't bring myself to do it. Like I said, I

792
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: grew up in Philly, and you know, you just pay

793
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 1: attention to where you're going and what you're doing. Look,

794
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: if anybody really wants to get you, they're going to

795
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 1: get you. I can't finished. If we didn't call, we

796
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 1: didn't call you. I'm sorry, We're gonna finish with you. SCA.

797
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: What do we know specifically about the relationship between Epstein

798
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:56,800
Speaker 1: and Clinton. Uh, he was absolutely on Epstein's plane. Uh,

799
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 1: you know there it's been documented that he's help where

800
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: South Africa. Epstein donated some money to the Clinton Foundation,

801
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: and during this time period, which was I think the

802
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:10,920
Speaker 1: early two thousand's, uh you know, they were the AIDS

803
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 1: epidemic was spreading in Africa, and there was you know,

804
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: a sort of a fact finding plane trip that Epstein

805
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 1: took trip Clinton on. Now he went on his plane

806
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 1: more than that, though. We know that there was probably

807
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: like twenty trips, and uh, you know, of course, a

808
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: lot of people suspect that maybe he was involved in

809
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 1: some way. He's denied that he was involved. And the

810
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: one girl that we know was very much involved. Underage

811
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 1: girl Virginia Roberts said that she never saw him with

812
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:48,839
Speaker 1: any that's correct. That's correct. Well, I was gonna say

813
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 1: I could talk about sex trafficking all night long. I

814
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:54,759
Speaker 1: think I've had about enough of that subject for now

815
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,279
Speaker 1: and around the time, I want to say that, you know,

816
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 1: journalists who do the job you're doing our heroes, and

817
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 1: I admire you very very much. That please. I admire

818
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 1: you to mens Thine for what you've done. Uh, thank

819
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 1: you to my guest Julie Brown for the Miami herold.

820
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: I thank you all for coming. Thank you Julie Brown

821
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 1: on threats to her safety and that of other journalists

822
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: around the world. When former Epstein lawyer Alan Dershawitz heard

823
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 1: that his name had come up, he wanted the opportunity

824
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 1: to respond. Here is our conversation. Julie Brown denied your

825
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: listeners the full truth about her reporting. Um. She mentions

826
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:46,359
Speaker 1: two women who accused me of having sexual accounts with them.

827
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: I never met these women. I don't know who they are.

828
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: They totally came out of the blue. This is the

829
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 1: only me too case that I'm aware of where there

830
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 1: was no prior relationship, where there was no knowledge. These

831
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 1: are just strangers who were for mostly accusing me. These

832
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:04,800
Speaker 1: are both women who have long records of falsely accusing

833
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 1: famous people. The first woman, named Roberts, who Brown relies

834
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 1: on for her reporting, had gotten a hundred sixty thou

835
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,560
Speaker 1: dollars from The Mail in London for an article in

836
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: which she remembers vividly meeting al Gore a typical or

837
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: on Jeffrey Epstein's island. They've never been on the island. Uh,

838
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 1: secret Service and other records confirmed that she also remembers

839
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,240
Speaker 1: meeting Bill Clinton on the island. Secret Service records confirmed

840
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: he was not on the island. Her own lawyer, UH.

841
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 1: Robert's own lawyer admitted to me in a tape recorded

842
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: conversation that his client was quote wrong, simply wrong. That

843
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly have been in any of the places

844
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:46,719
Speaker 1: where she claimed to have sex with me. I produced

845
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: all my travel records every single day of my life

846
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: during the two years this woman and Jeffrey Epstein and

847
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 1: proved conclusively that I couldn't have been at the places.

848
00:47:56,000 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: That's why uh. The the head of the FBI, the

849
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: former head of the FBI, Louis Free, did a complete

850
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: and thorough investigation and concluded that the stories were made

851
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 1: up and that they were a false The judge struck

852
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: the allegation sanctioned the lawyers, profiling them. The lawyers then

853
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: withdrew the allegation, admitting that it was a mistake. And

854
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 1: yet your audience didn't hear anything about that. Um. The

855
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 1: second woman went to the New York Post and claimed

856
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:26,760
Speaker 1: she had sex takes of Hillary Clinton, of Donald Trump,

857
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:30,760
Speaker 1: of Richard Branson, and of Bill Clinton. And of course

858
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: she was lying through her teeth, and the New York

859
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: Post threw her out the reporter's name as a marine

860
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:40,399
Speaker 1: Callahan show confirm all of this. And yet um, they

861
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 1: produced her as the second woman after I was threatened

862
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: that if I didn't withdraw a bar charge against the

863
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: first lawyer, they would find a second woman. Because two

864
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:51,359
Speaker 1: women are better than one. You know, people say when

865
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:53,879
Speaker 1: they smoke this fire, sometimes when they smoked this arson.

866
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 1: This is a case of arson. This is a case

867
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,360
Speaker 1: where two women for profit, and they've earned an enormous

868
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: amount of money. Yes, um have falsely accused me to

869
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,959
Speaker 1: frame me, and I'm sinking an FBI investigation. I've asked

870
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:09,719
Speaker 1: for the FBI to investigate me along with these two

871
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: women because they filed out to David's an eye filed

872
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,320
Speaker 1: after David And how was that and how was that going?

873
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: Is the FBI responding to your request? Well, we're waiting

874
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:21,759
Speaker 1: to hear obviously. I've also asked for any law firm

875
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,720
Speaker 1: in the country to conduct an independent investigation. I'm willing

876
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: to show everything to everybody because i did nothing wrong.

877
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: I've lived an exemplary private life for all the years

878
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 1: that are relevant to this, these inquiries, and these women

879
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: just made up these stories, and and and Brown wants

880
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: to win the fuel is surprised, but you didn't tell

881
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 1: the public that the source she relied on, the major source,

882
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 1: Virginia Roberts, is a proven perjura and a proven liar.

883
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: I won't rest until Virginia Roberts goes to prison and

884
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 1: the other woman goes to prison. False accusations are serious,

885
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: whether it's the actor in Chicago Smollet who falsely accused people,

886
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,760
Speaker 1: or it's these women. False accusations hurt Me Too movement.

887
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:11,359
Speaker 1: They're very serious. And Julie Brown hasn't reported the other

888
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 1: side of the story. Sure, she put into the story

889
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: that I denied it that's not enough. She owed the

890
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 1: readers the obligation to say, I produced all my travel records,

891
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: there was an FBI report, the judge struck everything. That's uh,

892
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 1: that's true, and then nobody would believe these stories. It's

893
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: pure advocacy. And if a lawyer ever behaved that way,

894
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:34,800
Speaker 1: that lawyer would be disbarred for failing to produce relevant

895
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: evidence that shows that I was innocent when the women

896
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: are claiming falsely that I'm guilty. So thank you for

897
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: an opportunity to tell your listeners the whole truth. Well,

898
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I listen, I have tremendous in my own

899
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:52,319
Speaker 1: life public life. I've had my share of things that

900
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:55,800
Speaker 1: I felt were not reported accurately or not really very fair,

901
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 1: and so I have tremendous empathy for that. I only

902
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:00,440
Speaker 1: have one question, which is that in the we live,

903
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: and of course this is the American way, which is

904
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 1: to torpedo people's careers over sexual charges. America is particularly

905
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 1: obsessed with the sexual clinton and so everything is in

906
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: other countries. The differences they did it here, we no

907
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: no, no no no no, but didn't do it no no no.

908
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:18,879
Speaker 1: I'm not disputing them. I'm just leading up to something

909
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:22,120
Speaker 1: which is that that in this country people are often

910
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 1: doing this too, this as a form of character assassination

911
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:28,919
Speaker 1: and to nullify someone's career with these sex charges. Because

912
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 1: in other countries this doesn't play that much. I mean

913
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:33,839
Speaker 1: in other countries, they don't care. In other countries women

914
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 1: would put in p But but what I'm asking you is,

915
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:38,439
Speaker 1: so you think that these two women that are making

916
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: these false charges against you, it's purely about money. Well

917
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 1: it started with money, uh, driven by their lawyers. The

918
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:48,840
Speaker 1: first woman, Roberts, told her best friend I have it

919
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: on tape that she was pressured by her lawyers to

920
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 1: name me. She had never previously named me. There are

921
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: some emails now that are still sealed, but we're waiting

922
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:02,120
Speaker 1: to get them unsealed. But they show how the plot unfolded,

923
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:06,279
Speaker 1: how they admitted, how she admitted she never had any

924
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 1: contact with me at all, but she was told she

925
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: had to put me in her book because otherwise the

926
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 1: book wouldn't sell because I'm famous, and this is a

927
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:17,320
Speaker 1: one with a long history of making false acquisitions against

928
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: famous people. She claims to have had underage sex with

929
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister of Israel, with the majority leader of

930
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: the United States Senate, the United States Ambassador to the

931
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 1: United Nations, with the man who invented artificial intelligence. You

932
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 1: name it. I mean, it's a pantheon of famous people.

933
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 1: Professor Allen Dershowitz I called Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown

934
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:42,399
Speaker 1: to get her take on what's transpired this past week.

935
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:46,400
Speaker 1: So tell me what just happened with the accousta news

936
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: conference room. Well, Mr Custa is elaborating on explanations that

937
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 1: he has given in the past about why he didn't

938
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:58,000
Speaker 1: of that really prosecute Mr Epstein. They fall into two categories. One,

939
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: he is trying to explain the even itself and and

940
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: how they felt that they wouldn't win a trial if

941
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:07,880
Speaker 1: they had taken it to trial. And to the second

942
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: part of it is he's being grilled about the secrecy

943
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 1: part of the agreement where they didn't inform the victims

944
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:18,400
Speaker 1: and that part of it which led to the judge

945
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 1: ruling the entire agreement was illegal. Um. So to start

946
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: with the top part, you know, not having the evidence,

947
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 1: I'm saying that some of the witnesses were reluctant. Um. Look, uh,

948
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,840
Speaker 1: you know he could have continued to investigate this the

949
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:38,359
Speaker 1: FBI wanted to. They were getting new information and new

950
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:42,799
Speaker 1: victims every day. You don't need uh, twenty victims. You

951
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,200
Speaker 1: don't need a whole lot of victims. You just need

952
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: two or three good victims. So it's pretty disingenuous for

953
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:51,600
Speaker 1: him to say, oh, well, there were some victims who

954
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:55,239
Speaker 1: didn't want anyone to know that this happened. They were reluctant.

955
00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 1: He had thirty six and it would be hard for

956
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:00,440
Speaker 1: me to believe that there weren't a you know, a

957
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:03,799
Speaker 1: couple of those victims who would have been really good

958
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:07,200
Speaker 1: witnesses number one and number two. The FBI was getting

959
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: more information. It's inexplicable that he would just cut that

960
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:16,960
Speaker 1: investigation short, given the breath of this crime, and then

961
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 1: the second part of this, the secrecy part of it. Uh.

962
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:23,799
Speaker 1: He's said, um that one of the reasons why he

963
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 1: didn't tell the victims was because they they might have

964
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 1: been compromised by knowing that there was a restitution provision

965
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:34,799
Speaker 1: in the agreement, um, which is ridiculous because they didn't

966
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:37,040
Speaker 1: have to tell them about the restitution part. All they

967
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: had to do was tell them that they had an

968
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:41,320
Speaker 1: agreement by the time it was sentenced. Then they wouldn't

969
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: have been compromised. They could have mentioned something then. So, Uh,

970
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: it's a lot to unpack. Um, it's a pretty lampy

971
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: press conference. It's still going on right now. How did

972
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 1: you learn about what happened on Saturday? You know, somebody

973
00:54:56,560 --> 00:55:00,520
Speaker 1: called me at home and said, you know, Epstein's been arrested,

974
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 1: and we had plans to fly to the middle of

975
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 1: the country the next day to interview two more victims. Um.

976
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 1: It was all set up for weeks and we had

977
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 1: to quickly change our plans and come to New York.

978
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: You had no idea that something was brewing, that they

979
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,360
Speaker 1: were going to get him. I had heard rumors that

980
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:19,040
Speaker 1: something was brewing, but I also heard that everybody was

981
00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 1: keeping a pretty tight little on it because they did

982
00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:24,359
Speaker 1: not want to give him a chance to plea. Um.

983
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 1: They thought that if he had found out that they

984
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:30,359
Speaker 1: were going to arrest him, he might flee the Uh.

985
00:55:32,040 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 1: I mean without you know, emotionalizing this, because this must

986
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 1: be this very powerful experience for you personally. How did

987
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 1: you feel when you heard about what happened Saturday? I

988
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: was stunned. I'm still I think in shock. I I

989
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:46,680
Speaker 1: just I thought maybe something would eventually happen, but I

990
00:55:46,680 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 1: didn't think it would happen this fast. So New York

991
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:52,839
Speaker 1: must have some good information they obvioust they do have

992
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,239
Speaker 1: some new information. They obviously, I mean, the prosecutor made

993
00:55:56,239 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 1: it clear that he felt that a cost and the

994
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 1: prosecutors and Areta had dropped the ball pretty badly. So, um,

995
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 1: we'll have to see where it shakes out. Have you

996
00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 1: spoken to any of the victims since the story broke, Yes,

997
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:13,600
Speaker 1: quite a few of them called me. Um, they're related. Um,

998
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 1: they're emotional, they're they're ecstatics, they're very happy. Now what

999
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:22,799
Speaker 1: is there at this point that you want to know? Now, well,

1000
00:56:22,840 --> 00:56:26,680
Speaker 1: I'd like to know what prosecutors in his office how

1001
00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: you know, there's some questions about whether his prosecutors underneath

1002
00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 1: him acted properly. Acosta, I've got to go back to

1003
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: the set. Um. Uh, they're calling me back. Okay, thank

1004
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:44,799
Speaker 1: you very much, thank you, all right, thanks, Julie had

1005
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:47,719
Speaker 1: to get off of our phone call very quickly to

1006
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 1: get back to the Acousta press conference. I'm Alec Baldwin,

1007
00:56:53,000 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: and you're listening to here's the thing, foll