WEBVTT - How Julie Brown Broke Open the Jeffrey Epstein Story 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:06.040 By Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:12.039 Last year, Julie Brown of the Miami Herald conceived, reported, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.880 and wrote one of the most explosive criminal justice stories 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:20.840 in recent memory. She tracked how the US Justice Department 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.439 shut down an FBI investigation that may have been on 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:28.520 the verge of discovering the full extent of a child 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:33.800 sex trafficking operation run by billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The U 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.120 s attorney in charge of that case was none other 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.920 than alex A Costa, now the United States Secretary of 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:47.080 Labor under Donald Trump. As punishment for recruiting underage girls 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:51.120 to perform sex acts at his Palm Beach mansion, Epstein 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.480 spent barely a year in the local lock up. With 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:59.800 a liberal daily work release, Julie Brown found many many 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.240 or victims who had not spoken up and revealed the 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:07.399 extent of acustas capitulation in the face of Epstein's high 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:12.080 powered defense lawyers. For her crucial work, she's been given 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.880 a Poke Award for Justice Reporting. While she was in 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.520 New York to receive it, she joined me on stage 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:25.760 at w n YCS Green Space. I had so much 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:30.319 for coming um and thank you to Julie Brown for 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.959 coming to do the show. You first started reporting on 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.039 this case when um a year and a half ago. 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.039 But I knew about the case for a long time, 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.240 and you got involved in the case. Why because I 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.840 was I did a lot of human rights reporting for 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.639 the Miami Herald. I covered the prisons, and I knew 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.120 that Florida was one of the states that had a 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:56.080 huge sex trafficking problem. And I always everything that I 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.680 read was they were going after little cases. But I 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.400 knew that there were some big fish, so to speak, 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:07.000 in Florida, that we're probably behind sex. I just you know, 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.200 it's it's it's just reasonable to think that there are 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.520 uh this it's a big money making operation. It's it's 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:16.800 all over the country, all over the world, really human 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.880 trafficking and sex trafficking. There really was nobody pursuing this 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.440 at all except for lawyers. And that was one of 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.639 the other things that didn't treat me about this case. 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:27.960 You know, you would read about it and then you say, 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.160 you know, how does this happen and why isn't anybody 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.200 standing up yelling and screaming. But the case has been 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.839 ongoing for quite a while. Before you got involved, Well, 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.560 it actually had quieted down. I compare what I did 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:43.280 in this case to what a cold case detective does. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.480 Let's say you have someone who disappeared, and the detectives 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.200 come in and they find a suspect, but they can't 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.200 prove it, and then they put it all away in 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.200 a box. And then somebody comes along who maybe just 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.000 got hired by the police department, and they just decide 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.360 that they're going to, uh, hey, I'm going to take 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:02.320 a look at this, and when time goes by. I 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.240 know this also from other stories I've covered, Other people 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.280 come out of the woodwork, or there might be people 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.200 that didn't want to talk when it happened. We're afraid 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.320 for one reason or another, and time has gone by 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:20.720 or or what happened right, And and these girls were 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.320 at the time, you know, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old. 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.840 Now they're in they're only thirties. Actually, what really launched 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.680 the piece was when Alexander Acosta, who was the prosecutor, 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.240 the federal prosecutor in Miami who handled this case, got 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.000 nominated by President Trump to be Labor Secretary. I thought 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:40.920 I knew about the case, and I thought, well, let's 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:46.080 see what happened which involves to some degree prosecuting human trafficking. Right. 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.520 I mean, it was really the most the biggest scandal 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.320 of his career because he gave uh he really let 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.440 him almost walk away from this crime, and not only 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.960 walk away from it, but they covered it up. They 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:04.760 they really made sure that no one really knew that 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:09.040 know the scope of this crime. Now for those people 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.000 who don't know a lot of the details of the case, 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.119 so I want to start with that which is described 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.440 for people, who is Epstein and what was he charged with? 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.680 And what was the eventual outcome of the prosecution that 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:26.880 Acosta oversaw? Right, Well, he was a billionaire financier and 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:28.800 he had a hedge fund. He had a hedge fund, 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.880 and he dabbled in a lot of other financing things 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.520 like at one point he wanted to take over pan 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.960 Am Airlines. There was a lot of different projects that 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.960 he invested money in and he made a lot obviously 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.560 made a lot of money. He owned uh two jets, 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.160 and he owned homes in New Mexico, the largest single 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:51.159 residents here in Manhattan, home in Palm Beach, home in 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:57.360 um Paris. Uh So, he was extremely wealthy, very smart. 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:01.159 You know, he was a mathematician and no Bill Prize 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.480 winning scientists were in his circle in New York. He 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.640 grew up in New York. He didn't finish college, but 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:08.680 he ended up getting a job at the Dalton School 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:15.440 uh teaching mathematics and there through the students parents, he 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.599 ended up working for Bear Star and he sort of 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.960 left under mysterious circumstances there um and then opened his own, um, 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.160 you know, financial firm. And during the course of the trial, 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.680 was it did it become was it exposed or was 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.719 it revealed? How long he had been doing this activity 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:41.560 with young girls. He'd been doing this ongoing and he 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:46.440 had people helping him. It was very organized. Described the operation. 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:50.800 It was like something if you saw a movie about it, 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:52.479 you would think, oh, yeah, right, this is really going 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.239 to happen. But it's exactly what he did. He had 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.800 a lot of money and he had a lot of 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.360 people around him. And what he he liked massages. So 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.160 what he would do is he had people go out 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:11.400 to various areas well. Initially it was like spas. Like 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.680 in fact, one of the women that he recruited was 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:16.960 from our lago, which is right around the corner from 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:21.479 his home, uh in Palm Beach. And once he got 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.960 his hold on a couple of the girls, what he 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.800 would say to them is, you bring me a couple 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.599 more girls, and I'll give you the same amount of money. 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.919 So he would be paying that. They were paid for services, yes, 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.960 from massage, from massages, and then and then they were 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:39.640 paid as recruiters to bring in more people, right, and 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.480 the recruiters would recruit more, and it just went on 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.080 and on the pyramid, and it kept growing and growing 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.440 until they got to be by your estimation, how many 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:49.680 young women were coming in and out of that house 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.880 over time, I mean it had to be over at least, 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.880 and they got like if I read copy and shopping 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.880 malls and different. Because what happened was once he got 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.880 his foothold into one of the high schools there, one 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.080 girl would tell another girl. And these were girls who 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.599 came from uh. You know, most people think of Palm 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.040 Beaches everybody's wealthy, but there really is. West Palm Beach 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.840 is a very struggling blue collar area, and there were 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.560 girls who lived in vulnerable situations where they were in uh, 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.800 one step away from homelessness. One girl told me for example. 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:24.920 You know, I've been wearing the same pair of shoes 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.320 for three years, and I thought, I'm gonna go give 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.080 him a massage. I'm going to get some money, and 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.240 I'm going to be abby to puy a pair of shoes, 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.480 which is really heartbreaking actually every time I think about that. 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:36.400 At that I met a young woman once on the 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.640 set of the film who had been a prostitute, and 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:41.480 she said, and every time I had sex with somebody 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.360 for money, all I kept seeing was the new drapes 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.840 in my mother's house, and oh my god, what a 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.920 You know. The other thing is he sort of led 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:52.800 them to believe that he was going to help them 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:56.120 out of their misery, you know, like you're beautiful, I'll 0:07:56.160 --> 0:08:00.720 get you. Yeah. And he had people, He had people, 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.240 you know, I have people that kind of thing, and 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.120 he did. He didn't know some people, and actually some 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.360 of them did. A couple of them did become actresses, 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.360 you know, And so he had some contacts, and he 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.080 led a lot of them to believe that that I'm 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:15.680 going to get you out of this. And I don't 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:17.440 think of any of those actresses one in Oscar. They 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.960 would thank Jeffrey Epstein to their acceptance. Probably not. Probably 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.600 did other victims come forward who wanted to make charges 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.160 against Epstein for events that predated Palm Beach. Yes, but 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.040 the problem is a statue of limitations. So there's there's 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.800 quite a number of girls in that category, and there's 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.119 really not a lot they can do because his activities 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.559 in that regard confined to Palm Beach or in New York. 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.480 And from the women that I interviewed, he did it everywhere. 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.439 He had an island in the Caribbean. Uh, he would 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.880 send one of the girls or probably more than one, 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.240 but one that I know of who I interviewed out 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.600 to for example, he had the island, so they would 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.400 take a furry or helicopter from St. Thomas. What she 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.199 told me was we would go to the nightclubs in St. 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.840 Thomas and I would just bring him more girls. And Uh, 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.160 there was Sarah Kellen who was a scheduler. What did 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.360 she schedule? She scheduled the girls. Did you interview her? No, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.440 she hasn't spoken to anybody, and she got immunity under 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.679 the non prosecution agreement that he worked out. So she's 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:24.800 off the hook. A lot of people are off the hook. 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.280 We don't even know what immunity for what she did, 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.360 which only led to a thirteen month jail sentenced for 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.439 him with for him and worked released the whole time. 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.840 They gave her that for some little Yeah, the person 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.559 you did interview who was a recruiter for him, how 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:40.280 did they strike you? What? What did they was a 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.400 man or woman? Well, you know, remember a lot of 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.160 the girls were recruiters for him too, and uh so 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:51.120 they you know, it's very sad to think about how 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.280 this changed their lives. Imagine being fourteen years old and 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.440 you know, you basically don't have any place to live, 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.600 and you start doing this and you're fourteen, and you know, 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.600 now you're thirty and you look back on it, and 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.440 and it's very painful to watch how much they blamed themselves. 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.480 They're very ashamed, and they blamed themselves for the other 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.360 girls that they brought into it, and they just didn't 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.679 understand the ramific A lot of the people that you're 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.400 referring to were very young, whether they were uh you know, 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.240 involved in the massage and other related sex activities with 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.760 Epstein or the recruitment. Were there some grown women and men, 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.800 particularly women, I'm curious who were recruiters or we're helping 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.200 to kind of run the operations. Who should have known better. Well, 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:41.400 what he did was though when girls got older, he 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.920 didn't want them anymore, so then they turned into you know, 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.400 they stayed with him and started doing it. So we 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.719 don't really know those older women. We don't really know 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.040 how they got wrapped up into it. They could have 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.840 very well been trafficked the same way the younger girls 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:58.959 were at a younger age, but he kept them on 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.440 painted picture of you will of who Epstein you think is? 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.800 And why did he do this? Because apparently I'm not mistaken, 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:08.560 he had a woman coming in and out of the house, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.800 and he was having sex with multiple women a day, yes, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.200 like three times a day sometimes. Correct. What did you 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:17.560 what kind of of a picture did you get at him? Well, 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.960 obviously he had some kind of an illness to be 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:24.280 doing something like that. And I think that the biggest 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:26.640 thing that I came across from reading everything and all 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.880 the research that I did, was he really felt that 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:35.679 he was above the law. He just seemed to know 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:37.400 from the get go that he was going to get 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:44.480 away with it. Uh. He pressured, intimidated, bullied, hired the 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.079 best lawyers that his money could buy. And when those 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.200 lawyers didn't give him what he wanted, he hired more lawyers. 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.400 He hired politically connected people. He pressured the girls, He 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.880 hired private investigators who followed their parents. Uh. He deposed 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.200 the girls and got her medical records, saying that she 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.959 had had abortions, called her parents who were Catholic, and 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.040 asked her Catholic parents when the goal was to attack 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.760 the victim? Oh yes, and not only just the victims. 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:16.480 Actually the police who had been investigated were followed, the 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:21.440 prosecutors were pressured. And I think that's what makes this 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.840 a story, really is every step of the way with 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.400 the criminal justice system he powered his way through to 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.120 basically get away with some of the people that you 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:36.800 some of the lawyers involved in this case. There's a 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:43.000 left court and Derschowitz and and even ken Star. I 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.520 struggled to think that people at that level. I struggled 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.040 to think that people of that reputation, at least in 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.760 terms of their skills as attorneys or just in this 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:57.600 for a deep pockets litigant and and fees. I wonder 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.800 what else potentially were you led to believe there might 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.319 be some think, like Star, for example, I was kind 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.320 of taking it back because of course, here's Star who 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:11.480 made his reputation going after Clinton for sex crimes, and 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.679 here he's defending Epstein. But with people like Dershowitz and 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.360 left Court and Star, what what do you think? What else? 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:20.800 What else do you think was behind it? If anything? 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:24.600 You know, it's hard to know. It was a different 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.240 First of all, it was a different time. It was 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.760 well before the me too movement. Uh And what does 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.960 that mean? Essentially? Well, I'm not excusing any of it, 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.360 but I think that they sort of thought people can 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.520 still get away with Yeah. Yeah, And here's the big 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:44.440 thing about it. Uh, they didn't care about the girls. 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:48.600 I mean, these were they felt these were throwaway girls. 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:53.280 These were prostitutes. Uh they you know, That's essentially what 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.559 What was was Epstein's defense, correct which he said, none 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.760 of these women that came, they came as prostitutes, were 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:01.839 there for a reason. I paid them. If you want 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.920 to get me on a prostitution rap, that's one thing. 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.079 But to say I was involved in sex trafficking, which 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:09.120 is what they try to do, he said, that's not accurate. 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.720 He wanted to contend that they knew why they were there, 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:14.520 They knew what they were there to get paid for sex. 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.120 And then he also, if I'm not mistaken, you could 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.640 you can uh highlight this for us that he tried 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:22.800 to explain that he told everybody, don't bring me anybody 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.280 here who's under age, and he told all of them 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.520 were of age. Is that correct? Yes? But I mean 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.080 the women that I interviewed who were involved in it, 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.080 was one of whom, by the way, was involved in 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.200 it for years, said that he made it very clear 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.080 he didn't want anybody who was older. All he wanted 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.760 was young girls, and the younger the better. I mean, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.240 that's basically what he always told them, the younger the better. 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.040 But of course you know this is what they say, 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.360 and he and his lawyers, I'm sure would say that 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.720 they're lying and that that was not the case described 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:59.520 for everyone. Um, what happens in the case involved with 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.040 the cost to in order to arrive at the decisions 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:06.600 they arrived at the agreement. Well, the state prosecutors and 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.120 Palm Beach first had the case. The police brought it 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.400 to them, and within a very short time, all these 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:19.080 lawyers that that Epstein had hired, uh began to uh 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.040 pressure the state prosecutor to make the case go away. 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.720 And essentially the state prosecutor was ready to make it 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.040 go away, and and really he was going to get 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.840 anything except a misdemeanor. And the police chief, to his credit, 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.000 UH said, wait a minute, this isn't going to happen, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.840 because at the time this was happening more and more 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.680 girls every time they enter. They keep in mind, since 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.720 it was a sex pyramid scheme, you would interview one 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:45.720 girl and the one girl would say, well, these two 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:47.320 girls brought me, and then they go to those two 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.360 girls and they would say these two girls. So they 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:54.480 were getting an avalanche of girls. And here you have 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.880 the state prosecutors saying, oh, we're just going to let 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:58.920 him off for a Mrs Meaner, and the chief, to 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.760 his credit and the lead detective said no, and they 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.680 went to the FBI. So then it became a federal case. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:11.120 And Alexander Acosta was the U S Attorney in Miami 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:15.000 at the time and appointed by George W. Yes. It 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:19.160 was a Bush administration, was Republican administration. Now, uh Epstein 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.600 was very much of a Democrat, and he had supported 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.720 Clinton and a lot of other Democratic causes. But he 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.200 he was smart. It was a Republican administration, So what 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:31.920 do you do you hire a Republican lawyer star kind 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.680 of star Uh you know, left court. And also the 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:39.080 other connection was Acosta had worked in the same politically 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.760 very important law firm of Kirkland and Ellis, which was 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.800 the same law firm that uh Star worked for and 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:51.320 left court work for. And so what they immediately started 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:52.920 doing was try to work out some kind of a 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.720 plea agreement with him, almost from the get go, even 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:00.200 though the FBI was uh on a parallel course to 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.000 charge him with sex trafficking, and they We're getting more 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.200 and more information and but so there were two kinds 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.680 of things happening. One was the FBI was really going 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:12.800 full steam ahead, was trying to prosecute him. And then 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.480 you had the prosecutors who were essentially sending emails back 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.960 and forcaying well, why don't we charge him with this? 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:21.240 Or can we charge him with that? And it was 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.120 this sort of collegial thing going on between the process. 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.159 There they were asking defense attorneys almost like would you 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.560 mind if we charge him with this? Yes? They really 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.320 I mean, from what I read, I'm not an expert 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.040 on this I've rarely heard, I've really observed such a 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.240 deference by prosecutors to the subject of a crime. Yeah. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.239 And what was amazing about the whole thing is, if 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.159 you follow the whole thing, which this took me over 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:49.720 a year and a half to do, you to follow 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.720 the sequence of events here, is that they would fight 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:56.840 down and say okay, we're going to charge him with this, 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.000 and and and he'd say okay, we're going to do it. 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:00.600 And then you look at it and young go, no, 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:02.400 I want a better deal than that than they'd start 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:07.679 all over. And they manipulated. He manipulated the criminal justice 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.760 system like I've never seen before, because every time they 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.240 got him, which was a pretty good deal, he would say, 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.920 well it's still not good enough. Go back again. What 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.879 do you think was behind a custom What do you 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.080 think it was behind I mean, because to me, the 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.159 first thing that come across is they want to bury 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:27.000 this like it's some kind of radioactive waste because there 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:31.359 are other people, big people. There's big names of people 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:38.679 who are clientele of Epstein's massage spa. Are there names 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.119 of people you've heard or big names that are buried 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.520 in those files? Yeah? And what we are doing at 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.000 the Miami Herald, and and my company that owns the Herald, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:49.480 at McClatchy, I have to give them a lot of 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.000 credit because we're the only news organization that has really 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.480 done this. Uh is. We've been systemically going through these 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.840 cases now and going to the core. We have a 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.160 case right now here in New York, uh involving Epstein 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.119 and his madame so to speak. He had a woman 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:11.639 that was helping him allegedly with this uh here in 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:13.960 New York. And she was a recruiter in New York, Yes, 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:20.200 and in pomp each each Gelon Maxwell, Yeah, And this 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.480 was a lawsuit involving her. And we're trying to unseal 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.000 the records because we feel that there's more evidence in 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.439 there the New York case that's in New York, and 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.680 who wants to keep those records sealed? Maxwell and Epstein? 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.760 But who else? Well, there's a chance as indifferent to 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:38.960 the is the New York Prosecutor's office, the d A's 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.320 office as in different Sward letting the light into those 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.120 files as a custom wars. Well, we'll see. I mean 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.320 they knew, let's face it, they knew that this was 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.320 going on. They had the US prosecutors here in New 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.600 York because he was doing in the same deferential treatment 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:02.080 as a Democratic fundraiser. Well, it's the difference. Well, I 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:03.879 don't know, It's hard to say, but we do know 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.760 that Advance did make an attempt to lower his sex 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.399 offender registration to a lower level. And that was a 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:15.159 real joke. I mean, because well he he could do 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.399 what the lower registration level giving him a different codification 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.600 or a different kind of a label. What given more 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:24.840 freedom what? Well, he wouldn't have to check in, you know, 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.560 like to Dalton and teach kids math. Well, I don't 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.400 know about that. I mean, in this day and age, 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.119 nothing would surprise me. But uh, you know, there was 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.560 a lot of like the Weinstein case, there was a 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:38.399 lot of complicity. There was a lot of people to 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.000 knew what was going on, and I think that they 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:45.440 looked the other way. Pivot for a minute to your 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:50.480 background in your life, you had a tough childhood. Yeah, Well, 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:52.040 I moved out of the house when I was sixteen, 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.200 became a mass paidd miner, lived with a bunch of 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:59.040 different friends for a while, worked the lampshade factory and 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.320 U Sixt delivered flower as well. I finished school and then, 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:05.600 you know, I didn't have any money to go to college, 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:09.400 so I worked a bunch of jobs waitresses and did 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.920 hold struggled and to the point that I realized I 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.600 better do something because I don't want to work at 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.040 kmart the rest of my life. Was that something that 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.680 that that you think cause you to have great empathy 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:25.000 for these girls? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, I think that personal well, 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:28.760 that person. It's just for the underdog because I haven't 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.960 really only covered uh, you know, women who have been abused. 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.760 I I did a huge for your project on the 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:38.560 Florida prison system, and I've never been in prison, but 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:40.760 I know that, you know, there's a lot of people 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.080 out there who don't have a voice in our criminal 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.040 justice system, and they end up in very bad places 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.760 in our system disposes of these people and then continues 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.119 to mistreat them so they never have a chance to 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.520 to get ahead, even if they do pay their debt 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.000 to society. But too civil and agains settled with him 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.399 at the end of last year. Yeah, and my question 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.680 for you is, like people that were involved and again 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.240 I'm not I'm not judging them or criticizing them. I'm 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.840 just wondering what your opinion is. But do these settlements 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.040 do they stall justice in the end when you have 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:17.000 people taking money and they're the victims of these crimes 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.119 and they take money. I think Rose McGowan took money 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.879