Jeffrey Edward Epstein (January 20, 1953 – August 10, 2019) was an American financier and child sex offender. He began his career as a math teacher at the Dalton School in New York City, before entering the banking and finance sector. Over several decades, he made much of his fortune providing tax and estate services to billionaires, and cultivated an elite social circle of prominent individuals. In 2008, he was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution, and was indicted in 2019 for sex trafficking minors in the 2000s. He died in custody awaiting his trial and his death was ruled a suicide. In 2005, police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein after a parent reported that Epstein had paid her 14-year-old stepdaughter to strip and massage him. Investigators identified 36 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 with similar accounts of sexual abuse. Prosecutors had concerns about taking him to trial, citing victim reluctance to testify and witness credibility. This influenced a now-controversial plea deal negotiation, under which Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of procuring a minor for prostitution, and soliciting a prostitute. He was registered as a sex offender, and served 13 months in jail with work release. Following Epstein's conviction, victims pursued lawsuits and media scrutiny grew. A 2018 Miami Herald article profiled victim stories, and argued that Epstein had evaded justice under a lenient plea deal. This prompted federal investigators in New York to reinvestigate additional charges, and Epstein was indicted in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking minors between 2002 and 2005. Epstein died in his jail cell on August 10; his death was ruled a suicide by hanging. His death is the subject of conspiracy theories. Epstein maintained a long association with socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for sex trafficking girls to him. At the time of his death, Epstein's estate was valued at $600 million, from which hundreds of millions have been paid to at least 200 women in legal settlements. Additional settlements of $290 million from JP Morgan, and $75 million from Deutsche Bank, followed lawsuits which alleged these banks had enabled Epstein's abuse by retaining him as a client. Epstein was a friend or acquaintance of many public figures. The Epstein files, a collection of documents which has been partially released as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, provide a public glimpse into the vast network he had cultivated over the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Early life
Jeffrey Edward Epstein was born on January 20, 1953, in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City. His parents, Pauline "Paula" Stolofsky and Seymour George Epstein, were of Lithuanian Jewish and Polish Jewish ancestry, respectively, and had married in 1952 shortly before his birth. Pauline worked as a school aide and was a homemaker. Seymour worked for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation as a groundskeeper and gardener. Epstein was the older of two siblings; he and his brother Mark grew up in the neighborhood of Sea Gate, a then working-class gated community in Coney Island. A childhood friend described Paula as "a wonderful mother and homemaker", and neighbors remembered the parents as being quiet and humble. Epstein attended local public schools, first Public School 188 and later nearby Mark Twain Junior High School, and often earned money by tutoring classmates. Acquaintances considered Epstein "sweet and generous" although "quiet and nerdy", and nicknamed him "Eppy". Of Epstein, a female friend later said, "He was just an average boy, very smart in math, slightly overweight, freckles, always smiling." In 1967, Epstein attended the National Music Camp at Interlochen Center for the Arts. He began playing the piano when he was five, and was regarded as a talented musician by friends. He graduated in 1969 from Lafayette High School at age 16, having skipped two grades. Later that year, he attended advanced math classes at Cooper Union until he changed colleges in 1971. From September 1971, he attended the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, where he studied mathematical physiology, but left without receiving a degree in June 1974.
Career
Dalton School (1974–1976) In September 1974, at age 21, Epstein started working as a calculus and mathematics teacher at the Dalton School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The school's newspaper announced the hiring of Epstein. Donald Barr, who served as the headmaster until June 1974, was known to have made several unconventional recruitments at the time, although it is unclear whether he had a direct role in hiring Epstein. Three months after Barr's departure, Epstein began to teach at the school, despite his lack of credentials. One parent recalled his son's belief that Epstein was "popular with students and the school's young female staff members". In 2019, several former students alleged that Epstein paid inappropriate attention to female students, and that he once showed up at a student party, although none said he made physical contact with them. In early 1976, Epstein attended an art event where he met a Dalton father who worked on Wall Street. The man thought Epstein was "wasting his time" at Dalton, given his knowledge of mathematics, and rang Alan Greenberg – a senior executive at Bear Stearns – to recommend a potential hire. The timing was suitable, as Epstein was soon dismissed from Dalton due to poor performance.
Bear Stearns (1976–1981) In 1976, Epstein was interviewed at Bear Stearns, where he reportedly impressed Alan Greenberg, who preferred hiring men of modest backgrounds with "a deep desire to become rich." Epstein met senior trader Michael Tennenbaum, who recalled Epstein as "a hell of salesman". Epstein began at the firm as a low-level junior assistant to a floor trader. In late 1976, Bear Stearns discovered that Epstein had falsely claimed to have two university degrees on his résumé. In Tennenbaum's recollection, Epstein calmly admitted to it, stating that "nobody would give me a chance" without degrees. Tennenbaum agreed to give Epstein another chance. Epstein swiftly moved up to become an options trader, working in the special products division, and in 1980, Epstein became a limited partner at 27 years old with a salary of $200,000 per year (over $800,000 in 2025 dollars).
Epstein began advising clients on tax mitigation strategies. Jimmy Cayne, a senior partner at the firm (and its later CEO) held Epstein in high regard, and introduced him to many of Bear Stearns' wealthiest clients. Epstein appealed to clients; he was reportedly charismatic and offered "complex trading strategies that could save ultrawealthy clients huge amounts in taxes". Epstein began having regular lunches with CEOs and establishing a network of contacts, which according to Tennenbaum, is "what really catapulted" his later success. Alan Greenberg would come to view Epstein as his protégé.In this period, Epstein was regularly flying to Palm Beach to visit young women. Cosmopolitan named Epstein their "bachelor of the month", and encouraged interested women to write to him. On one work trip, Epstein purchased $10,000 of jewelry and clothing for a girlfriend and charged it to Bear Stearns; although reportedly he faced no consequences. In 1981, trouble arose for Epstein when the firm investigated a $15,000 personal loan he made to a former classmate, which may have breached federal brokerage rules. The firm also questioned initial public offering shares held by his girlfriend. Following an internal investigation, Bear Stearns fined Epstein $2,500 and placed him on a two-month suspension. Epstein denied wrongdoing, and resigned from the firm, ending his five-year tenure. His experience and contacts at Bear Stearns later helped him establish himself as an independent financial adviser on Wall Street. He remained close to Cayne and Greenberg, and was a client of Bear Stearns until its collapse in 2008.
Advisor and financial troubleshooter (1981–1987) In August 1981, Epstein founded his own financial consulting firm, Intercontinental Assets Group Inc. (IAG). While at Bear Sterns, Epstein started a relationship with Paula Heil, a well-connected saleswoman and former Miss Indianapolis. In the early 1980s, Epstein and Heil began taking trips to England. She introduced him to a wealthy defense contractor, Douglas Leese, who had connections in the British government and arms industry. Epstein began spending time in the Leese family's social circle, tutoring Leese's younger son Julian, and accompanying Leese to meetings with prominent figures while serving as a consultant. Epstein traveled multiple times between the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Leese reportedly introduced Epstein to the financier Steven Hoffenberg. After several years, Epstein's relationship with Leese deteriorated. Leese accused Epstein of misusing his expense account for personal spending, including Concorde flights and luxury hotel stays. Epstein returned his focus to New York where he partnered with the lawyer John Stanley Pottinger, renting office space on Central Park South, and pitching tax-avoidance strategies to wealthy clients. Epstein sourced clients through former Bear Stearns colleagues, including the businessman Michael Stroll. In 1982, Stroll invested $450,000 with Epstein in what was presented as a crude oil deal. A legal dispute followed and Stroll alleged that Epstein had promised but failed to return the money. The case ended in 1993 when a court ruled Epstein was not personally liable on technical grounds. In the early 1980s, Epstein reportedly bragged to friends that he was a "bounty hunter" who assisted clients in recovering embezzled funds. In 1982, Epstein was introduced to the Spanish actress and heiress Ana Obregón through a mutual friend, and the pair began dating. The Obregón family, and several other wealthy Spanish families, soon hired Epstein after losing millions of dollars during the collapse of Drysdale Government Securities, owing to fraudulent accounting practices. Epstein recruited a federal prosecutor, Bob Gold, and the pair spent a year trying to find their missing funds that Drysdale had shifted to offshore bank accounts. In 1984, Epstein discovered his clients' funds in a Cayman Islands branch of a Canadian bank. He hired a jet and had the branch manager hand over bond certificates for the funds. Epstein returned the funds to his Spanish clients, and they rewarded him significantly, making him a millionaire. Reportedly, another client that Epstein helped recover stolen funds was the Saudi Arabian businessman Adnan Khashoggi, who he met through Douglas Leese. Khashoggi was a middleman in transferring American weapons from Israel to Iran as part of the Iran–Contra affair. During this period, Epstein possessed an Austrian passport under a false name. The passport showed his place of residence as Saudi Arabia. According to his lawyers, Epstein acquired the fake passport for security purposes, allowing him to conceal his Jewish identity while travelling in Arab countries, and that Epstein never needed to use it. By mid 1980s, Epstein was a valuable client to his former employer Bear Sterns. Epstein was calling his former manager Clark Schubach to place trades on stocks, bonds and options. Epstein also pursued a sexual relationship with Schubach's assistant, a 23 year old Patricia Schmidt, who he tasked with conducting research in the Bear Stearns library on potential clients.
Towers Financial Corporation (1987–1993)
Steven Hoffenberg hired Epstein in 1987 as a consultant for Towers Financial Corporation, a collection agency that bought debts people owed to hospitals, banks, and phone companies. Hoffenberg set Epstein up in offices in the Villard Houses in Manhattan and paid him US$25,000 per month for his consulting work (equivalent to $71,000 in 2025). Hoffenberg and Epstein then refashioned themselves as corporate raiders using Towers Financial as their raiding vessel. One of Epstein's first assignments was to attempt, unsuccessfully, to take over Pan American World Airways in 1987. A similar unsuccessful bid in 1988 was made to take over Emery Air Freight Corp. During this period, Hoffenberg and Epstein worked closely together and traveled everywhere on Hoffenberg's private jet. In 1993, Towers Financial Corporation imploded when it was exposed as one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in American history, losing over US$450 million of its investors' money (equivalent to $1 billion in 2025). In court documents, Hoffenberg claimed that Epstein was intimately involved in the scheme. Epstein left the company by 1989 and was never charged for involvement in the massive investor fraud committed. It is unknown if Epstein acquired any stolen funds from the Towers Ponzi scheme.
J. Epstein & Company (1988–2019)
In 1988, while Epstein was still consulting for Hoffenberg, he founded his financial management firm, J. Epstein & Company. According to Epstein, the company managed the assets of clients with more than US$1 billion in net worth, although others have expressed skepticism about that number, as he was secretive of the clients that he took. The only publicly known billionaire client of Epstein was Leslie Wexner, chairman and CEO of L Brands (formerly The Limited, Inc.) and Victoria's Secret. In 1986, Epstein met Wexner through their mutual acquaintances, insurance executive Robert Meister and his wife, in Palm Beach. A year later, Epstein became Wexner's financial adviser and served as his right-hand man. Within the year, Epstein had sorted out Wexner's entangled finances. In July 1991, Wexner granted Epstein full power of attorney over his affairs. The power of attorney allowed Epstein to hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties, borrow money, and do anything else of a legally binding nature on Wexner's behalf. Epstein managed Wexner's wealth and various projects such as the building of his yacht, the Limitless. It was during this time that Southern Air Transport relocated its headquarters to service Wexner's brands, and that Epstein dated models like Stacey Williams. Epstein represented himself as a global talent scout for Victoria's Secret during this time and used this powerful position to sexually manipulate young women. By 1995, Epstein was a director of the Wexner Foundation and Wexner Heritage Foundation. He was also the president of Wexner's Property, which developed part of the town of New Albany outside Columbus, Ohio, where Wexner lived. Epstein made millions in fees by managing Wexner's financial affairs. Epstein often attended Victoria's Secret fashion shows, and hosted the models at his New York City home, as well as helping aspiring models get work with the company. In 1996, Epstein changed the name of his firm to the Financial Trust Company and, for tax advantages, based it on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. By relocating to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Epstein was able to reduce federal income taxes by 90 percent. The U.S. Virgin Islands acted as an offshore tax haven, while at the same time offering the advantages of being part of the U.S. banking system; Epstein, who capitalized on his relation with Jes Staley while the latter was employed by JP Morgan, maintained close relations with that bank's subsidiary in the USVI. In 2002, as reported by the New York magazine, his financial-administrative staff numbered 150 employees (among whom 20 accountants) across three sites: Villard House in Manhattan, the Wexner operation in Columbus, and St Thomas USVI. Although it took 12 years to deliver the story, as Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times tells it, JP Morgan banker Jes Staley and CEO Jamie Dimon had a falling-out over Staley's client Epstein sometime around 2012, after the general counsel of the bank, Stephen Cutler, complained to Staley and others that Epstein was "not an honorable person in any way. He should not be a client." Despite facing increased pressure from federal regulators, the bank did not discard Epstein until 2013, coincidentally the year of Staley's departure from the bank. Epstein thereafter moved his trade to the American affiliate of Deutsche Bank. According to Forbes in 2025, Financial Trust Company (FTC) and Southern Trust Company, Epstein's two main businesses, received revenue of over $800 million between 1999 and 2018, consisting of $490 million in fees (most of that from two billionaires, Leslie Wexner, $200 million, and Leon Black, $170 million) and $310 million from investment returns. Due to the U.S. Virgin Islands' tax exemptions, his corporations saved $300 million in taxes and paid an effective tax rate of 4%, even though the top marginal tax rate was 38.5%. In the course of his life, Epstein engaged with no fewer than 75 lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, Kenneth Starr, Roy Black and Jay Lefkowitz. Senator Ron Wyden said in Congress that the U.S. Treasury Department file on Epstein detailed from one account no less than 4,725 wire transfers that totaled $1.1 billion, and that he had extensive financial correspondence from Russian banks over his sex trafficking activities. Another report from Forbes says that between four banks (JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Bank of New York Mellon and Bank of America) the transfers totaled more than $1.9 billion.
Liquid Funding and the Bear Stearns explosion (2000–08) Epstein was the president of the Bermuda-incorporated company Liquid Funding Ltd. between 2000 and 2007. The company was a pioneer in expanding the kind of debt that could be accepted on repurchase, or the repo market, which involves a lender giving money to a borrower in exchange for securities that the borrower then agrees to buy back at an agreed-upon later time and price. The innovation of Liquid Funding, and other early companies, was that instead of having stocks and bonds as the underlying securities, it had commercial mortgages and investment-grade residential mortgages bundled into complex securities as the underlying security. Liquid Funding was initially 40 percent owned by Bear Stearns. Through the help of credit rating agencies, the new bundled securities were created for companies so they received an AAA rating. The implosion of complex securities, because of their inaccurate ratings, led to the collapse of Bear Stearns in March 2008, the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession. If Liquid Funding were left holding large amounts of such securities as collateral, it could have lost large amounts of money. In April 2007, the fund had a leverage ratio of 17:1, which meant for every dollar invested there were 17 dollars of borrowed funds; therefore, the redemption of this investment would have been equivalent to removing $1 billion from the thinly traded CDO market. The selling of CDO assets to meet the redemptions that month began a repricing process and freeze in the CDO market. The repricing of the CDO assets caused the collapse of the fund three months later in July, and the collapse of Bear Stearns in March 2008. Losses to investors in the two Bear Stearns funds were $1.6 billion. By the time the Bear Stearns fund began to fail in May 2007, Epstein had begun to negotiate a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney's Office concerning imminent charges for sex with minors. In August 2007, a month after the fund collapsed, Alexander Acosta, the U.S. attorney in Miami, entered into discussions about the plea agreement. Acosta brokered a lenient deal, according to him, because he had been ordered by higher government officials, who told him that Epstein was of importance to the government. As part of the negotiations, the Miami Herald reported that Epstein provided "unspecified information" to the Florida federal prosecutors for a more lenient sentence and was supposedly "Unnamed investor #1" for the New York federal prosecutors in their unsuccessful June 2008 criminal case against Cioffi and Tannen, two managers of the failed Bear Stearns fund. Alan Dershowitz, one of Epstein's attorneys in the 2008 criminal case, told Fox Business Network in 2019, "We would have been touting that if he had [cooperated]. The idea that Epstein helped in any prosecution is news to me." Moody's reported that on April 18, 2008 "all outstanding rated liabilities" of Liquid Funding were "paid in full". At the time, the liquidator had not yet sold the beleaguered fund to its new owner as of May 1: JP Morgan.
Epstein & Zuckerman (2003–2004) In 2003, New York Daily News publisher Mortimer Zuckerman partnered with Epstein, advertising executive Donny Deutsch, and investor Nelson Peltz in a bid to acquire New York magazine. The ultimate buyer was Bruce Wasserstein, a longtime Wall Street investment banker, who paid US$55 million, over US$10 million above the offer from Zuckerman, Epstein, Deutsch, and Peltz. In 2004, Epstein and Zuckerman committed up to US$25 million to finance Radar, a celebrity and pop culture magazine founded by Maer Roshan. Epstein and Zuckerman were equal partners in the venture. Roshan, as its editor-in-chief, retained a small ownership stake. It folded after three issues as a print publication and became exclusively an online one. Also in 2004, Epstein was an early adopter of then "invite only" social network ASmallWorld, this social network also included users such as Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Prince Pavlos of Greece and many other public figures.
The TIFR Endowment During the period of 2003, Epstein had provided a cheque of $100,000 to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research's "TIFR String Theory Travel Fund", Andrew Strominger had facilitated the gift, saying that the string theory team had "the highest intellectual output per dollar of any such group in the world".
Zwirn (2002–2008) Between 2002 and 2005, Epstein invested $80 million in the D.B. Zwirn Special Opportunities Fund, a hedge fund that invested in illiquid debt securities. In November 2006, Epstein attempted to redeem his investment after he was informed of accounting irregularities in the fund. By this time, his investment had grown to $140 million. The D.B. Zwirn fund refused to redeem the illiquid investment. The fund was closed in 2008, and its remaining assets of approximately $2 billion, including Epstein's investment, were transferred to Fortress Investment Group when that firm bought the assets in 2009. Epstein later went to arbitration with Fortress over his redemption attempt. The outcome of that arbitration is not publicly known.
Epstein and Barak: Carbyne (2014–2019)
After his first arrest, Epstein began an interest in the surveillance industry. Epstein maintained a close relationship with former Israeli prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak, exchanging private emails with him and meeting more than 30 times between 2013 and 2017. He also facilitated Barak's interactions with prominent figures, including Peter Thiel, as well as Sergey Belyakov and Viktor Vekselberg, who were connected to Vladimir Putin's circle. These interactions are documented in the leaked Barak–Epstein emails released by the Handala hacker group, whose authenticity has been partially corroborated by independent reporting, including The Sunday Times. In business, Epstein leveraged his relationship with Barak to get access to Thiel. In 2015, Epstein invested in Reporty Homeland Security (later rebranded as Carbyne), a startup headed by Barak which developed advanced emergency communication technologies. The company's leadership included CEO Amir Elihai, a former special forces officer, and director Pinchas Bukhris, a former defense ministry director general and commander of the IDF cyber unit 8200. In many years, Epstein's acquaintances had repeatedly encouraged Thiel to meet him. Reid Hoffman, Thiel's friend from the PayPal Mafia, directly introduced the two and joined some meetings. Epstein pitched Reporty to Thiel-founded Valar Ventures in 2016; although the firm declined, Valar partner Andrew McCormack indicated they might revisit the venture once the company matured. Epstein had previously invested US$40 million into funds managed by Valar in 2015 and 2016. In 2018, another Thiel co-founded firm, Founders Fund, participated in Carbyne's $15 million Series B funding round (non-leading role). Between 2014 and 2016, Thiel had half a dozen scheduled meetings with Epstein at his townhouse, including with other people such as Woody Allen and Kathryn Ruemmler. There is no record of Thiel's social visits to one of Epstein's homes or flights on his private jet.
Other businesses Epstein participated in funding rounds for the crypto ventures Coinbase and Blockstream, giving the former $3 million and the latter $500,000 in 2014. Epstein's donation to Coinbase was brokered by Brock Pierce, the co-founder of Tether, while his donation to Blockstream was brokered by Joichi Ito, who was the director of MIT's Media Lab at the time. Barak discussed with Epstein in the leaked Barak–Epstein emails about meeting Putin's ally Viktor Vekselberg on the June 6 and 8, 2014. An email sent in April 2015 showed that Barak had asked Epstein for his opinion on Vekselberg-backed Fifth Dimension, a startup which would later be shut down after being sanctioned in 2018 by the United States for alleged election interference. In August 2018, Epstein said in a New York Times interview that he was helping Elon Musk find a new chairman for Tesla after Musk was in trouble with the SEC over comments that he would privatize the car manufacturer.
Geopolitical activities (2012–2019)
Ivory Coast security agreement Between 2012 and 2014, Epstein assisted Ehud Barak in what began as a private business initiative involving internal security-related projects in Ivory Coast, according to documents released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee from Epstein's files and leaked emails from Barak. Epstein played an operational role in advancing the effort: he coordinated Barak's meetings during the United Nations General Assembly, connected him with Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara's chief of staff and other officials, and helped arrange connections with the president's family. Barak, meanwhile, commissioned former Israeli intelligence officers to produce technical plans for nationwide phone and internet monitoring. The private initiative later was the basis of a 2014 defense and internal-security agreement between Israel and Ivory Coast.
Mongolia security initiative Epstein performed similar facilitation work as in Ivory Coast for Barak in Mongolia. He assisted in the promotion of Israeli surveillance technology for the Mongolian government. During this period, the Israeli intelligence officer Yoni Koren (a longtime associate and former aide to Barak) stayed multiple times at Epstein's Manhattan residence, including while serving in Barak's office in 2013 and again during extended visits in 2014 and 2015.
Investigations and legal issues
First known complaints to FBI and police In 1996, artist Maria Farmer, who had worked for Epstein as an art advisor and property manager, alleged in a report to the FBI that Epstein had stolen nude and semi-nude photographs of her 12 and 16-year-old sisters, sold them, and threatened to burn her house down if she told anyone. According to Farmer, she came to believe Epstein had stolen and sold her photographs after she found them missing from a storage box. She also alleged that Epstein asked her to "photograph young girls" at a swimming pool. In 1997, a 27-year-old model and actress Alicia Arden filed a report with the Santa Monica Police Department, alleging that Epstein had groped her during a purported audition for Victoria's Secret in a hotel room. According to former Victoria's Secret executives, Epstein, then a financial advisor to the brand's owner Les Wexner, had posed as a modelling scout for the company on several occasions, telling aspiring models he could help them land work. Following Arden's report, a detective contacted Epstein, who gave a conflicting statement. The police report also stated that Arden did not wish to press charges, but wanted Epstein warned. Police closed the case. In 2019, Arden disputed the police record, while police maintained "if the victim tells the detective they do not wish to prosecute, then the detective will close the case".
First investigation Following a 2001 complaint by three female students at Palm Beach Atlantic University that they had been approached by Ghislaine Maxwell who recruited them for administrative work at his El Brillo Way home; citing unusual behavior, they reported Epstein to police. Police followed up but closed the file in 2004, having never discovered any illegal activity.
First criminal case (2005–2011)
Initial developments (2005–2006)
In November 2004, police in Palm Beach, Florida received a tip that young women were coming and going from Epstein's home. Epstein donated $90,000 to the police department on December 14, which followed a previous donation in 2001 or 2002 to the Palm Beach Police Scholarship Fund, which pays scholarships for police officers' children. In March 2005, a woman contacted Florida's Palm Beach Police Department and alleged that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been taken to Epstein's mansion by an older girl. While there, she was allegedly paid $300 to strip to her underwear and massage Epstein. Palm Beach Police then opened a 13-month investigation (2005–2006), in which they monitored Epstein's home, and began finding potential victims. Police identified approximately 35 girls under the age of consent, who had similar stories of sexual massages in return for payment. Some of the girls said that Epstein would pay them $200 for every additional girl he could bring to massage him. Some of the girls told police they were encouraged to lie about being 18 by the older girls who recruited them. Other girls said that they told Epstein their true ages. One employee of Epstein told police that some of the females appeared to be underage. During their investigation, police determined that Epstein would typically take the girls' telephone numbers after massages. His assistants would schedule massages with the girls and bring them up to his massage room upon arrival. Epstein soon became aware of the police investigation, and hired defense lawyers counsel, who in turn hired private investigators. When police searched Epstein's home in October 2005, they found disconnected surveillance cameras, but the computer systems that stored their footage were gone. Police were able to recover notepads used by his assistants, which included messages from girls and details of phone calls for scheduling massage appointments. Police found photos of young looking women of "indeterminate age", an Amazon receipt for BDSM books, and a girls high-school transcript.
State prosecutor presents case to grand jury Palm Beach Police Department (PBPD) brought the case to Florida State Attorney Barry Krischer. Krischer says he was enthusiastic about pursuing the case; however, both prosecutors and the police held concerns about witnesses and victims. Epstein's lawyers began investigating victims to challenge their credibility and sending findings to the state prosecutor's office, including: victim criminal records, social media postings about drug use and sex, and victim statements which "appeared to undercut allegations of criminal activity and Epstein's knowledge of victims' ages". State prosecutors were also concerned because their office had previously prosecuted 14-year-olds for prostitution. In May 2006, Palm Beach police filed a probable cause affidavit that Epstein should be charged with four counts of unlawful sex with minors and one count of sexual abuse. In July 2006, State prosecutors put the case before a grand jury to determine charges. A police detective and two of Epstein's victims testified. The 14 year old (now 15) said she had told Epstein she was 18 years old, and massaged Epstein for $200 and that he used a vibrator on her for an extra $100. Her social media posts about shoplifting were questioned. The second victim said that Epstein was aware that she was 16, and that sexual activity increased gradually, before Epstein initiated intercourse the day before her 18th birthday. The grand jury returned a single state charge of felony solicitation of prostitution. Epstein was arrested on July 23, 2006, and pleaded not guilty to solicitation of a prostitute. He was released from Palm Beach County jail on bond.
Escalation to FBI and federal prosecutors Palm Beach Police were outraged that the grand jury returned only state charges of prostitution. Police Chief Michael Reiter believed that given the number of girls involved, Epstein should face charges for sex offences involving minors, and charges of sex trafficking – a more serious federal offence. Reiter accused the state prosecutor, Barry Krischer, of being too lenient and escalated the case to the federal agents at the FBI office in Miami. The FBI began an investigation into potential federal sex trafficking and interstate crimes. In July 2006, the FBI began its own investigation of Epstein, nicknamed "Operation Leap Year". They conducted interviews with 34 minors whose allegations included corroborating details, and identified additional victims.
Federal prosecutors Federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office began working with the FBI with the knowledge of U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta. Federal prosecutor Marie Villafaña drafted a 53-page, 60-count indictment related to enticement and trafficking of minors. Menchel told Villafaña that Acosta was not ready to go forward with the indictment. Other prosecutors sought to have in-person or phone conversations with defense counsel. According to reporting in Politico two women served as lead prosecutors beginning in 2006 when Epstein first faced charges and were "closely involved in crafting his federal non-prosecution agreement, plea deal and lenient sentence." Lilly Sanchez was a former dating interest of the lead federal prosecutor, Matthew Menchel, who failed to inform his superiors and after he left federal service had several meetings with Epstein to discuss taking on legal work. Epstein's lawyers met with federal prosecutors, asking them to end the federal investigation so Epstein could instead face a single Florida charge of solicitation of a prostitute, and provided numerous legal arguments as to problems with the charges. Epstein's defense lawyers included Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, and former U.S. solicitor general Ken Starr. Linguist Steven Pinker also assisted. Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office deliberated if they could successfully convict Epstein at trial. Prosecutors found many victims were reluctant to testify against Epstein; some feared public embarrassment, others were indifferent about him being convicted. Prosecutors were concerned about several victims who may have misrepresented their ages to Epstein. They deliberated how teenage girls would fare under cross-examination in a court room – and how this might be traumatizing for them – as Epstein's lawyers planned to aggressively attack their credibility. Legal questions arose over whether federal prosecutors should be pursuing crimes that are traditionally handled by states. Investigators had gathered flight logs with identified females on them, however prosecutors believed this was not strong evidence for trafficking charges because they had no names or ages listed.
Acosta was unhappy with the prospect that the case might return to the state level, where Epstein would receive only prostitution charges, and no prison sentence without registering as a sex offender. Federal prosecutors negotiated a plea deal under which Epstein would be convicted for soliciting a minor for prostitution, solicitation of a prostitute, and was required to register as a lifetime sex offender and serve 18 months. The deal also granted immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein, along with four named co-conspirators and any unnamed "potential co-conspirators". According to the Miami Herald, the non-prosecution agreement (NPA) "essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes." Although press coverage has focused on Epstein's connections to high-profile figures as potential co-conspirators, prosecutor Andrew Lourie argued that the "victims who recruited other underage girls to provide massages for Epstein 'theoretically' could have been charged as co-conspirators", and felt the immunity granted to co-conspirators was "a message to any victims that had recruited other victims that there was no intent to charge them".
Guilty plea On June 30, 2008, in the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County, Epstein pled guilty to one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and was required to register as a sex offender. Also as part of the deal he was required to pay restitution to three dozen victims identified by the FBI. A later lawsuit alleged the NPA had violated victims' rights by concealing the agreement from the victims. In 2019, Judge Kenneth Marra for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida adjudicated that the Acosta NPA document had violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act. However, in 2020 the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned this decision, ruling that prosecutors had not violated victim rights. According to an investigation conducted by the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility, released in November 2020, Acosta showed "poor judgment" in granting Epstein a NPA and failing to notify Epstein's alleged victims about the agreement, but determined Acosta operated within the "scope of his authority", and that there was no evidence his "decision was based on corruption or other impermissible considerations, such as Epstein's wealth, status, or associations".
Conviction and sentencing (2008–2011) On June 30, 2008, after Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18, he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison. While most convicted sex offenders in Florida are sent to state prison, Epstein was instead housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade, a minimum security detention facility. Epstein was housed at the Stockade's previously unstaffed infirmary, after agreeing to cover the cost of security to watch him. Costs totaled around $128,000, which he covered through the Florida Science Foundation, a foundation he created shortly before reporting to jail. The foundation was designed to provide grants to scientific projects, and was later dissolved after completing his sentence. In August 2008, a memo written by Capt. Mark Chamberlain stated that "For the time being, I am authorizing that his cell door be left unlocked and he be given liberal access to the attorney room where a TV will be installed". It is unclear for how long Epstein's door was unlocked, allowing him to move more freely within the facility. After 3+1⁄2 months, Epstein was granted work release privileges for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week, to work at the aforementioned Florida Science Foundation. According to the Miami Herald, Epstein's work release contravened the sheriff's policies requiring a maximum remaining sentence of ten months, and making sex offenders ineligible for the privilege. His office was monitored by police permit deputies whose overtime was paid by Epstein, who wore suits and checked in any guests. Later, the Sheriff's Office said these gue