Chasing Ghislaine and hounding Acosta
Media stars fault the only guy who prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein
I’ve been listening to Vicky Ward’s podcast, “Chasing Ghislaine,” about Ghislaine Maxwell and her connections to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
We all agree there’s a special place in Hell for Epstein, who took pleasure in abusing girls as young as 14 and enlisted girls to recruit new victims.
I take issue with Ward’s description of “the cushy, NPA, or non-prosecution agreement, deal” struck in 2008 between Epstein’s league of high-profile lawyers and then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Alex Acosta.
To his credit, Acosta did get Epstein to plead guilty to felony solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution in state court.
Yes, Epstein should have been sentenced to many more years than the 13 months he served behind bars. Alas, criticism of the deal suggests that Acosta unquestionably could have put Epstein away for harder time – and that’s not a realistic assumption.
While Ward praises the Miami Herald’s reporting of this story, the paper’s coverage was not a profile in great journalism — of smelling an important story, bucking the establishment and reporting in real time when there might have been timely relief for Epstein’s victims. The paper was 10 years late.
It wasn’t until 2018 that the paper ran its series, “Perversion of Justice” about Epstein’s plea deal – and then only because reporter Julie Brown decided to look at Acosta, after then President Donald Trump chose him to serve as his Labor Secretary. Acosta resigned.
Why did Acosta cut the deal? Because it was the best he could do. Epstein’s defense team was offering compensation to victims, investigating the personal lives of law enforcement officials working on the case and preparing to tear apart any victim still willing to take the stand. An Epstein acquittal would be devastating to the victims.
So Acosta chose what looked like the least awful outcome — making Epstein serve time and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life which one would expect to make it harder for Epstein to prey on vulnerable girls.
As Acosta has argued, the NPA in no way prevented other prosecutors – including the feds in New York, where Epstein also lived – from pursuing charges against the super-rich serial child abuser.
No New York U.S. attorney charged Epstein until after the Miami Herald ran its “Perversion of Justice” series. Only then did U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman charge Epstein.
The Epstein plea deal was known and discussed in the Senate before 60 U.S. Senators voted to confirm Acosta. It didn’t stop a handful of Democrats from voting to confirm.
As for the media coverage, I’ll repeat what I wrote in 2020.
Cable news applauded Berman for taking action, more than a decade late. Acosta, the only prosecutor to put Epstein behind bars, was hounded from his job. For his troubles, Acosta got a bonus: a federal investigation into his handling of the case.
The investigation found no prosecutorial misconduct but did fault Acosta for a deal that exhibited “poor judgment.”
Poor judgment? Getting Epstein to plead guilty and declare himself a sex offender earned censure even as Berman’s years-late indictment of Epstein won praise. Media figures who didn’t see procurement of minors for sex trafficking as a big story — until there was a link to Trump — have no problem pointing fingers at the only prosecutor to beat Epstein. They’re even self-righteous about it.
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.