Re: Herald
[{"sender": "J <jeevacation@gmail.com>", "recipients": ["Lilly Sanchez"], "timestamp": "Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 6:08 PM", "subject": "Re: Herald", "body": "Miami U.S. Attorney's Office recuses itself from Jeffrey Epstein case\n\nPlay Video\nDurationA 3:51\nAG nominee Barr pledges to look into handling of Epstein case\nSen. Ben Sasse questioned attorney general nominee William Barr about the Jeffrey Epstein case on January\n15, 2019, getting the nominee to commit to having the Department of Justice look into the handling of that\ncase if confirmed. C-SPAN Meta Viers\nBY JULIE K. BROWN\njbrown@miamiherald.com\n•\n•\n•\nR REPRINT OF THIS STORY\nJust days before a Friday deadline, the Justice Department has reassigned the Jeffrey Epstein victims' rights\ncase to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta, the attorneys representing Epstein's victims' attorneys said\nTuesday.\nMiami federal prosecutors, in letter to attorneys for the victims's lawyers on Monday, said they had recused\nthemselves from the case, according to Brad Edwards and Jack Scarola, representing Epstein's victims.\nThe reassignment means that the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Byung J. \"BJay\" Pak, will\noversee the case for the government. Pak, a former Georgia lawmaker, was appointed Atlanta's chief federal\nprosecutor by President Trump in October 2017.\nThe Justice Department is still under a Friday deadline for prosecutors to confer with the victims' attorneys in\nan effort to settle the case. On Feb. 22, U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra in Palm Beach ruled that federal\nprosecutors, under former Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, broke the law when they concealed a plea\nagreement from more than 30 underage girls in Palm Beach who had been sexually abused by Epstein, a\nmultimillionaire New York hedge fund manager.\nMarra stopped short of voiding the agreement, which granted Epstein and an untold number of accomplices\nimmunity from federal prosecution for sex trafficking crimes, provided Epstein plead guilty to minor charges\nin state court. At the time of the plea deal, federal prosecutors had gathered enough evidence against Epstein to\nwrite a 53-page federal indictment, court records show.\nPlay Video\nDurationA\n12:20\nThe story behind a Palm Beach sex offender's remarkable deal\nThe story behind a Palm Beach sex offender's remarkable deal\nEmily Michot\nAn investigation by the Miami Herald, \"Perversion of Justice,\" found that after Acosta met privately with one\nof Epstein's lawyers, the government agreed to seal the plea agreement so that no one — not the victims, not\neven the state court judge who sentenced Epstein — would know the full extent of his crimes. Epstein, now 66,\nwas allowed to plead guilty to prostitution charges and served 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, where\nhe was given liberal work release, and allowed to travel to New York and his private island in the Caribbean\nduring his subsequent house arrest. He was released in 2009, and now divides his time between New York,\nPalm Beach and the U.S. Virgin Islands.\nThe Herald interviewed four of Epstein's victims, who were as young as 13 at the time they were abused by\nEpstein. They said they felt betrayed by state and federal prosecutors, who treated them like prostitutes instead\nof victims. Two of them sued the federal government in 2008 under the Crime Victims' Rights Act, which\ngrants crime victims the right to be informed about plea deals and to confer with prosecutors.\nMarra, in a 33-page opinion, said prosecutors not only intentionally violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act,\nbut they misled the girls into believing that the FBI's sex trafficking case against Epstein was ongoing —\nwhen, in fact, prosecutors had secretly closed it after sealing the plea bargain from the public record.\nMarra, noting that he reviewed affidavits, depositions and interrogatories, said \"Epstein worked in concert with\nothers to obtain minors not only for his own sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification of\nothers.\"\nThe victims' attorneys — Edwards, Scarola and Paul Cassell — have asked the Justice Department to throw\nout Epstein's plea agreement and reopen the criminal investigation.\nEdwards, who brought the victims' rights case against the government, said transferring the case to another\njurisdiction is a prudent decision.\n\"I think it's good that we're going to get fresh eyes and a fresh opinion on the way the case was handled,\"\nEdwards said Tuesday. \"We were obviously in an adversarial posture with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami\nbecause they handled the case to begin with.\"\nMiami's new U.S. Attorney, Ariana Fajardo Orshan — who was appointed by President Trump in September\n— did not respond to a request for comment.\nPlay Video\nDurationA\n5:29\nJeffrey Epstein apologizes, but not to his victims\nJeffrey Epstein apologizes, but not to his victims\nEmily Michot\nEdwards predicted that it would take some time for Pak's office to review the case, which includes more than\n500 docket entries and thousands of documents. He said If the sides can't agree on a resolution, then Marra\nwould likely have to come up with one. The case is being closely watched by crime victims' rights advocates,\nas it will likely set a precedent.\nAcosta, who was appointed by Trump as the U.S. secretary of labor in 2017, is the focus of a separate Justice\nDepartment investigation into whether there was any prosecutorial misconduct in the Epstein case. That probe,\nby the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility, was initiated in response to demands from a bipartisan\ngroup in Congress, led by Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman\nSchultz of Florida.\nIn the meantime, a court hearing will be held at 4 p.m. Wednesday in New York in another Epstein-related\ncase. A federal appeals court will hear oral arguments in a motion by the Miami Herald, supported by 32 other\nnews organizations, asking the court to unseal documents that could reveal details about the extent of Epstein's\ncrimes and any other people who may have been involved.\nThree of Epstein's former attorneys — who helped negotiate his plea deal in 2008 — wrote a letter published\nin the New York Times on Monday, defending the plea bargain cut with Acosta as a fair deal. The letter was in\nresponse to a Times editorial that called on Congress and the Trump administration to hold Acosta and others\ninvolved in the case accountable.\nEpstein's lawyers said the editorial's conclusions were \"in profound conflict with the reality,\" noting that there\nwas no evidence that Epstein committed federal sex trafficking offenses. The letter was signed by former\nEpstein lawyers Kenneth Starr, Jack Goldberger and Lilly Ann Sanchez, as well as Epstein's current attorney,\nMartin G. Weinberg.\nRead more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-\ngovernment/article227136459.html#storylink=cpy"}, {"sender": "Lilly Sanchez", "recipients": ["J [jeevacation@gmail.com]"], "timestamp": "Mar 5, 2019, at 5:22 PM", "subject": "Re: Herald", "body": ""}, {"sender": "Lilly Sanchez", "recipients": ["J [jeevacation@gmail.com]"], "timestamp": "3/5/2019 11:26:49 PM", "subject": "Re: Herald", "body": ""}]