Fort Lauderdale, Florida — During the 2006 grand jury probe, which was made public on Monday, Florida prosecutors heard graphic evidence of how the late financier and millionaire Jeffrey Epstein sexually assaulted teenage girls two years before they made a plea deal.
Media investigations into Epstein’s ties to the wealthy and powerful seem to have let him continue to rape and sex-traffic teenagers without ever going to prison or serving serious jail time. The transcripts were at the center of a court case for about ten years.
As a surprise, the judge released the 150 pages even though he had planned a meeting for next week to talk about when and how to do so. In February, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that let the person go free on Monday or any other time after that, as ordered by Circuit Judge Luis Delgado.
It is clear from the records that Epstein, who was in his 40s at the time, raped teenage girls as young as 14 at his Palm Beach home. The teens told the police that they were also paid to find him more girls.
Honest people will find the facts in the record shocking, Delgado wrote in his order. “The Grand Jury heard evidence of behavior ranging from blatantly wrong to rape. All of the behavior in question is sexually inappropriate, disgusting, and illegal.”
After the grand jury probe, Epstein made a deal with federal prosecutors in South Florida in 2008 that kept him from facing more serious federal charges. Instead, he pleaded guilty to state charges of hiring a person under 18 to be a prostitute and asking someone to be a prostitute. It’s been called too lax for a long time. He was given a prison term of one and a half years in Palm Beach County, followed by a year of house arrest. Having been a sex criminal, he had to sign up.
A lot of people have said that the deal is too easy on them.
The first thing that led to the investigation, according to the transcripts, was a woman telling the police in March 2005 that her high school-aged stepdaughter said she got $300 for “sexual activity with a man in Palm Beach.” This is what Recarey said during his testimony in July 2006.
Detectives talked to another teen whose name was redacted from the recording. She said she was 17 years old when a friend told her she could make $200 by giving Epstein a massage.
At Epstein’s house, an assistant led the girl to a room. A short time later, Epstein walked in and told her to take off her clothes. She did what she was told and the massage began. Epstein tried to touch her, but she told him it made her feel bad. He then told her he would pay her if she brought more “girls” to his house. According to the interview with detectives that Recarey wrote about in October 2005, she decided to do it.
Recarey said, “He told her, ‘The younger, the better.'”
He told her that her 23-year-old friend was too old when she brought her over. Over time, the teen brought six high school friends to Epstein’s house, one of whom was 14 years old, the officer said.
The teen, who said she was like film actress Heidi Fleiss, told the officers that the girls knew what they were getting into. He gave her $200 and paid for her rental car every time she brought a friend over.
He said the teen told him, “The more you did, the more money you made.” “She told me that there would be a massage or maybe some touching and that you would have to do the massage without a top on or off.”
Epstein was charged with federal sex trafficking crimes in New York in 2018 because the Miami Herald wrote a series of articles about the case that brought it back to the public’s attention. These articles included interviews with some of Epstein’s victims who had been suing him in civil court. In August 2019, Epstein killed himself in a jail cell in New York City. He was 66 years old.
It was Delgado who wrote that Epstein was “the most famous child molester in American history.”
“For almost 20 years, the story of how Jeffrey Epstein hurt some of Palm Beach County’s weakest people has caused a lot of anger and has sometimes made people doubt the criminal justice system,” Delgado wrote.
“Epstein is indeed famous and infamous, and it is said that he flaunted his wealth while making out with politicians, billionaires, and even British royalty,” he said. According to those stories, it’s easy to see why the public is very interested in what was called “special treatment” in his prosecution by many news outlets.
Source: CNN
