It is clear to most informed readers that no real justice was done in Jeffrey Epstein’s 2006 federal case. In that case, given to the FBI when Palm Beach police became convinced that state prosecutors were soft-peddling Epstein’s activities, Epstein was accused of paying children to have illegal sexual encounters.[1] The U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami concluded that Epstein, working through his female assistants, “would recruit underage females to travel to his home in Palm Beach to engage in lewd conduct in exchange for money. . . . Some went there as much as 100 times or more. Some of the women’s conduct was limited to performing a topless or nude massage while Mr. Epstein masturbated himself. For other women, the conduct escalated to full sexual intercourse.”
“Women” here includes many young women –– children, shall we say? –– who were less than 15 years old.
https://time.com/5621911/jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-what-to-know/
Nor does this include Epstein’s activities aboard “the Lolita Express,” or in his New York City townhouse.
https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-lolita-express.html
Much of the media has focused on Alex Acosta, who was the chief federal prosecutor in 2006, and who has been (until July 12th) the President’s Acting Secretary of Labor.
“Acosta’s decision back then to sign a non-prosecution deal that allowed Epstein to serve only 13 months in county jail, with permission to leave the building and go to work six days a week, has led to repeated waves of public outrage in the years since.” In that deal, Acosta agreed not to pursue federal charges against Epstein or four women who the government said procured girls for him. In exchange, Epstein agreed to plead guilty to a state solicitation charge, register as a sex offender and pay restitution to victims.
People looking at how such leniency could be “perfectly legal” should look to the political pressures on public prosecutors, both state and federal, and the “army of lawyers” (mentioned in the link just below) that extremely wealthy defendants can afford.
Yet Mr. Acosta was not a true villain in this piece, despite all the media hype that he allowed Epstein to escape serious punishment.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html
According to the Washington Post, the biggest reason for the leniency in this case were the high powered (and highly effective) attorneys that were part of Epstein’s “army of lawyers.” These include well-known attorneys such as Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz. Epstein hired at least 4 other lawyers, including Miami’s most famous defense attorney, Roy Black; Acosta’s former colleague, Jay Lefkowitz; one of Acosta’s predecessors as U.S. attorney, Guy Lewis; New York criminal defender Gerald Lefcourt; and several more. He bragged that his legal team had a combined 250 years of experience.
In the legal trade, lawyers are sometimes referred to as “mouthpieces” –– hired to say things as the client’s agent that will put the client in the best possible light. Some of the “doozies” that Epstein’s legal team dreamed up included these:
“The conduct is exaggerated,” one of Epstein’s lawyers said in an interview. “I know of no rape. Basically, it’s a masturbation case, a misdemeanor, maybe. Most of the girls weren’t that young, maybe 16 to 20.” In a similar soft-pedaling, Alan Dershowitz said “They were just massages that turned into a little more than massages. . .It seemed like a small case, a half-dozen massages by local people. They were all 18. Nobody heard of anybody, like, 14.”
Yet anyone who cares to look even a little in depth at the numerous allegations and news accounts will realize that these statements “stretch the truth,” and more than just a little.
Though, let’s give these great lawyers their due: lawyers are supposed to zealously represent their clients, and surely that includes “stretching the truth.” It’s hard not to note former U.S. attorney and NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s statement that “truth isn’t truth.” But, back to the Code of Professional Conduct:
Even a guilty client is entitled to strong representation so that “over-zealous prosecutors” (and there are many such prosecutors) do not push for extreme sentences in criminal cases.
“A prosecutor’s ultimate objective is not to win a case, but to do justice. Yet, today, all across the nation, prosecutors are failing to live up to that awesome responsibility. Indeed, judge Alex Kozinksi, a well-respected Ronald Reagan appointee to the federal bench, recently wrote that misuse of prosecutorial discretion has reached ‘epidemic proportions.’”
http://fairpunishment.org/category/overzealous-prosecutors/
But it seems there are over-zealous defenders, too –– but only if you have the loot to lavish on them, for they won’t do their dirty work without plenty of “filthy lucre.”
(There’s some interesting background in this blog on the Biblical origins of “filthy lucre” and why the New Testament mentions it four times.)
Many sources indicate that Epstein’s defense team –– his “army of lawyers” – not only defended Epstein on legal grounds, but went on the offensive. In an Atlantic article by Ken White, Attorney and former federal prosecutor, Epstein’s defense was like nothing he had seen before.
“Epstein’s lawyers hounded the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, which was considering federal charges, based on reports that Epstein had procured underage girls across state lines. Former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta—now President Donald Trump’s secretary of labor—characterized the tactic as a “year long assault on the prosecution and prosecutors.”
Acosta complained that Epstein’s team investigated prosecutors and their families, “looking for personal peccadilloes that may provide a basis for disqualification.”
The lead detective in the case, who has since died, said in depositions in civil suits stemming from the Epstein case that their trash was stolen by private investigators and that victims’ families were approached at their homes by people falsely claiming to be police officers. Adam Horowitz, a lawyer who represented seven of the girls who accused Epstein, said private investigators hired by Epstein followed and intimidated the victims, who reported seeing strange cars parked in front of their homes.
Acosta claimed some years ago that Epstein’s defense team also went over his head to the Department of Justice in Washington to complain that Acosta was being over-zealous. One of Epstein’s attorneys threatened to make sure a book was published about the unfair prosecution “if we continued to proceed with this matter.”
Epstein’s attorneys have defended their actions, but the end result in many people’s minds is that they evidently took their client’s money to use every possible means, fair or unfair, to get the best possible deal for Epstein.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-how-the-hedge-fund-mogul-pedophile-got-off-easy
Ironically (and sadly), Ken Starr –– who pursued Bill Clinton for lying about getting oral sex from a young White House intern –– recently claimed that he was “very happy” to represent Epstein, who evidently got sex, including intercourse, from more than a few young women, all of whom were well below the age of consent. Starr is sometimes described as a “moral scold,” and as a son of a minister in the Church of God, has a strong, proclaimed faith in Jesus Christ. Starr has said he tried to live by one of his “life verses” from the Bible, Micah 6:8: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
But attorneys are no more spiritual than anyone else, regardless of their background and professed beliefs; as a partner in a big law firm, if you turn away lucrative business, some other firm will garner the gain, and your partners will miss out on the bonanza. As in the Tragedy of the Commons, most people have FOMO (fear of missing out) as a major stimulus; if everyone is doing it, you’re missing out if you don’t jump in and “just do it.” And as one University of Michigan professor has explained, we not only don’t want to miss out, we go for “the maximum return.”
Plainly put, the temptation to make lots of money “as long as it’s legal” will always be a compelling force, not just for attorneys, but for most people in this country, and probably every other country as well. If you or your firm is in truly “hot water” legally, and you are exceptionally rich, you can get the kind of “justice” only the ultra-wealthy can afford. Epstein has been doing what the system allows; he was clearly up against the wall, and pushed back with the most high-powered, highly paid lawyers to do the pushing back.
But the Code of Professional Ethics for attorneys –– were you surprised earlier in this blog that there is such a thing? –– not only asks that attorneys zealously represent their clients, but also that:
“A lawyer should use the law’s procedures only for legitimate purposes and not to harass or intimidate others. A lawyer should demonstrate respect for the legal system and for those who serve it, including judges, other lawyers and public officials. While it is a lawyer’s duty, when necessary, to challenge the rectitude of official action, it is also a lawyer’s duty to uphold legal process.”
Nothing in the 2006 case suggests that Mr. Acosta or the Miami US attorney’s office abused legal process; indeed, they proceeded with “rectitude”.
Defining “Rectitude,” by Merriam Webster:
1: the quality or state of being straight
2: moral integrity: Righteousness.
3: the quality or state of being correct in judgment or procedure
But Epstein’s “high profile” attorneys seemed happy enough to use disrespectful and technically legal means to help their guilty client and get––what we must suppose here–– a nice fat fee in exchange.
Temptation to do the wrong thing comes in many forms; some are tempted by sex, many others by money, or “filthy lucre.” From now on, whenever Ken Starr or Alan Dershowitz make public statements that invoke ethics or morality, you can safely ignore their professed “moral rectitude.”
I
know I will.
[1] The accounts are many, various, largely consistent, and nausea-inducing. See, e.g. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article222091270.html
Also
https://time.com/5621911/jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-what-to-know/