Epstein Bids for ‘Gilded Cage’ That Housed Madoff, Strauss-Kahn

(Bloomberg) -- It certainly isn’t unheard of for the well-heeled and criminally accused to await trial in their luxurious New York residences instead of cells with concrete beds. Just remember Bernard Madoff or Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Jeffrey Epstein, who is scheduled to learn Thursday whether he will have to remain in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, has asked U.S. District Judge Richard Berman to allow him to go home to his limestone-fronted mansion across the street from the Frick Collection museum. The financier has been at the notorious MCC since his arrest on July 6 on charges of sex-trafficking minors.

The betting pool has it that Berman won’t oblige. The judge isn’t known to be a fan of this kind of pre-trial housing, having called a similar request for home detention for a moneyed defendant in 2016 “unreasonable because it helps to foster inequity and unequal treatment in favor of a very small cohort of criminal defendants who are extremely wealthy.”

Epstein, 66, is in that camp, with assets his lawyers estimated at more than $500 million in a one-page financial disclosure submitted to the court. The massive mansion to which he wants to retire -- with a monitoring device and a security retinue he would pay for -- has been assessed by tax authorities at $55.93 million, though its market value could be higher.

Prosecutors have said that Epstein, a registered sex offender since 2008, is a flight risk and an unrepentant criminal. His lawyers have countered that he has a track record of “14 years of self-discipline” and that simply because he’s rich doesn’t mean he should be deprived of the right to be freed on bail. Epstein offered to sign a bond “whether it’s $100 million or an amount close to the amount of his assets,” one of his lawyers told the judge at a July 15 bail hearing.

The charges against Epstein in New York are similar to those he faced in Florida in 2008 when he cut a secretive deal with prosecutors there and was sentenced to 18 months in the Palm Beach County jail. According to a series in the Miami Herald, he was allowed to leave the jail to work at his West Palm Beach office for as many as 12 hours a day for up to six days a week during his incarceration.

The question for the judge now is straightforward, said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. As Berman himself has noted, “wealthy defendants have an advantage in the system,” Henning said. “Does the judge want to treat him differently than any other?”

And, Henning said, Epstein isn’t just any other rich defendant, not one like Madoff, who was accused of financial crimes, not of sexually abusing girls. “There’s a presumption that he’s a danger to the community because it’s a sex crime,” Henning said. “The hard part for Epstein is overcoming that presumption.”

Should Epstein’s request be granted, he would live alone in his nine-story mansion, wearing GPS jewelry on his ankle, guarded by a team of private security guards. Only his legal team would be authorized to visit, though, presumably, he could order food in.

Perhaps he would while away the time doing yoga on what he said in a 2003 Vanity Fair article was “the largest Persian rug you’ll ever see in a private home.” Maybe he would play the nine-foot ebony Steinway grand piano in his upstairs office, or work at a desk that he has boasted once belonged to banker J.P. Morgan.

As for Madoff, who is serving a life term for having masterminding the largest Ponzi scheme in history, he was allowed out on $10 million bail just days after his December 2008 arrest, with electronic monitoring and private security guards paid for by his wife at his $7 million penthouse duplex apartment in Manhattan.

Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund chief, was accused in May 2011 of sexually assaulting a maid at a Manhattan hotel. Considered a front-runner for the French presidency before his arrest, Strauss-Kahn was allowed by a state judge to be freed on $5 million bond and remain under house arrest at a TriBeCa townhouse under the watch of guards from the same security firm that patrolled Madoff until he went to prison. A judge threw out Strauss-Kahn’s sexual-assault case after his accuser was found to have lied about events surrounding the alleged attack.

If Epstein is denied the “gilded cage,” as prosecutors often refer to home detention for people with means, his lawyers can seek a review before the federal appeals court in Manhattan.

--With assistance from Gerald Porter Jr., Bob Van Voris and Chris Dolmetsch.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Anne Reifenberg, Peter Blumberg

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