Epstein Victim Loses Challenge to Sex-Case Deal in Florida

(Bloomberg) -- A woman who was sexually assaulted as a teenager by Jeffrey Epstein failed in a bid to challenge the deal he made more than a decade ago with federal prosecutors in Florida, a three-judge appeals court panel ruled.

The victim, Courtney Wild, filed suit to challenge the 2007 non-prosecution agreement, saying it violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act because she and other victims weren’t notified of the deal.

But the judges ruled that since no criminal charges were pending at the time, the case could not be pursued under that act.

“It’s not a result we like, but it’s the result we think the law requires,” Judge Kevin Newsom of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in the decision issued Tuesday.

Under the deal, Epstein pleaded guilty to lesser state charges of soliciting prostitution from minors and then got unusually lenient terms for his imprisonment in Palm Beach County. Epstein committed suicide in a New York jail in August after being denied bail on federal sex-traficking charges.

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