Epstein Faces Prison for Sex Trafficking; U.S. Seeks Mansion

(Bloomberg) -- Fund manager Jeffrey Epstein used his wealth and power to sexually abuse dozens of young girls for years at one of the biggest mansions in Manhattan, paying them hundreds of dollars in cash for each encounter and hundreds more if they brought in more victims, U.S. prosecutors said.

Now, federal prosecutors are charging him with sex trafficking and conspiracy. They’re seeking to send him prison for years and seize that Manhattan home.

The indictment unsealed on Monday against the well-connected financier came days after his arrest upon returning from overseas and just hours after federal agents used a crowbar to enter the townhouse. The charges, which include sex acts with girls as young as 14, carry a minimum of 10 years in prison if he’s convicted. Prosecutors in Manhattan asked a judge to hold Epstein in jail until his trial; his bail hearing will resume on July 15.

Epstein created an “ever-expanding web of new victims,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a news conference in New York, where he urged other victims to come forward. “The alleged behavior shocked the conscience.”

“Not guilty, your Honor” Epstein, dressed in a navy prison fatigues, said in a soft voice at his court appearance.

Epstein is a jet-setter famous for ferrying prominent figures including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton to his Palm Beach, Florida, compound on a private jet that was later nicknamed the Lolita Express by the tabloids. He was taken into custody Saturday after years of accusations of child molestation and a previous conviction that yielded a minimal sentence. His deal with prosecutors in that case recently re-emerged as a political controversy.

Read the Full Indictment

Prosecutors said the sex acts occurred in Epstein’s homes in Palm Beach and Manhattan. Epstein asked at least two girls what their ages were, and both replied truthfully that they were underage, according to the indictment.

The Justice Department is attempting to seize Epstein’s Manhattan residence through forfeiture proceedings, on the grounds that his spacious townhouse at 9 East 71st Street was used for the sex trafficking. Prosecutors said in court that his home still has a massage room, massage table and sex paraphernalia inside of it.

Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey after he returned from France. In a court filing seeking to have him held behind bars, prosecutors cited his access to two private planes and a home overseas, along with his wealth and the steep penalty for sex trafficking.

“He has enormous wealth,” Berman said at the press conference. “We think he has every incentive to try and flee the jurisdiction.”

Court papers indicate that at least three of Epstein’s employees were involved in recruiting and scheduling minors for sexual encounters with him, as well as other unspecified “associates.” One of them was based in New York, while two other assistants based at his mansion in Palm Beach were responsible for scheduling the encounters there and escorting victims to a room in the house, according to the indictment.

“Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit in locations including New York and Palm Beach,” according to the indictment.

For the time being, Epstein will remain at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, the same high-security facility where Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chief, is being detained while he faces state fraud charges.

Read More: Here Is What Prosecutors in New York Say Jeffrey Epstein Did

Epstein has been under scrutiny for more than a decade, with teenage girls saying he used his employees to bring them to his Florida mansion for sex and paid them to recruit new victims.

In a 2008 plea deal that has received intense criticism, Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges of soliciting a prostitute and served 13 months in a Florida state prison, while avoiding prosecution for federal sex-trafficking offenses and the decades of prison time he could have faced if convicted.

That plea agreement was approved at a “very, very high level” in the Justice Department, one of Epstein’s lawyers, Reid Weingarten, said in court.

The Miami Herald last year published a series of articles reporting that the top federal prosecutor in southern Florida at the time, Alex Acosta, worked with Epstein’s lawyers to fashion the deal. Acosta, now the U.S. labor secretary, violated federal law when he failed to clear the federal non-prosecution agreement with many of Epstein’s alleged victims, a federal judge ruled in February.

The Herald said it found about 60 victims.

‘Old Stuff’

“This is old stuff, this is ancient stuff,” Weingarten said in court, referring to the new charges. He said Epstein believed he had a “global resolution” with his deal in Florida.

But prosecutors say they aren’t bound by Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement with Acosta because that case didn’t include any alleged victims outside of Florida. In a letter Monday to the judge handling the New York case, the U.S. said prosecutors in the Southern District of New York can’t be held to the deal “absent an express provision to the contrary in the agreement.”

In the new case, which is being handled partly by the public corruption unit in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, additional alleged victims have come forward who weren’t covered by the non-prosecution agreement, according to a person familiar with the case.

While Epstein is charged with crimes from 2002 to 2005, prosecutors may have obtained evidence of new crimes. At the news conference, Berman said investigators searched his New York mansion on Saturday and found nude photos of what appeared to be underage girls.

Berman and FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney encouraged victims to come forward and give any new evidence of potential crimes by Epstein to the FBI. Prosecutors said in court that multiple attorneys and individuals have reached out to the government.

The case is U.S. v. Epstein, 19-cr-490, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

--With assistance from Erik Larson, Christian Berthelsen, David Voreacos and Greg Farrell.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net;Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net;Chris Dolmetsch in Federal Court in Manhattan at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, David S. Joachim

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