EFTA00018478

SDNY News Clips, Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Did Jeffrey Epstein try to kill himself? He and his lawyer, back in court, aren't saying
Miami Herald
By Miami Herald Staff
7/31/19
Victims of Jeffrey Epstein share the emotional toll that sexual abuse has taken on them — even years after the
abuse occurred. Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown interviewed the young women, most speaking for the
first time about Epstein. BY EMILY MICHOT I JULIE K. BROWN
For the first time since he was found semi-conscious in his jail cell with telltale bruise marks on his neck,
accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein appeared in a Manhattan court room.
Epstein — onetime friend of the rich and powerful, including current President Donald Trump and past
President Bill Clinton — learned Wednesday that he will not face trial until at least next June.
The multimillionaire part-time resident of Palm Beach sat subdued in front of U.S. District Court Judge Richard
M. Berman. The 66-year-old defendant wore dark blue jail scrubs and glasses.
His lawyer, Martin Weinberg, declined to reveal any details about the incident at the Metropolitan Correctional
Center, which occurred July 23, including whether it was a suicide attempt, an attack by a fellow detainee or
something else. His client is being held without bond.
Wednesday's hearing in New York City lasted just 15 minutes.
Epstein, a financier who owns homes around the world, including a waterfront estate in Palm Beach, was
arrested July 6, nearly eight months after the Miami Herald published Perversion of Justice, a two-year
investigation of a much-reviled secret plea deal in 2007-2008 that spared Epstein a sweeping federal indictment
despite allegations of sexual abuse by nearly three dozen underage girls.
He had just arrived from France at New Jersey's Teterboro airport on his private jet when authorities met him
and took him into custody.
During the early- and mid-2000s, Epstein allegedly ran what amounted to a sexual pyramid scheme, using
recruiters to lure girls as young as 14 to his lavish Palm Beach and Manhattan mansions with the promise that
they would receive $200 to give a man a massage. The girls have alleged that they were coerced into sex.
The girls were paid additional money if they would recruit others girls, police and court records allege. Epstein
had assistants schedule as many as three visits a day.
Rather than face federal charges that could have put him away for life, Epstein pleaded guilty in state court to
minor prostitution charges and served just a year in the county stockade — which permitted him to leave the
lockup for his luxurious downtown West Palm Beach office for 12 hours a day, six days a week. This "work
release" arrangement, highly unusual for a sex offender, is now under criminal investigation by order of the
Palm Beach sheriff, Ric Bradshaw, who oversees the stockade and approved the work release.
13
EFTA00018478