Financier Jeffrey Epstein charged with federal sex trafficking crimes involving minors

Federal prosecutors on Monday unsealed new sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein, alleging the politically connected multimillionaire abused dozens of female minors at his Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, homes and enlisted his victims to expand a network of possible targets.

Epstein - who was arrested over the weekend and is expected to appear in federal court in Manhattan - had previously pleaded guilty to Florida state charges of soliciting prostitution to resolve allegations he molested dozens of girls. That arrangement has been widely criticized as too lenient. As part of the deal, he had to spend just more than a year in jail and was allowed to leave daily for work, and he never faced any federal exposure.

The new charges, described in an explosive 14-page indictment brought by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, could lead to a much harsher penalty. Epstein is charged in a two-count indictment with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy, for crimes alleged to have occurred between 2002 and 2005.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a news conference that Epstein, now 66, faces the possibility of 45 years in prison and that prosecutors will seek to have him detained pending trial. The Justice Department is also seeking to seize Epstein's mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where some of the alleged crimes occurred.

Prosecutors wrote in a court filing Monday seeking to keep Epstein behind bars that in a search of Epstein's home this weekend, investigators "recovered hundreds - and perhaps thousands - of sexually suggestive photographs of fully- or partially- nude females," some of which appear to be of underage girls. Some of the photographs were found in a locked safe on CDs with handwritten labels such as "Misc nudes 1" and "Girl pics nude," prosecutors wrote.

"The alleged behavior shocks the conscience," Berman said, calling the victims "particularly vulnerable."

In court filings and in public statements, law enforcement officials described Epstein as a man of incredible wealth who was able to pay his victims, some as young as 14 years old, to find him others to abuse. Authorities said he was willing to go to great lengths to cover up his behavior and had "practically limitless" avenues to flee and escape justice.

In his previous case, prosecutors wrote, Epstein's attorneys contemplated having him plead guilty to an obstruction or witness tampering offense, and mentioned to prosecutors an incident in which Epstein apparently hired a private investigator to follow the father of someone involved in the case and force him off the road. They alleged Epstein was hardly a changed man.

"The defendant, a registered sex offender, is not reformed, he is not chastened, he is not repentant; rather, he is a continuing danger to the community and an individual who faces devastating evidence supporting deeply serious charges," prosecutors wrote.

According to the new indictment, Epstein recruited young girls to perform "massages," which would become "increasingly sexual in nature." He then paid the victims hundreds of dollars in cash for each encounter, according to the indictment.

The indictment also alleges that Epstein "actively encouraged certain of his victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly sexually abused" and that he "incentivized his victims to become recruiters by paying these victim-recruiters hundreds of dollars for each girl they brought to Epstein."

"This allowed Epstein to create an ever-expanding web of new victims," Berman said.

Epstein is a financier who once counted among his friends President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. By prosecutors' account, he lived a life that even the wealthiest people can only dream of.

He owns property around the world - including in Manhattan; Palm Beach, Florida; Stanley, New Mexico; and Paris - and has a private island in the U.S. Virginia Islands, prosecutors wrote in a court filing. His New York mansion, valued at about $77 million, is believed to be one of the single largest residences in all of Manhattan, prosecutors wrote.

Epstein has at least 15 vehicles, including seven Chevrolet Suburbans, a cargo van, a Range Rover, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, a Cadillac Escalade and a Hummer II, and access to two private jets - one of which can fly from continent to continent, prosecutors wrote. In the past 18 months, he traveled in or out of the country more than 20 times, prosecutors wrote.

His alleged victims have long claimed the criminal justice system treated him differently because of his wealth and political connections, and his treatment has come under significant media and legal scrutiny.

Epstein's alleged victims have sued in civil court. The Washington Post and the Miami Herald, for example, have detailed in investigative reports how then-U. S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, now Trump's labor secretary, shelved a 53-page federal indictment that could have put Epstein behind bars for life in favor of the deal that allowed him to plead guilty only to state charges.

Acosta, who declined to comment for this story through a spokesman, has previously defended the arrangement as guaranteeing that Epstein would go to jail. In the wake of the charges being unsealed Monday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., renewed her calls for Acosta to resign.

"The new sex trafficking charges announced today make it agonizingly clear that former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta failed to deliver true justice for the underage girls that Jeffrey Epstein mercilessly exploited," she said. "Someone with such poor judgment and utter disregard for survivors should not be our Secretary of Labor ... As Epstein now faces a real accounting for his crimes, it's time for Acosta to be held responsible for letting Epstein elude real justice for so long."

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility revealed earlier this year that it was probing whether the attorneys handling the case previously committed "professional misconduct." At the news conference, law enforcement officials credited the work of investigative journalists with helping move the case forward.

In the new case, Epstein seems to be encountering a far more aggressive Justice Department. He was taken into custody over the weekend at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, where his private jet had just landed from Paris, and jailed pending his court appearance Monday. Federal prison records show he was housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. The federal detention center has a fearsome reputation; one inmate who spent time there and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba said the military detention facility was "more pleasant."

The case is being handled by public corruption prosecutors with Berman's office, including Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey.

Officials pleaded at the news conference for other victims to come forward to call the FBI's tip line: 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324). They said that while sex trafficking was often ignored, in their jurisdiction, it would not be.

"Too often, adults in our society have turned a blind eye to this type of criminal behavior," said William Sweeney, head of the FBI's office in New York. "I have the privilege to represent and stand among many who make it our mission to put predators behind bars where they belong, regardless of the predators' power, wealth, or perceived connections."

He added: "Today I'm asking everyone to take a good look at this man. If you have been victimized in any way, or if you are someone who has any additional information about his alleged illegal behavior, we want to hear from you."

Prosecutors described in graphic detail Epstein's alleged crimes, explaining in the indictment how girls as young as 14 would arrive to one of his homes, be escorted to a room with a massage table, and then be instructed to partially or fully undress. Epstein, the indictment alleges, would grope the girls and perform other sex acts.

Epstein sometimes scheduled meetings himself, but often he "directed employees and associates ... to arrange for these victims to return to the New York Residence for additional sexual encounters with Epstein," according to the indictment, which says three employees, identified only as Employee-1, Employee-2 and Employee-3, helped arrange the encounters.

When Epstein flew from New York to Florida, an employee or associate would "ensure that minor victims were available for encounters upon his arrival," the indictment alleges.

It was not immediately clear whether any of those employees will face criminal charges over their alleged conduct, because Epstein's previous plea deal struck with federal prosecutors in Florida said his co-conspirators would not be charged in that case. The New York indictment references Epstein's conduct in Florida that was the basis of that earlier plea, but the new indictment appears to hinge principally on his alleged victims in New York. Berman declined to comment on possible criminal exposure anyone connected to Epstein might face.

Prosecutors could run into challenges if the new charges overlap with the conduct that was covered by Epstein's guilty plea, though a person familiar with the case said officials were not particularly concerned about that. Berman said at the news conference that his office, the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District of New York, had not signed on to the previous agreement by prosecutors in Florida and thus was not bound by it.

In the filing urging that Epstein continue to be jailed, prosecutors argued that his previous non-prosecution agreement "did not purport to cover any victims outside of the State of Florida," and the new indictment alleges there are dozens of victims "abused in this District in addition to dozens of victims who were abused in Florida."

While the indictment alleges that Epstein abused dozens of girls, it describes the specific ordeals of three women whom it says Epstein repeatedly abused over years.

Prosecutors said their evidence is strong. They wrote that "multiple victims" had provided information about Epstein which was "detailed, credible, and corroborated, in many instances, by other witnesses and contemporaneous documents, records and other evidence."

They said they had found "contemporaneous notes" and "messages recovered from the defendant's residence that include names and contact information for certain victims, and call records that confirm the defendant and his agents were repeatedly in contact with various victims during the charged period."

"Put simply, all of this evidence - the voluminous and credible testimony of individuals who were sexually abused by the defendant as minors, each of whom are backed up by other evidence - will be devastating evidence of guilt at any trial in this case and weighs heavily in favor of detention," prosecutors wrote.

Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., who confronted Acosta about his role in the plea deal during a congressional hearing, said: "For too long, Jeffrey Epstein has walked free and avoided the consequences of his crime. There are still many questions to be answered. With that said, this indictment is a positive step toward putting this sexual predator away and giving justice to the survivors."

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said Epstein "should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law - power and wealth be damned. This man is a monster and his victims deserve justice."

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Merle reported from New York. The Washington Post's Kimberly Kindy and Lisa Rein contributed to this report.

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