It looks like the Bush administration’s Justice Department may have played a key role in the unprecedented and “secret” plea deal offered to Jeffrey Epstein in 2007, according to an explosive report from the Miami Herald.
The Herald’s Julie K. Brown, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose reporting helped lead to Epstein’s arrest in 2019, spoke with former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter over the course of several months, and on Saturday, had a profile on the veteran law enforcement official published in the Herald that included previously unreported details.
Reiter, who initiated the first criminal probe into Epstein’s illegal conduct in the mid-2000s, said after gathering evidence and “interviewing two dozen tearful girls and their parents” over the course of 11 months, he was then “stonewalled by state prosecutors and attacked in the media,” and later, “ostracized by federal prosecutors, who took over the case in early 2007,” the Herald reports.
As parents of alleged Epstein victims grew “frustrated” with Reiter, the Palm Beach Police chief “took the unusual step” of requesting a meeting with Alexander Acosta, the Herald reported, who at the time served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and would later go on to be tapped by President Donald Trump as his Labor secretary.
“I’m here to ask you to live up to the principles that you espoused when you were sworn in,” Reiter told Acosta, he recalled to Brown.
“Who has the authority to make the decision of whether or not to federally prosecute Epstein? We turned it over to you. We did most of the work, and the assistant U.S. attorney told us she usually gets 10 years for each count, and we had maybe 100 counts and probably 24 or so cooperating victims. So whose authority is it?”
Acosta, according to Reiter’s account, “didn’t respond.” Reiter then told Acosta that he suspected Epstein’s legal team was “manipulating” Acosta’s office, the Herald’s report reads, telling Brown in hindsight that he “basically told him to do his job.”
Acosta responded, “We have been receiving some guidance from main justice and [Epstein’s] defense attorneys have done a very effective job in stalling the case,” according to Reiter.
While Acosta was being vetted to become Labor secretary, he reportedly claimed he was told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence," that the matter was "above his pay grade," and that he should "leave it alone," according to The Daily Beast.
