Federal prosecutors drafted an indictment against Jeffrey Epstein in 2007, accusing him of sex trafficking, and Justice Department records show that grand jurors heard months of testimony on the case.
Epstein, three of his employees and two of his companies were charged in a draft indictment that accused them of abusing girls under the age of 14. According to records, in May 2007 a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent testified before a grand jury about how Epstein groomed girls for erotic massages. The documents do not indicate that the grand jury was ever asked to vote on a draft indictment.
Details about the 60-count indictment and testimony have not previously been made public. Records show that Count 51 involved the sex trafficking of a minor named Jane Doe No. 3, and prosecutors would have charged Epstein’s companies that owned his Gulfstream jet and Boeing 727.
The indictment itself has not been released. Yet the transcripts describing it provide insight into the crisis Epstein faced over charges that were drafted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida but set aside to negotiate a non-prosecution agreement. As part of that deal, Epstein pleaded guilty to two less serious prostitution charges in state court in 2008. He served 13 months of his 18-month sentence.
Epstein resumed his lifestyle of mingling with celebrities and business leaders, as young women flocked to his homes in Palm Beach, New York, the US Virgin Islands and New Mexico. US prosecutors in New York indicted Epstein on sex trafficking charges in 2019, accusing him of abusing the girls. He died in prison in August, which authorities ruled a suicide.
Epstein’s victims have long condemned the failure of federal prosecutors in Florida to convict him in 2007, saying that their inaction enabled his abuse of hundreds of women.
“What I’ve said for the last 15 years is true – the indictment that was drafted is the indictment that should have been applied to him,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer who has represented nearly 200 Epstein victims. “If the Southern District of Florida had moved forward with that proper prosecution, it could have saved a lot of people.”
Former U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who oversaw the decision not to bring federal charges after the first investigation, has said he was concerned that state law could be better enforced, and that some victims would not face attacks on their credibility if the case went to trial.
Records describing the draft of the indictment were among thousands of documents and photographs released over the weekend by the Justice Department. In November, Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation forcing the department to make the files public. President Donald Trump had opposed this law, but bowed to pressure from Republican lawmakers and signed it.
Those records included transcripts of grand jury testimony that Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Villafana used to gather evidence against Epstein. According to a 2020 Justice Department report, she drafted a 53-page indictment and an 82-page prosecution memorandum that scrutinized the integrity of the federal investigation.
Bloomberg has reported that Villafana has also launched a money laundering investigation of Epstein, and has asked a grand jury to issue a subpoena for “every financial transaction conducted by Epstein and his six businesses” through 2003. It was unclear whether the indictment prepared by prosecutors included money laundering charges.
In the transcripts, the Justice Department redacted names, including the prosecutor and others FBI Representative. On May 8, 2007, an FBI agent testified about a girl who began giving topless massages to Epstein when she was 15, and who said he recruited other girls. The girl spoke openly with the FBI only after being granted immunity from prosecution, the agent said.
She said she loved Epstein and called him a “wonderful man,” the agent said. He also discussed the perspective of an expert witness, who said that criminals often groomed “compliant victims” who were teenagers and particularly vulnerable to abuse.
The prosecutor and agent then discussed the indictment and photographs the four proposed defendants: epstein And three employees. The document included allegations against the two companies; According to testimony, one had Epstein’s Boeing 727, the other had his Gulfstream G1159B.
Agents cited evidence including interviews of the girls and their recruiters, flight manifestos, call records and documents seized by Palm Beach police. The agent identified and showed photographs of the victims, who were identified as Jane Doe 1 to 5.
Grand jurors, who met in secret and heard evidence on the case for several months, interrogated witnesses from prosecutors. He asked about the strength of the evidence, the nature of the allegations and whether they could be confirmed.
A grand juror asked, “We were told in February that one of the girls had alleged rape during the interview, and I had not heard about that allegation until recently.”
The agent responded that Epstein “forced her onto the table” but the rest of her response has been removed. He said the woman, referred to as Jane Doe No. 6, will be discussed at the next grand jury session.
At that session, on May 15, 2007, a grand juror asked: “Can’t they put anything in this indictment about stalking him, are there any rules against stalking children?”
A grand juror also asked: “What does Epstein do for work, how does he make his money?”
The agent said he is an investor who manages portfolios worth $1 billion or more, and that his most famous client was the owner of Victoria’s Secret, a reference to businessman Les Wexner, who founded the company that owned the brand at the time.
In addition to the grand jury transcripts, the Justice Department also released an interview that department officials conducted in 2019 with Acosta, the former U.S. Attorney who had decided not to proceed with an indictment in 2007. The non-prosecution agreement included the grant of immunity to four Epstein employees.
“The public viewed these cases differently in 2006,” Acosta told lawyers from the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR. “There has been a lot of victim shaming, and the extent to which it is all allowed.”
Acosta, who was appointed labor secretary in 2017, resigned from that post in 2019 after federal prosecutors new york Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking. Epstein’s victims have criticized Acosta for his handling of the case, arguing that he did not do enough to hold the former financier accountable for his actions.
In 2020, the OPR concluded that Acosta and four others did not commit professional misconduct in their handling of the case, but said they showed “poor judgment.”
The non-prosecution agreement, the report said, “was very difficult to administer, giving Epstein free rein to manipulate the terms of his sentence to his advantage. The agreement relied on state officials to enforce its key terms, removing federal authorities’ control over the process.”
In a statement, Acosta’s attorney Jeffrey Neiman said federal prosecutors and the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office acknowledged the “explicit challenges” at the time.
Neiman said, “Mr. Acosta took responsibility for approving the final resolution, acknowledging that trusting the state system was a mistake.” But he said, “Epstein served prison time, registered as a sex offender, and was ordered to pay restitution to his victims, sending a message to the community that Epstein’s conduct was unacceptable.”
The DOJ report also said Acosta failed to fully pursue investigative steps such as securing computers seized from Epstein’s home by Palm Beach police. The report said it could have led to the identification of other victims and increased the influence of US prosecutors in negotiations with defense lawyers.
In an 11th Hour interview, Acosta told DOJ officials that “the law has become much more aggressive” on sex trafficking.
“I don’t think anyone in the office was questioning the pain or suffering of the victims,” he said at the time. “The issue was how they would make their case in court.”
Spencer Quin, the attorney representing nine victims, said Acosta’s concerns about the victims’ credibility are “frankly absurd.”
Prosecutors, he said, reached decisions that “made absolutely no sense to the attorneys who were advocating on behalf of the victims at the time, and particularly with respect to the credibility of these victims. You had multiple victims who were interviewed by FBI agents, and frankly, the agents I was talking to at the time were disappointed that no charges were filed.”
