8 The Virgin Islands Daily News
Justice Department
opens Epstein probe
The Associated Press
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. —
The Justice Department has opened
an investigation into federal prosecutors' handling of a plea deal in which a
wealthy, politically connected Virgin
Islands financier avoided potentially
severe penalties for sexually abusing
teenage girls in favor of a relatively
light state conviction in Florida.
The department's Office
of Professional
Responsibility
wrote in a letter
Wednesday to
US. Sen. Ben
Sasse, R-Nebraska, that it would
examine whether
professional mis- Jeffrey Epstein
conduct occurred in the highly publicized case of Jeffrey Epstein. The letter cited a series of recent articles by
the Miami Herald that focused new
attention on how the deal came about.
Sasse, a member of the Senate
Judiciary Committee who has twice
asked the Justice Department to investigate the case, welcomed the
news.
"Jeffrey Epstein is a child rapist
and there's not a single mom or dad in
America who shouldn't be horrified
by the fact that he received a pathetically soft sentence," Sasse said in an
email. "The victims of Epstein 's child
sex trafficking ring deserve this investigation — and so do the American
people and members of law enforcement who work to put these kinds of
monsters behind bars."
Epstein, who also has homes in
Palm Beach, Fla., and New York,
lives on Little St. James Island off St.
Thomas.
Epstein, now 66, reached a nonprosecution deal in 2008 with then-
Miami US. Attorney Alexander
Acosta's office to secretly end a federal sex abuse investigation involving
at least 40 teenage girls that could
have landed him behind bars for life.
He instead pleaded guilty to state
charges, spent 13 months in jail, paid
settlements to victims and is a registered sex offender.
Acosta, now President Donald
Trump's labor secretary, has defended the deal as appropriate but has not
commented since the recent round of
stories. He was asked about the case
during his Senate confirmation hearings for the Cabinet post.
Some of his accusers are pursuing
a separate legal effort to nullify the
plea agreement.