EXHIBIT 264¶
CONFIDENTIAL UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE¶
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK¶
CASE NUMBER: 22-CV-10904-JSR¶
ACTION FOR DAMAGES¶
GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES ) VIRGIN ISLANDS, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) VS. ) ) JP CHASE BANK, N.A., ) ) Defendant. ) )¶
CONFIDENTIAL¶
VIDEO RECORDED DEPOSITION OF¶
DENISE¶
MONDAY, JULY 17, 2023¶
REPORTED BY:¶
DENISE D. HARPER-FORDE Certified Shorthand Reporter (CSR) Certified RealTime Reporter (CRR) Certified LiveNote Reporter (CLR) Registered Professional Reporter (RPR) Notary Public (FLORIDA)¶
¶
1 The time is 2:37.¶
2 (BY ATTORNEY O'LAUGHLIN):¶
3 4 5 6 7 Q. So, , I understand you had a discussion with your counsel while we were off the record about a question I asked you earlier today, correct?¶
8 A. Yes¶
9 10 11 12 13 Q. And the question that I'd asked you earlier today was about your personal E-mails and references to Jeffrey Epstein in those E-mails, correct?¶
14 A. Yes.¶
15 16 Q. And you had earlier refused to answer that question, correct?¶
17 A. Yes.¶
18 19 Q. And you now want to now revise that answer, correct?¶
20 A. Yes.¶
21 Q. Okay. What is the answer?¶
22 23 24 25 A. That there are E-mails, information within my personal E-mail that is directly related to information from my DoJ E-mail that I¶
1 2 3 was working on while I was Attorney General and sent to -- by myself to my personal E-mail to work on.¶
4 5 6 7 Q. Okay. So you would have forwarded E-mail from your work as Attorney General to your personal account?¶
8 A. Yes.¶
9 10 11 12 13 Q. Okay. Setting aside those E-mail -- E-mails, are there any other E-mails regarding Jeffrey Epstein in your personal E-mail that you're aware of?¶
14 A. Not I'm aware of.¶
15 16 Q. Okay. And you have no reason¶
17 A. I don't recall.¶
18 Q. -- to think there would be?¶
19 20 A. Yeah. I don't recall anything else. I don't recall that, no.¶
21 22 ATTORNEY ACKERMAN: Okay. And just to be -- to be clear,¶
23 24 25 counsel, the witness has concerns about descriptions of her personal E-mail.¶
1 2 3 4 5 He just brought it to my attention that this is what Jeffrey Epstein wants, and -- and I can expect a call from his attorney.¶
6 (BY ATTORNEY O'LAUGHLIN):¶
7 8 9 10 Q. And did Government Bryan express a position one way or the other, or he was just asking for you to make your decision?¶
11 12 13 A. He expressed his position but he -- but he asked me to make a decision¶
14 Q. What was the --¶
15 16 A. -- but didn't tell me what the decision was.¶
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ATTORNEY ACKERMAN: So this is where the specifics of the conversation between Governor Bryan and Attorney General are governed by executive privilege and by deliberative process, given the manner that Attorney General just mentioned that she was making a decision.¶
1 2 3 4 the record without any question for the reasons that I stated regarding the objections to the document.¶
5 6 7 THE WITNESS: II. Did you ask if you read it correctly? Yeah, you did. Yes, you did.¶
8 (BY ATTORNEY O'LAUGHLIN):¶
9 10 11 12 Q. Okay. Do you recall ever being confronted with these types of concerns while you were Attorney General?¶
13 14 ATTORNEY ACKERMAN: Object to form, vague.¶
15 16 17 18 19 THE WITNESS: Confronted with those concerns? By the time I became Attorney General, I was I was very concerned about the situation.¶
20 21 22 23 24 25 When I came onboard, at that point in time, there were just - all of this, you know, information were swirling around the media with respect to what had been going on on -- on pedo- -- what¶
1 2 3 they called Pedophile Island, unfortunately, on the Little St. James.¶
4 5 6 7 8 9 That the horrendous things that had been happening, the - the sex trafficking and all of that, it was just mind-boggling to me not -- not to mention horrific.¶
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 I -- and so I don't even know if anybody had come to me for it. It was just so outrageous. This is -- the Virgin Islands is my home. And it was mind-boggling to me how -- if this is all true, how that could have been gone on - going on for years, and nothing and no one is doing anything.¶
19 20 21 22 23 24 So to tell you the truth, I mean, I can't -- there was a lot of media stuff and all of that. I you know, I inquired to see if there were any complaints that came in. Like how could this be?¶
25 So I inquired to VIPD. I¶
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 inquired our office to find out what, if any, complaints or anything came in to the office, or maybe even pending, that all this could possibly be going on and - and could possibly have been going on and nothing has -- I don't - you know.¶
9 10 11 12 13 14 So for me, I'm looking at this. I am seeing how outraged. I can't -- I had the same or even worse, but I can't say like saying that everybody knew. I don't know that. I know she stated that.¶
15 16 17 18 19 20 And -- and I know very well, and she's quite an advocate that I work together with. But I clearly see her outrage. That's what I'm seeing there.¶
21 22 23 24 25 What I saw and what I came and what I heard, what was going around, what was swirling around II, definitely. I was very much aware of that, but it -- it just¶
1 was -- it was horrendous and¶
2 baffling and mind-boggling.¶
3 (BY ATTORNEY O'LAUGHLIN) :¶
4 5 Q. Did reach out to you personally?¶
6 7 A. Read out to me particularly this matter?¶
8 Q. Yeah, about Epstein.¶
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 A. No. I have met with because we had joined together to work on -- you know, together on several things with the resource center regarding the sex trafficking in general and the prevention and getting some -- you know, finding out and informing the public as far as what is -- what it is and what is going on.¶
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 So she was very instrumental in that in the public relations aspect as well as being able to get out to the victims, possible victims of sexual assault. Not only sex trafficking, but I did do a show with her on sex trafficking alone.¶
25 But -- but on, you know,¶
1 2 3 4 5 6 getting victims some kind of, you know, kind of help. What people can do. What people can do if they see signs of sex trafficking and that sort of thing so that we don't -- this doesn't happen again.¶
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 I don't know how it happened. I don't know. But since I'm here now, as far as I'm concerned, April of 2019 they said it happened. Well, I want to find out what happened because something went on that this thing went by for so many years. It was mind-boggling. So I at that point that's why I really wanted to do something.¶
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So you're referencing what was said here. I clearly feel her outrage and share it. She -- no, she did not specifically come to me to talk to me about this. I don't know, you know if it did with the Attorney General's Office previously. I don't know. I don't know. I can't speak to what happened before I got there. I could¶
1 2 just speak for what happened when I got there.¶
3 4 5 Q. So when you got there and you felt strongly that you wanted to do something --¶
6 A. Uh-huh.¶
7 8 Q. did? -- what were the things you¶
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 A. Well, what I did first -- and keeping in mind that I first came, and I have a complete department to run, and there are crises going on in various departments. It's -- the department is critically understaffed, and there were many things.¶
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 But what I did with respect to that in hearing all these things is first, as I indicated, I made a general -- you know, just an inquiry to find out do we have cases? Do we have a record of anyone complaining or any -- anyone complaining about seeing something that looked suspicious on Little St. James or -- or with respect to Jeffrey Epstein in particular.¶
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And I -- but mainly with law¶
enforcement. So I inquired with VIPD,¶
you know, to see if there's anything,¶
if they could look in their records¶
and the Department of Justice. I¶
didn't do that with the federal¶
authorities who were also there¶
because they're -- you know, they're¶
not going to disclose if there's a¶
pending investigation or anything like¶
that.¶
But I did not inquire with¶
them, but -- and I found that¶
the first -- that's the first thing¶
that I did and found that there was --¶
there was nothing. Everything I got¶
back was that they didn't have any¶
record of anything.¶
And so that's the first thing.¶
And at that point in time, also what¶
had been transpiring was not only the¶
sex offender, the request that was --¶
we were dealing with, but then I came¶
to understand or I had the -- just say¶
it was my understanding upon¶
1 2 3 4 information and belief and that the federal authorities were investigating Jeffrey Epstein also, but -- and then later on there was the prosecution.¶
5 6 Q. So there was a lot in that answer. So let's unpack it.¶
7 8 A. Yeah, but to be you asked me what did I do --¶
9 Q. Sure.¶
10 A. -- after.¶
11 12 Q. So you reached out to DOJ and the VIPD?¶
13 A. Yes, and I --¶
14 Q. That was one thing?¶
15 A. Yeah.¶
16 17 Q. And both of them came back and reported that there was --¶
18 A. Right.¶
19 Q. -- what?¶
20 21 22 23 24 25 A. That they had seen in the records, they had not seen any reports of any complaints that came in. That would be something that, you know, of course complaints that came in regarding sexual assault trafficking¶
1 2 or, you know, that sort of thing would have been going on on the island.¶
3 4 5 Q. And then what did you do after you found out it came back that there were no complaints?¶
6 7 8 9 10 11 A. I just -- well, I guess personally I didn't -- well, what I did was at that point in time, I just started to really read a lot of the - of the reports, and it's -- it's news media reports.¶
12 13 14 15 16 Which is fairly hearsay to hear -- to just get the gist of what is being said even though I know that you can't -- I can't just rely on - on news media. I can't do that.¶
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 You know, it's rumor, innuendo. But to see where they're getting this information from and what's happening because it became even more of a curiosity for me and thinking this is something we -- we got to do something about, you know.¶
24 25 I don't know what happened then, but I can't sit here and hear 1 2 3 4 that all this happened, especially when under our statutes, sexual assaults and -- and child abuse are - have no statute of limitations.¶
5 6 7 8 10 11 So it wouldn't have been too late to do anything if we had solid evidence, because I can't go by innuendo. I can't go by rumor. I can't go by media reports and say, Okay, you know, let's, you know, do an investigation.¶
12 13 14 15 16 And then I was also critically short-staffed as well. I didn't have the resources either. But it was really where I was really contemplating what can be done.¶
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 But once learning or understanding that the federal authorities were investigating Mr. Epstein and prosecuting criminally, and there was -- there might have been a criminal investigation going on.¶
24 25 That is something that I would not do -- that it sort of preempts¶
1 2 3 4 going and doing something when once the federal authorities or any other authorities have started a criminal investigation or that prosecutors.¶
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 They made the arrest. Then that's sort of under, I think it's called the First Forum Rule. It's - it's like in respect to the other forum, that you do not -- you know, we won't go and, you know, start up a prosecution when there's one already there.¶
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 So it's been -- it pleased me to see that something was being done with law enforcement organization that had the resources to be able to do it. So once I learned that that was happening. Okay, then at least something is being done. There's a prosecution.¶
21 22 23 24 25 And then I was very -- you know, try to be in-tuned with what it is and what the charges were once he was arrested, and looking forward to seeing Jeffrey Epstein brought to¶
1 2 3 justice. But also hearing more about what happened and what part Little St. James may have played in it.¶
4 5 6 Q. How did you learn that a federal investigation was being done?¶
7 8 9 10 11 12 A. I did not learn it for sure, but I -- I don't recall exactly how - there were certain questions that might have been asked or something that I -- I just sensed that there was an investigation going on.¶
13 14 15 16 And I can't -- and it's not something that I could -- would even disclose, of course, even if I knew. But I sensed that one was going on.¶
17 Q. Questions asked by who?¶
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 A. I can't tell you that. You know, I mean, if there -- I just don't recall exactly, but I think something I read or something and in my mind I said, Okay. That means that the federal authorities must be investigating.¶
25 That was my conclusion. It¶
1 2 3 4 5 must have been from the media that I'd been reading and the way things were going, different things that were said, that, you know, there's a possibility that that's happening.¶
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 At the same time, Jeffrey Epstein had gone on another trip with our -- well, which he had reported to Europe. And so I recall speaking with Shani and saying, you know, all the reports -- she assured me that he did do the reporting as required.¶
13 14 15 16 17 But yeah, I sensed that. And it turned out that my senses, my hunch came out to be true because then he was arrested July, in July. I think July 10th.¶
18 19 20 21 22 ATTORNEY ACKERMAN: Counsel, when you get a chance, I could use a break. I'm not saying -- I'm not asking for one now, just saying when it's a good --¶
23 THE WITNESS: Sure.¶
24 25 ATTORNEY ACKERMAN: breaking point.¶