Twenty years after Jeffrey Epstein succeeded in shifting blame from himself to his teenage accusers, a wealthy Delray Beach man used the same tactic to spare himself from prison.
Federal prosecutors said Ronald Frankel, 69, flew a 17-year-old Iowa high schooler to South Florida for sex, a crime punishable by life in prison. Frankel hired the same lawyer representing Ghislaine Maxwell and fought the charge at trial, deadlocking jurors by suggesting his accuser was to blame.
The girl told Frankel she was 18, said his Miami defense attorney, David Markus. She created a fake Tinder profile, researched how to make a fake driver’s license on Photoshop and altered her license to change her birth year — a point Markus’ co-counsel, Lauren Krasnoff, pressed during the trial.
“Do you know that is a crime?” she asked the girl, echoing the words West Palm Beach prosecutors used against a 14-year-old victim of Epstein’s in 2006.
“No,” she replied.
Teen sex-abuse case was about ‘her decisions,’ defense attorney says
A juror who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the question’s effect on the girl was immediate. She appeared frightened, the juror said, and soon agreed that she traveled to Florida of her own accord, despite testifying earlier that she would not have made the trip without the $1,000 Frankel sent her to buy a ticket.
Krasnoff reminded jurors that the girl, now a college student studying criminal justice, booked the flight herself to keep Frankel from learning her age. She also lied to her mother about where she was going.
When a friend suggested she stay home and keep Frankel’s $1,000, the girl texted back: “Nah, YOLO.”
“You Only Live Once,” Markus said in an interview afterward. “She made the decision to come here. That’s really what the case is about; her decisions, responsibility for your actions.”
Former lawyer among jurors who refused to convict Ronald Frankel
Two jurors — both women, one of whom is a recently retired attorney — agreed.
“All the evidence showed he truly did not know she was 17,” said one, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. “She admitted she went to great lengths to deceive him.”
When she raised these points in the deliberation room, she said the 10 dissenting jurors were adamant: “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. He had sex with a minor.”
Prosecutors didn’t need to prove Frankel knew her age. They did, however, need to prove Frankel was responsible for transporting the girl to Florida — a fact she disputed under cross-examination — and that he did so intending to “engage in unlawful sexual activity.”
If he thought she was an adult, the two jurors asked, how could he have meant to break the law?
The retired attorney pointed to a separate piece of evidence that proved decisive for her. Before arresting Frankel, the FBI ran a sting operation in which an undercover agent posing as a 17-year-old girl contacted him. He rejected the contact immediately.
20 years after Epstein, a teen victim is labeled a prostitute again
Jurors deliberated for two days. After several notes informing U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks they were “still hopelessly deadlocked,” the judge declared a mistrial.
“I couldn’t sleep for a couple nights,” a juror said one week after the trial. “There’s no defense. Ron Frankel had sex with a minor, and his defense team isn’t even denying that.”
Federal prosecutors indicted Frankel anew in the wake of his mistrial. The new allegations are almost identical to the old, save for three additional words: “engage in prostitution.”
Prosecutors now, like those who charged Epstein two decades earlier, say Frankel brought the teen to his home as a prostitute. The wording suggests a case built less on her age and more on evidence that Frankel paid her to have sex with him.
“While the feds may think of her as a prostitute, we do not,” Markus said in response to the filing. “She was seeking a sugar daddy, which is something entirely different, as everyone in South Florida knows.”
The Justice Department, reached March 13, declined to comment.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Ghislaine Maxwell lawyer used Epstein defense in Delray teen sex case
Reporting by Hannah Phillips, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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