A federal judge in Florida on July 23 denied the Department of Justice’s move to unseal grand jury transcripts from a federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein as part of the first criminal case against him.
DOJ announced on July 7 that its files on Epstein did not include a “client list” and that it had no evidence Epstein was murdered in his Manhattan jail cell before he was found dead in August 2019.
A firestorm of controversy has erupted since the DOJ announcement and President Donald Trump is being questioned by his MAGA supporters why the documents aren’t forthcoming.
U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg, formerly a circuit court judge in Palm Beach County, said in a memo on July 23 that her “hands were tied” and that the DOJ hadn’t shown sufficient evidence to release transcripts related to a federal investigation of Epstein in the 2000s.
Take a tour of Jeffrey Epstein’s former mansion in Palm Beach
The material sought in Rosenberg’s court involved a 2006-08 federal investigation of Epstein that never resulted in an indictment. The infamous “deal of the century,” in which Epstein pleaded guilty to two state-court, prostitution-related felonies, eliminated any federal charges moot because it was part of an agreement not to prosecute them.
Draft of federal indictment detailed at least 60 charges
A draft of the federal indictment contained more than 60 counts of sexual misconduct with minors and sex trafficking, according to a disciplinary investigation of the federal prosecutors done by the Justice Department that concluded in 2020.
The FBI and federal prosecutors were brought into the case in May 2006 by then-Palm Beach police Chief Michael Reiter, who told the Palm Beach County state attorney that he did not agree with the way the state attorney’s prosecution was progressing.
“After giving this much thought and consideration, I must urge you to examine the unusual course that your office’s handling of this matter has taken and consider if good and sufficient reason exists to require your disqualification from the prosecution of these cases,” Reiter wrote to Barry Krischer, Palm Beach County’s state attorney at the time.
Krischer, among other issues, had sent the case to a state grand jury to consider whether Epstein should be charged, the first time a child sex crime case had been considered in the secret proceeding in Palm Beach County.
The Palm Beach Post, in a 2019 investigation of how Krischer handled the case, learned that his prosecutors had discredited their own witnesses during questioning in front of grand jurors. The paper sued in 2019 in order to make public the transcripts of that grand jury — which had resulted in only a single charge of solicitation of prostitution charge.
Jeffrey Epstein state court grand jury transcripts were released in 2024
The state-court grand jury transcripts were released in July 2024.
The documents showed prosecutors told the only two victims to testify during questioning that they themselves were the criminals.
“You’re aware that you’ve committed a crime?” the prosecutor told a girl who was 14 when she went to Epstein’s mansion.
“Now I am,” the victim said. “I didn’t know it was a crime when I was doing it.”
Holly Baltz is an editor at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hbaltz@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jeffrey Epstein grand jury transcripts. Wait … I thought they were public. What to know
Reporting by Holly Baltz, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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