WASHINGTON – It helps to know people in high places, especially if you’re a sex offender and your name is Jeffrey Epstein.
Some might say that Epstein, the multimillionaire financier, reached the summits of wealth and self-indulgence by his own volition. He is undeniably intelligent, a whiz kid at math and science in his early years who built his fortune in part by running a money management firm that catered to the mega-rich. He’s also a philanthropist who specializes in collecting brilliant minds.
His ascent from the middle class in which he was raised to his place among the wealthiest of the wealthy has allowed him to surround himself with the highest and the mightiest, including two presidents, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.
Facing a federal indictment in 2007 for sex crimes that could have put him in prison for life, Epstein instead got off easy. His legal team, which included high-priced attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, secured a sweetheart, non-prosecution deal for Epstein that allowed him to plead guilty to lesser state charges. Epstein’s lawyers received no small amount of cooperation from Alexander Acosta, then U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida and now the U.S. secretary of labor. Thanks to these two sharp legal minds and one dull puppet, Epstein ultimately served just 13 months in county jail and was allowed to spend up to 12 hours a day on “work release,” six days a week.
This was in spite of a 53-page federal indictment prepared by the FBI that identified 36 potential victims, some as young as middle-school aged.