Chapter Nine: Above Your Pay Grade

EPSTEIN: Devil in the Darkness

a360media

True Crime

4.2 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Police interviewed dozens of victims of Jeffrey Epstein and recommended a charge of at least four counts of unlawful sex with minors. But, in a scandalous miscarriage of justice, Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to soliciting prostitution – a plea deal that has been described as an example of a “defendant and government working together against the victims.” Sentenced to 18 months in prison, he was housed in his own wing, allowed out for 12 hours a day, and granted visitors, including women. Alexander Acosta, the State Attorney who brokered the deal, says he was told Epstein was “above [his] pay grade” and to “leave it alone”. Who was pulling the strings? Acosta was a member of Donald Trump’s Cabinet until after Epstein’s arrest, when he resigned. In this episode, attorneys and investigators who worked on that case at the time explain how Epstein got away with his sweetheart deal – and why it was a massive mistake.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	He only got a slap on the wrist, but I think the world knew at that point what was going on.
0:09.0	Legally was the only word that could describe what occurred in the penalty phase of the Palm Beach
0:17.7	sentence against Jeffrey Epstein.
0:20.6	I would only categorize it as illegal.
0:24.0	Yeah, well, there was corruption at every level.
0:29.0	Welcome to episode 9 of Epstein, Devil in the Darkness.
0:33.0	I'm your host, Danielle Robe.
0:35.0	Last time, we heard how Palm Beach Police launched an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's
0:40.6	web of teen sex abuse, thanks to one courageous 14 year old girl.
0:45.1	Despite what seemed like a mountain of testimony against him,
0:48.8	Epstein was allowed to negotiate a plea deal that saw him convicted of a single count of solicitation of prostitution
0:55.5	with a minor under the age of 18. It became known as the quote Sweetheart deal, but it was something much darker.
1:05.0	Well, his attorneys worked out a deal where he only had a 13 month jail term,
1:10.0	and six days a week he was able to leave to go to his office.
1:14.0	A year and a half in prison in jail.
1:17.0	We had nothing to do with the terms of the imprisonment.
1:20.0	How and why was he allowed to escape justice with that secret deal?
1:25.0	And who might have been pulling the strings behind the scenes?
1:28.0	In Florida, in 2007, 2008, the prosecutor, US attorney was Alex Acosta who later became Secretary of Labor for President Trump.
1:42.0	That 59-page federal indictment was ripped up and he was
1:47.6	allowed to plea guilty to some nonsensical crimes in the state court where there was no penalty.
1:57.0	This is a system that was supposed to work for the victims and it did just the opposite.
	...

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