HUNTER: Why did it take so long to bring Epstein, Maxwell to justice?
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For much of his nefarious career in finance and sex trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein always seemed one step ahead.
Ahead of regulators, cops and prosecutors.
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Longtime second banana Ghislaine Maxwell must have believed that she, too, was untouchable.
The hedge fund manager obviously felt comfortable calling in favours from powerful people who seemed more than willing to do the pedophile’s bidding.
And why not? He reportedly kept hundreds of sex tapes of the rich and famous frolicking with underage girls as leverage.
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A large swath of legal big wigs wouldn’t touch Epstein with a 10-foot pole after he inked his notorious plea deal with Alexander Acosta, then-U.S. attorney for Southern Florida.
The deal was nothing short of outrageous and seemed to take care of all of Maxwell and Epstein’s worries: past, present and future.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals called Epstein and Acosta’s little arrangement a “tale of national disgrace.”
How were these two horrors protected for so long? How did they get away with it?
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It took until 2018 when a bombshell Miami Herald story pulled back the curtain on Epstein’s sinister machinations to generate any movement.
The Herald pointed the finger at Acosta as the man who gave Epstein his sweetheart deal that effectively let him continue sexually abusing underage girls.
And the deal also let the likes of British socialite Maxwell and other Epstein acolytes off the hook for any past, present and future sexual misdeeds.
“You just presume that major, significant, well-respected U.S. attorneys offices don’t f*** this up,” a source told the New York Daily News. “It obviously seems very tragic in hindsight. But if people (reopened) our cases, we’d lose our minds.”
New York prosecutors were gun-shy about reopening the Acosta deal when lawyers representing Epstein and Maxwell’s alleged victims approached them in 2016.
Even after Maxwell allegedly committed perjury at a civil trial in 2016, New York prosecutors begged off. Paying the publishing heiress’s legal bills was one J. Epstein.
“We were saying to anyone who would listen: We’ve got clients who were abused. Some of them were underage. We have the evidence. There’s a whole record that’s been developed. We can establish beyond any reasonable doubt there was a massive sex trafficking ring going on,” David Boies, an attorney for Epstein victims, told the News.
And? Nothing.
In her perjury beef, Maxwell is accused of lying about the extent of Epstein’s twisted antics and sick obsession with underage girls.
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Of course, Maxwell herself is accused of taking part in the sexual abuse.
In 2008, Acosta — a former labor secretary in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration — inked the deal with Epstein’s legal heavy hitters.
It let the hedge fund manager plead out to state prostitution charges instead of the much more serious federal beef. His victims were never told about the deal.
Acosta, it appears, was more vested in protecting an extremely wealthy and powerful hedge fund manager than sexually abused underage girls from the wrong side of the tracks.
Then again, it should come as no surprise in a country that lets billionaire white-collar criminals skate while throwing the book at some black kid pinched with a dime bag.
bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun
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