Geoffrey Berman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photograph of Jeffrey Epstein as he announces the financier’s charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, in New York, U.S., July 8, 2019.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein was ordered held without bail Monday until at least a detention hearing later this week as he pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of sex trafficking dozens of underage girls more than a decade ago.
Epstein, 66, entered his plea in Manhattan federal court, where he was clad in a blue jumpsuit and a brown undershirt.
He will be detained without bail until at least Thursday, when there will be a detention hearing.
Epstein “is extraordinarily wealthy,” prosecutor Alex Rossmiller told Judge Henry Pitman after submitting a memorandum opposing Epstein being released on bail.
“He is a man of nearly infinite means your honor.”
Rossmiller also told the judge that “we’ve been contact by several additional” people “who are interested in speaking with the government” about the claims against Epstein.
Epstein’s lawyer, Reid Weingarten, said that Epstein’s alleged “risk of flight is dramatically overstated.
Weingarten proposed that Epstein being released on bail of a large dollar amount, with an electronic monitoring device, and with waiving his right to fight extradition from another jurisdiction. The defense lawyer asked for, and received, a three-day adjournment so that he could flesh out the bail proposal.
Epstein is charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors. He faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted of the charges, which relate to alleged conduct in the 2000s.
Epstein, who had been friends with President Donald Trump and ex-President Bill Clinton, was arrested Saturday after flying on a private plane from France to a New York-area airport.
Prosecutors told the judge that agents who raided his Upper East Side mansion found “a vast trove of lewd photographs” of young-looking women or girls” in that residence.
An indictment unsealed earlier Monday accuses Epstein of sexually exploiting “dozens” of “minor girls” between 2002 and 2005 in New York and Florida, with some of the girls being just age 14.
The indictment says Epstein gave the girls “hundreds of dollars in cash” after they engaged in sex acts with him at his Big Apple mansion or at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate.
The girls originally were told they would be giving him “massages,” according to the indictment.
“In order to maintain and increase his supply of victims, Epstein also paid certain of his victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused by Epstein,” the indictment said. “In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit,” it said.
Epstein allegedly conspired with employees, associates and others “who facilitated his conduct by, among other things, contacting victims and scheduling their sexual encounters with Epstein.”
“Certain recruiters brought dozens of additional minor girls to the New York [r]esidence to give massages to and engage in sex acts with Jeffrey Epstein,” the indictment charges.
And that docutment claims that “Epstein intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18, including because, in some instances, minor victims expressly told him their age.”
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
