Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising, with a Performance by Rod Stewart at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005 in New York City.
Joe Schildhorn | Patrick McMullan | Getty Images
A federal judge in Florida ruled Monday that victims of late accused child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein will not get monetary damages from the U.S. government, despite a failure by federal prosecutors to inform them years ago about a controversial non-prosecution deal with the wealthy financier.
Judge Kenneth Marra also ruled against the victims’ request that their lawyer fees be paid for by the government.
But Marra also suggested that the victims could “take solace” in the fact that their lawsuit against the government had brought nationa attention to the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, the “shortcomings” of the Justice Department in dealing with Epstein victims and the fact that their civil case played a role in spurring a federal prosecution of Epstein in July.
Marra had ruled last February that federal prosecutors in Florida had violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act by not telling them they were agreeing in 2007 not to bring serious sex crime charges against Epstein, in exchange for his guilty plea to relatively minor state charges the following year.
As part of that ruling in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Marra had allowed two of Epstein’s victims to a argue to what remedies, “if any, should be imposed by” Marra for the government’s failure to informing the victims of the non-prosecution deal.
But, Marra said in his decision Monday, “The CVRA does not authorize an award of restitution against the United States.
Brad Edwards, a lawyer for a group of Epstein victims, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Marra’s ruling.
Epstein, 66, died in August from what authorities have said was a jailhouse suicide while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Epstein, a former friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, had pleaded not guilty in that case, where prosecutors had accused him of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls from 2002 through 2005 at his luxurious residences on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and in Palm Beach, Florida.
Epstein became the subject of a local police investigation in Floriday in the mid-2000s for his habitual use of young women to give him massages, as frequnetly as three times daily. A dispute between police and local prosecutors over how to handle the case led to the involvement of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Miami, then headed by Alex Acosta.
Acosta’s office ultimately reached an agreement not to prosecute Epstein for federal felonies related to his suspected abused of underage girls. In exchange, Epstein in 2008 pleaded guilty to a state charge of procuring a prostitute under the age of 18, and for agreeing to register for life as a sex offender.
He served 13 months in jail for that conviction, although he was out of jail for signficant amounts of that time on work release.
Acosta’s office failed to inform Epstein’s accusers about the non-prosecution deal before when it was reached in 2007.
Two accusers later sued the federal government for violating the Crime Victims’ Rights Act for that failure.
“Despite Petitioners having demonstrated the Government violated their rights under the CVRA, in the end they are not receiving much, if any, of the relief they sought,” Marra wrote in his decision.
“They may take solace, however, in the fact that this litigation has brought national attention to the Crime Victims’ Rights Act and the importance of victims in the criminal justice system. It has also resulted in the United States Department of Justice acknowledging its shortcomings in dealing with crime victims, and its promise to better train its prosecutors regarding the rights of victims under the CVRA in the future,” the judge said.
