Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, MA on 9/8/04. Epstein is connected with several prominent people including politicians, actors and academics.
Rick Friedman | Corbis News | Getty Images
Federal prosecutors on Monday called wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein a “serial sexual predator” as they asked a judge to hold him without bail on child sex trafficking charges.
Prosecutors said Epstein, a former friend of both President Donald Trump and ex-President Bill Clinton, represented both a serious risk of flight to avoid the charges, and a risk to the public if he is freed on bail.
Epstein, 66, is accused in an indictment unsealed Monday of trafficking “dozens” of minor girls, some of young as 14 years old, from 2002 to 2005. An indictment accuses him of having the girls brought to him to sexually abuse in his New York and Florida mansions.
In a court filing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York warned Judge Henry Pitman that there is “no cominbation of” bail conditions “that would reasonably assure his continued appearance in this case or protect the safety of the community where he to be released.”
“There is an extraordinary risk of flight, particularly given the defendant’s exhorbitant wealth, his ownership of and access to private planes campable of international travel, and his significant international ties,” prosecutors said.
Pitman is set to hold a hearing on Epstein’s possible bail on Monday.
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
