4 The Virgin Islands Daily News VIRGIN ISLANDS Where are the Epstein records? By JULIE K. BROWN Miami Herald subsequently filed, but the court has yet Marra ordered the govemment and tomake a final ruling. attomeys for the victims to come up The Miami Herald - one of the in- with remedies to address the federal Three months have passed since a judicial panel in New York heard argu- ments to unseal documents that could reveal whether federal prosecutors covered up evidence that New York fi- nancier Jeffrey Epstein and others were running an underage sex trafficking operation. In March, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Cir- cuit seemed poised to release some documents in the case. The records involve Epstein's one-time partner, Ghislaine Max- well, who has been accused of helping him recruit and sex- ually exploit girls and young women in various locations around the United States and abroad in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The appeals panel gave all parties in the case until March 29 to file addition- al pleadings. Several challenges were tervenors in the case has submitted violation. a letter to the court urging the judges to U.S. Attomey Byung Pak responded follow through on the case in the wake last week, saying that Epstein's victims of a controversial Justice Department are free to express their displeasure decision last week. In a 35-page mo- about what prosecutors did, but they tion, filed June 24, federal prosecutors have no right under the law to demand in Georgia declared that they would not anything from the government — not set aside Epstein's federal non-prosecu- even an apology. tion agreement. Sanford L. Bohrer, the Miami Her The Georgia decision dealt another ald's attorney, said that Pak's decision blow to Epstein's victims who have highlights the pressing need for the New been fighting for a decade to have the York appeals court to expedite unsealing deal thrown out and to pressure the the documents in Maxwell's case. Justice Department to prosecute the That case is a 2015 defamation law- 66-year-old multimillionaire on sex suit filed against Maxwell, the daughter trafficking charges. It also means that of the late British media mogul Robert the Justice Department has no intention Maxwell. Maxwell, now 57 and an envi- of allowing Epstein's victims and the ronmentalist, has been accused of assist- Jeffrey Epstein public to examine the facts of Epstein's ing Epstein in the trafficking of under- case and reach their own conclusions, age girls and young women to powerful the Herald argues in the letter. and wealthy politicians, lawyers, scien- In February, a federal judge in Flor- tists and businessmen. ida. Kenneth A. Marra, ruled in the She has denied the allegations and has victims' favor, saying that the govern- never been charged with any crimes. ment violated the Crime Victims' Right The Herald's lawyer contends that Act when it failed to inform Epstein's the Justice Department's decision last victims that prosecutors had secretly week shows that the government con- disposed of the case. tinues to evade public accountabil- STUDENT. LEADER. SOLDIER. In the Army National Guard, you can be all three. (833) 340-1973 nationalguard.com GET UP TO A $20.000 BONUS IF YOU QUALIFY Programs and Be VIRGIN ISLANDS ARMY NATIONAL GUARD * Wednesday, July 3, 2019 ity and, therefore, it's more urgent than ever that the Maxwell case be made public. "[Pak $] submission makes clear that access to the documents that [the Her- ald and other parties] seek in [the Max- well] matter remains an issue of critical public concern," Bohrer wrote in a let- ter to Catherine O'Hagan Wolfe, clerk of the court for the appeals panel. He said the government "essentially argues that Epstein's victims are not entitled to any meaningful redress, including par- tial rescission, declaratory relief and specific injunctive relief requested." In 2008. the FBI had identified near- ly three dozen underage victims who were allegedly lured to Epstein's man- sion in Palm Beach under the pretext that he would pay them for massages. The girls, mostly 13 to 16 years old were groomed by Epstein and others who worked for him to engage in sex acts with him and others, the evidence showed. In November, the Miami Herald published an investigation that exam- ined how then-Miami U.S. Attomey Alexander Acosta negotiated a secret non-prosecution agreement that re- sulted in Epstein receiving an extraor- dinarily light sentence. Acosta, who is now President Donald Trump's labor secretary ensured that the agreement was sealed so that no one not even the victims — would know the scope of Epstein's crimes or who was in- volved. Epstein's lawyers worked to- gether with prosecutors to limit pub- lic scrutiny of the case, and arranged for Epstein to quietly plead guilty to lesser charges in state court, the Her- ald series revealed. The handling of the case is now under investigation by the Department of Justice. As part of the Herald's series, the newspaper went to court in 2018 to unseal the Maxwell case, which was settled in 2017. A contingent of other media companies, a conservative social media blogger and Epstein's lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, are also seeking to have the Maxwell case made public. The defamation case was filed against Maxwell by Virginia Roberts Giulfre, who claims she was recruited by Max- well when she was 16 and working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's lavish country club in Palm Beach. In court papers, she claimed that Epstein and Maxwell directed her to have sex with public figures. In a sworn affida- vit, she has named Prince Andrew and Dershowitzas among those she had sex with when she was underage. Both the prince and the famed lawyer have de- nied her claims. Dershowitz wants the Maxwell case made public because he says that the documents will exonerate him. Also party to the appeal is social media blog- ger Michael Cernovich. Based on the court filings, the case is believed to contain a range of evidence, including testimony from other pos- sible underage victims who were traf- ficked. All parties in the case, including the Herald, have agreed to redact the names of minors and other details that would identify victims. Maxwell is the sole party fighting to keep the entire record sealed. Two other currently unidentified people, labeling themselves as John Does, have filed legal briefs in an attempt to conceal personal information that could con- nect them to the alleged underage sex trafficking operation. Epstein, who was not party to the Maxwell suit, has denied that he ran a sex trafficking operation, and his at- toreys say that the number of victims involved has been "vastly exaggerated* by the media. 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