In this 2013 handout provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Jeffrey Epstein poses for a sex offender mugshot. MIAMI — A Palm Beach County prosecutor painted two girls molested by Jeffrey Epstein as prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves and liars in front of a grand jury empaneled in 2006 to review the state’s criminal case against sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, newly released court documents show.
The records contain nearly 200 pages, including the testimony of two girls who were molested by Epstein, the New York financier who abused hundreds of underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion between 1996 and 2008. Epstein managed to escape serious charges, in part because the Palm Beach prosecutor at the time, Barry Krischer, elected to charge him with minor prostitution and solicitation rather than bringing a felony sexual assault case.
What is clear is that Belohlavek painted an unsympathetic portrait of the two girls, both of whom came from broken families. One of the girls and her sister had been passed back and forth between parents and were taken to a school for troubled juveniles. The girl ran away several times before meeting a group of older kids, one of whom brought her to Epstein’s mansion.
“Did you have any idea that deep inside of you that you — what you’re doing is wrong?” asked one juror.“Oh do you?” the juror said, pointing out that the girl should have known better.“Yes,” she stammered. “I thought about it a lot.”David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, was astonished at the way the case was presented to the jury. He pointed out that the girls were under the age of consent, yet they were the ones treated like criminals.
Recarey, who passed away in 2018, told the Herald in an interview prior to his death that he was frustrated by the state attorney’s handling of the case, claiming that Krischer and Belohlavek went to great lengths to discredit the girls — and failed to present to the jury the corroborating evidence that backed up the girls’ stories, including phone records.
The Herald’s series led the FBI and US Attorney in New York to take another look at the case. Epstein was rearrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges and jailed in Manhattan pending trial. He was found dead in his cell a month after his arrest. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging. He was 66. in 2021. Maxwell, a British socialite who had a long relationship with Epstein, was accused of helping him recruit girls. She is appealing her sentence.
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