METRO
Manhattan DA sided with pedophile billionaire after botching investigation
By Rebecca Rosenberg, Larry Celona, Susan Edelman and Isabel Vincent December 1, 2018 | 8:47pm | Updated
Jeffrey Epstein
The Manhattan DA's office once went to bat for billionaire pervert Jeffrey Epstein, after botching a review of his sex crimes and swallowing his lawyers’ claim that “there are no real victims here,” records obtained by the Post show.
Assistant DA Jennifer Gaffney, then-deputy chief of Cyrus Vance Jr’s sex-crimes unit, in January 2011 asked a Manhattan judge to downgrade Epstein’s status in the New York sex-offender registry from the most-dangerous Level 3 to least-restrictive Level 1.
The judge was stunned.
“| have never seen the prosecutor’s office do anything like this,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ruth Pickholz toid Gaffney. “| have done many [cases] much less troubling than this one where [prosecutors] would never make a downward argument like this.”
Pressed by the judge, Gaffney admitted that she never spoke to the Florida U.S. Attorney who handled a sprawling sex-crime investigation into the financier.
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016462