FBI: We still have
> EPSTEIN fom 1B
and Donald Trump among his friends.
“Highly unusual’ is how Palm Beach Police Chief Mi- chael Reiter described State Attorney Barry Krischer’s handling of the case in a bluntly critical letter to Krischer last year before Epstein was indicted.
Reiter referred the mat- ‘ter to the FBI to determine whether any federal laws had been violated. Epstein’s allies countered by attacking the chief personally and profes- sionally.
Reiter department in- vestigated Epstein for 11 months. Police sifted repeat- edly through his trash and conducted surveillance on his five-bedroom, 7-bath, 7,234-square-foot home on the Intracoastal Waterway.
Police said Epstein paid women and girls as young as 14 to give him erotic mas- sages at his home. Police thought there was probable cause to charge him with unlawful sex acts with a mi- nor and lewd and lascivious molestation. ‘
Gg Epstein responded by whiring a phalanx of lawyers. + One of them, Harvard law 2 professor and author Alan & Dershowitz, provided the + state attorney's office with information about alcohol q and marijuana use by some Sof the girls who said ‘they , were with Epstein.
‘Prosecutors then referred the case to the grand jury
Teenage girls were recruited to, visit. Epstein for massages and sex, police Say.
rather than file’ charges di- rectly against Epstein. Epstein’s attorneys deny he had sex with underage girls. The lawyers say the girls’ stories are not credible. But if the court file is any indicator, they've made no ef
fort to depose the girls. Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys have
sought to question Robson, said Dutko, her attorney. She recruited teenage girls to vis- it Epstein for massages and sexual activity, Palm Beach police said, and presumably would be a key witness.
Epstein’s attorney Jack Goldberger did not return phone messages.
A source close to the case suggested it is languishing pending a decision by the FBI on whether to refer it to federal prosecutors.
“We still have a pending case,” FBI spokeswoman
. Judy Orihuela said Monday.
State Attorney Krischer did not return a call for com- ment. His spokesman, Mike Edmondson, declined to say whether federal investiga- tors are delaying the Epstein case. But, he added, “if an- other agency is looking at something, we wouldn’t want to step on their toes.”
a pending case:
Attorneys say inertia in a criminal case often points to
a pending plea deal.
“It would not surprise me if something has happened thats not reflected in the court file,” said Dutko, such as an agreement that will be formalized later.
Defense. attorney Marc Shiner said defense at- torneys sometimes put off overtly conducting discov- ery — deposing witnesses, requesting documents and the like — because doing so.
creates more work for har
ried prosecutors who may become angry and not offer apleadeal.
“Sometimes defense law- yers, knowing that, will try and do discovery without taking depositions,” said Shiner, a former prosecutor for 13 years.
Instead, they may conduct a below-the-radar probe such as having a private investiga- tor check out leads, he said.
Shiner and others say a plea deal for Epstein probably would result in pretrial inter- vention, in which a defendant may be ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation, counseling or other condi- tions in return for dropping the charge.
Edmondson, spokesman for State Attorney Krischer, said there is no plea offer and no request for the pros- ecution to show its cards.
“To my knowledge, it’s never happened before on a filed case,” he said. © larry_keller@pbpost.com
Epstein Money manager in New York has powerful allies,
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