Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein Was Arrested for Alleged Sex Trafficking
Billionaire hedge fund manager Jefferey Epstein was arrested Saturday on charges of sex trafficking, and is expected to appear in New York federal court Monday. Epstein has been accused by dozens of women of paying them for sex while they were underage, and could face up to 45 years in prison if convicted on the new charges.
Epstein made headlines in November after The Miami Herald published an extensive investigation into a 2007 plea deal that found him pleading guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor in exchange for an 18 month-long prison sentence at the Palm Beach County Jail. Epstein served 13 months of his sentence, and through a work release program was allowed to spend almost half of each day, six days a week, outside the jail. The Herald reported that Epstein was granted the privilege despite rules barring sex offenders from qualifying for work release.
The case has received attention in part because of its political elements. The federal prosecutor who negotiated Epstein’s much-criticized plea deal, Alexander Acosta, now serves in President Trump’s cabinet as Secretary of Labor. In the wake of The Herald’s report, Congressional Democrats called for an investigation of Acosta. In February, a District Court Judge found that Acosta and other prosecutors had breached federal law by organizing the plea deal without alerting Epstein’s alleged victims, though Slate reported that the ruling "will likely not overturn Epstein’s sentence."
The billionaire at one point described himself as cultivating a "collection" of famous friends, and reportedly counted among them Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. On Saturday, Trump biographer Tim O’Brian shared a 2002 quote from the president on Twitter. "I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump told a New York Magazine reporter at the time. "He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
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