DeSantis signs bill meant to release secret 2006 Epstein grand jury documents

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Thursday meant to release secret documents detailing the proceedings of a 2006 Palm Beach County grand jury that issued only one criminal prostitution-related charge against Jeffrey Epstein despite police uncovering dozens of victims.

The law takes effect July 1.

Just minutes after DeSantis signed the bill, the judge in a lawsuit by The Palm Beach Post that sought to make the documents public ruled that he would not release them after he'd been ordered by an appeals court to look at them to release them in "furtherance of justice."

"We are happy in Florida to be leading the effort for transparency and for accountability, because what happened was clearly wrong, and the punishment was simply wholly inadequate to the crime," DeSantis said before signing the bill at the Palm Beach Police Department. "And I know people have seen that for many, many years now. So I thank the Legislature for doing this."

Epstein, a multimillionaire, pleaded guilty in 2008 to two felony charges of soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution. He received a plea deal that was criticized for being lenient.

Many of the allegations had centered on Epstein's Palm Beach home at 358 El Brillo Way, now demolished, which he bought in 1990. Underage girls from Palm Beach County told investigators they were brought to Epstein's mansion in Palm Beach and homes in New York, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for sexual encounters.

New York federal prosecutors in 2019 charged Epstein with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy. Before he could go to trial, he killed himself on Aug. 10, 2019, while in federal custody.

Several of Epstein's victims were present for Thursday's signing, calling the bill and the expected release of the grand jury documents long overdue.

"A lot of people forget that this is not something we should be forgetting about. This is not something to be sweeping under the rug," said Haley Robson, who was 16 years old when she met Epstein and now advocates against human trafficking and sex trafficking. "A lot of us are still in therapy, we're still trying to survive. I can't express the gratitude I have for this bill."

Her eyes filling with tears, Robson said the bill would help answer questions Epstein's victims have asked for nearly two decades.

"I just am trying to put pieces together, the final pieces of this puzzle to help me move on and finally get the peace that I deserve for my life," she said. "I am just so grateful. And I would really just want to know, why was Jeffrey Epstein given such grace and mercy for his inhumane crimes? And why were we so outed in the media and treated so poorly?"

Jena-Lisa Jones, another of Epstein's victims, said there has been no closure for those who survived his crimes.

"Epstein was charged for his crimes in 2006, and we are finally going to learn why we have been left in the dark for so long with no answers to what is going on, and why things played out the way that they did," Jones said.

After signing the bill, DeSantis challenged President Joe Biden to release federal documents on Epstein. "I think a lot of these victims would appreciate that, because there's still a lot of unanswered questions about how this happened," DeSantis said.

Judge's ruling coincides with bill signing

Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Luis Delgado decided in his ruling that he would not release the documents in The Post's lawsuit because under current law they were not in "furtherance of justice." He invited The Post to ask for reconsideration after July 1. Under the law, victims still would have to wait under the judge's new order.

The 4th District Court of Appeal issued its order in The Post's lawsuit in May. Delgado has had the documents in his chambers since July.

"It’s a good thing we worked to pass the law," said Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Joe Abruzzo, who appeared to learn of the judge’s decision soon after DeSantis' press conference ended and as Epstein survivors and law enforcement who worked on the case celebrated the bill’s signing.

Abruzzo proposed the bill, which was filed in the state Legislature by a pair of Boca Raton lawmakers, Sen. Tina Polsky and Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman.

“I still have full confidence under the legislation that Sen. Polsky, Rep. Gossett-Seidman and our office worked so hard for three years to pass, will ultimately lead to the full release of the grand jury Epstein records," Abruzzo said.

Then-Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer in 2006 was the first prosecutor to ever consider criminal charges against Epstein. In a highly unusual move, he took the matter to a grand jury. The result was a single felony charge of solicitation of prostitution.

Palm Beach Police had found nearly two dozen young women and underage girls who detailed sexual abuse at Epstein's mansion on the island.

Testifying before the grand jury was only one victim, a 14-year-old girl who was thrown under the bus by the prosecutors using her MySpace social media pages, sources said in a 2019 Palm Beach Post investigation.

"They say that justice delayed is justice denied, and I think in many respects, this whole ordeal has proven that to be true," DeSantis said Thursday.

"This was a massive, massive operation here that was targeting these very, very young girls," DeSantis said. "And to not have justice on this is something that has been a big black spot on our justice system."

The bill was written very specifically to address the Epstein case, Abruzzo said following the news conference.

Allegations against Epstein were first brought to the Palm Beach Police Department when a concerned stepmother called the law-enforcement agency in 2005 to say her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been molested by a wealthy man.

In a letter to the Palm Beach Daily News in 2021, former Palm Beach police Chief Michael Reiter, who led the department at the time, said the department "recognized the importance of stopping Jeffrey Epstein and bringing him to justice."

Present for Thursday's bill signing, Reiter said he has thought about Epstein's victims every day for the past 19 years.

"I hope and pray that law schools in their ethics courses teach this case for what not to do in handling a large-scale sexual offender, as in the case of Epstein," Reiter said. "And that future prosecutors realize the very slippery slope that they're on when they investigate and prosecute a wealthy and influential person."

The bill and the release of the grand jury documents is an extremely important step, he said. The grand jury itself is rarely used in a case like this, Reiter noted.

"It was actually a way to silence me back in the beginning of the case when the state attorney refused to allow us to present arrest warrants to the court," he said. "He (Krischer) instead chose to take this case to the grand jury ... so none of us know really what happened there, and we're not even able to ask questions about what happened there."

The 2019 Post investigation found that Krischer approached the case as though the girls who accused Epstein were prostitutes, instead of viewing them as victims of sexual assault.

Reiter and Joseph Recarey, the detective who led the case, were frustrated by Krischer's decisions and went to the FBI, as well as urged Krischer to step down.

Recarey died in 2018, before Epstein was arrested on federal charges. Recarey said that during the investigation, nearly two dozen girls and young women provided nearly identical information about their encounters with Epstein, including information about how he flaunted his wealth to exploit them, The Palm Beach Post reported in a 2019 investigation.

Recarey worked to build the case against Epstein, with the detective finding what would become dozens of teens who said they had been targeted by the billionaire.

As part of the investigation, Palm Beach Police arranged for Epstein's trash to be set aside by garbage collectors, so detectives could sift through it.

When local prosecutors led by Krischer tried to offer Epstein a plea deal that would not involve time behind bars, Recarey fought back.

This was the first time a bill has been signed in the Palm Beach Police Department, town police Chief Nicholas Caristo said.

"The Palm Beach Police Department is committed to transparency in government," Caristo said, adding that he was grateful to DeSantis for choosing the town's police headquarters for the bill-signing ceremony.

Several town officials attended the signing, including Mayor Danielle Moore, council President Maggie Zeidman and Town Manager Kirk Blouin.

“Any time that transparency and disclosure is available to the public is a good thing," Moore said. "It shouldn’t have to come to the governor signing an order to make things happen. Truth and honesty is best in my mind.”

Kristina Webb is a staff reporter for the Palm Beach Daily News.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Jeffrey Epstein: DeSantis signs bill to release grand jury documents