The Prosecutor Who Tried to Stop Epstein, in Her Own Words

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1:35Here today, Rome tomorrow. Join now at Sonesta.com. Terms and conditions apply. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. Please take care while listening. I understand what the victims say, and I'm not here to try to say that I can stand in their shoes or that I can address their concerns. I'm here to say we did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail. That was Alex Acosta speaking in 2019. At the time, Acosta was President Trump's labor secretary, and he was fielding questions about Jeffrey Epstein. who just days earlier was arrested on allegations of trafficking minors for sex.

2:32We believe that we proceeded appropriately. Acosta was under a microscope. A dozen years earlier, he had been the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, where he'd overseen a federal investigation into Epstein's crimes. Acosta signed off on the infamous plea deal that ultimately put Epstein in jail on state charges for 13 months, a good chunk of which he spent leaving during the daytime on work release. The criticism, of course, is that that was a sweetheart deal. Bloomberg legal reporter David Voriakis. That had they indicted Epstein on sex trafficking charges, he could have gone to jail or prison for a much longer period than he ended up serving.

3:18Acosta was under fire for striking this deal that critics said failed young women and girls, both those who talked to prosecutors working in his office and Epstein's future victims. Acosta resigned the next day. Those criticisms wouldn't have been new to Acosta, though, because during the Epstein investigation, he was hearing similar concerns inside his office from the prosecutor who led the investigation for more than two years. Her name is Marie Villafania. Marie Villafania was a very smart, very determined prosecutor who took a distinct point of view that what Jeffrey Epstein did was a harm and a threat to the public.

4:02After Epstein's plea deal, the evidence that Villafania collected through interviews with victims and investigations of Epstein's finances was filed away. Witness statements, memos, and a 60-count indictment that was never brought. But the Justice Department's latest release of Epstein-filed documents includes a trove of information from Villafania's investigation. She has not spoken publicly. We tried to use this as an opportunity to use her words on what happened and how she felt about it. It's the clearest window yet into what Villafania knew about Epstein, what she told her bosses at the time, and her growing frustration about how they failed to act.

4:43There's a number of people along the way who could have put their hand up to stop Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes. That's what we're learning through the Epstein files. But she was a very determined person early in the Epstein saga who did her best to try to stop him. I'm Sarah Holder, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, the federal prosecutor who took on Jeffrey Epstein. What the Epstein files reveal about her findings. her battles with her bosses, and her behind-the-scenes push to stop Epstein.

5:25So today we're here to talk about Marie Villafania. She's an important character in the Jeffrey Epstein story, but we don't often hear much about her. Villafania began investigating Epstein in 2006 when she was assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, reporting up to Alex Acosta, who is the chief prosecutor. David, walk us through the chronology of the case. Well, it started in 2005 when the parents of a 14-year-old girl went to the Palm Beach police and complained that she was at Epstein's mansion and gave him a sexualized massage. The Palm Beach police found a number of girls in similar situations and took it to the county district attorney's office, which ultimately charged Epstein with a single count of prostitution.

6:17The Palm Beach police chief was dissatisfied with that outcome and then went to the FBI, hoping that they would do a more thorough investigation. That's how she started on the case in May of 2006. And she spent a year interviewing more than a dozen girls and developing a great deal of corroborating evidence about Epstein. She developed a 60-count indictment against Epstein with a variety of crimes, including sex trafficking, and she justified it with an 80-page prosecution memo that described the strengths and weaknesses of the case against Epstein, why they should indict, what the risks are, what might happen, what might go wrong.

7:04Villafania documented that Epstein used assistance to recruit local high school girls and would offer them$200 to$300 to give him massages that became sexualized massages. He would fondle these girls, sometimes penetrate them with his fingers or a vibrator while he masturbated, and sometimes it graduated to oral sex and vaginal sex. And what exactly did she recommend that her office do? Well, on May 1st, 2007, she urgently said, we need authority for the FBI to arrest him now to protect the public so that this won't go on anymore. She didn't get a response to that. Two weeks later, she wrote another memo saying, I want you to approve this indictment.

7:56When I say you, I'm talking about her superiors. He remains a threat, and we have information that he's going to be traveling from the Virgin Islands to New Jersey. And so let's arrest him. And how do they respond to her urging that now is the time we need to arrest Jeffrey Epstein? The response she got was effectively not so fast. We're not ready yet. We haven't made a decision. It's not imperative that we do it right this moment. One of Villafania's supervisors at the time was named Matt Menchel. He was the criminal chief in the Southern District of Florida, a very well-regarded trial attorney, had a lot of experience doing prosecutions.

8:38When she urged her superiors to act now, Matt Menchel responded in an email and said, quote, I'm having trouble understanding given how long this case has been pending what the rush is. He went on to say this is obviously a very significant case and Alex wants to take his time making sure he is comfortable before proceeding. You write that Menchel left the office shortly after this in August 2007. And according to Villafania's writing, she continued to urge her supervisors to move more quickly. In her eyes, why was there such urgency? She felt that the time was right, that he was a billionaire with the means to flee if he were charged, and that she felt it was necessary to protect the public.

9:30She had developed a picture of Epstein, which later investigations showed as well that he was a serial predator. And I think she felt that she had enough evidence to prove that in court and it was time to stop that behavior. In general, Acosta was reluctant to agree with Villafania that this was a federal case. He was hearing arguments from the defense that was attacking the credibility of these girls. He was wondering whether these were cases that should be charged as a prostitution on a state level or whether they were federal sex trafficking cases. And I believe that at the time there was more of an attitude that it was acceptable to attack the credibility of victims of sex crimes than there is today.

10:24And in fact, Acasa acknowledges that now 20 years later, that it was more prevalent of a practice to attack these girls through cross-examination. And so what the Lafania was trying to do was determine how well they would hold up in the crucible of cross-examination at a trial where they would be attacked. And Epstein was very aggressive at attacking these girls. He had quite an impressive roster of defense lawyers who were given their mission to defend him very zealously, and they did so. So in the summer of 2007, more than a year into Vilafania's investigation of Epstein, she learns that Menchel meets with one of Epstein's lawyers.

11:15Vilafania is concerned that that meeting was about conducting plea negotiations. What does she say? She said that it was inappropriate for him to engage in plea talks without consulting her, the investigators, or the victims. He then responds that, quote, both the tone and substance of your email are totally inappropriate. He said in combination with other matters in the past, it seriously calls your judgment into question. And then her response to that was striking. She responds, quote, I feel like there's a glass ceiling that prevents me from moving forward, while evidence suggests that Epstein is continuing to engage in this criminal behavior.

11:58Right. Menchel said to Villafania that he was not actually engaged in plea negotiations. And it was soon after that that he told Villafania that Alex Acosta had decided that there would not be federal charges, but that Epstein would plead guilty in state court and serve up to two years and also be registered as a sex offender and have to pay. damages to the girls. And then you write that Menchel leaves the office shortly after this. What happens then? Walk us through the timeline. After Menchel left the office, it fell to Villafania to negotiate the actual plea agreement and the terms of the federal non-prosecution agreement.

12:46This took place over several weeks. It was a complicated negotiation with a number of moving parts, and it ultimately resulted in an agreement in late September 2007 in which Epstein agreed that he would exercise his best efforts to plead guilty by late October 2007. In fact, it did not happen then, and Villafania felt that he was in breach of his agreement, And she continued to investigate him, moving toward a possible indictment of Epstein on federal charges. And as part of her continued investigations, Villafania continues to interview victims, right? At one point, Villafania writes to Acosta about an interview she had just had with three of the victims.

13:40And I just want to read this email because I think it speaks to her mindset at the time and the kinds of things she was hearing from these girls. She writes to Acosta, I wish you could have been there to see how much this has affected them. One girl broke down sobbing so that we had to stop the interview twice within a 20-minute span. She regained her composure enough to continue a short time, but she said that she was having nightmares about Epstein coming after her, and she started to break down again, so we stopped the interview. What do we know about how she was feeling at this time and how this was weighing on her?

14:12You could see through the correspondence that she was not happy with some of the terms, and she was not happy with Epstein's legal team, which was attacking her personally, was going over her head, and she felt was changing the terms of the agreement. In March of 2008, she wanted to know what her superiors were waiting for. And she said, quote, the please be patient answer is really wearing thin, especially when Epstein's group is still on the attack while we are forced to wait on the sidelines. These are wrenching cases to do. They're very difficult emotionally on all concerned. There's a lot of effort to protect the feelings and the integrity of the victims.

15:01And it's a hard call for everyone to decide, well, how would this young girl who's 16 years old or 17 years old, how would they hold up against a very smart, very aggressive lawyer in a court of law? And some of those girls flat out said, I don't want any part of this. I don't want to testify. Some of them said they loved Epstein. Epstein had a sort of cult of personality around him, which his trafficking network facilitated. And a number of these girls entered into civil settlements with Epstein. And so Epstein would agree to civil settlements, but they'd also use that as a club against prosecutors.

15:45And so those were all obstacles that she had to face. And collectively, with her superiors, they came to the decision to avoid the risk of a trial and to secure a guilty plea. So in June 2008, after months of waiting, Villafania learns that, finally, Epstein plans to plead guilty to a couple of charges. State charges, not federal charges. What does Villafania say in that moment? When colleagues congratulated her on finally sort of landing the big case, she was not happy. She felt that instead of serving 18 months in jail, that he should be doing 18 years in prison. She also was upset because she thought that she had an agreement with the defense lawyers that he would actually serve two years in jail and that he would not be eligible for this work release program.

16:42Had Epstein been indicted and convicted of sex trafficking, the penalty was something like two decades in prison. Now, of course, there were ways for the defense to reduce such a sentence, but that's why they were fighting so very hard to keep this out of a federal court house and make it a state case.

17:06Marie Villafania declined to comment for David's story. After the break, more from our conversation.

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19:39We've read a lot over the past few months about how Epstein rallied powerful people around him and used his connections to exert influence and in some cases avoid consequences for years. In these documents, we can see Marie Villafogna grappling with this dynamic in real time. I want to start with talking about Epstein's legal team. Who were they and what did the documents reveal about the way that they operated? They included prominent litigators, and their tactics were quite aggressive. Prosecutors have a lot of discretion in the investigative phase on how much they will listen to defense lawyers before they charge someone.

20:18In this case, Villafania wrote, Acosta set the tone that allowed the defense an extraordinary level of access to the supervisory team in his office, which gave Epstein a number of advantages. Acosta had not been a prosecutor before he became the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida. And so he was relying on his team to guide him through a lot of this. And he was also open to listening to defense lawyers help him frame the issues. And a big one was whether this was appropriately handled in federal court or state court. There are a number of other examples where prosecutors would say, enough is enough, I've heard what I need to hear.

21:03But he allowed a continuing level of input that influenced the ultimate disposition of this case. You found some other specific examples of how Epstein's legal team pushed back on Villafania's investigation. One of the striking ones was Villafania wanted to subpoena Epstein's computers back in 2007. The office issued the subpoena, but then accepted Epstein's guilty plea to state charges in 2008 without ever getting the computers. What happened there? The Palm Beach police had raided Epstein's house as part of their investigation. But what was conspicuously missing was his computer units that she was convinced had a lot of evidence of his crimes.

21:50the prosecutors, and particularly Villafania, believed that those computers were being held by an investigator for one of Epstein's defense lawyers. And she wanted those computers, and there was a lot of back and forth and pushback from the defense. Ultimately, her office did not pursue subpoenas that would have potentially brought those computers to the government and potentially delivered a lot more evidence than they already had. So in hindsight, does this look like a missed opportunity for the government? I will say that the Department of Justice, which did an exhaustive investigation of this in 2019 and 2020, said that it was a mistake and poor judgment by Alex Acosta to not pursue those computers and to reach an agreement before he had all the evidence that was potentially available to him.

22:49And whatever happened to Menchel after he left the Southern District of Florida? After he left the government, which was in August of 2007, he became a very successful defense lawyer in Miami, did a number of high-profile cases, and he also corresponded with Epstein in 2010, which lasted through 2017. And Epstein extended dinner invitations to him, tried to steer potential legal engagements his way, and they had some personal discussions back and forth. What did Menchel say in response to your reporting? He said that Menchel's emails with Epstein were made in the context of potential representations and referrals, none of which ever materialized into any business of Mr.

23:41Menchel or his firm, and that during the three months Mr. Menchel was involved in the investigation of Epstein, he treated the matter as he treated every case he prosecuted over his 20-year career in public service with seriousness, professionalism, and respect for the chain of command. Any suggestion that Mr. Menchel prevented an indictment or did anyone any favors is categorically false. And I also want to talk about Alex Acosta. It took years for the details of the non-prosecution agreement to come out and for federal prosecutors in New York to eventually indict Epstein on sex trafficking charges.

24:16In the meantime, Acosta's career took off. He became labor secretary for President Donald Trump in his first term. What happened when the details of that agreement came to light? The Miami Herald in late 2018 wrote a very powerful series of stories that illuminated many of the mechanics of Epstein's non-prosecution agreement with the Southern District of Florida and got several victims to speak on the record in a way that had never happened before. And that really changed the public perception of Epstein. Acosta came under a great deal of scrutiny and pressure and resigned soon after. He took the position then as he takes the position now that they did the best they could in investigating Epstein at the time.

25:05There were concerns then about the credibility of some of the girls and the women who said that they were sexually assaulted. And any time a prosecutor goes to trial, there's a risk of an acquittal. And he looked for the certainty of a jail term through a negotiated plea deal. And one of Acosta's big points was also that the deal that he struck required Epstein to register as a sex offender, which is something that would stick with him always. And finally, I want to ask about Marie Villafogna. Aside from these documents that we see in the Epstein files, has she spoken in public about this? She has not spoken publicly.

25:47And I will say that her public words changed over time because after Epstein pleaded guilty through civil litigation, she defended that deal in open court in 2009. She defended it in written declarations through the years, including one in 2017, where she said she felt that a plea deal was the best outcome here because of concerns by the victims. But then in her declaration in 2019 that we write about as well, she seemed to have hardened her attitude and say that she felt that the victims were not well treated by the outcome. Thank you so much for sharing your reporting. Thank you.

26:34This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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