EFTA00804870.pdf

LETTER TO EDITORS REGARDING EDITORIAL "The Cowardly Labor Secretary": Your editorial dated March 1, 2019 is riddled with factual errors and conclusions that were in profound conflict with the reality as we knew it. The underlying premise that the leadership of one of the largest United States Attorneys Offices in the country would "capitulate" and surrender legitimate federal prosecutorial interests because Jeffrey Epstein had a legal team of "high priced" defense counsel was categorically denied in a column authored by the Southern District's then First Assistant Jeffrey H. Sloman which appeared in the Miami Herald on February 15, 2019. Mr. Sloman correctly represented that the case against Mr. Epstein was at its core a quintessentially local case of the type prosecuted as solicitation offenses by state prosecutors. It lacked credible proof that Mr. Epstein used the internet, traveled to a location away from his home for the purpose of having illegal sex, had any sort of commercial sex-trafficking operation, engaged in force, fraud or coercion, used drugs or alcohol to entice young women who came to his house, or "hosted sex parties". A federal prosecution would have been outside the boundary of any prior precedent. That the Agreement represented a principled resolution of the federal investigation was reviewed and ratified by both the Criminal Division and Deputy Attorney General of the Department of Justice, another important fact omitted from your editorial. Former First Assistant Sloman correctly represented that the Government achieved its principal objective — a felony plea, incarceration, millions of dollars in restitution and monetary settlements, and lifetime sex offender registration through its Agreement with Mr. Epstein. Concomitantly, Mr. Epstein is as entitled to finality as every other defendant, having relied on the Government's promises. He had no obligations and therefore could not be responsible for violating the CVRA. Only the Government is alleged to have had such obligations. Mr. Epstein fully performed his obligations under the Agreement. That he is entitled by both constitutional and contract law to the Agreement being fully honored whether or not there was or was not a violation of the consultation rights of the Jane Does will be litigated in court, not in the media. Kenneth W. Starr Martin G. Weinberg Jack Goldberger Lilly Ann Sanchez EFTA00804870 Prior and Current Counsel for Jeffrey Epstein EFTA00804871