Epstein’s Dream Team Intimidated Prosecutors, Says Acosta

R. Alexander Acosta, currently Secty of Labor in the Trump administration, has come in for plenty of criticism for the way he handled a case against hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein when he served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Epstein was facing multiple charges of criminal sex with girls as young as 12, but the case was ultimately referred to state prosecutors and Epstein got a slap on the wrist. However, Acosta has defended himself, and provided documentation that he objected to the referral, and to an original even softer deal the state was offering, and referred the case to the FBI for further investigation. At that point, he says, Epstein’s dream team of legal heavyweights, Alan Dershowitz, Kenneth Starr, and Roy Black, went to work on him. Acosta alleges a year-long assault including threats that a book might be written about his “office’s excess zeal in forcing a good man to serve time in jail” if prosecutors continued in their efforts to put Epstein behind bars. Acosta’s prosecutors and their families were investigated, seeking to unearth personal issues that might lead to disqualification, and Epstein’s attorneys failed to negotiate in good faith, an account supported by a letter written to the defense by one of Acosta’s attorneys detailing the ordeal, parts of which were published in The Daily Beast in 2017.