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The Trump Administration Sure Loves Protecting (Child) Rapists: Jeffrey Epstein Edition

By Mike Redmond | Politics | November 29, 2018 |

By Mike Redmond | Politics | November 29, 2018 |


alexander-acosta.jpg

If you’re not familiar with Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta (above), don’t feel bad, neither was I, and I’m doing my best to stay on top of the never-ending churn of horrifying bullshit sloughing out of this administration. However, by the end of this post, hopefully a decent amount of you will be keenly aware of Acosta and remember what you learned here when the dam breaks on the Mueller investigation, which seems like it could be any minute now. So let’s break it down.

On Wednesday, the Miami Herald published a damning and thorough three-part investigation on then U.S. Attorney Acosta’s role in giving serial child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein possibly one of the sweetest deals in criminal history. I’m talking the FBI and local police were sitting on a mountain of evidence that would’ve put Epstein in federal prison for life, but instead, he served a short 16-month sentence from the comfort of his own office while using sheriff’s deputies as his own private security force. Think season three of Daredevil, only this time Wilson Fisk is a serial rapist obsessed with underage girls. It’s that f**king bananas.

Part of Epstein’s sweetheart deal is that the details of his case would be deliberately obfuscated from public scrutiny, which is why most people only have a vague knowledge of his arrest and conviction for a mere two counts of prostitution. It also included some weird caveats.

From the Herald (emphasis mine):

The pact required Epstein to plead guilty to two prostitution charges in state court. Epstein and four of his accomplices named in the agreement received immunity from all federal criminal charges. But even more unusual, the deal included wording that granted immunity to “any potential co-conspirators” who were also involved in Epstein’s crimes. These accomplices or participants were not identified in the agreement, leaving it open to interpretation whether it possibly referred to other influential people who were having sex with underage girls at Epstein’s various homes or on his plane.

And right there is where I want to pause for a second, because Epstein’s victims were unjustly labeled by prosecutors as “underage prostitutes,” which is not a thing, and there’s a more accurate term for what happened: Rape. Those girls were raped. Not only that, but every single one of them was thrown under the bus by Acosta.

As part of the arrangement, Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims. As a result, the non-prosecution agreement was sealed until after it was approved by the judge, thereby averting any chance that the girls — or anyone else — might show up in court and try to derail it.

As the Herald reports, Epstein’s deal was so unprecedented that even government lawyers couldn’t believe the shit they were reading in court documents. Essentially, Epstein and his lawyers were calling almost every shot, which should’ve never happened because the cops and the FBI were sitting on a stupid amount of evidence. Cooperating victims, photos, witnesses, ledgers, you f**king name it. So how did Epstein basically skate with a slap-on-the-wrist sentence that he served almost exclusively in his office while receiving frequent visits from a woman whom the Herald identifies several times as his “Yugoslavian sex slave”?

An obscene amount of wealth and powerful friends.

Epstein’s most prominent connections include former President Bill Clinton (commence side-eyeing), Prince Andrew, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, and wait… let’s see here… Donald Trump! For the record, only two of these men have been accused of having sex with underage girls allegedly procured by Epstein: Prince Andrew, who denies the allegations despite being photographed with his then-underage accuser, and Dershowitz whose accusation was settled out of court, according to the Herald. As for Clinton and Trump, well, one of them owns a golf course in Palm Beach where Epstein was a member and allegedly pooled his victims from. Try and guess which one.

And I’ll leave this here for good measure because David Waldman was on a tear last night:

Now, it’s no secret that Epstein had powerful connections in the Democratic Party thanks to his frequent and large donations. Also, I should probably note that one of his victims claimed he liked to arrange for his friends to have sex with underage girls so they would be “in his pocket.” But when his practically out in the open underage trafficking ring came crashing down (And I’m in no way doing the jaw-dropping scope of Epstein’s alleged crimes justice.), he found himself facing Acosta, a Republican prosecutor. So Epstein hired Kenneth Starr, who you may remember from his very public attempts to nail Bill Clinton to a wall for receiving a blowjob. That was an impeachable crime beyond the pale. Allegedly raping and trafficking underage girls across state lines, how much are you paying?!

Dershowitz was also on Epstein’s legal team, and according to detectives who were doggedly tracking down victims and absolutely shocked at the numbers they continued to find, Dershowitz was a slut-shaming son of a bitch.

From the Herald:

“His attorneys showed us a MySpace page where one of the girls was holding a beer in her hand, and they said, ‘oh look, she is underage drinking,’” Recarey recalled. “Well, tell me what teenager doesn’t? Does that mean she isn’t a victim because she drank a beer? Basically, what you’re telling me is the only victim of a sexual battery could be a nun.”

When questioned in 2011 about the unusual deal that Epstein received, Acosta claims he was “unduly pressured” by Epstein’s team, which legal experts told the Herald are words that should never come out of a U.S. attorney’s mouth. However, in Acosta’s defense, the amount of rats that were f**ked to protect Epstein had no end in sight. From his politically connected legal team all the way to his seemingly corrupt dealings with the sheriff’s office. It got to the point where even after Epstein served his cushy sentence, prosecutors were bending over backwards to get him unregistered as a sex offender.

A prosecutor under New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance argued on Epstein’s behalf, telling New York Supreme Court Judge Ruth Pickholtz that the Florida case never led to an indictment and that his underage victims failed to cooperate in the case. Pickholtz, however, denied the petition, expressing astonishment that a New York prosecutor would make such a request on behalf of a serial sex offender accused of molesting so many girls.

“I have to tell you, I’m a little overwhelmed because I have never seen a prosecutor’s office do anything like this. I have done so many [sex offender registration hearings] much less troubling than this one where the [prosecutor] would never make a downward argument like this,” she said.

As of this writing, Alexander Acosta is on the short list of names who could replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Obviously, if he can’t handle a case like Epstein’s without giving a serial rapist a deal that defied all federal and state rules on handling sex offenders, Acosta has no business overseeing another criminal prosecution ever again. And after reading all of this — which if you have the time, I cannot recommend reading the full Herald investigation enough — I can’t help but wonder why Trump would pick Acosta of all people to serve in his cabinet. It’s almost like there’s a connection between the two, but I can’t quite seem to put my finger on it…

Oh, right, the child molester.



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