Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Epstein Chronicles. One of the biggest failures when it comes
to Jeffrey Epstein and the investigation or so called investigation
into his crimes is the fact that he ended up
getting that non prosecution agreement, and not only that he
received the agreement, but how Epstein's legal team seemed to
have led the dance. They were the ones that were
setting the ground, setting the rules, and dictating to the
prosecution where things were going to go. And for Team Epstein,
the whole entire goal was to make sure that this
was not a federal case, because if this was tried
as a federal case, Jeffrey Epstein would have won away
for a very long time. They would have been able
to control the blast radius, they would have been able
to control the witnesses, or the process that would have
been set into motion. That's why they were so adamant
about getting it kicked back down to state because they
knew that that process would be a lot easier for
them to manipulate the justice system and get Jeffrey Epstein
favorable terms such as going home every day sleeping in
the stockade instead of the regular jail and having a
bunch of other privileges that the rest of us couldn't
even dream of. And look, we all knew that the
fix was in, but now we have the documentation, the emails,
and the information that backs it all up. And what
we're left with is a catastrophic failure by the DOJ,
by the State of Florida, and by everybody involved. So
today we have an article from Bloomberg Law and the
headline Epstein's lawyer sought to vet influence victim's attorneys. This
article was authored by Alexia Fernandez Campbell, Tatiana Monet, and
Diana Dombrowski. Jeffrey Epstein's defense team, in an effort led
by Jay Lefkowitz from Kirkland and Ellis, pressured officials at
the Justice Department about the legal representation of Epstein's victims.
According to files released in January, look, Lefkowitz was leading
the dance, and all these clowns over at Maine Justice, Mukaesi,
Fuliep and the rest of them were all maneuvering to
get themselves a position when they left public office. And
they're all friendly with the people over at Kirkland and
Ellis and how many people from Justice ended up working
at Kirkland Ellis. Well, I'll tell you a whole lot
of them. Just go ahead and take a look at
the roster of lawyers at Kirkland and Ellis. Experts say
the defense team's conduct amidst the negotiations for the disgraced
financiers two thousand and seven plea deal was an unusual
use of influence. Yeah, no shit, it was. The pressure
that they were applying to everybody at Maine Justice, to
everybody involved, was absurd and it should have never occurred.
And it's one of the main reasons, in a whole
line of reasons why the end should be done away with.
Left Kuwitz, along with other lawyers representing Epstein, pressed the
victim's lawyer to take out of court settlements and to
wave their right to sue Epstein under a federal law.
The emails and letters show left Kuwitz recently announced that
he plans to retire from the firm this spring. I'm
sure it's all just a coincidence with all this coming out,
But if you've been paying attention, I've been telling you
about left Kowitz for years, and that's because he played
a gigantic role in Jeffrey Epstein getting off. And look,
it's one thing to do it the way that Didty's
lawyers did, and it's a whole last other thing when
you do it the way that Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers did.
Didty's lawyers, well, they actually handled business inside of that courtroom,
and they did a great job on cross examination and
caused some reasonable doubt in the mind of the jurors.
But that's not what happened with Epstein and his lawyers, right.
Everything was outside of the courtroom, back room dealing, deals
on the golf course, calling Maine justice, pressuring people, and
yet yes, threatening people as well. So it's one thing
to be a hard charging prosecutor, right or a great
defense attorney that's willing to toe the line. It's a
whole ass other thing entirely when you're engaging in shit that,
in my opinion, at the very least, should get you disbarred.
Lefkowitz joined Epstein's defense team in two thousand and seven.
At the time, they were negotiating the plea deal with
federal prosecutors in South Florida to ward off a sixty
count indictment related to the sex trafficking of miners. Investigators
had identified thirty four victims who said Epstein's actually abused
them or traffick them to other people. Epstein's lawyers and
the Department of Justice attorneys have been highly criticized for
the agreement for years. Well, they should be imagine cutting
a deal like this with a dude like Epstein and
thinking there's not going to be any blowback. The documents
detail left Quitz push prosecutors to let him vet and
influence the government selection of an independent lawyer to represent
Epstein's victims, inserting language into the deal that limited what
the lawyer could do while Epstein would foot the bill.
When Alex Acosta, the US Attorney for the Southern District
of Florida, rejected the proposal, left Quitz indicated he would
escalate the issue in Washington. Of course, main Justice made
this call. It was never alex Acosta. Bro is a
middleman like you would not believe. He's like the general
manager at a taco bell, who can, you know, give
you a couple free drinks or something like that if
something screws up. But that's about how far his power goes.
You have to call corporate if you want to get
things moving right, same thing goes for the Justice Department. Well,
you think some middle manager is making a decision such
as this in one of the biggest bureaucracies on earth.
Come on now. Kirkland lawyers would then complain to DOJ
leaders in the nation's capital left. Quitz had worked as
senior adviser to then President George W. Bush, and while
working at Kirkland, was serving as Bush's Human rights envoy
to North Korea, while at the same time defending Jeffrey
Epstein with his colleagues still at Justice Department. How does
that sound fair? And how does that sound reasonable? And
how can anyone be confident that a real investigation took
place when it's rather obvious that the fix was in.
If I were to put myself in Epstein's shoes, paying
for them and threatening to withhold the money seems to
be a way of controlling the entire situation, said Shay Rhoades,
director and co founder of the Villanova Law Institute to
address Commercial Sexual Exploitation, which educates both criminal defense attorneys
and prosecutors on survivors' rights and sex trafficking laws. It
doesn't matter who's paying the lawyer's bill. The lawyer still
works for the client, not the person who's paying the bills. Well,
in a perfect world, but then you insert the Epstein
lawyers here, and it's a whole ass different story, isn't it.
Epstein eventually pleaded guilty to stay charges of procuring a
minor for prostitution in two thousand and eight and served
a year in prison. If you want to call it that,
the document shed new light on the approach that Epstein's
legal defense team used to protect the powerful hedge fund
mogul for years. None of this is new, maybe new
to people that were asleep at the wheel, but for
those of us who have been following along, this is
exactly what went down. And I think that it's pretty
interesting that more people are now turning their attention to
main justice. And for whatever reason, that's always been a
key part of this story that people like to leave out.
Their job was to protect his criminal liability in that case,
and not to rig the civil litigation system against the victor.
Scott Cummings, a legal ethics professor at UCLA School of Law,
claimed that's not something that you should do. The tactics
appear to have worked left. Kuwitz succeeded in pressuring prosecutors
to change the language in the plea bargain, giving Epstein
the right to approve or reject the independent lawyer picked
by the government to represent the victims left. Kowitz avoided
the government's appointment of protective guardianship for the underage girls
and scrap wording that required the attorney's firm to have
experience handling multiple trials at once. The fix was in,
and I'm going to keep hammering this point home until
the people in power pay attention. Left. Kuwitz, Acosta, and
Kirkland and Ellis did not respond to request for comment
from Bloomberg Law. It's ultimately on the prosecution for allowing
the concessions, Cummings said, BINGO one hundred percent. As scummy
as I think that Epstein's lawyers are, they're gonna walk
the line. They're gonna do what they have to do.
It's up to the prosecution to tell them to get stuffed.
In no way, shape or form should Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers
be leading the dance. But that's what's been going on
from the very beginning. Their obligation is to protect the
integrity of the process and to make sure that the
victims would have some say, not just give in to
Kirkland's lawyer, as he said. Victims rights lawyer Carrie Goldberg
described the defense team's maneuvers as extraordinary and absurd. We
do see these kinds of negotiations with very high net
worth people accused of crimes, who hire these super fancy
lawyers who make the government bend to their will, Goldberg said,
But she said, this isn't normal. What's extraordinary about this
situation is just the amount of control that Epstein's lawyers
are asserting over everybody in the process, the DOJ, as
well as the guardian for the victims, Kolberg says. And
it's been a big problem, and I'm very happy that
Bloomberg Bloomberg Law is writing this article because people need
to understand what happened here, and if we want to
address the situation in full, we have to start by
getting rid of that NPA. But to do that, we
have to come to terms with the fact that the
whole entire thing was rigged. Their effort to distance the
women Epstein abused as girls from Pathways to sue Epstein
began in the fall of two thousand and seven, Lefkowitz
requested the US Attorney's Office remove language from the draft
non prosecution deal that would require the government to appoint
a guardian and lydium to represent up to forty identified
victims who could pursue monetary damages from Epstein under federal law.
He repeatedly questioned the need for a guardian in emails
to Marie Villafauna, the assistant US attorney handling the federal
Epstein investigation. Left Kuwitz build a reputation representing high profile clients,
including major health care and pharmaceutical companies throughout his three
decade plus tenure at Kirkland. Whereas online profile boasts about
Kirkland being a feared litigation firm, Well, they most certainly are.
And when you're dealing with a big time firm like
this with a bunch of X prosecutors, that's what you're
going to get. You're going to get a firm that
is not scared to litigate, and that's why people hire them. Look, folks,
you have different kinds of attorneys, right you know, your
run of the mill ambulance chase an attorney. You have
other attorneys that want to plea out of everything, and
then you have trial attorneys, attorneys that live to fight
the battle inside of the courtroom. And Kirkland Ellis is
filled with those kinds of lawyers, and that was on
full display when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and the
case down in Florida. You may want to consider simply
appointing a representative, Lefkowitz wrote to her in September of
two thousand and seven. We could agree to someone you
considered it appropriate. I'm just not sure the guardian is
the right procedural vehicle. Later that day, when Epstein signed
the non prosecution agreement, the section outlining legal representation had changed.
They would be represented not by a guardian at LIDIUM,
but by an attorney picked by the US Attorney's Office
and approved by Epstein. The agreement also stated that the
Palm Beach financier would pay that attorney's fees. John Browning,
a retired Texas Appella justice and legal ethics professor at
Faulkner University Thomas good Jones School of Law, described Epstein
paying for his victims legal representation and having say over
who that was as highly unusual. It's one thing to
pay a victims compensation fund or be ordered to pay restitution.
But such arrangement is beyond pal he said. And look,
I'm certainly not a trained lawyer, but that's something I
brought up too. How's that not a conflict of interest?
The guy paying the bills is also the guy that's
being charged and being you know, sued for X amount
of dollars. But sure, let's bring a guy that he's
paying in to represent the people suing them. Please tell
me how that makes sense. Well, the truth is, you
can't tell me how it makes sense, because it doesn't.
And the whole idea was to steamroll a bunch of
poor people into accepting whatever the government was serving up.
Over the next few weeks, left Quwitz screened and scrutinized
lawyers Villafana proposed, while floating names he preferred, according to
the emails, When prosecutors decided to appoint an independent party,
which they called a Special Master, to pick the victims,
Tourney instead, left Quitz pushed to place limits on who
the Special Mass could choose, questioning proposed language requiring the
lawyer work for a firm large enough to handle multiple
trials at once. According to the emails, that seems directly
at odds with the purpose of the agreement, which is
to facilitate out of court settlements. Left Kuwitz wrote to
Jeffrey Sloman, the first assistant US Attorney in South Florida.
Slowman responded a few days later, saying he would remove
the requirement to satisfy your concern. Slowman and Villa Fauna
did not respond to requests for comment, and they're not
going to. None of these scoundrels who were involved or
going to respond because they all know how bad they
look and there is no explanation, no defense for what
occurred here. After the Special Master had picked attorneys Robert Bob,
Joseph Berg and one of his partners, left Kowitz raised
concerns in a letter over vetting them more thoroughly. Slowman
pointed out that the defense team had seemed comfortable with
the selection and that Alan Dershowitz, another of Epstein's lawyers,
said he went to law school with Josephsburg. He also
pointed out that Josephsberg and his partner have stellar reputations
based on their legal acumen and ethics. Well get an
endorsement from Dershowitz not exactly a top endorsement. In my opinion,
it's hard for me to imagine how much more vetting
needs to be done. Sloman wrote to left Kowitz, Tomorrow
will make one full week since you were formally notified
of the selection. I must insist that the vetting process
come to an end. At the same time, left Kowitz
was fighting to enforce the deal's privacy clause, which was
added by Epstein's team, and keep the victims and their
attorneys in the dark about the existence of the deal
and its associated charges against Epstein CVR violation right off
the bat. Neither federal agents nor anyone from your office
should contact the identified individuals to inform them of the
resolution of the case, including appointment of the attorney representative,
and the settlement process. Leftwitz said to Acosta in October
of two thousand and seven email Not only would that
violate the confidentiality of the agreement, but mister Epstein would
also have no control over what is communicated to the
identified individuals at this most critical stage. The fix was in. Oh, look,
only one girl came forward, and she was seventeen, and
she was about to be eighteen. You dumb, fucking morons.
You got to be an absolute idiot to pitch that narrative.
Goldberg says the move by Leftkwitz and the defense prevented
the victims from putting more pressure on the government to
act on Epstein's criminal matter. When you have this kind
of cooperation between the government and criminal attorneys conspiring against
the victims, that's unusual and exceptional, Goldberg said. And the
part that's the most frustrating for me is that the
DOJ could end this deal tomorrow. They could go to court,
rip the deal up and say Epstein did not comply
with the deal, so the deal is now null and void.
And then from there that means everybody else that was
protected by that deal they're open to prosecution now. But
of course Pam Bondi and crash out Patel, they won't
do that, will they. They got better things to do.
Have you looked at the dow Left Kowitz eventually agreed
to Joseph Berg's selection, but still disagreed on the scope
of compensation available to victims under the Federal Civil Remedy
for Personal Injuries, the law which grants victims of sexual
abuse and exploitation damages. We hope to address these issues
with Assistant Attorney General Fisher in Washington Leftkowitz wrote in
a letter Fastuo Acosta in December of two thousand and seven,
referring to Alice Fisher than the head of DOJ's Criminal Division.
The letter was also signed by Kirkland lawyer Kenneth Starr,
the former Independent Council whose investigation led to former President
Bill Clinton's impeachment. Jeffrey Epstein's rising star, good Old ken Starr.
Wasn't he also in charge over at Baylor when they
had their issues with sexual assault? Oh that's right, he was, huh,
good Old ken Starr, mister morality himself. Weeks before that
December two thousand and seven, facts to Acosta, Star had
requested a meeting with Fisher, accusing South Florida prosecutors of
improperly compelling Epstein to pay civil damages under federal law
for a plea on state charges. Fisher later told investigators
she didn't remember reading the letter, and the Justice Department
report said that Fisher did not grant the requested meeting.
Sure she didn't, maybe not officially, but backdoored channeled probably. Now. Look,
I certainly don't have the proof to back that up,
but I'm going on what's logical? Right? Do we really
think that these people only had meetings that were on
the books. By the end of two thousand and seven,
correspondence about the victim's representation between the Justice Department left
Kuwitz had grown contentious. Your attacks on me and on
the victims established why I wanted to find someone whom
I could trust with safeguarding the victim's best interest in
the face of intense pressure from an unlimited number of
highly skilled and well paid attorneys and assist in US
Attorney and Accosta's office, wrote to left Kuwitz in December
of that year. Once Josephsbergs got to work and began
evaluating the claims of his new clients, he had also
clashed with left Kuwitz, who sent in an email that
Joseph Berg couldn't sue Epstein on their behalf. Left Kowitz
threatened to stop paying Joseph berg fees if he didn't
focus on getting the victims to settle for fifty thousand dollars.
This is a mafia run operation. Basically, who does left
Quitz think he is? Tom Hagen? Dealing with the band leader? Like, Buddy,
what do you think you're doing here? Joseph Berg fumed
and accused Epstein a breach in the plea deal. Perhaps
your client thought that he could victimize and intimidate countless
underage girls, that he would then agree to provide minimal
compensation to them for the damage he inflicted upon them,
and that I would simply let them come in and
sign the paperwork for the absolute minimum recovery. Joseph Berg
email left Kuwitz. In response, he added that he was
not a clerk, just there to document a settlement and
get the minimum payout without fully evaluating their claims. Settling
their cases in a vacuum would amount to malpractice, he wrote,
no doubt about it, and thankfully Joseph Berg pushed back,
imagine being a trained attorney, you know, an attorney of
note who has pride, and then just playing ball with
those comebacks for some kind of financial gain. And the
truth is there's a lot of lawyers out there that
would have no problem doing it. Left Kowitz denied breaching
the agreement and reiterated his view that Joseph Berg's work
far exceeded the scope of the plea deal. Cummings of
UCLA said the defense lawyer can't exert influence just because
their client is paying and they can't help their client
interfere with the independent judgment of the victim's lawyer. In
May of two thousand and nine, Joseph Berg sued Epstein
on behalf of Virginia Roberts, who claimed that she was
sectually abused by Epstein and traffick to prominent men including
Andrew mount Batten Winsall, the former Prince Andrew. By June,
Epstein stopped paying Joseph Berg's fees. He would eventually take
Epstein to court for breaching the plea deal, and they
reached the settlement for an undisclosed amount settlement. This settlement
that everybody gets a settlement, and that's how people like
Epstein continue to get away with their bullshit. They just
pay people off time and time again. And the sad
truth is that's how our system is set up. The
whole entire idea is so that the men of always
can continue to pray on the children of Never, and
if they happen to get caught or outed, well, what's
the next move. I'll pay a settlement. And this is
the story, time and time again, they get to pay
their way out of trouble. Nobody goes to prison, and
they just move on to the next victim. And the
sad truth is, for people like this, the next victim
is never far away. All right, folks, that's gonna do
it for this one. All the information that goes with
this episode can be found in the description box.