In an exclusive interview with WLRN, Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie Brown said millions of newly released documents related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case represent a litmus test of the American justice system’s ability to protect its most vulnerable citizens.
"Our whole sense of who we are is based on how we treat people who live in our country," Brown told WLRN. "I think what gets lost in this [Epstein case] is these [victims] were children."
"And there is no one that we should protect more than children... If we ignore this crime, which affected so many children, what does that say about us?" she added.
The interview with Brown, whose exhaustive reporting in 2018 reopened the sex trafficking case against Epstein, aired Friday on WLRN's weekly South Florida Roundup show.
In releasing the trove documents, Brown blasted Trump administration officials in the Justice Department for prioritizing the reputations of powerful men over the safety and privacy of the women Epstein abused.
"If we ignore this crime, which affected so many children, what does that say about us?"Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie Brown on Jeffrey Epstein case
Indeed, Justice Department officials said last week that it had withdrawn several thousand documents and “media” related to the case after lawyers told a New York judge that the lives of nearly 100 victims had been “turned upside down” by sloppy redactions in the government’s latest release of records.
The exposed materials include nude photos showing the faces of potential victims as well as names, email addresses and other identifying information that was either unredacted or not fully obscured.
The department blamed it on “technical or human error.”
'Sloppy redactions'
Brown said many survivors suspect these "sloppy" redactions are intentional.
"The victims... suspect that this was done on purpose to sort of send a message to intimidate them to be quiet... 'not say anything otherwise we’re gonna out you'," she told WLRN.
Brown said Epstein's "controversially lenient" 2008 plea deal with prosecutors allowed him to continue his crimes for another decade.
"Had prosecutors done their job way back in 2007, then he would’ve been in prison. We wouldn’t be sitting here," Brown said.
She specifically called out the secrecy of the deal, which kept victims in the dark for nearly a year while Epstein served a "cushy" 13-month sentence with work release.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. That allowed him to avert a possible life sentence, instead serving 13 months in a work-release program. He was required to make payments to victims and register as a sex offender.
Bondi's failed to investigate
Brown was equally critical of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi — who is now Attorney General. She accused her of "dropping the ball" by failing to investigate the 2008 plea deal despite making sex trafficking her primary mission.
"Doesn’t it seem kind of strange that the highest profile sex trafficker in Florida history... she’s not asking questions like, 'we better go back into this and take a new look?'"
Roots of Epstein investigation
The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported she had been molested at the millionaire’s home in Palm Beach.
Police would identify at least 35 girls with similar stories: Epstein was paying high school age students $200 or $300 to give him sexualized massages.
After the FBI joined the probe, federal prosecutors drafted indictments to charge Epstein and some personal assistants who had arranged the girls’ visits and payments. But instead, then-Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta struck the plea deal letting Epstein plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.
In 2018, Brown's explosive Miami Herald series — "Perversion of Justice" — prompted New York federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the accusations against Epstein. He was arrested in July 2019. One month later, he killed himself in his jail cell.
Ghislaine Maxwell 'knows everything'
A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein’s longtime confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she’d recruited several of his victims and sometimes joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term.
Said Brown of Maxwell: "I really do think that she's holding the cards and she's trying to wait it out until maybe Trump is almost out of office and hope that he gives her a pardon."
"She absolutely knows everything," Brown told WLRN.
"Quite frankly, even if she would testify, she's perjured herself already," said Brown. "So her testimony ... you have to take it with a grain of salt."
Last Monday, Maxwell, declined to answer questions from House lawmakers in a deposition, but indicated that if Trump ended her prison sentence, she was willing to testify that neither he nor former President Bill Clinton had done anything wrong in their connections with Epstein.
The House Oversight Committee had wanted Maxwell to answer questions during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas, but she invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to avoid answering questions that would be self-incriminating.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
