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Howl

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2 minutes ago, Howl said:

What an interesting thought!  This had not crossed my mind. 

 

I was reading the article and it dawned on me that the entire deal is just odd and Epstein really doesn't seem like he would go through a light jail term and having to register as a sex offender if he wasn't being paid off. Especially since part of the deal was making sure everyone else was protected. He didn't protect everyone else for nothing,  IMO. 

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Please Rufus, no!

 

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On 7/10/2019 at 1:48 PM, Howl said:

just google "Jeffrey Epstein" 

This story is being covered in depth by every major news outlet.  Miami Herald, WaPo, and New York Times are behind paywalls, but The Atlantic, Newsweek, The Daily Beast all have excellent reporting.  If I come across anything that sheds more light, I'll post here. 

Nicole Wallace is covering it too. 

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4 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I was reading the article and it dawned on me that the entire deal is just odd

Yes, and it gets odder and odder as more details emerge.  In the original case, in at least one instance, the Feds met with Epstein's lawyers IN A HOTEL ROOM.   This NEVER happens in a Federal case.  The defendant's lawyer(s) are always required to come to the Fed's offices.  

 

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12 hours ago, Howl said:

Now, supposedly, Epstein was (supposedly) involved in (supposed) "Intelligence activities" which is (supposedly) why he was almost untouchable.  I suspect money laundering and blackmail are much more likely. 

If ever there were a red herring...Hey! Look! Over there!  Powerful men of means were involved in a child sex circle.  It isn't more complicated than that. 

I agree but with the proviso that drugs often go in tandem with this kind of behaviour, so it won't necessarily surprise me if they turn up. Maxwell's presumed murder has been used as a plot point in at least four of those kind of books, which is why my brain went there. 

I quite like Rebecca Solnit's discussion of it and how it links into other rape cases: In Patriarchy No One Can Hear You Scream.

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The whole "QAnon" thing is a nutter conspiracy theory that Trump and his cronies are secretly working to take down a massive international pedophile ring involving some very powerful and high-profile people (any day now. . . ). Who would have thought that there may well be such a ring/conspiracy, but that it involves Trump et al?

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I wonder if anything will come of this.

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The things he shares with Trump are remarkable.

 

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The rules are different for those with obscene sums of money:

 

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Completely disgusting.

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HuffPo's Epstein timeline (not behind a paywall).

A Timeline Of Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Convictions And New Allegations

As it goes along, the pedophilia becomes more and more obvious to more and more people.  But it started early on.  For example, 

Quote

1998: Purchases Little St. James Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands

In an alarming report, The Associated Press described how people who lived in the area surrounding Epstein’s extremely private oasis started calling it “pedophile island” when molestation accusations against him were first made public.

And this, from 1992, when Trump hosted a party at Mar-a-Lago where he and Epstein were the only men, but there were 28 young women.  Even in 1992, FFS, the party planner knew that Epstein was a pedophile. 

Quote

1992: Attends a Mar-a-Lago party with Donald Trump and 28 women

Yes, the only people at the party were Trump, Epstein and 28 young women flown in to provide “the entertainment,” in the form of a private pageant, The New York Times reported July 9. Party planner George Houraney expressed disbelief that the event would cater to only the two men and concern that Epstein would be present.

“I said, ‘Look, Donald, I know Jeff really well, I can’t have him going after younger girls,’” Houraney told the Times. “He said, ‘Look I’m putting my name on this. I wouldn’t put my name on it and have a scandal.’” Trump claims he and Epstein later had a falling out.

Flucking Donald  "I hardly knew Jeff Epstein" Trump

Like I said, the salacious element here may be what keeps this in the news day after day.  That said, I'd be surprised if Epstein is even mentioned on Fox. 

Don't know when the judge will decide on the bail issue.  Epstein's lawyers have suggested (I'm not making this sh*t up) home detention in his Manhattan mansion, with a GPS satellite monitoring bracelet, guarded by a security force hired and paid for by....wait for it...defendant Epstein. 

Please note that when Epstein moved to New York, he was required as a sex offender to register and check in to confirm his place of residence every 90 days.  He never did that. 

A lawyer noted on twitter that one of his clients is in Rikers; his client had become homeless and missed one of his check in dates.   He's too poor to make bail and now potentially faces four more years in prison.  So yeah.  Quite the contrast between the destitute and the politically connected and insanely wealthy. 

Edited by Howl
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Annnnd Acosta is out. I hope he gets prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for breaking the law when he didn't inform the victims of that awful plea-deal he gave Epstein.

 

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3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Completely disgusting.

I followed that tweet further in its thread. There is a scribd document next down and it is even worse. If all this is real - and I think it is very possible that it is - then I don't understand why Trump hasn't been taken down already.

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15 hours ago, K'Z'K said:

The whole "QAnon" thing is a nutter conspiracy theory that Trump and his cronies are secretly working to take down a massive international pedophile ring involving some very powerful and high-profile people (any day now. . . ). Who would have thought that there may well be such a ring/conspiracy, but that it involves Trump et al?

It sounds very much like a "Look what THEY did! Over there!" *quickly pushes evidence under rug* distraction technique. Accuse the enemy (i.e.: Obama and Hillary - but not Bill because that might lead back to you) of doing what you yourself actually did, to throw people off the trail. 

I think that this whole situation is probably not going to be as much of a big deal to some Trump supporters as we might expect. They weren't abusing toddlers which is universally reviled, they were raping young teenagers. Which to most of us is just as awful, but there are racist, sexist, gun-toting, anti-government Trumphumpers who think about Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13-year-old cousin and how Loretta Lynn got married when she was 15, and figure those teens must have been asking for it. They'd make fun of  "libruls" being oversensitive and politically correct calling it pedophilia and rape when that 14-year-old probably looked older and anyway she wanted it - these guys are rich, of course she wanted in on that. Even among conservative Christians there are those who think girls should get married off as early as possible, to keep them from "sinning" and to give them more years to pop out babies. Even some of those who abhor what happened are likely to say the men were "defrauded" by the "immodest" girls, so what did anyone expect?

I would love to see this really blow up, the people involved punished for their actions, and have it be made excruciatingly obvious that adult men having sex with young teen women is not in any way acceptable.

But we have a president who was elected despite openly admitting to both committing sexual harassment on the regular and also wandering into dressing rooms where teen pageant contestants were changing clothes. Who, as with many famous men, has been known to trade in wives and girlfriends for younger ones over time. 

This is a big mess, and I am not feeling too positive about it damaging Trump the way it really should. 

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2 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

I would love to see this really blow up, the people involved punished for their actions, and have it be made excruciatingly obvious that adult men having sex with young teen women is not in any way acceptable.

Well, Alexander Acosta just got a boot in the ass, so there's that! 

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I agree that many of his supporters will come up with excuses, but if there is solid evidence he raped young girls then IMO there will be a huge backlash with the rest of the country. This might be the thing that does him in. He will be going into the next election with not just the last four years haunting him, but with a cloud of child rape hanging over his head. 

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This! They raped children. Not young women, by any stretch of the imagination. A child becomes a legal adult by the age of 18. But these girls were up to five years younger than that. 

Calling 13-year-old girls underage women only serves to make it seem what they did less pederastic, and diminishes the severity of their heinous acts. 

 

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25 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

This! They raped children. Not young women, by any stretch of the imagination. A child becomes a legal adult by the age of 18. But these girls were up to five years younger than that. 

Calling 13-year-old girls underage women only serves to make it seem what they did less pederastic, and diminishes the severity of their heinous acts. 

 

Also, it's really important to note that in FL the AOC is 18, so it's rape no matter what. Thus the people doing this can't argue tricky legal grey areas.

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"Epstein paid suspected co-conspirators, which prosecutors suggest may have been to ‘influence’ them"

Spoiler

Soon after The Miami Herald began reporting on his favorable treatment by law enforcement in an early 2000s sex crimes investigation, jet-setting financier Jeffrey Epstein paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to people investigators had identified as possible co-conspirators — payments which federal prosecutors alleged Friday might have been meant to influence them.

The allegation came in a court filing by federal prosecutors in New York, who recently arrested and charged Epstein with sexually abusing dozens of young girls from 2002 to 2005. The arrest set off a chain of events that led to the resignation Friday of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was the U.S. attorney in Miami during the earlier investigation of Epstein.

In seeking to keep the multimillionaire jailed pending trial, New York prosecutors argued Epstein had a history of trying to obstruct inquiries into his misdeeds, including those from journalists.

Prosecutors wrote they had obtained financial records showing that in November 2018, two days after the Herald reported on a favorable plea arrangement Epstein received years prior, Epstein wired $100,000 to someone identified as a possible co-conspirator in the case. Three days after that, he wired $250,000 to another person identified as a possible co-conspirator, prosecutors wrote.

“Neither of these payments appears to be recurring or repeating during the approximately five years of bank records presently available to the Government,” prosecutors wrote. “This course of action, and in particular its timing, suggests the defendant was attempting to further influence co-conspirators who might provide information against him in light of the recently re-emerging allegations.”

Epstein’s defense attorneys did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The suspected co-conspirators are not named, and prosecutors did not say in precisely what manner Epstein was trying to influence them .

Officials have credited the media with helping reignite the investigation into Epstein, who resolved the early 2000s sex crimes investigation by pleading guilty to two state charges and spending about 13 months in jail, with work-release privileges.

That arrangement, which had been widely criticized as too lenient, received new scrutiny this week after federal prosecutors in New York unsealed the sex trafficking charges against Epstein. Acosta, who approved the earlier deal, announced Friday he was stepping down as labor secretary amid the controversy.

Prosecutors’ filing Friday was a response to defense attorneys’ request that Epstein be let out on bail before his trial. The defense wrote in their court filing that Epstein was willing to put up his Manhattan mansion and private jet as collateral, agree to home confinement, GPS monitoring and to pay for 24/7 security. They said Epstein intends to vigorously challenge the allegations.

Prosecutors maintain Epstein remained a significant flight risk and a danger to the community.

They said they had recently obtained records from a financial institution showing he was worth “more than $500 million” and earns at least $10 million a year. Because of that, they wrote, “there would be little to stop the defendant from fleeing, transferring his unknown assets abroad, and then continuing to do whatever it is he does to earn his vast wealth from a computer terminal beyond the reach of extradition.”

Prosecutors wrote that, since the indictment was unsealed Monday, “several additional women, in multiple jurisdictions, have identified themselves to the Government as having been victimized by the defendant when they were minors,” and dozens had called to provide information.

Multiple victims or their lawyers, prosecutors wrote, had asked them to seek that Epstein stay locked up, believing that if allowed out, he might try to harass or abuse them. They noted Epstein “has history of obstruction and manipulation of witnesses, including, as detailed herein, as recently as within the past year, when media reports about his conduct reemerged.”

Within “recent months,” they wrote, Epstein “paid significant amounts of money to influence individuals who were close to him during the time period charged in this case and who might be witnesses against him at a trial.” Then they noted the payments made just after the Herald’s reporting.

Past police reports, prosecutors wrote, also seem to tie Epstein to obstructive efforts. One police report said a parent of one of Epstein’s victims was driven off the road by a private investigator, and another suggests an associate of Epstein’s was offering by “buy victims’ silence” during the previous investigation, prosecutors wrote.

“Indeed, the victim reported having been told: ‘Those who help him will be compensated and those who hurt him will be dealt with,’ ” prosecutors wrote.

 

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There's some good info in this op-ed: "This aspect of Jeffrey Epstein’s plea bargain has been largely overlooked"

Spoiler

Let’s separate the dramatic from the significant in the arrest and jailing of Jeffrey Epstein, mysterious multimillionaire, erstwhile friend of presidents and princes, registered sex offender.

Dramatic was the image of federal agents greeting Epstein’s private jet at Teterboro Airport, the taxiway of moguls and stars, to bundle the old goat off to the hoosegow. Equally cinematic was the nearly simultaneous scene of lawmen taking a crowbar to the towering wooden doors of Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.

Significant, on the other hand, was the safe found somewhere behind the splintered doors.

You see, while much has been written about the cushy and secretive plea bargain that spared Epstein what might have been a very long stay in prison for the alleged sexual abuse of teenage girls, one aspect of that agreement has been largely overlooked. Epstein agreed not to contest lawsuits filed by his victims. In the ensuing years, he reached untold dozens of settlements with women who were as young as 14 when he drew them into what has been called his sexual Ponzi scheme. In exchange for Epstein’s money, the women agreed to release him from any further responsibility for offenses against them “from the beginning of the world to the day of this release.”

(A rare instance of quotable legalese.)

To Epstein’s lawyers, those settlements armor their client against further prosecution. He has been charged in a new jurisdiction, New York instead of South Florida. He has been charged with a new crime, trafficking rather than solicitation . But the underlying behavior is the same skeevy stuff he papered over with payouts. This week’s drama is bringing out new, previously unknown allegations, but so far the main witnesses may be muted.

This is not exactly a bulletproof strategy. Just how much protection the settlements provide is up to the courts to say. But it’s the best available strategy — and here’s where the safe becomes significant.

All the millions that Epstein has paid out in settlements offer zero protection against prosecution for subsequent crimes. Locked inside that safe, according to investigators, were “hundreds, and perhaps thousands” of sexually suggestive photographs of young women, and at least some appeared to be minors. With that discovery, Epstein’s defense came crashing down.

Under federal law, it is illegal simply to possess any such pictures of anyone under the age of 18. “Transporting” such pictures “in interstate or foreign commerce” is punishable by up to 20 years in prison for a first offense. And get this: Simply by downloading his photos onto a compact disc manufactured overseas (which prosecutors say was labeled “girl pics nude”), Epstein likely satisfied the “foreign commerce” clause.

Of course, Epstein is not a first-timer. Penalties are more severe for a registered sex offender who possesses child pornography. And if Epstein was the photographer, or conspired with the photographer, or paid the photographer, he is in deeper trouble still. The reported contents of his safe strongly suggest that the 66-year-old Epstein will spend the rest of his life behind bars, despite those dozens of settlement agreements.

Significant.

But let’s stick with that safe and its contents a little longer. Suppose Epstein claims, as exploiters of teens so often do, that he thought the “nude” “girls” in the “pics” were of legal age. Doing so would open the door to rebuttal testimony from his victims, settlements or no. Indeed, all the details cloaked by the settlements might be judged relevant to Epstein’s subsequent possession of those pictures.

And by the way: If he believed the photos to be legal, why lock them away? Safes are for secrets.

I imagine Epstein’s legal team must wonder whether the crowbar-wielding feds knew in advance what they were going to find. In other words: Did they have an informant from Epstein’s inner circle who told them to look in the safe? It’s not hard to imagine his people starting to turn on him; the heat under Epstein has been rising for months, starting with an exposé of the shameful plea bargain by Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald.

And it’s only going to get hotter. The federal appeals court in New York recently decided to unseal nearly the entire record of a settled lawsuit involving the British heiress Ghislaine Maxwell and her alleged role in Epstein’s purported crimes. When released, those documents will add fuel to the media firestorm touched off by the tarmac arrest.

Stealth alone made the sweetheart deal possible. In fact, a court recently ruled that prosecutors broke the law by hiding the agreement from Epstein’s victims. But there’s no hiding from the glare of a full-on New York scandal.

As for Epstein’s pals — the politicians and movie stars, the plutocrats and professors who traveled or partied with him and his seemingly endless company of young companions — no doubt some of them are sweating, too. Trying to recall whether the cameras were ever pointed at them. Wondering whether their secrets were inside that safe.

 

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@Alisamer unfortunately I agree with you. If it were teenage boys, or pre-pubescent children then I think it would push Trump's base away from him but post-pubescent girls? Are regarded by some sections of the community as fair game, no matter what age they are because of their body development. The laws on child marriage in the US don't help with that - if it's legal to marry a 14 year old with judical/parental consent then some people would say "so what's the problem with having sex with them then?" Let alone 16 and 17 year olds who are above the legal age of consent. The other issues of unequal power and grooming don't seem to register at all with that group.

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I hadn't seen this in the previous reporting. This is awful.

 

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From the above article:

He was very generous to us. He was a private person, but so are so many comfortable wealthy people.”

That's kind of a long way above "comfortably" weathy IMHO.

"One victims’ attorney, Jack Scarola, recently told The Daily Beast: “Based upon the pattern of criminal activity at a very intense level, it’s highly unlikely that there is anywhere Jeffrey Epstein went that he did not leave victims in his wake.

In just that article there are two girls whose fathers had died when they were young, and who were singled out for more attention by Epstein. (One fortunately had a mother who basically thought the situation was creepy, and refused to let her 13yo daughter meet Epstein alone.) In this case... twice may or may not be a pattern, but it'd be interesting to see if still more come forward who fit that mould.

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