Billionaire Financier Jeffrey Epstein Arrested on Sex Trafficking Charges

New York financier was convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from an underage girl

jeffrey epstein
Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department

Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on Saturday and charged with sex trafficking by federal prosecutors under a sealed indictment, the New York Times reported.

Epstein was taken into federal custody and expected to appear in court on Monday to face at least two charges, one count of sex trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, CBS Miami reported.

According to the Daily Beast, which first reported his arrest, Epstein has been accused of paying cash to dozens of underage girls as young as 14 for “massages” and then molesting or sexually abusing them between 1999 and 2005. Authorities have said that many of the underage girls were runaways and foster children and that Epstein asked some to recruit others.

A rep for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York declined to comment; Epstein’s attorney Martin Weinberg did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In 2008, the former hedge fund manager and Bill Clinton mega-donor brokered a much criticized plea deal to avoid federal criminal charges, pleading to lesser charges of soliciting sex from an underage girl. He served 13 months in a county lockup in Palm Beach, Florida, and registered as a sex offender.

The plea deal was signed by Alexander Acosta, then Miami’s head federal prosecutor and now labor secretary in the Trump administration.

 

 

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