OAN’s Brooke Mallory
5:10 PM – Monday, July 1, 2024
The previously sealed grand jury materials in the 2008 criminal case of pedophile sex trafficker and financier Jeffrey Epstein have been made public by a Palm Beach County court.
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In 2006, two years before the case was closed following a “non-prosecution agreement,” a 16-year-old girl testified in the records that, at the age of 14, she was persuaded and ultimately tricked into going to Epstein’s Palm Beach estate by an older acquaintance of his, where Epstein promised that she would be paid $200 for a forty-minute massage.
“The teenagers testified and told detectives they were also paid cash or rented cars if they found him more girls,” ABC News reported.
However, the massages quickly turned sexual, and the girl was not informed by Epstein nor his business affiliates that massage clients were expecting more than just a massage.
Rather than charging Epstein with felony assault, as police had anticipated, the grand jury ultimately indicted him on two lesser prostitution counts, despite the Palm Beach Police Department having presented a case with at least two dozen identical victims.
It was unclear at the time why the grand jury did not seem to take into account that the vast majority of these victims were clearly underage, making the case much more serious than a typical prostitution case. However, many have argued that Epstein only escaped incarceration and significant prison time for more than ten years due to his connections to the affluent and influential.
According to Florida law, grand jury documents are not allowed to be released, so it also remains unclear what prompted the minor charges that reportedly confused police officers who had been aware of his vile and shady business dealings at the time.
Before Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis signed an order to release the information by July 1st, the records were sealed for sixteen years. Transcripts and records were made available by Judge Luis Delgado.
“The details in the record will be outrageous to decent people,” Judge Delgado wrote. “The testimony taken by the Grand Jury concerns activity ranging from grossly unacceptable to rape — all of the conduct at issue is sexually deviant, disgusting, and criminal.”
Note: *OAN digital content writers will be reading over the transcripts and will report the key findings at a later date.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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