The New Yorker:

The convicted sex offender is raising an important legal question—about whether an agreement by one federal prosecutor binds his colleagues across the country.

By Jeannie Suk Gersen

The Supreme Court has been busy during its summer break, issuing decisions on emergency petitions that have enabled President Donald Trump to gut the Department of Education, deport people to South Sudan, and fire swaths of federal employees and agency heads. The Justices have so far kept clear of the revival of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which has managed to wobble the maga movement’s support for Trump—but, when they return to considering ordinary petitions this fall, one awaits that invites them into the matter. The petition is from Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted, in 2021, of federal crimes related to enabling Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls, and who was then sentenced to twenty years in prison. She maintains that the federal government’s non-prosecution agreement with Epstein gave her immunity, and so her convictions must be thrown out. And, amazingly enough, she has a point.

Recall that, back in 2007, when Epstein was being federally investigated for sex trafficking of minors, he agreed to plead guilty to state-law crimes and serve an eighteen-month prison sentence in Florida. In exchange, Alex Acosta, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, promised that his office would not prosecute Epstein for the federal crimes under investigation. The wider Epstein scandal that blew up in 2018 was triggered by new reporting about that sweetheart deal, including the government’s failure to inform his victims about the non-prosecution agreement at the time, and the extent of Epstein’s predations. Julie K. Brown, of the Miami Herald, identified about eighty possible victims. Epstein had ended up serving only thirteen months, including time in the Palm Beach County jail, work release, and house arrest. In the wake of significant public outcry about the case, which became an element of the #MeToo movement, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted Epstein for sex trafficking in 2019. Epstein died while in federal custody—the Justice Department concluded that he killed himself—before he could pursue a challenge to the indictment or proceed to trial.

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