This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/us/politics/alex-acosta-press-conference.html

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Acosta Defends His Role in Brokering Jeffrey Epstein Plea Deal Acosta Defends His Role in Brokering Jeffrey Epstein Plea Deal
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Labor Secretary R. Alexander Acosta on Wednesday publicly defended his role in overseeing the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein on sex crimes charges in Florida over a decade ago, bucking a growing chorus of Democratic calls for his resignation. WASHINGTON — Labor Secretary R. Alexander Acosta on Wednesday defended his handling of the sex crimes prosecution of the financier Jeffrey Epstein in Florida more than a decade ago, bucking a growing chorus of Democratic resignation calls while effectively making the case to President Trump to keep his job.
Mr. Acosta said he had faced a tough choice between accepting a plea deal that was not as tough as he wished and going to trial with witnesses who were scared to testify, in what he described as “a roll of the dice” that might not have resulted in a conviction and prison term. At a televised news conference watched intently in the White House, Mr. Acosta offered a clinical explanation of the 2008 plea deal, arguing that he overrode state authorities to ensure that Mr. Epstein would face jail time and that holding out for a stiffer sentence by going to trial would have been “a roll of the dice.”
“I wanted to help them,” Mr. Acosta said of the victims during a nationally televised news conference at the Labor Department headquarters. “That is why we intervened. And that’s what the prosecutors of my office did — they insisted that he go to jail and put the world on notice that he was and is a sexual predator.” “I wanted to help them,” Mr. Acosta, who was the top federal prosecutor in Miami at the time, said of the victims during an hourlong session with reporters at the Labor Department. “That is why we intervened. And that’s what the prosecutors of my office did — they insisted that he go to jail and put the world on notice that he was and is a sexual predator.”
Mr. Acosta’s appearance before cameras was seen as a crucial test of whether he will keep his job, with an audience of one as President Trump watched and weighed a decision. Mr. Acosta said he had spoken with Mr. Trump and believed he had his backing. His comments did little to quell the furor over the deal, which has come under renewed scrutiny since Mr. Epstein was charged on Monday in New York with running a sex-trafficking operation that lured dozens of girls, some as young as 14, to his Upper East Side home and to a mansion in Palm Beach, Fla. Lawyers for some of the victims and the former Palm Beach prosecutor accused Mr. Acosta of rewriting history.
“My relationship with the president is outstanding,” he said. “He has very publicly made clear that I’ve got his support.” While condemning Mr. Epstein’s “horrific” crimes, Mr. Acosta offered no apologies nor did he channel the visceral outrage felt by many critics. Instead, he offered a measured, nuanced defense unusual for an administration in which attack-the-attacker bombast is more common while suggesting that times had changed in a way that made his compromise a decade ago look different.
Mr. Acosta also denied that Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, had suggested he be forced out. “Today we know a lot more about how victims’ trauma impacts their testimony,” he said. “Our juries are more accepting of contradictory statements, understand that memories work differently. And today our judges do not allow victim shaming by defense attorneys.”
But while expressing empathy for the victims and applauding the new prosecution in New York, Mr. Acosta declined an opportunity to apologize or offer regrets for the decision he made back then. For Mr. Acosta, the real question was how his defense would go over with the president, who urged him to publicly explain his decisions as a prosecutor. Mr. Trump was assured by aides that Mr. Acosta did well during his news conference, and the president did not immediately signal disagreement, advisers said. But the case is acutely uncomfortable for Mr. Trump, who at one point in the past socialized with Mr. Epstein, a fellow denizen of wealthy circles in Palm Beach and Manhattan.
“Look, no regrets is a very hard question,” he said. “You always look back and you say, ‘What if?’” He added: “We did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail. He needed to go to jail. He needed to go to jail. And that was the focus.” The White House made no official statement, and Mr. Trump’s Twitter account remained silent on the matter in the hours after the news conference.
Mr. Acosta was serving as the United States attorney for the southern district of Florida when he brokered a sentence that resulted in Mr. Epstein serving 13 months in jail after being accused of sexually abusing dozens of young women and girls. Mr. Acosta expressed confidence that he still had Mr. Trump’s backing and rejected reports that Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, had suggested he be forced out. “My relationship with the president is outstanding,” he said. “He has very publicly made clear that I’ve got his support.”
In February, the Justice Department opened an investigation into the handling of that case, and Mr. Epstein was indicted on Monday by the United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, on child sex trafficking charges. The political drama played out as another woman came forward to accuse Mr. Epstein of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager. The woman, Jennifer Araoz, who had not previously been identified as a victim, told NBC News that she was approached outside her Upper East Side high school in 2001, when she was 14, by a woman who then took her to Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan home.
In recent days, Mr. Acosta has weathered calls for his resignation from Democratic leaders, even as Mr. Trump has defended him. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump told reporters gathered at the White House that he felt “badly” for Mr. Acosta, but added that his administration would look into the handling of the matter “very carefully.” Over the next year, she said, she was enticed to give Mr. Epstein massages in her underwear while he masturbated. Eventually, she said, he raped her when she was 15.
Behind the scenes, Mr. Trump has been closely following the news coverage surrounding the Epstein case, and he has faced new scrutiny over his own personal relationship with Mr. Epstein, also a Palm Beach fixture. “He raped me — forcefully raped me,” Ms. Araoz said. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”
The latest charges, along with the discovery of hundreds of nude images of young women or girls at Mr. Epstein’s New York residence, have created an angry public debate that has severely called into question Mr. Acosta’s past work to broker an initial plea deal. Her lawyer, Kimberly Lerner, said Ms. Araoz had not talked to federal prosecutors and was not one of the women included in the indictment.
The Miami Herald, which revealed the details of the plea deal in February and has called for Mr. Acosta to resign, persuaded several women who were abused as girls or young women to talk. The charges filed against Mr. Epstein on Monday, along with the discovery of hundreds of nude images of young women or girls at his New York residence, have created an angry public debate over Mr. Acosta’s role in the original plea deal.
At his news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Acosta said he decided to intervene in what had been a state case because Mr. Epstein was going to get away without any time behind bars. He said some of the victims were traumatized and refused to testify, and that others actually exonerated Mr. Epstein. Mr. Acosta was serving as the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida when he brokered the agreement that resulted in Mr. Epstein pleading guilty in state court and serving 13 months in jail without facing federal charges after being accused of sexually abusing dozens of young women and girls.
“These cases, as I’ve said, are hard. They require a prosecutor to ask whether a plea that guarantees jail time and guarantees registration, to ask whether that plea versus going to trial,” Mr. Acosta said, mentioning Mr. Epstein’s registration as a sex offender. “How do you weigh those two if going to trial is viewed as a roll of the dice? The goal here was straightforward — put Epstein behind bars, ensure that he registers as a sexual offender.” Mr. Acosta said he intervened in the case because state authorities were pursuing a single charge that would not have resulted in Mr. Epstein being jailed or having to register as a sex offender. “Simply put, the Palm Beach state attorney’s office was willing to let Epstein walk free, no jail time, nothing,” Mr. Acosta said.
He explained the late notification of the victims by saying that it was unclear that Mr. Epstein would abide by the agreement and that prosecutors feared defense attorneys would use an effort by victims to recover restitution to undermine their credibility. But he said he chose not to go to trial because victims were “scared and traumatized,” and in some cases refusing to testify and in others even exonerating Mr. Epstein. “How do you weigh those two if going to trial is viewed as a roll of the dice?” he said. “The goal here was straightforward: put Epstein behind bars, ensure that he registers as a sexual offender.”
Mr. Acosta said that times have changed, and that juries today are more understanding of victims in such cases. “Today our judges do not allow victim shaming by defense attorneys,” he said, and added that outrage by the victims was “entirely appropriate.” Barry E. Krischer, who at the time served as Palm Beach state attorney, responded to Mr. Acosta’s news conference on Wednesday with a scathing rebuke, accusing the labor secretary of trying to “rewrite history” by blaming state authorities.
“The point I’m trying to make is everything that the victims have gone through in these cases is horrific, and their response is entirely justified,” Mr. Acosta said. “At the same time, I think it’s important to stand up for the prosecutors of my former office and make clear that what they were trying to do was help these victims.” “I can emphatically state that Mr. Acosta’s recollection of this matter is completely wrong,” Mr. Krischer said.
Mr. Acosta has privately reached out to allies for help handling the public relations debacle and inquired about potential post-government work should he be forced out, according to two people familiar with the matter. He said a grand jury heard all of the evidence available at the time and returned a single count of felony solicitation of prostitution, but Mr. Acosta’s office later abandoned its own 53-page indictment after secret negotiations with Mr. Epstein’s lawyers.
In the end, Mr. Trump — who has dealt with harsh criticism engulfing several of his cabinet aides before — signaled that it was up to Mr. Acosta to defend himself, according to several White House officials familiar with that discussion. “No matter how my office resolved the state charges, the U.S. attorney’s office always had the ability to file its own federal charges,” Mr. Krischer said. “If Mr. Acosta was truly concerned with the state’s case and felt he had to rescue the matter, he would have moved forward with the 53-page indictment that his own office drafted.”
In a sign that congressional Democrats are seeking to increase pressure on Mr. Acosta, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the chair of the Oversight and Reform Committee, sent a letter to the labor secretary Wednesday afternoon, requesting that he testify before the committee later this month about his decision to authorize a nonprosecution agreement for Mr. Epstein. A federal judge ruled in February that the agreement brokered by Mr. Acosta violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act by not notifying Mr. Epstein’s victims until later.
Mr. Acosta said on Wednesday that his office delayed telling victims because it was not sure Mr. Epstein would go through with the agreement, which included a provision allowing victims to seek financial restitution. If Mr. Epstein had gone to trial rather than pleading guilty, Mr. Acosta said, defense lawyers could have undercut the credibility of the victims by suggesting they were only in it for the money.
Asked if he had any regrets, Mr. Acosta said, “Look, no regrets is a very hard question. You always look back and you say, ‘What if?’” He added: “We did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail. He needed to go to jail. He needed to go to jail. And that was the focus.”
Lawyers for some of the victims sharply disputed Mr. Acosta’s account on Wednesday.
“Unbelievable,” said Spencer Kuvin, a lawyer who represented three of the women. “Ignoring the facts of what actually occurred 12 years ago. Doing his best to put a good light on a bad deal.”
Adam Horowitz, a lawyer who represented seven of the victims, said that Mr. Acosta’s arguments were disingenuous. He acknowledged that the young women were scared to testify, but said that that was because prosecutors had terrified them.
“The prosecutors were saying, ‘These defense lawyers are going to go through your whole personal life, dig up your bad acts and your sex life,’” Mr. Horowitz said. “When they heard that from prosecutors, sure they were intimidated. They kept saying, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’”
Mr. Horowitz added: “The big picture is he was really shifting blame to the state prosecutors and to the career professional and distancing himself from it, but at the same time saying it was the best deal under the circumstances.”
Mr. Acosta has privately reached out to political allies for help handling the public relations debacle and inquired about potential postgovernment work should he be forced out, according to two people familiar with the matter.
But in the end, Mr. Trump — who has dealt with harsh criticism engulfing several of his cabinet aides before — signaled that it was up to Mr. Acosta to defend himself, according to several White House officials familiar with that discussion.
In a sign that congressional Democrats are seeking to increase pressure on Mr. Acosta, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, sent a letter to the labor secretary on Wednesday afternoon, requesting that he testify about the case before the committee this month.
“Your testimony is even more critical now that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York unsealed a new indictment earlier this week outlining a host of additional charges against Mr. Epstein,” Mr. Cummings said in the letter, “including luring dozens of teenage girls to his homes in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida, and paying them to engage in sexual activity with him.”“Your testimony is even more critical now that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York unsealed a new indictment earlier this week outlining a host of additional charges against Mr. Epstein,” Mr. Cummings said in the letter, “including luring dozens of teenage girls to his homes in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida, and paying them to engage in sexual activity with him.”
A handful of Mr. Trump’s allies are not so sure that he will remain supportive of Mr. Acosta as the news coverage continues. Chris Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax and a confidant of the president’s, said in a CNN interview on Tuesday evening that administration officials who have encountered the sort of coverage that Mr. Acosta has attracted generally do not last long.
“My experience with Donald Trump is if he sees somebody is a bad apple,” Mr. Ruddy said, “he will stay as far away from that person as possible.”