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DOJ-OGR-00003456
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(4) During court proceedings, a responsible official shall ensure that a victim is provided a
waiting area removed from and out of
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1. Responsible Officials. For cases in which charges have been instituted, the responsible
official is the U.S. Attorney in whose
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service providers, and lists the names and telephone numbers of the victim-witness
coordinator or specialist and other key officia
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B. The Victims’ Rights and Restitution Act of 1990 (VRRA), 34 U.S.C. § 20141,
Services to Victims (formerly cited as 42 USCA § 106
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victims deserve to be treated with fairness and respect, and to be conferred with on the criminal
case, not just because the CVRA
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CHAPTER THREE
PART TWO: APPLICABLE STANDARDS
I. STATUTORY PROVISIONS
Pertinent sections of the CVRA and the VRRA, applicable du
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F. 2010 - 2011: Department and Congressional Actions Regarding
Interpretation of the CVRA
In connection with the Department’s 201
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obligated to amend her prior letter to victims to correct the reference to the December letter.*”°
Accordingly, the September lett
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18 U.S.C. § 2255 and again listing the 32 “individuals whom the United States was prepared to
name as victims of an enumerated off
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no federal charges filed against Epstein as a result of the government’s agreement in mid-2007 to
defer prosecution to the state.”
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[M]y expectation of what was going [to] happen at the plea was that
it would be like a federal plea where there would be a factual
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if you have additional questions which invelve this matter, please coniact the office listed above, When
you call, please provide
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have “notified [the victims] that that was an all-encompassing plea, that that state court sentence
would also mean that the feder
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informed victims “of their right to collect damages prior to a thorough investigation of their
allegations against Mr. Epstein”:
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in Courtroom 11F at the Palm Beach County Courthouse, 205 North
Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach, Florida. Pursuant to Florida
Statu
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her a victim for purposes of the federal charges, and continued to treat her as a victim because she
wanted “to go above and beyon
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she would inform victims of the terms of the resolution of the federal case, including Epstein’s
agreement to plead guilty to stat
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NPA.*!° The FBI reports of the victim interviews do not mention the NPA or indicate that the
victims were asked for their input re
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and thanking Acosta for agreeing on October 12, 2007, not to “contact any of the identified
individuals, potential witnesses, or p
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A. September — October 2007: The Case Agents Notify Some Victims about the
NPA, but Stop When the Case Agent Becomes Concerned abo
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2. Villafafiia Asserts That Her Supervisors Gave Instructions Not to
Consult Victims about the Plea Discussions, but Her Superviso
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various iterations of the victims’ rights legislation.”** Villafafia explained to OPR her reference
to the victims:
[M]y concern
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questions,” she wanted to “make sure that they .. . feel like they can trust me.” Villafafia directed
the FBI case agents to hand
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[A]s Chief of the Criminal Division of the USAO, I did not consider
it to be within my purview to ensure that appropriate victim
n
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government informed any victim about the potential for resolving the federal investigation through
a state plea.
A. The Case Agen
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for some victims, learning of the Epstein investigation and possible
exposure of their identities caused them emotional distress.
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[f you have additional questions which involve this matier, please contact the office listed above. When
you call, please provide
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OLC concluded that because the CVRA defines “‘crime victim’ as a ‘person directly and
proximately harmed by the commission of a Fe
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CHAPTER THREE
ISSUES RELATING TO THE GOVERNMENT?’S INTERACTIONS
AND COMMUNICATIONS WITH VICTIMS
PART ONE: FACTUAL BACKGROUND
I.
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from Villafafia and others, but given the highly unusual procedure being considered, his decision
should have been made only after
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managers required more effort than in other offices, where a line AUSA can more easily just stop
by a supervisor’s office to discu
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DOJ-OGR-00003390
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the defendant faced decades in prison for sexual crimes against minors with such an insignificant
term of incarceration, and made
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indictment. Given Epstein’s continued insistence that federal charges were not appropriate and
defense counsel’s efforts to minimi
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the federal investigation in exchange for a plea in state court to a charge that carried a two-year
sentence. The FBI co-case agen
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The sexual offender registration provision is yet another example of how Acosta’s decision
to create an unorthodox mechanism that
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depart from the Ashcroft Memo. He told OPR, however, that he did not recall discussing the
Ashcroft Memo with his colleagues and n
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Notably, in the early 2000s, the Department had begun pursuing specific initiatives to combat child
sex trafficking, including Pro
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[The prosecution] was going forward on the part of the state, and so
here is the big bad federal government stepping on a sovereig
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investigation. Media reports in mid-2009 suggested Epstein was released from his state
incarceration “early” because he was assis
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proof that this led to the breakfast meeting, email exchanges between Lefkowitz and Acosta show
that it was under discussion at th
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The meeting of USAO representatives and Epstein’s defense attorneys, together with the
State Attorney and the lead state prosecuto
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OPR explored the subject supervisors’ reasoning for accommodating the defense requests
for in-person meetings and whether such acc
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Menchel told OPR that when he and Sanchez were in the USAO, they had a social
relationship, which included, in 2003, “a handful of
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friendships or associations with any of Epstein’s attorneys. In fact, Menchel told OPR that he and
his USAO colleagues viewed Epst
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[O]ne of the issues in the case was the . . . defense’s ability to
describe the case or characterize the case as being legally com
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d[id]n’t want to have to relive what happened to them.””!’ The co-case agent told OPR that one
of the “strategies” for dealing wit
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record, no restitution, no sex offender status, publication at a trial of
the names of certain victims that didn’t want their name