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108a point, Sloman left on vacation, and he informed Acosta and Villafafia that in his absence Lourie had agreed “to help finalize this.” Lourie spent the following work week at his new post at the Department in Washington, D.C., but communicated with his USAO colleagues by phone and email. In a Sunday, September 16, 2007 email, Villafafia informed Lefkowitz that she had drafted a factual proffer to accompany a revised “hybrid” federal plea proposal. In that email, Villafafia also noted that she was considering filing charges in the federal district court in Miami, “which will hopefully cut the press coverage significantly.” This email received considerable attention 12 years later when it was made public during the CVRA litigation and was viewed as evidence of the USAO’s efforts to conceal the NPA from the victims. Villafafia, however, explained to OPR that she was concerned that news media coverage would violate the victims’ privacy. She told OPR, “(If [the victims] wanted to attend [the plea hearing], I wanted them to be able to go into the courthouse without their faces being splashed all over the newspaper,” and that such publicity was less likely to happen in Miami, where the press “in general does not care about what happens in Palm Beach.” Lefkowitz responded to Villafafia with a revised version of her latest proposed “hybrid” plea agreement, in a document entitled “Agreement.” Significantly, this defense proposal introduced two new provisions. The first related to four female assistants who had weekend|[s], and while I was [away from the office for personal reasons], ... and this occurred during a time when out of office access to email was very limited.” Records show her supervisors were aware that at times she used her personal email account in communicating with defense counsel in this case. DOJ-OGR-00000171