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Case 22-1426, Document 78, A394 3536039, Page40 of 217 Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 204-3 Filed 04/16/21 Page 294 of 348 particular charges and victims at issue. Once the hearing was scheduled, Sloman told Villafafia to contact PBPD Chief Reiter about notifying the victims, and on June 28, 2008, she reported back to Sloman that Reiter “is going to notify victims about the plea.”*'* Villafafia recalled that she sent Reiter a list of the girls identified as victims during the federal investigation, and Reiter said he would “contact as many as he could.” The contemporaneous records do not show how many or which victims, if any, Reiter contacted, and no victims were present in the courtroom. No victim who provided information to OPR, either in person or through her attorney, recalled receiving notice of the plea hearing from federal or state officials. At the time Epstein pled guilty in state court, no one in the USAO knew exactly who, if anyone, Reiter or the State Attorney’s Office had notified about the proceeding. Accordingly, Villafafia, who was present in the courtroom for the hearing, had no knowledge to whom Belohlavek referred when she told the court that the victims were “in agreement with the terms of this plea.”*”” OPR considered whether Acosta’s decision to defer to the State Attorney’s Office the decision to notify victims of the scheduled date for Epstein’s plea hearing constituted professional misconduct. OPR could not conclude that the CVRA or VRRA provisions in question, requiring notice of any public proceeding involving the crime against the victim or that the victim is entitled to attend, unambiguously required federal prosecutors to notify victims of state court proceedings. Furthermore, as discussed previously, OLC had issued guidance stating that the CVRA did not apply to cases in which no federal charges had been filed.*”° Moreover, the section of the VRRA requiring notice of court proceedings that the victim is “entitled to attend” referred specifically to proceedings under 42 U.S.C. § 10606(b)(4), which, at the time of the Epstein case, had become part of the CVRA (18 U.S.C. § 3771 (a)(2)).77" Because Acosta had no clear or unambiguous duty to inform victims identified in the federal investigation of the state plea hearing, OPR concludes that his decision to defer to the State Attorney the decision to notify victims of the state’s plea hearing and the responsibility for doing so did not constitute professional misconduct.*” 418 Sloman replied, “Good.” In her written response to OPR, Villafafia stated, “I requested permission to make oral notifications to the victims regarding the upcoming change of plea, but the Office decided that victim notification could only come from a state investigator, and Jeff Sloman asked PBPD Chief Reiter to assist.” 419 Plea Hearing Transcript at 42. 420 OLC 2005 CVRA Informal Guidance; see also United States v. Guevara-Toloso, No. 04-1455, 2005 WL 1210982, at *2 (E.D.N.Y. May 23, 2005) (in case involving a federal charge of illegal entry after a felony conviction, the court determined that victims of the predicate state conviction were not victims under the CVRA). 421 In Wild, the Eleventh Circuit panel noted that the petitioner argued “only in passing” that the government violated her CVRA right “to reasonable, accurate, and timely notice of any public court proceeding . . . involving the crime”; however, the court concluded this provision “clearly applies] only after the initiation of criminal proceedings.” Wild, 955 F.3d at 1205 n.7, 1208. see The government’s letter to victims, following Epstein’s guilty pleas, informing them of the resolution of the case by state plea and the availability of § 2255 relief, also appear to satisfy the potentially applicable VRRA requirements to “inform a victim of any restitution or other relief to which the victim may be entitled,” and to “provide a victim the earliest possible notice of the status of the investigation of the crime, to the extent it is appropriate to 268 DOJ-OGR-00021470