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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 204-3 Filed 04/16/21 Page 5 of 348 Soon after he was incarcerated, Epstein applied for the Palm Beach County Sheriffs work release program, and the Sheriff approved his application. In October 2008, Epstein began spending 12 hours a day purportedly working at the “Florida Science Foundation,” an entity Epstein had recently incorporated that was co-located at the West Palm Beach office of one of Epstein’s attorneys. Although the NPA specified a term of incarceration of 18 months, Epstein received “gain time,” that is, time off for good behavior, and he actually served less than 13 months of incarceration. On July 22, 2009, Epstein was released from custody to a one-year term of home detention as a condition of community control, and he registered as a sexual offender with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. After victims and news media filed suit in Florida courts for release of the copy of the NPA that had been filed under seal in the state court file, a state judge in September 2009 ordered it to be made public. By mid-2010, Epstein reportedly settled multiple civil lawsuits brought against him by victims seeking monetary damages, including the two petitioners in the CVRA litigation. During the CVRA litigation, the petitioners sought discovery from the USAO, which made substantial document productions, filed lengthy privilege logs in support of its withholding of documents, and submitted declarations from the AUSA and the FBI case agents who conducted the federal investigation. The USAO opposed efforts to unseal various records, as did Epstein, who was permitted to intervene in the litigation with respect to certain issues. Nevertheless, the court ultimately ordered that substantial records relating to the USAO’s resolution of the Epstein case be made public. During the course of the litigation, the court made numerous rulings interpreting the CVRA. After failed efforts to settle the case, the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment remained pending for more than a year. In 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Acosta to be Secretary of Labor. At his March 2017 confirmation hearing, Acosta was questioned only briefly about the Epstein case. On April 17, 2017, the Senate confirmed Acosta’s appointment as Labor Secretary. In the decade following his release from incarceration, Epstein reportedly continued to settle multiple civil suits brought by many, but not all, of his victims. Epstein was otherwise able to resume his lavish lifestyle, largely avoiding the interest of the press. On November 28, 2018, however, the Miami Herald published an extensive investigative report about state and federal criminal investigations initiated more than 12 years earlier into allegations that Epstein had coerced girls into engaging in sexual activity with him at his Palm Beach estate.* The Miami Herald reported that in 2007, Acosta entered into an “extraordinary” deal with Epstein in the form of the NPA, which permitted Epstein to avoid federal prosecution and a potentially lengthy prison sentence by pleading guilty in state court to “two prostitution charges.” According to the Miami Herald, the government also immunized from prosecution Epstein’s co-conspirators and concealed from Epstein’s victims the terms of the NPA. Through its reporting, which included interviews of eight victims and information from publicly available documents, the newspaper painted a portrait of federal and state prosecutors who had ignored serious criminal conduct by a wealthy man with powerful and politically connected friends by granting him a “deal of a lifetime” that allowed him both to escape significant punishment for his past conduct and to continue his 3 Julie K. Brown, “Perversion of Justice,” Miami Herald, Nov. 28, 2018. https://www.miamiherald.com/ news/local/article220097825 html. ill DOJ-OGR-00003181