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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 204-3 Filed 04/16/21 Page 186 of 348 2. The Evidence Does Not Establish That Acosta Negotiated a Deal Favorable to Epstein over Breakfast with Defense Counsel OPR separately considered the circumstances of one specific meeting that has been the subject of media attention and public criticism. The Miami Herald’s November 2018 reporting on the Epstein investigation opened with an account of the October 12, 2007 breakfast meeting that defense counsel Jay Lefkowitz arranged to have with Acosta at the West Palm Beach Marriott hotel. According to the Miami Herald article, “a deal was struck” at the meeting to allow Epstein to serve “just 13 months” in the county jail in exchange for the shuttering of the federal investigation, and Acosta also agreed to “conceal” the full extent of Epstein’s crimes from the victims and the public.7*4 Although public criticism of the meeting has focused on the fact that the meeting occurred in a hotel far from Acosta’s Miami office, the evidence shows that Acosta traveled to West Palm Beach on October 11 for a press event and stayed overnight at the hotel, near the USAO’s West Palm Beach office, because at midday on October 12 he was to speak at the Palm Beach County Bench Bar Conference. After carefully considering the evidence surrounding the breakfast meeting, including contemporaneous email communications and witness accounts, OPR concludes that Acosta did not negotiate the NPA, or make any significant concessions relating to it, during or as a result of the October breakfast meeting. Epstein and his attorneys signed the NPA on September 24, 2007—more than two weeks before the October 12 breakfast meeting. The signed NPA contained all of the key provisions resulting from the preceding weeks of negotiations between the parties, and despite a later addendum and ongoing disputes about interpreting the damages provision of the agreement, those key provisions remained in place thereafter. Acosta told OPR that throughout the negotiations with the defense, he sought three goals: (1) Epstein’s guilty plea in state court to an offense requiring registration as a sexual offender; (2) a sentence of imprisonment; and 3) a mechanism through which victims could obtain monetary damages from Epstein. As noted previously, the USAO’s original plea offer in Menchel’s August 3, 2007 letter expressed a “non-negotiable” demand that Epstein agree to a two-year term of imprisonment, and the final NPA required only an 18-month sentence, but the decision to reduce the required term of imprisonment from 24 to 18 months was made well before Acosta’s breakfast meeting with counsel. The NPA signed on September 24, 2007, required 18 months’ incarceration, sexual offender registration, and a mechanism for the victims to obtain monetary damages from Epstein, and OPR found that these terms were not abandoned or materially altered after the breakfast meeting. At the time of Acosta’s October breakfast meeting with Lefkowitz, two issues involving the NPA were in dispute. Neither of those issues was ultimately resolved in a way that materially changed the key provisions of the NPA. First, at Sloman’s instigation, the USAO sought to change the mechanism for appointing an attorney representative for the victims. This USAO-initiated request had prompted discussions about an “addendum” to the NPA. Sloman sent the text of a proposed NPA addendum to Lefkowitz on October 11, 2007.7*> Although OPR found no decisive 2a Julie K. Brown, “Perversion of Justice: How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime,” Miami Herald, Nov. 28, 2018. 235 In his December 19, 2007, letter to defense attorney Sanchez, Acosta represented that he had proposed the addendum at the breakfast meeting, but it is clear the addendum was being developed before then. 160 DOJ-OGR- 00003362