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Extracted Text (OCR)
Case 1:19-cr-00490-RMB Document11_ Filed 07/12/19 Page 12 of 14
Honorable Richard M. Berman
United States District Judge
July 12, 2019
Page 12
IV. The Defendant Raises Legal Arguments Not Relevant Here
Finally, the defendant raises certain legal arguments he contends he will litigate at the
appropriate stage and which he further suggests mitigate in favor of bail. None is meritorious, and
certainly none should give the Court any comfort whatsoever that the defendant would, if granted
bail, refrain from fleeing so he could attempt to vindicate himself via dubious legal strategies.
Nevertheless, the Government will address the defendant’s arguments briefly in turn.
A. The Non-Prosecution Agreement Does Not Preclude Prosecution
As an initial matter, as the Court itself noted at the parties’ initial appearance earlier this
week, and as the defendant appears to concede, the instant Indictment charges conduct well beyond
the scope of the NPA -— that is, alleged conduct that occurred here in New York and involving New
York based victims. D. Tr. 6-8; Release Motion at 2. For present purposes, that alone is sufficient
to put this issue to rest, because even assuming the defendant were to mount a meritorious
challenge to the NPA, he would still have to stand trial on Count Two of the Indictment and
additional charges brought based on New York conduct.
But more generally, the reasons the defendant can be prosecuted in the Southern District
of New York—or anywhere else outside the SDFL—are manifold. The language of the NPA
overwhelmingly refers to the SDFL, and the core terms and text of the agreement are limited to
the SDFL. The prefatory language states: “THEREFORE, on the authority of R. Alexander
Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, prosecution in this District for
these offenses shall be deferred in favor of prosecution by the State of Florida.”’ The final
paragraph of the prefatory language also states, among other things, that after fulfilling the terms
of the agreement, “no prosecution for the [sex abuse] offenses set out on pages 1 and 2 of this
Agreement, nor any other offenses that have been the subject of the joint investigation by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney’s Office, nor any offenses that
arose from the Federal Grand Jury investigation will be instituted in this District.”
In its terms section, the NPA further states that Epstein’s signature “is not to be construed
as an admission of civil or criminal liability or a waiver of any jurisdictional or other defense” as
to any victim whose identity was not disclosed by SDFL to Epstein, as provided for in the NPA,
and additionally states that neither Epstein’s signature nor any resulting waivers or civil
settlements “are to be construed as admissions or evidence of civil or criminal liability or a waiver
of any jurisdictional or other defense as to any person.” These provisions show the parties
contemplated possible criminal prosecutions in other jurisdictions and/or based on victims not
initially identified in the Florida investigations (whether in Florida or elsewhere). The final
substantive paragraph of the NPA states that “Epstein hereby requests that the United States
Attorney for the Southern District of Florida defer [. . .] prosecution.”
It is well settled in the Second Circuit that “a plea agreement in one U.S. Attorney’s office
does not, unless otherwise stated, bind another.” United States v. Prisco, 391 F. App’x 920, 921
T All emphases relating to the NPA are added unless otherwise specified.
DOJ-OGR-00000340
Extracted Information
Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00000340.jpg |
| File Size | 1136.2 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.8% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 3,613 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 16:00:23.035501 |