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METRO Manhattan DA sided with pedophile billionaire after botching investigation By Rebecca Rosenberg, Larry Celona, Susan Edelman and Isabel Vincent December 1, 2018 | 8:47pm | Updated Jeffrey Epstein The Manhattan DA's office once went to bat for billionaire pervert Jeffrey Epstein, after botching a review of his sex crimes and swallowing his lawyers’ claim that “there are no real victims here,” records obtained by the Post show. Assistant DA Jennifer Gaffney, then-deputy chief of Cyrus Vance Jr’s sex-crimes unit, in January 2011 asked a Manhattan judge to downgrade Epstein’s status in the New York sex-offender registry from the most-dangerous Level 3 to least-restrictive Level 1. The judge was stunned. “| have never seen the prosecutor’s office do anything like this,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ruth Pickholz toid Gaffney. “| have done many [cases] much less troubling than this one where [prosecutors] would never make a downward argument like this.” Pressed by the judge, Gaffney admitted that she never spoke to the Florida U.S. Attorney who handled a sprawling sex-crime investigation into the financier. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016462