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AGIAN Case 1:19-cv-O887 7-H ERRFER MEER: “Fae GO HFEG/I9S Neo agis met 3 Jeffrey Epstein’s Attorneys: A Fair Plea Deal The attorneys for a man accused of sexual abuse of young women defend the prosecutors’ decision to drop federal charges against him. March 4, 2019 To the Editor: Re “The Cowardly Labor Secretary” (editorial, March 3): Your editorial’s conclusions are in profound conflict with the reality as we, Jeffrey Epstein’s current and former lawyers, knew it. When he was United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida in 2007, Alexander Acosta, the current labor secretary, oversaw a plea deal for Mr. Epstein involving charges of solicitation of prostitution involving young women. Your underlying premise is that Mr. Acosta had capitulated and not filed federal charges because Mr. Epstein had a “high-priced defense team.” This was categorically denied by the Southern District’s then first assistant, Jeffrey H. Sloman, in an Op-Ed article in The Miami Herald on Feb. 15. Mr. Sloman correctly represented the existence of “significant legal impediments to [federally] prosecuting” what was a quintessentially state case. He also correctly represented that the government had achieved its principal objectives — a felony plea, incarceration, millions of dollars in restitution and monetary settlements, and lifetime sex offender registration — through its agreement with Mr. Epstein. That agreement was reviewed at multiple levels of the Justice Department. An agreement rather than a trial is how over 97 percent of federal cases get resolved, through negotiations by two teams of experienced professionals. The case lacked the credible and compelling proof that is required by federal criminal statutes. That the guilty plea was required in a state, not federal, court reflected the absence of evidence that Mr. Epstein used the internet, traveled to a location away from his home for the purpose of having illegal sex, commercially trafficked women to others, engaged in force, fraud or coercion, used drugs or alcohol to entice young women who came to his house to exchange sexual massages for money, possessed child pornography or in other ways violated federal law. https:/Awww.nytimes.com/201 9/03/04/opinion/letters/jeffrey-epstein.html 1/2 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018020