Transcript: 2 years before deal, prosecutors knew about Epstein's rape of teenage girls

A Florida judge dropped a bombshell 150-page transcript related to a 2006 grand jury investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, revealing that prosecutors held onto knowledge that Epstein sexually abused underaged girls.

Per the transcripts, the deal between Epstein and prosecutors came two years after they learned that Epstein raped teenage girls, and resulted in minimal punishments for the billionaire human trafficker, who went on to continue to sexually exploit children until his death in 2019.

"Details in the record will be outrageous to decent people,” Judge Luis Delgado wrote, releasing the filings after a 2024 Florida law made it legal to do so for transcripts related to Epstein.

The 2008 charges came down to a count of solicitation of prostitution from a minor, despite investigators’ knowledge of Epstein’s pattern of behavior, including numerous incidents of rape.

The filing, which itself further unveils prosecutorial missteps that enabled Epstein’s later conduct, came years after the lenient, and delayed, sentence was criticized.

“The story of how Jeffrey Epstein victimized some of Palm Beach County’s most vulnerable has been the subject of much anger and has at times diminished the public’s perception of the criminal justice system,” Delgado wrote.

As Florida’s Southern District Attorney, Alex Acosta, the former Secretary of Labor under Donald Trump, approved a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in 2008, despite prosecutors’ knowledge of the rapes.

Acosta, who also served as a clerk for Samuel Alito, left the Trump administration in scandal after details emerged outlining his botched prosecution of the prolific trafficker.

At the time, then-President Trump emphasized that the decision “was him — not me.”

The former president is not named in the grand jury transcript, though his associations with Epstein are well documented.