Jeffrey Epstein accused of paying $350,000 to potential witnesses in underage sex case
Jeffrey Epstein, the Wall street financier charged with underage sex offences, has been accused of paying $350,000 to possible co-conspirators to stop them testifying against him.
Prosecutors in New York said the money was to "influence" the unnamed people, and was paid within the last year.
In court documents prosecutors said: "This course of action, and in particular its timing, suggests the defendant was attempting to further influence co-conspirators who might provide information against him in light of the recently re-emerging evaluations."
They claimed Epstein made two payments, one for $100,000 and another for $250,000, to the two people.
Epstein, 66, was charged Monday in New York with 2 offences including sex trafficking of minors. He could face up to 45 years in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors have accused him of sexually exploiting dozens of underage teenage girls at his homes in Manhattan, and Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005. Some were allegedly as young as 14.
On Friday, Alex Acosta resigned as US Labor Secretary amid a backlash over the 2009 secret plea deal.
Mr Acosta, who at the time was a prosecutor in Florida, negotiated the plea deal under which Epstein served only 13 months in a county jail after pleading guilty to a single charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
The first payment to a suspected co-conspirator was made a few days after details of the secret 2009 plea deal were made public by the Miami Herald last November.
Prosecutors revealed the payments as part of their argument why Epstein should be kept in jail until his trial. They said he had a history of manipulation of witnesses,
The documents also said Mr Epstein was worth at least $500 million, and posed a "tremendous risk of flight."
Meanwhile, speculation mounted about Epstein's private island in the US Virgin Islands.
Details emerged of a bizarre temple structure with a gold dome. And a former employee told Bloomberg News there was a steel safe subject to a level of security that suggested it "contained much more than just money."
