Making sense of Jeffrey Epstein's grand jury transcript and the 5-year fight to release it
WEST PALM BEACH — When questioning a 16-year-old girl about the sex abuse she endured at Jeffrey Epstein's mansion, prosecutors unearthed unsavory posts from her since-deleted MySpace page. Jurors learned that the teen had shoplifted, smoked pot, drank beer at parties and once pierced her navel.
Prosecutors' presentation prompted members of the grand jury to chastise the girl and charge her abuser with felony solicitation of prostitution, despite evidence that he'd sexually abused dozens of other young women and girls at his Palm Beach estate. A transcript of the grand jury proceedings, published Monday in a Palm Beach Post lawsuit, has prompted renewed scrutiny over how prosecutors handled the case.
“This grand jury was used as a cover for the state attorney’s office," said Gregg Lerman, a defense lawyer running for state attorney. "They didn’t want to prosecute the case, but they couldn’t let it go either. So they gave it to the grand jury believing that this would never be disclosed.”
Defense attorneys and former prosecutors who spoke to The Post Tuesday generally agreed that then-assistant state attorneys Lanna Belohlavek and Mary Ann Duggan were seasoned and experienced prosecutors. Theories about their approach to the Epstein case differ.
Read The Post investigation: Jeffrey Epstein case, the first failure: To the first prosecutors, Epstein's victims were prostitutes
Some said they believe Belohlavek and Duggan undermined their witnesses' testimony in hopes of squashing the case, an outcome then-State Attorney Barry Krischer could blame on the grand jury. Others, including an attorney who represented one of Epstein's victims, said the prosecutors' questions were appropriate, meant to "road-test" the children in preparation for a trial that never took place.
"This was such a politically charged case with heavy-hitting defense lawyers that were going to tear these children up," said defense attorney Marc Shiner. "I guess the state wanted to make sure these children could hold up under scrutiny.”
Krischer and Belohlavek did not return emails or calls seeking clarification. Duggan declined a request for comment.
Post sued when investigative reporters found Krischer undermined his own case
The Post sued for the release of the grand jury transcripts in 2019 on the same day it published its investigation, Jeffrey Epstein, the first failure.
Sources told The Post that Krischer undermined his own case against Epstein in front of the grand jury. State attorney documents revealed that prosecutors never spoke with any of the victims, and once Epstein's famous defense attorneys came to town, they stopped regularly communicating with police.
Circuit Judge Donald Hafele dismissed The Post's lawsuit in 2021 on the grounds that he lacked the statutory authority to release the Epstein grand jury materials. The Post appealed his decision and won, paving the way for Monday's release.
Post attorney Stephen Mendelsohn of the law firm Greenberg Traurig said the transcripts could have been released sooner were it not for opposition from current State Attorney Dave Aronberg and Clerk & Comptroller Joseph Abruzzo, who sought sanctions against The Post and its attorneys for filing the lawsuit.
"It has been a difficult five-year battle to shine a light on an egregious misuse of the grand jury process," Mendelsohn said. "The Palm Beach Post never wavered in its dedication to seeking justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein."
More: Aronberg appeals ruling in Jeffrey Epstein case, still saying Post's lawsuit was frivolous
Related: Palm Beach County clerk seeks to punish Post for pursuing Jeffrey Epstein records
Rick Christie, The Post's executive editor, said reporters have spent nearly two decades reporting on Epstein's "heinous acts" for two reasons: justice for the victimized girls and accountability for Palm Beach County residents.
"Monday's release of the grand jury transcripts fulfills another of those goals with a precedent-setting effort to pierce the veil shielding those who sought to hide their questionable efforts to bring Epstein to justice," he said.
"The Post will always fight to further justice by shining a spotlight wherever it is needed to expose the action, or inaction of those charged with serving and protecting the public," Christie said. "Period."
Prosecutors suggest they consented, but victims were under 18
In the transcript released Monday, Duggan and Belohlavek's questions to the underage victims suggest that the girls consented to Epstein's sexual advances, though neither legally could. When asked why she didn’t originally tell police that Epstein used a vibrator on her, one girl said she’d been scared to.
“You didn’t want to admit that you had allowed him to touch you?” Duggan asked.
Yes, the girl replied.
“You left your number so he could contact you again?” Duggan asked.
Yes, she said.
Other questions included what kind of underwear the then-14-year-old girl wore to Epstein's mansion and whether she wanted to use him to "get rich." Amid a string of questions from jurors over whether she felt ashamed of herself, Belohlavek asked if the girl knew she had "committed a crime."
"I do now," she said.
Epstein victim's attorney said questions were standard practice
Defense attorney Donnie Murrell, who represents one of Donald Trump's co-defendants in the classified documents case, said he doubts the line of questioning was meant to test the witnesses ahead of trial.
"You do that in your trial preparation and your witness preparation," he said Tuesday. "In fact, if they were worried about how these girls would hold up, they could have done that in their office prior to bringing them in front of the grand jury.”
Attorney Jack Scarola, a former prosecutor who represented one of Epstein's victims, called the questions "not at all unusual." He said Duggan and Belohlavek did their jobs by exploring how their witnesses would withstand cross-examination — a job, he added, that would ordinarily be done outside of the presence of the grand jury.
The decision to bring the case before a grand jury has itself been the subject of speculation for nearly two decades. Krischer could have filed charges against Epstein directly but chose to let a grand jury weigh the evidence against him instead. Epstein's was the first sex crime handled this way in Palm Beach County.
Though the grand jury ultimately decides the charges, prosecutors control what evidence to present, how to present it and what to ask the grand jury to do with it. If a prosecutor wants to obtain a serious indictment, it's unusual for the grand jury to reject their guidance, the attorneys said.
“It’s usually called a rubber stamp within the circles of the legal community," Lerman said. "Rubber stamping what the state attorney’s office wants."
By the same token, a prosecutor can lead jurors away from serious charges if they so choose. The secret nature of the proceedings, over which no judge presides, lets them do so without scrutiny. After reading the transcript, Scarola said he "had to conclude" that's what prosecutors did.
Scrutiny of teen victim's MySpace pages was not unusual, attorney says
Though the grand jury was unconventional for the crime, Shiner said Belohlavek and Duggan's focus on the 16-year-old girl's MySpace profile was not. In the early 2000s, defense lawyers often combed through the social media profiles of their clients' accusers and sent any questionable content to prosecutors for consideration.
While it wouldn't exonerate a defendant, it may make jurors less likely to believe their accuser, Shiner said.
"Prosecutors needed to know about anything their witnesses may have done that was unsavory, even though it’s not a defense to the charge," said Shiner, who has prosecuted and defended sex crimes. "It was just the culture of the court system when this case happened."
He added that things have changed since then, and that the same presentation would likely not be acceptable today.
State Attorney Aronberg, who took office years after the prosecution of Epstein, declined to answer questions Tuesday. He issued a statement in which he called the grand jury documents "disturbing."
"I understand why the decisions by the prosecutors back then have been revisited," he said. "Fortunately, the law has progressed to where child victims of sexual exploitation are no longer viewed as lawbreakers, but the victims they are."
Holly Baltz is the investigations editor at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hbaltz@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County lawyers react to Jeffrey Epstein grand jury transcript
