Why Jeffrey Epstein wasn't stopped in Palm Beach County 17 years ago: Post wins a battle

A circuit judge won’t level sanctions against The Palm Beach Post for naming State Attorney Dave Aronberg in its lawsuit to obtain secret grand jury testimony that could show why state prosecutors soft-pedaled the initial case against serial sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Aronberg opposed the release of the Epstein grand jury transcripts before reversing course and adopting a neutral position while seeking more than $71,000 in legal fees. The Post dropped Aronberg from the suit once he changed his position on the newspaper obtaining the transcripts.

But Aronberg is hardly conceding after last week’s ruling on sanctions. Within hours of the judge's Jan. 31 order, Aronberg asked him to essentially consider the matter again.

Post 2019 investigation:Jeffrey Epstein case, the first failure: To the first prosecutors, Epstein's victims were prostitutes

More:Dave Aronberg: Post's suit to unseal Jeffrey Epstein documents meant only to humiliate me

Why The Post sued:The Palm Beach Post sued to find out why Jeffrey Epstein wasn't stopped 15 years ago

Circuit Judge Luis Delgado found Aronberg's testimony “reliable and credible” but denied the motion because Aronberg failed to provide The Post a required 21-day notice to resolve the issue before filing for sanctions against its lawyers.

The state attorney testified in September that he was trying to save taxpayers' money by seeking sanctions against the newspaper but then he acknowledged that his lawyer won’t get paid unless the judge ordered it.

“We are pleased with the judge’s ruling,” said Marc Freeman, spokesman for Aronberg’s office. “He denied our sanctions motion only on procedural grounds, which we believe will be corrected through our next motion.”

Jeffrey Epstein 2006 grand jury: Post investigation learns of questionable moves behind closed doors

The Post, in seeking the grand jury testimony, wants to know the exact nature of how then-State Attorney Barry Krischer’s office presented its case before the grand jury.

The Post filed suit to obtain the testimony and documents after its 2019 investigation, Jeffrey Epstein: The First Failure, discovered that Krischer undermined his own case in front of the grand jury. The only charge against Epstein that emerged was soliciting a prostitute.

Palm Beach police in their investigation identified five underage girls, among several others under age 18, who gave nearly identical accounts of how the financier abused them. The age of consent in Florida at that time was 16.

But Krischer’s office called only one 14-year-old girl to testify in front of the grand jury, sources told The Post. Authorities would find as many as 150 victims over the years and suspect there were even more.

Sources told The Post that one of Krischer's prosecutors undermined the case by questioning the girl about her social media pages, which showed her talking about drinking and sex.

Epstein in 2008 pleaded guilty to state charges — procuring a child for prostitution, added to the solicitation of prostitution charge. Both were felonies. He was required to register as a sex offender.

Legal and public records experts said that Aronberg’s efforts are not about legal fees They said it is designed to deter newspapers from holding elected officials accountable.

“He definitely wants to chill First Amendment rights, " said Michael Barfield, director of public access for the Florida Center for Government Accountability.

Epstein was found hanged in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 after New York prosecutors brought child sex trafficking charges against him. In 2021, his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of sex trafficking for procuring underage girls for Epstein to abuse and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Even though the grand jury proceeding occurred under Krischer’s tenure, Aronberg has remained close to his predecessor, allowing him in the past to work as a volunteer in his office.

Circuit Judge Donald Hafele in December 2021 denied The Post’s efforts to make the transcripts public, saying the newspaper had “strong arguments” but that he was bound by state law to keep the proceeding secret. The ruling is being appealed.

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Grand jury testimony has long been seen as locked in a vault from the public and the media. But there have been exceptions.

A Kentucky judge released audio recordings of grand jury proceedings into the 2020 fatal shooting of  Breonna Taylor in her home by Louisville police while they executed a search warrant.

The Legal Defense Fund reviewed the grand jury materials and found the attorney general presented a biased view of the case that favored law enforcement.

The Post in its suit to obtain the Epstein grand jury transcript originally named Aronberg and Sharon Bock, then the clerk of court.

The clerk's office holds the documents.

Aronberg then sought fees in July 2020 for the private attorney hired to defend the State Attorney's Office in the matter. Aronberg amended his motion in November of that year.

Under Florida law, a court may award reasonable legal fees if it finds the losing party’s legal representation knew or should have known a claim was not supported by law.

Aronberg took the witness stand in September in a hearing over the legal fees and testified that the newspaper has a vendetta against him. “I have had numerous battles over the years, usually one-sided, where The Palm Beach Post for the past 12 years has attacked me, written many misleading articles,” he said.

Post Executive Editor Rick Christie has called Aronberg's claims "ludicrous."

Delgado inherited the case from Hafele. Delgado's order on the amended motion denied awarding the fees on procedural grounds because Aronberg did not comply with the strict 21-day “safe harbor” notice provision in state law. The provision allows the claim to be withdrawn before sanctions are sought.

After Delgado's ruling last week, Aronberg immediately filed a motion for Delgado to rule on the initial motion made in July 2020, which his attorney said was never heard by the court.

“We are optimistic that we will prevail because the facts and the law are on our side, " Freeman said.

Besides the state attorney, the county’s current Clerk of Courts Joseph Abruzzo is also seeking legal fees for his office being named in The Post’s lawsuit. That motion is still pending.

Expert: Aronberg could be trying to only increase costs for The Post

Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said Aronberg appears to want to force The Post to have to pay its attorneys to defend the sanctions all over again.

"Aronberg wants to tie up The Post, waste The Post’s time, waste The Post’s resources and make The Post have to pay their attorneys more money,” he said.

He went on to say that the taxpayers are ill-served by Aronberg even if his lawyer never gets paid.

“Any time that is taken away from Aronberg or Aronberg’s staff, where they can't devote themselves to things they really should be focused on, is a misuse of the taxpayers' money,” he said.

Barfield, though, described Aronberg seeking sanctions against The Post as essentially a SLAPP suit, which stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation. Such actions are designed to censor, intimidate or silence critics through the burden of a costly legal defense.

“I think it is an effort to intimidate the media,” he said. “If he is vindicated in a case that ends up keeping information of what Mr. Krischer’s office did years ago in covering up the Epstein case, it's just wrong. It is morally wrong. It is ethically wrong.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jeffrey Epstein: Palm Beach Post won't have to pay Aronberg's lawyer