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Beleaguered labor secretary Alexander Acosta took to the stage on Wednesday in a nearly hour-long press conference to share his side of the story, amid growing calls for his resignation, following revelations that his office cut a sweetheart deal for mega-wealthy pedophile Jeffrey Epstein back in 2008 while he served as US attorney of Florida's Southern District.
Acosta, dressed in a crisp grey suit with American flags draped behind him, spoke calmly as he insisted that the secret deal he brokered with the lucrative financier really was the best option on the table. Yes, it meant that Epstein, who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of girls in the early 2000s, would ultimately spend only 13 months in jail, most of it in a work release program that allowed him to leave the jail six days a week to work at his private home office.
But, Acosta insisted, at least Epstein went to jail and registered as a sex offender, which he said never would have happened if federal authorities hadn't intervened in the case. He emphasized that he welcomed new charges coming out of the Southern District of New York accusing the financial mogul of sex trafficking of young women and underage girls.
"Simply put, the Palm Beach state attorney's office was willing to let Epstein walk free, no jail time, nothing," Acosta said. "We did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail."
Acosta offered no apology to Epstein's victims, instead placing blame largely on state prosecutors. When asked by a reporter about why he never notified victims about the secret deal, which a federal judge ruled earlier this year had violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act, he said he followed department policy, adding "I understand the judge had a different view." In response to a question about whether he had regret over his handling of the case, he said, "We believe that we proceeded appropriately."
![Jeffrey Epstein]()
Barry Krischer, the state attorney for Palm Beach county at the time, was quick to dispute the labor secretary's claims in a searing statement, point-blank calling Acosta's recollection of what happened "completely wrong."
"The US Attorney's Office produced a 53-page indictment that was abandoned after secret negotiations between Mr. Epstein's lawyers and Mr. Acosta. The State Attorney's Office was not a party to those meetings or negotiations, and definitely had no part in the federal Non-Prosecution Agreement and the unusual confidentiality arrangement that kept everything hidden from the victims," Krischer wrote. "If Mr. Acosta was truly concerned with the State's case and felt he had to rescue the matter, he would have moved forward with the 53-page indictment that his own office drafted."
Acosta "should not be allowed to rewrite history," Krischer concluded.
Krischer wasn't the only one to find issue with the labor secretary's press conference or the details surrounding his lenient plea with Epstein. As former federal prosecutors watched Acosta explain his reasoning for striking the deal, they also noticed major red flags. Barbara McQuade, a former US Attorney and law professor at the University of Michigan, emphasized to INSIDER that while she's typically reluctant to second guess prosecutors, especially without knowing all of the facts of the case, "there are some things in this case that are really irregular that cause me some concern."
'He did exactly what he wanted to do with the facts'
"I think Acosta put on a master class in blame shifting," added Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. "His first target was the state attorney. There's a bit of a back-and-forth between the two of them as to who's telling the truth, but it doesn't really matter. If you are a federal prosecutor, it doesn't really matter if the state prosecutor did a good job or a terrible job. You still need to do your job as a fed."
Following Wednesday's news conference, White House officials breathed a sigh of relief. White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters that "he did exactly what he wanted to do with the facts," while Trump aides told Politico that "he was cool, calm, and methodical despite fielding some obnoxious questions. He did what he needed to do."
Two days later, however, the mood surrounding Acosta — and the plea deal he brokered with Epstein more than a decade ago — would seriously shift. And not in the labor secretary's favor.
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Why was a deal struck?
The job of the federal prosecutor is far from a walk in the park. As McQuade explained to INSIDER, they are tasked with protecting the public, deterring predators, and ensuring that justice is met and victims rights are vindicated.
So, why did Acosta strike a deal with Epstein, an alleged predator who is accused of abusing dozens of minors, even after his office had prepared a 53-page indictment to spearhead a federal sex trafficking case against the hedge fund manager?
That is the question that Acosta was supposed to answer during Wednesday's press conference. Instead, say Honig and McQuade, he deflected blame to state prosecutors and provided feeble excuses that they say raise various legal questions. For instance, they take issue with Acosta's claims that he needed to rescue the state case, to ensure Epstein received a slightly worse sentence than if he hadn't intervened; his reasonings for keeping the agreement a secret from victims; and, his argument that times have changed in light of the #MeToo movement.
Acosta emphasized on Wednesday that the non-prosecution deal came about after state prosecutors charged Epstein with a single count of prostitution that would have resulted in no jail time.
"Prosecutors in my former office found this to be completely unacceptable and they became involved," he explained, adding that he didn't bring a federal indictment, which would have resulted in a stiffer sentence, because going to trial would have been "a roll of the dice."
Prosecuting on the state level wouldn't have prevented a federal case
But, as experts told INSIDER, Florida's state prosecution had absolutely nothing to do with the federal sex trafficking investigation brought against Epstein. The state and federal government are separate entities, and Acosta was in no way bound by decisions made by the state prosecutor. In fact, just last month, a Supreme Court decision confirmed that both the state and federal government can prosecute a person over the exact same offense, with it not being considered double jeopardy because they are separate sovereigns.
"It's really pretty bedrock precedent in the United States that states and the federal government are separate governments and they have the right and obligation to enforce their own laws, and that certainly would have been well known to Alex Acosta," McQuade said. "He kind of created this false impression of urgency that the state was about to do this thing and we have to act quickly and put together this deal, but he could have let the state resolve its case however it wanted and then just continue to investigate his own federal case. If he thought his evidence was not sufficient, he could have continued looking for more."
Honig summed it up: "it's not what did Acosta get versus what the state would have gotten, it's what did Acosta get versus what he should have gotten in the federal system? He never even indicted [Epstein]."
Sex trafficking of minors in the federal system is an enormously serious crime, Honig said, pointing to an April 2019 case in which a sex trafficking defendant in federal court received 30 years in prison, as well as a case that resulted in two sex traffickers receiving life in prison in 2014. There is now a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for sexual abuse cases involving minors in the federal system. "That's the measuring stick," Honig said, adding that while "every case has its own facts and they're not all the exact same... to let someone out of a potential federal indictment for a 13 month sentence is ridiculous."
He emphasized, in response to Acosta's claims that going to trial would be too risky, that trial is simply part of the job.
"If you believe in your case, and it seems like they certainly had a strong case, then you go to trial," he told INSIDER. "There's always a trial risk, but that's not an excuse for abdicating your duty."
Victims were kept in the dark
A looming question surrounding Acosta's plea deal centers on his decision to not tell Epstein's more than 30 victims about the non-prosecution deal until after the fact. During Wednesday's press conference, he said that he kept the deal a secret to avoiding compromising the credibility of the victims as witnesses if negotiations fell through and the case went to trial.
![Michelle Licata and Courtney Wild, who say they are victims, leave following the arraignment of U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein after the Southern District of New York announced charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, in New York, U.S., July 8, 2019.]()
But, as the federal judge noted earlier this year, the Justice Department did in fact violate the Crime Victims' Rights Act, which enumerates the rights of victims in federal court cases, by not informing Epstein's victims about the plea deal. Experts viewed Acosta's reasoning for not telling the victims as woefully inadequate.
"Every beginner prosecutor knows you have to notify your victim and when he was asked about it, he gave an absolutely garbled, incomprehensible response... it made zero sense," Honig said, adding that witholding that information, "takes this from being a bad deal to a suspicious deal and goes to the secrecy element."
McQuade agreed, describing Acosta's explanation as "quite tortured."
"It's really best practice and really ethical to consult with victims. That doesn't mean that they get to control the outcome of the case or tell you what to do, but to consult with them, to keep them apprised, to notify them about what's happening," she said. "The judge found that not only did they fail to consult with them, but they proactively misled them about whether a federal case will be pursued and that really strikes me as very odd."
The deal gave co-conspirators a pass
Another gaping question, McQuade noted, has to do with why Acosta agreed to include a provision in the deal that said several of Epstein's alleged co-conspirators would not face charges. "There were other individuals that may have been involved," Acosta acknowledged during the press conference, adding: "the focus really is on the top player. And that's where our focus appropriately was."
But, McQuade questions if there could be other reasons behind the broad language of that provision.
"I don't think most prosecutors would include that language because it could include anyone they don't even know about. There could be somebody out there who was engaged in very egregious conduct and now you're giving them a pass," she told INSIDER. "I've never seen it done and it strikes me as really irresponsible behavior and it causes me to wonder if that was the reason that the deal was so secret; that there's somebody out there that they're trying to protect."
Acosta blamed his leniency on the social atmosphere at the time
The #MeToo movement has spurned a cultural reckoning in this country, helping to redefine how sexual misconduct is viewed and treated. As Acosta explained on Wednesday to justify the deal, "we live in a very different world," than the pre-#MeToo era. "Today's world treats victims very, very differently," he said.
But, even a decade ago when Acosta struck the deal, his leniency toward Epstein was atypical, experts say. They raise questions about his assertion that it would have been significantly more difficult to try the case back in 2007, versus the present day.
Both Honig and McQuade dealt with sex trafficking cases in those years, they told INSIDER. Honig described Acosta's statement as "absurd."
"This notion that we weren't ready to entrust victims or we weren't ready to believe victims back in '07 is completely wrong," he said. "I did it myself, I made federal sex trafficking cases based largely off of victim testimony."
"Even in 2007 and 2008 people were repulsed by the idea of child sex exploitation and I don't think this would have been a simple 'he-said-she-said' situation, especially when they had 30 victims, at least some of whom could have testified about what happened here," McQuade added. "The idea that there's more transparency today, I'm not quite sure what he means there, does that mean it was okay to have a secret deal back then? I just don't buy it."
While the reasons why Acosta opted for the deal with Epstein remain speculative, McQuade offered some possibilities: maybe he was nervous about bringing a case against someone who was as well-resourced as Epstein and face the possibility of losing at trial. Or, he wanted to protect the victims from being retraumatized. Another theory is that he believed doing a favor for high-profile lawyers could advance his career politically. Or, possibly, he wanted to protect his prosecutors, following a 2011 statement he made about the case claiming that Epstein's high-profile defense lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, had waged a "year-long assault on the prosecution and prosecutors" investigating the prosecutors and their families "looking for personal peccadilloes that may provide a basis for disqualification."
"If those allegations [about the defense lawyers] are true, it doesn't seem like his response is appropriate," McQuade countered. "To just succumb to that sort of pressure strikes me as the exact wrong thing to do. If somebody were doing that to my prosecutors, I would first try to expose it by reporting it to the judge. And, if it was so bad, I might even investigate it as potential obstruction of justice if I thought they were trying to interfere with the prosecution."
Whatever the reason for Acosta's handling of the controversial plea, it certainly struck a chord across the country. Following a week of intense scrutiny, and despite the last-ditch attempt to save grace at Wednesday's press conference, the political pressure against the embattled labor secretary only continued to mount. And on Friday morning, it finally hit a breaking point.
On the South Lawn of the White House, the president by his side, Acosta made a surprise announcement: that he would resign.
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