5:50
- ABC News
- August 10, 2019
Timeline: The rise and fall of Jeffrey Epstein
Epstein died by suicide Saturday, three law enforcement officials told ABC News.
5:50
July 10, 2019: Acosta defends his decision to negotiate a plea deal with Epstein in the 2008 case in Florida that allowed him to serve a lesser sentence on state charges of prostitution. The deal, now under review by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, also gave Epstein and any alleged co-conspirators immunity from further federal prosecution in the Southern District of Florida. In a 2011 letter, Acosta defended the deal and accused Epstein’s defense lawyers of a “a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors.”
July 12, 2019: An ABC News review of campaign finance records finds that Epstein donated to several Democrats throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. One of the biggest beneficiaries of Epstein's contributions was then-Senate hopeful Hillary Clinton, who received $20,000 from him in 1999 through her joint fundraising committee with the Democratic Party, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Bill Clinton's presidential campaign also received $1,000 from Epstein in 1992. The Clintons, along with Trump, were among Epstein's vast network of high-profile rich and famous people who helped the former Wall Street insider turned private wealth manager rise to prominence in the early 2000s.
July 12, 2019: Prosecutors, arguing against bail for Epstein, claim he tried to buy off potential witnesses and charge that he had demonstrated a \"willingness to use intimidation and aggressive tactics in connection with a criminal investigation.\" The memo alleges that late last year Epstein wired $100,000 from a trust account to a person who had been named in the 2008 case as a possible co-conspirator of Epstein's and then three days later wired $250,000 to another suspected co-conspirator.
![\"PHOTO:Ghislaine](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/ghislaine-maxwell-gty-01-jpo-190703_hpEmbed_3x4_384.jpg\")
July 15, 2019: In an extraordinary detention hearing, Epstein comes face-to-face with two of his accusers. Annie Farmer says that she was 16 when Epstein had her sent to New Mexico where he was “inappropriate” with her. Courtney Wild tells the judge that she was 14 when Epstein sexually abused her in Palm Beach, Florida. Both women spoke in support of keeping Epstein locked up without bail. Epstein appears to watch them address the judge but his face shows no emotion.
July 17, 2019: An attorney for several of Epstein’s accusers claims the financier had “improper sexual contact” with young women while out on work release during his jail sentence. \"Most of the time was spent in an office, a private office that was adjacent to his lawyer's office all day every day,\" Brad Edwards, who represents Epstein Wild and several other alleged victims, contends at the press conference. \"And what you're going to learn is he was not sitting there conducting some scientific research for the betterment of the community, but he was having office visitors, some who were flown to him from New York and continuing to engage in similar conduct, literally while he was in 'jail.'\" Federal prosecutors have yet to comment on the allegations leveled by Edwards.
July 18, 2019: A federal judge denies bail for Epstein. Judge Richard Berman made the decision over the objections of defense attorneys who had argued that the wealthy financier was a “disciplined” defendant willing to pay a bond of $100 million or more. Federal prosecutors objected, saying the court “cannot rely on the self-discipline of a man with an appetite for children.”
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/jeffrey-epstein-court-drawing-ht-jc-190708_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
July 18, 2019: A former IT contractor for Jeffrey Epstein who said that he ended their business relationship over personal concerns about gaggles of apparently unsupervised young women on the embattled financier's private island told ABC News in an exclusive interview that his reluctance to continue working there was underscored by what he said was an extensive collection of photos of topless women displayed throughout the island's compounds.
“There were photos of topless women everywhere,\" said contractor Steve Scully, who said he worked for Epstein for six years beginning in 1999. \"On his desk, in his office, in his bedroom,” Scully, a 69-year-old father of three girls, said of the private island dubbed \"Little St. James.\"
July 19, 2019: Palm Beach County launches an internal investigation into its sheriff's deputies monitoring of Epstein, following allegations he had \"improper sexual conduct\" while on work release from jail.
July 25, 2019: Epstein is placed on suicide watch after being found unresponsive and with injuries to his neck at a federal lockup in New York City, a law enforcement official briefed on the incident tells ABC News.
July 26, 2019: A federal judge grants a motion from prosecutors' overseeing the New York case against Epstein to place a protective order on highly-sensitive investigative material they are set to turn over to the financier's defense attorneys. Prosecutors sought the order because, they said in court filings, they intends to produce documents and materials that could...”affect the privacy and confidentiality of individuals...[and that] would impede, if prematurely disclosed, the Government's ongoing investigation of uncharged individuals.”
Aug. 8, 2019: A former assistant U.S. Attorney in Florida who served more than a decade ago as the lead prosecutor during in an expansive federal investigation of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's alleged sex crimes against children, is confident that an ongoing internal investigation will reveal her efforts to prosecute Epstein \"to the fullest extent of the law and to accord his victims their rights under the law,” her attorney told ABC News on Thursday.
Former assistant U.S. Attorney A. Marie Villafaña, who plans to leave her position with the Department of Justice after 18 years for a supervisory post in another government agency, is eager for the public to review the internal investigation’s findings, her attorney, Jonathan Biran of the Tennessee-based law firm Baker Donelson told ABC News in a statement on Thursday.
“We hope and expect that the Department will publicly release its report concerning the Epstein investigation,” Biran said in a statement. “Ms. Villafaña looks forward to the day when the public will fully understand her role and that of her superiors in the Epstein investigation.”
Villafaña's superior during the Epstein investigation was Alexander Acosta, who recently resigned as President Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary after facing questions about his role in the much-criticized plea deal. Earlier this year, a federal judge in Florida ruled that Acosta's office had violated the rights of Epstein's alleged victims for failing to confer with them in advance of the signing of the non-prosecution agreement with Epstein.
ABC News' James Hill, Aaron Katersky, Kaitlyn Folmer, Chris Francescani, Tom Llamas, Matthew Mosk, Josh Margolin, Pete Madden, Jordan Phelps, Allison Pecorin, Soo Rin Kim, Bill Hutchinson and Marc Nathanson contributed to this report.
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