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Case 22-1426, Document 78, 06/29/2023, 3536039, Page4 of 217
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Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 204-3 Filed 04/16/21 Page 258 of 348

Villafaña told OPR that before the state plea hearing, she sent Reiter a list of the victims, including their telephone numbers, to notify and asked him to destroy the list. Villafaña recalled that Reiter told her that he would “try to contact as many as he could” and that he would destroy the list afterwards. Villafaña did not recall being “asked [to] provide a list of all our victims to the State Attorney’s Office.”

In his 2009 deposition, Reiter stated that Villafaña sent him a letter “around the time of sentencing,” listing the victims in the federal investigation, and that she asked him to destroy the letter after he reviewed it. Reiter recalled that he requested the list because he was aware that the state grand jury’s indictment of Epstein did not include all of the victims that the PBPD had identified and he “wanted to make sure that some prosecution body had considered all of our victims.”³⁵³

In her 2017 declaration in the CVRA litigation, Villafaña stated that she and the PBPD “attempted to notify the victims about [the June 30] hearing in the short time available to us.”³⁵⁴ In her 2008 declaration, however, Villafaña conceded that “all known victims were not notified.”

Villafaña told OPR that Edwards was the only victim attorney she was authorized to contact—she thought probably by Sloman—about the June 30, 2008 plea hearing because Edwards “had expressed a specific interest in the outcome.” Villafaña recalled, “I was told that I could inform [Edwards] of [the plea date], but I still couldn’t inform him of the NPA.”³⁵⁵ In her 2008 declaration in the CVRA litigation, Villafaña stated that she called Edwards and informed him of the plea hearing scheduled for Monday; Villafaña stated that Edwards told her that he could not attend the hearing but “someone” would be present. In a later filing in the CVRA litigation, however, Edwards asserted that Villafaña told him only that “Epstein was pleading guilty to state solicitation of prostitution charges involving other victims—not Mr. Edwards’ clients nor any of the federally-identified victims.”³⁵⁶ Edwards further claimed that because Villafaña failed to inform him that the “guilty pleas in state court would bring an end to the possibility of federal prosecution pursuant to the plea agreement,” his clients did not attend the hearing. Villafaña told OPR that her expectation was that the state plea proceeding would allow Edwards and his clients the ability to comment on the resolution:

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³⁵³ Reiter showed the letter to the lead Detective so he could “confirm that all of the victims that we had for the state case were included on that.” The Detective “looked at it and he said they’re all there and then [Reiter] destroyed it.” The Detective recalled viewing the list in Reiter’s office, but he could not recall when Reiter showed it to him.

³⁵⁴ The FBI co-case agent told OPR that “I don’t think the [FBI] reached out to anyone.”

³⁵⁵ Villafaña told OPR that she thought that it was Sloman who gave her the instructions, but she could not “remember the specifics of the conversation.”

³⁵⁶ Villafaña stated that she “never told Attorney Edwards that the state charges involved ‘other victims,’ and neither the state court charging instrument nor the factual proffer limited the procurement of prostitution charge to a specific victim.” Although Edwards criticized Villafaña’s conduct in his CVRA filings, in his recently published book, Edwards described Villafaña as a “kindhearted prosecutor who tried to do right,” noting that she “believ[ed] in the victim and tr[ied] . . . to bring down Jeffrey Epstein.” Bradley J. Edwards with Brittany Henderson, Relentless Pursuit at 380 (Gallery Books 2020).

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