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yes." The court also asked Belohlavek if the juvenile victim's parents or guardian agreed with the
plea, and Belohlavek stated that because the victim was no longer under age 18, Belohlavek spoke
with the victim's counsel, who agreed with the plea agreement. 363
Both Villafaña and the FBI case agent were present in the courtroom gallery to observe the
plea hearing. Later that day, Villafaña met with Goldberger and gave him the list of 31 individuals
the government was prepared to name as victims and to whom the § 2255 provision applied.
In her 2015 CVRA case declaration, Wild stated that, "I did not have any reason to attend
that hearing because no one had told me that this guilty plea was related to the FBI's investigation
of Epstein's abuse of me." She stated that she "would have attended and tried to object to the
judge and prevent that plea from going forward," had she known that the state plea "had some
connection to blocking the prosecution of my case." Similarly, CVRA petitioner Jane Doe #2
stated that "no one notified me that [Epstein's] plea had anything to do with my case against him."
An attorney who represented several victims, including one whom the state had
subpoenaed for the potential July trial, told OPR that he was present in court on June 30, 2008, in
order to serve a complaint upon Epstein in connection with a civil lawsuit brought on behalf of
one of his clients. The USAO had not informed him about the plea hearing. 364 Moreover, the
attorney informed OPR that, although one of the victims he represented had been interviewed in
the PBPD's investigation and had been deposed by Epstein's attorneys in the state case (with the
Assistant State Attorney present), he did not recall receiving any notice of the June 30, 2008 plea
hearing from the State Attorney's Office. 365 Similarly, another of the victims the state had
subpoenaed for the July trial told OPR through her attorney that she received subpoenas from the
State Attorney's Office, but she was not invited to or aware of the state plea hearing. Belohlavek
told OPR that she did not recall whether she contacted any of the girls to appear at the hearing,
and she noted that given the charge of solicitation of prostitution, they may not have "technically"
been victims for purposes of notice under Florida law but, rather, witnesses. On July 24, 2008, the
State Attorney's Office sent letters to two victims stating that the case was closed on June 26, 2008
(although the plea occurred on June 30, 2008) and listed Epstein's sentence. The letters did not
mention the NPA or the federal investigation.
XII. SIGNIFICANT POST-PLEA DEVELOPMENTS
A.
Immediately After Epstein's State Guilty Pleas, Villafaña Notifies Some
Victims' Attorneys
Villafaña's contemporaneous notes show that immediately after Epstein's June 30, 2008
guilty pleas, she attempted to reach by telephone five attorneys representing various victims in
363 Villafaña, who was present in court and heard Belohlavek's representation, told OPR that she had no
information as to whether or how the state had notified the victims about the plea hearing.
364
365
Villafaña did contact this attorney's law partner later that day.
When interviewed by OPR in 2020, this same attorney indicated that he was surprised to learn that despite
the fact that his client was a minor at the time Epstein victimized her, she was not the minor victim that the state
identified in the information charging Epstein.
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