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particular charges and victims at issue. Once the hearing was scheduled, Sloman told Villafaña to
contact PBPD Chief Reiter about notifying the victims, and on June 28, 2008, she reported back
to Sloman that Reiter "is going to notify victims about the plea."418 Villafaña recalled that she
sent Reiter a list of the girls identified as victims during the federal investigation, and Reiter said
he would "contact as many as he could." The contemporaneous records do not show how many
or which victims, if any, Reiter contacted, and no victims were present in the courtroom. No victim
who provided information to OPR, either in person or through her attorney, recalled receiving
notice of the plea hearing from federal or state officials. At the time Epstein pled guilty in state
court, no one in the USAO knew exactly who, if anyone, Reiter or the State Attorney's Office had
notified about the proceeding. Accordingly, Villafaña, who was present in the courtroom for the
hearing, had no knowledge to whom Belohlavek referred when she told the court that the victims
were "in agreement with the terms of this plea. "419
OPR considered whether Acosta's decision to defer to the State Attorney's Office the
decision to notify victims of the scheduled date for Epstein's plea hearing constituted professional
misconduct. OPR could not conclude that the CVRA or VRRA provisions in question, requiring
notice of any public proceeding involving the crime against the victim or that the victim is entitled
to attend, unambiguously required federal prosecutors to notify victims of state court proceedings.
Furthermore, as discussed previously, OLC had issued guidance stating that the CVRA did not
apply to cases in which no federal charges had been filed. 420 Moreover, the section of the VRRA
requiring notice of court proceedings that the victim is "entitled to attend" referred specifically to
proceedings under 42 U.S.C. § 10606(b)(4), which, at the time of the Epstein case, had become
part of the CVRA (18 U.S.C. § 3771(a)(2)).421
Because Acosta had no clear or unambiguous duty to inform victims identified in the
federal investigation of the state plea hearing, OPR concludes that his decision to defer to the State
Attorney the decision to notify victims of the state's plea hearing and the responsibility for doing
so did not constitute professional misconduct. 422
418
Sloman replied, "Good." In her written response to OPR, Villafaña stated, "I requested permission to make
oral notifications to the victims regarding the upcoming change of plea, but the Office decided that victim notification
could only come from a state investigator, and Jeff Sloman asked PBPD Chief Reiter to assist."
419
Plea Hearing Transcript at 42.
420
OLC 2005 CVRA Informal Guidance; see also United States v. Guevara-Toloso, No. 04-1455, 2005 WL
1210982, at *2 (E.D.N.Y. May 23, 2005) (in case involving a federal charge of illegal entry after a felony conviction,
the court determined that victims of the predicate state conviction were not victims under the CVRA).
421
In Wild, the Eleventh Circuit panel noted that the petitioner argued "only in passing" that the government
violated her CVRA right "to reasonable, accurate, and timely notice of any public court proceeding...involving the
crime"; however, the court concluded this provision "clearly appl[ies] only after the initiation of criminal
proceedings." Wild, 955 F.3d at 1205 n.7, 1208.
422
The government's letter to victims, following Epstein's guilty pleas, informing them of the resolution of the
case by state plea and the availability of § 2255 relief, also appear to satisfy the potentially applicable VRRA
requirements to "inform a victim of any restitution or other relief to which the victim may be entitled," and to "provide
a victim the earliest possible notice of the status of the investigation of the crime, to the extent it is appropriate to
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