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going to become a registered sex offender, and he was going to go actually do time—which he
hadn’t done up to this point.” Krischer asked, “Why would I turn that down?” Krischer also noted
that at that time, sexual offender registration “was not the norm” in Florida, and he recognized that
“it was clearly something that was important to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.” 108

Acosta told OPR that he did not recall if he learned what transpired at the September 12
meeting, nor did he recall why the USAO team agreed to permit Epstein to plead guilty to only
one charge. Acosta told OPR, however, that he recognized that Villafaña and Lourie needed “some
degree of discretion to negotiate”; that “in the give and take” of negotiations, they might propose
a concession; and he was comfortable with the concession as long as the charge to which Epstein
ultimately pled “captured the conduct” in an “appropriate” way.

Although Epstein’s attorneys expressed interest in Epstein serving his time in a county
facility (rather than state prison), one of Epstein’s attorneys alternatively expressed interest in
Epstein serving his time in a federal facility, and along with discussions about the possible state
resolution, the USAO and Epstein’s counsel also discussed a possible federal plea with a sentence
running concurrently to the sentence Epstein would receive on the already indicted state charge.
Later that day, Villafaña sent Lefkowitz an email advising that she and Lourie had talked with
Acosta and Sloman, and they were “all satisfied in principle with the agreement.” 109 The next day,
September 13, 2007, Villafaña sent an email to Acosta, Sloman, Lourie, and two other supervisors,
identifying potential federal offenses that would yield a two-year sentence. Villafaña also emailed
defense counsel, stating that she had been “spending some quality time with Title 18”—referring
to the code of federal criminal statutes—to make sure there would be a “factual basis” for any
federal plea, and identifying the federal statutes she was considering.

C. The Evidence Does Not Clearly Show Why the Term of Incarceration Was
Reduced from 24 Months to 20 Months to 18 Months

OPR reviewed the contemporaneous records and asked Acosta, Villafaña, and Lourie to
explain how the jail term Epstein would have to accept came to be reduced from two years to 18
months. Lourie had no recollection of the process through which the term of incarceration was
reduced. Villafaña and Acosta offered significantly different explanations.

Villafaña told OPR:

We had this flip flop between is it going to be a state charge, is it
going to be a federal charge, is it going to be [a] state charge, is it
going to be a federal charge? And to get to a federal charge, there
was no way to do 24 months that made any sense. So somehow it
ended up being 20 months and then it got to be 18 months. And
these were calls that if I remember correctly, Jay Lefkowitz was

108 Belohlavek, however, told OPR that sexual offender registration “was a common occurrence” for enumerated
state crimes, but the state crime charged in the state indictment against Epstein was not one of them.
109 The email does not indicate what the parties meant by “the agreement.”

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