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127a
authorities to let him out early." Krischer responded
that under the proposal as it then stood, Epstein would
serve 15 months. He also told Villafaña that a plea to
a registrable offense would not prevent Epstein from
serving his time "at the stockade"—the local minimum
security detention facility. 127
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[139] authority to deviate from the Ashcroft Memo's
"most serious readily provable offense" requirement.
Although Acosta could not recall specifically how or
by whom the decision was made to allow Epstein to
plead to only one of the three charges identified on the
original term sheet, or how or by whom the decision
was made to reduce the sentencing requirement from
two years to 18 months, Acosta was aware of these
changes. He reviewed and approved the final NPA
before it was signed. Department policy gave him the
discretion to approve the agreement, notwithstanding
any arguable failure to comply with the "most serious
readily provable offense" requirement. Furthermore,
the Ashcroft Memo does not appear to preclude a U.S.
Attorney from deferring to a state prosecution, so it is
not clear that the Memo's terms apply to a situation
involving state charges. Accordingly, OPR concludes
that the negotiation of an agreement that allowed
Epstein to resolve the federal investigation in return
for the imposition of an 18-month state sentence did
127 The State Attorney concluded his email: "Glad we could get
this worked out for reasons I I won't put in writing. After this is
resolved I would love to buy you a cup at Starbucks and have a
conversation." Villafaña responded, "Sounds great." When asked
about this exchange during her OPR interview, Villafaña said:
"Everybody
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