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2.
The Evidence Does Not Establish That Acosta Negotiated a Deal
Favorable to Epstein over Breakfast with Defense Counsel
OPR separately considered the circumstances of one specific meeting that has been the
subject of media attention and public criticism. The Miami Herald's November 2018 reporting on
the Epstein investigation opened with an account of the October 12, 2007 breakfast meeting that
defense counsel Jay Lefkowitz arranged to have with Acosta at the West Palm Beach Marriott
hotel. According to the Miami Herald article, "a deal was struck" at the meeting to allow Epstein
to serve "just 13 months" in the county jail in exchange for the shuttering of the federal
investigation, and Acosta also agreed to "conceal" the full extent of Epstein's crimes from the
victims and the public. 234 Although public criticism of the meeting has focused on the fact that
the meeting occurred in a hotel far from Acosta's Miami office, the evidence shows that Acosta
traveled to West Palm Beach on October 11 for a press event and stayed overnight at the hotel,
near the USAO's West Palm Beach office, because at midday on October 12 he was to speak at
the Palm Beach County Bench Bar Conference. After carefully considering the evidence
surrounding the breakfast meeting, including contemporaneous email communications and witness
accounts, OPR concludes that Acosta did not negotiate the NPA, or make any significant
concessions relating to it, during or as a result of the October breakfast meeting.
Epstein and his attorneys signed the NPA on September 24, 2007—more than two weeks
before the October 12 breakfast meeting. The signed NPA contained all of the key provisions
resulting from the preceding weeks of negotiations between the parties, and despite a later
addendum and ongoing disputes about interpreting the damages provision of the agreement, those
key provisions remained in place thereafter. Acosta told OPR that throughout the negotiations
with the defense, he sought three goals: (1) Epstein's guilty plea in state court to an offense
requiring registration as a sexual offender; (2) a sentence of imprisonment; and 3) a mechanism
through which victims could obtain monetary damages from Epstein. As noted previously, the
USAO's original plea offer in Menchel's August 3, 2007 letter expressed a "non-negotiable"
demand that Epstein agree to a two-year term of imprisonment, and the final NPA required only
an 18-month sentence, but the decision to reduce the required term of imprisonment from 24 to 18
months was made well before Acosta's breakfast meeting with counsel. The NPA signed on
September 24, 2007, required 18 months' incarceration, sexual offender registration, and a
mechanism for the victims to obtain monetary damages from Epstein, and OPR found that these
terms were not abandoned or materially altered after the breakfast meeting.
At the time of Acosta's October breakfast meeting with Lefkowitz, two issues involving
the NPA were in dispute. Neither of those issues was ultimately resolved in a way that materially
changed the key provisions of the NPA. First, at Sloman's instigation, the USAO sought to change
the mechanism for appointing an attorney representative for the victims. This USAO-initiated
request had prompted discussions about an "addendum" to the NPA. Sloman sent the text of a
proposed NPA addendum to Lefkowitz on October 11, 2007.235 Although OPR found no decisive
234
Julie K. Brown, "Perversion of Justice: How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the
deal of a lifetime," Miami Herald, Nov. 28, 2018.
235
In his December 19, 2007, letter to defense attorney Sanchez, Acosta represented that he had proposed the
addendum at the breakfast meeting, but it is clear the addendum was being developed before then.
160
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