reporting that led us to today s events. basically that reporting came out of the state prosecution files, which make the very clear exactly what was going on back in the mid-2000s. and, glenn, quickly, we mentioned the labor secretary, alex acosta s name coming up here obviously because he was part of that. he was key in that nonprosecution agreement 11 years ago. this came up a little bit in his confirmation hearing. we don t have any comment from the administration right now. what do you expect in terms of his role as this plays out in the public square? well, the department of justice office of professional responsibility has already opened an investigation to how then u.s. attorney acosta handled this. and i have to say it s pretty stunning that a federal judge back in february found in the civil litigation that some of these victims brought that then u.s. attorney acosta actually violated the law. he violated the rights that the victims have under the crime victims rights akt
there is a federal law, a law called the crime victims rights act that gives crime victims the right to be told when there are plea negotiations going on in their case and the right to be present for any hearing or sentencing. but alex acosta didn t notify epstein s victims before he granted him that plea deal, the non-prosecution agreement, right? he waited until the whole thing was signed, done and dusted before any of the victims found out about it until it was too late for any of them to do or say anything about it. dozens of victims. no chance to object to that deal. no chance to appear at epstein s sentencing and no chance to tell their stories how his behavior affected their lives. those are all rights afforded to them under the law, not just under commonsense after decency but under the law and they didn t get that. and so two of them sued the government. they didn t sue epstein, they sued the government. alleging that alex acosta and his team of prosecutors broke federal law w
acosta agreed to do that deal in secret. there is a federal law, a law called the crime victims rights act that gives crime victims the right to be told when there are plea negotiations going on in their case and the right to be present for any hearing or sentencing. but alex acosta didn t notify epstein s victims before he granted him that plea deal, the non-prosecution agreement, right? he waited until the whole thing was signed, done and dusted before any of the victims found out about it until it was too late for any of them to do or say anything about it. dozens of victims. no chance to be jekt to that deal. no chance to appear at epstein s sentencing and no chance to tell their stories how his behavior affected their lives. those are all rights afforded to them under the law, not just under commonsense after decency but under the law and they didn t get that. and so two of them sued the government. they didn t sue epstein, they
agreement for more than 30 underaged victims sexually abused by billionaire hedge fund manager jeffrey epstein. acosta who was the u.s. attorney for southern florida declined to prosecute epstein under federal sex trafficking laws allowing him to quietly plead guilty in state court to two prostitution charges and serve 13 months in county jail. thursday s ruling said acosta s team violated the crime victims rights act by concealing their actions from the victims who were mostly between the ages of 13 and 16 at the time stripping them of their right to object and misleading the girls into thinking federal prosecution was still a possibility and by sending letters to the victims requesting their quote, patience with the investigation, even after the government entered into the non-prosecution agreement. unbelievable. the deal received renewed attention after a series of investigative articles by the
it s just not clergy. should the crime victims rights act or any other federal legislation that s designed to address problems like this in the process, should this have been prevented by something like that? well, this should have been prevented by just normal human decency. fair enough. the victims right act should have prevented them from going to a deal without telling these women. if they had been told, you can be certain that at least some of them would have had lawyers that came into the system and said have you lost your mind? this is not right. but instead it all went under the radar. he was incarcerated on a work release program under the radar. this is a classic example of how our culture makes children and women s problems irrelevant while protecting men. tomorrow several of epstein s victims are expected to take the stand in this case in palm beach county. the way you re describing this makes me feel more strongly that this may be a very important