Judge Denies Bail to Jeffrey Epstein, Says He's a 'Danger' to Community

By Kate Briquelet, Marianne Dodson and Tracy Connor, The Daily Beast

18 July 19

The financier asked for house arrest but will stay in jail until his sex-trafficking trial.

effrey Epstein will not get to trade in his jail cell for his “gilded cage.”

A federal judge in New York denied the financier bail on Thursday, ruling that the globe-trotting financier must stay locked up until his trial on sex-trafficking charges because he’s a flight risk and a “danger” to the community.

The decision is a victory for prosecutors who argued that Epstein was too rich and the charges he faces too serious to let him return to the Manhattan mansion where he allegedly molested dozens of underage girls.

The proof they offered included a fake Austrian passport and dozens of small diamonds found in a safe, accusations of witness-tampering and suspiciously timed payments to alleged accomplices.

When Epstein offered to put up a $100 million bond, hire armed guards and a “live-in” trustee, the feds scoffed that he was trying to build his own private prison—a “gilded cage” from which he could easily take flight.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman agreed, saying, “I doubt that any bail package can overcome danger to the community.”

“The decision speaks to the seriousness of the crimes,” Berman said, adding that prosecutors established “clear and convinced evidence” that Epstein could try to go on the lam.

He said his ruling also took into consideration testimony from two of Epstein’s accusers, Courtney Wild and Annie Farmer, who said they feared his release.

Epstein, who is being held at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center, displayed no emotion as Berman issued his ruling from the bench. The judge will issue a more detailed written opinion later on Thursday.

With the bail issue settled, Epstein’s lawyers will likely focus their attention on trying to get the New York indictment thrown out by arguing it violates a sweetheart plea deal he cut with the feds in Florida in 2007.

He served just 13 months on two state prostitution charges back then, much of it on work release that he allegedly used for sexual hookups. After his release, he tried to fade into obscurity—a plan foiled by a Miami Herald investigation and ongoing litigation by his accusers.

The Public Corruption unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan launched its own probe of the politically connected money manager. And the FBI arrested Epstein, 66, on July 6 at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport as he returned from France.

Two days later he pleaded not guilty to charges of sex-trafficking and conspiracy for allegedly paying girls for massages that morphed into sex acts and then recruiting some of them to find other girls to abuse.

Since then, attorneys representing his accusers said, more than a dozen other women have come forward with accounts of abuse. Authorities in New Mexico, where Epstein has a sprawling ranch, have spoken to at least two new accusers who say he preyed on them when they were minors in the mid-2000s.

“At this point our plan is to share the results with the feds,” Matt Baca, a spokesman for New Mexico Attorney General Hector Baldera. “We have been in contact with them.”

The New York indictment details the allegations of just three victims between 2002 and 2005, but prosecutors have left the door open to adding charges or defendants in a superseding indictment—a development that legal experts see as inevitable.

Courtney Wild, who has sued the federal government for a deal that the courts agree violated victims’ rights, appealed earlier this week for anyone who has an Epstein story to tell it.

“To every victim out there, I understand what you are going through. You may try to convince yourself it was a long time ago and try to move on,” Wild said.

“But you are not alone. If you are a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, you know what I know, he will continue to sexually abuse women until he is stopped.”