Just days before a Friday deadline, the Justice Department has reassigned the Jeffrey Epstein victims’ rights case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta, the attorneys representing Epstein’s victims said Tuesday.
Miami federal prosecutors, in a letter to attorneys for the victims on Monday, said they had recused themselves from the case, according to Bradley Edwards and Jack Scarola, representing Epstein’s victims.
The reassignment means that the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Byung J. “BJay” Pak, will oversee the case for the government. Pak, a former Georgia lawmaker, was appointed Atlanta’s chief federal prosecutor by President Donald Trump in October 2017.
The Justice Department is still under a Friday deadline for prosecutors to confer with the victims’ attorneys in an effort to settle the case. On Feb. 22, U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra in Palm Beach County ruled that federal prosecutors, under former Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, broke the law when they concealed a plea agreement from more than 30 underage girls in Palm Beach who had been sexually abused by Epstein, a multimillionaire New York hedge fund manager.
The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com
Weak kneed - there is only one correct move, and it is to reopen the prosecution and let the 11th Cir decide if the case should move forward. This office should have done that.
ReplyDeleteBrave
ReplyDeleteThey're in ; they're in....they're out.
ReplyDeleteWhat's with Mara clearly protecting the line AUSA who appears before him all the time and just mentioning her name once in a FN and otherwise referring to her as "the line AUSA" in the order multiple times. I like Mara but I have a feeling if it was a defense counsel facing serious misconduct charges their name would be repeatedly mentioned in the order. That little act diminished Mara and his findings in my opinion which counts for almost nothing beyond my legion of blog readers.
It would count for more if you knew how to spell the judge's name. What a hack.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he understood the decisions were being made way above her head and she was trusting the higher-ups to follow the law??? The line ausa is a good person who cares deeply about doing what is right.
ReplyDeleteShe. Dumbass...but she is a good ausa.
ReplyDeleteCan't say too much about the line AUSA's judgment, given the various emails she wrote and sent to defense counsel.
ReplyDeleteNo Manafort? A rich white man got a substantial downward variance from a fed judge. Though DOM would be all over that.
ReplyDeleteEveryone properly criticizes Acosta and his team for violating the rights of these victims back in 2008. But what people overlook is the far bigger problem created by every US Attorney and Main Justice for the past 11 years. After the victims filed suit in 2008 the Government should have admitted its mistake and joined forces with the victims. But the Government in all its arrogance joined forces with Eostein and fought the victims for the past 11 years. That bad decision falls at the feet of Republicann Democratic prosecutors equally. The real issue isn’t the politics. It’s the arrogance of a federal Government who will never admit making a mistake. And moving this case to Atlanta does not solve that problem. It just causes more delay in achieving a host resolution of this blatant violation.
ReplyDeleteOh, do tell.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article227259704.html
So much misconduct, so little criticism from our bench.
ReplyDeleteThis blog never reviewed the trial Judge’s ruling on misconduct in the Esformes case (trial ongoing).
ReplyDeleteThe court simply disregarded the Magistrate’s R&R findings as unnecessary.
Protect the Gov’t at any cost. Including your own peer’s reasonableness & credibility.
Exactly. This is what happens when you stock the bench with prosecutors.
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