The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
Alex Acosta resigned as labor secretary Friday morning. It was inevitable once he became the target of all virtuous people in Washington for negotiating a 2008 nonprosecution agreement that put super-rich sex offender Jeffrey Epstein behind bars for 13 months and required him to register as a sex offender and agree to pay restitution to his many teenage victims.
The Senate knew about the deal in April 2017 when 60 senators — including Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev. — voted to confirm Acosta. Three things changed since then.
In November, the Miami Herald ran “Perversion of Justice,” about the deal. In February, a federal judge ruled that Acosta’s team had violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act in keeping the deal from Epstein’s victims. The last straw came July 8 when New York U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman unsealed a two-count indictment against Epstein, 66, of Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., for two counts of sex trafficking of minors. If convicted, Epstein, who pleaded not guilty, could serve 45 years in prison.
If a New York prosecutor can press charges that could land Epstein in prison for the rest of his life, cable pundits reasoned, then surely the case, for which Acosta drafted a 53-page indictment, was a “slam dunk.”
The optics and the outcome are cringeworthy. A scant 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail was a sweet deal for the serial sex offender who raped and assaulted more than 30 teenage girls and took pleasure in degrading them, scarring them and instilling in them an undeserved sense of self-loathing.
Epstein deserved a far harsher sentence. And it doesn’t help that his Palm Beach County jailers broke protocol by allowing him to leave for 12 hours a day six days a week to work at his private office — an arrangement Acosta derided as “complete BS.”
Even still, Acosta had reason to broker the crappy deal. As he told reporters during a one-hour press conference Thursday, a trial would be a true “roll of the dice.” Rather than put Epstein’s traumatized victims through a grueling public tribunal, he chose not to risk an acquittal.
Epstein had hired a dream team of attorneys that included Alan Dershowitz, who successfully represented O.J. Simpson; Roy Black, who successfully represented Kennedy clan member William Kennedy Smith, who had been charged with rape; and Ken Starr, the special prosecutor whose probe led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
In a 2011 open letter, Acosta described how the Epstein team “investigated individual prosecutors and their families, looking for personal peccadilloes that may provide a basis for disqualification” and tried to disqualify prosecutors.
Given that kind of ruthlessness directed at prosecutors, you can see why Acosta might fear the Epstein legal team could capitalize on the reluctance of young witnesses to testify against him. One Jane Doe had called Epstein “an awesome man” and stated she hoped “nothing happens to (him).”
So Acosta chose a deal that put Epstein behind bars and “put the world on notice that he was and is a sexual predator.” The deal also did not prevent U.S. attorneys outside the Southern District of Florida from pressing charges — as Berman did.
Novelist James Patterson talked on Fox News about his Palm Beach neighbor, the subject of his nonfiction book “Filthy Rich: The Billionaire’s Sex Scandal.” Patterson said he did not think Epstein’s close neighbors in Palm Beach knew about his pursuit of teenage girls. Ditto President Trump. Ditto Bill Clinton, who flew on Epstein’s plane.
One other thing: The Miami Herald didn’t think the Epstein deal was so outrageous as to merit a series until Acosta was confirmed.
Cortez-Masto, who voted to confirm Acosta, released a statement calling for Acosta’s resignation. The former Nevada attorney general said she regretted “we didn’t have all of this information at the very beginning.”
That’s sort of what Acosta said, too. He wishes he knew in 2007 and 2008 what Berman knows now.
Morning Briefing Newsletter
Get a rundown of the latest local and regional news every Mon-Fri morning.
