Newly released grand jury documents in Epstein case reveal alleged victims facing prostitution charges

On July 19, 2006, a Palm Beach County grand jury heard from two alleged underage victims of Jeffrey Epstein, two police officers and an investigator from the state attorney's office in a proceeding that lasted less than four hours, according to transcripts recently released by a Florida judge.

During testimony from the two alleged victims, each was asked questions about whether they understood that they had engaged in prostitution and could be charged with a crime, according to newly released transcripts.

“It was just atrocious the way they handled it,” said Spencer Kuvin, an attorney who represented one of the alleged minor victims who testified. “They just blew up their own case.”

The previously secret testimony was made public Monday in response to a motion by the Palm Beach Post, which was joined by numerous other news organizations. Earlier this year, the Florida legislature passed a new law to ensure that the Epstein documents were made public, due to intense public interest in understanding how the grand jury returned an indictment against Epstein on a single charge of soliciting prostitution. The grand jury transcript, however, contains no indication of the charging options that were presented to the grand jurors before they made their decision.

The grand jury was convened in 2006 by then-Prosecutor Barry Krischer, who had for months resisted efforts by the Palm Beach Police Department to charge Epstein with multiple felonies for his alleged sexual exploitation of underage girls.

The first witness before the grand jury was Palm Beach Police Detective Joseph Recarey, who led the Epstein investigation and interviewed more than a dozen alleged underage victims. Recarey recounted the beginning of the investigation, when the stepmother of a 14-year-old girl reported that her daughter had been paid $300 to massage an older man on Palm Beach Island.

Prosecutors then called the teen, who had been 15 since. She testified that she had once gone to Epstein’s mansion the year before. She said Epstein’s assistant asked her to strip down to her underwear and wait for Epstein to enter the room. She said she massaged Epstein and then, at his request, agreed to let him use a vibrator on her for an additional $100. She admitted to lying and telling Epstein she was 18. Her parents found out about her trip to Epstein’s house, she said, because she had gotten into a fight at school and the money was found in her purse.

During her testimony, prosecutors questioned the girl about her drug and alcohol use, her piercings and posts on her MySpace page in which she bragged about shoplifting and lied about her age and income, claiming to make $250,000. “Yeah, it’s a joke,” she testified. “Like all my friends do that, because it’s kind of funny and random and stupid.”

A juror then asked the witness if she had “any idea deep down that… what she's doing is wrong?”

“Yes, I did,” she replied.

“And you are well aware of what you are doing to your own reputation,” the juror asked.

“Yes, I do,” she recalls.

A prosecutor, Lanna Belohlavek, then asked the 15-year-old witness: “Did you know you committed a crime?”

“Now I am. I didn’t know it was a crime when I was doing it,” she replied. “Now I guess it’s prostitution or something.”

Reading those exchanges Monday, Kuvin — who represented the witness during the Epstein investigation — said he was dismayed but not surprised.

“It just confirmed what we knew all along: The prosecutor was afraid to prosecute him and he derailed his own case by attacking his own witnesses during the grand jury process,” he said. “It was almost as if the grand jury process was an attempt to prosecute the teens and ignore Epstein.”

In later testimony, Detective Recarey, who died in 2018, recounted the now-familiar deviant scheme in which Epstein enlisted his assistants and alleged victims to recruit other underage girls to his home for illicit massages. Recarey told the grand jury that two alleged victims had sex with Epstein without their consent when they were under 18.

According to Recarey, one alleged victim visited Epstein’s mansion more than 100 times and was given $200 each time, as well as gifts including a rental car. He testified that on one occasion, Epstein had sex with her without her consent. “She screamed no,” Recarey said when a grand juror asked him if the victim asked Epstein to stop. Epstein stopped, apologized and paid her $1,000, Recarey testified.

Belohlavek then asked Recarey about the money the alleged victim made from all of her visits to Epstein's home.

“That day, she took a thousand dollars. Let’s say it’s only $200 for a hundred times; she has – we’re talking about a lot of money that she received, at a minimum, plus a car,” the prosecutor said. “Did you ask her what she did with all that money?”

“I asked her and she wouldn’t tell me,” Recarey said. “She said it was too personal.”

“After you, she just described all these sexual acts to you? Okay,” Belohlavek replied.

The only other alleged victim to testify before the grand jury said she visited Epstein's mansion about 10 times, starting when she was 16.

“He was very aware of my age from the very beginning,” she said.

The sexual activity escalated gradually, she testified, until her last encounter, when Epstein initiated intercourse. It was the day before her 18th birthday, she said. She testified that she did not want to have sex with him, but did not ask him to stop.

The girl said she was reluctant to testify and was unsure whether she wanted to see Epstein prosecuted.

“You understand that you were actually prostituting yourself,” a prosecutor asked.

“Yes,” the witness replied.

The final witness of the day was an investigator from the state’s attorney’s office who was led through testimony covering the alleged teenage victims’ backgrounds, including shoplifting, arrests, alcohol and drug use. The investigator was also asked about the alleged 14-year-old victim’s MySpace pages. Much of this information had been provided to the prosecutor by Epstein’s defense attorneys, in an effort to dissuade the office from filing charges.

“And does her website also contain photos of her in scanty clothing, drinking alcohol and sexually provocative photos?” the witness was asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

Following the grand jury’s indictment on one count of solicitation of prostitution — with no mention of underage victims — Epstein was arrested, jailed, and released on bail. The grand jury’s outcome infuriated then-Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, who publicly apologized to the victims and turned the case over to the FBI. Two years later, federal prosecutors struck a deal with Epstein that allowed him to escape federal prosecution in exchange for pleading guilty to the original grand jury indictment and an additional count of soliciting a minor for prostitution. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Jail. Epstein was also granted work parole, which allowed him to spend up to 16 hours a day at his West Palm Beach office.

After Epstein's arrest in New York in 2019, Krischer rejected allegations that his handling of the case more than a decade earlier forced federal prosecutors to cut the notoriously lenient deal with Epstein.

“Regardless of how my office resolved the state charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office always had the option to file its own federal charges,” Krischer said in a statement at the time.