underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion for decades. Epstein managed to evade serious charges, in part because the Palm Beach prosecutor at the time, Barry Krischer, elected to charge him with minor prostitution charges rather than bringing a felony sexual assault case. The records have remained under seal for 16 years. Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an order to release the files by July 1. Epstein’s case came under new scrutiny in 2018 — 10 years later — following a series of articles by the Miami Herald that outlined the secret negotiations that led to a light jail sentence for Epstein. Epstein would serve just 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, where he was given liberal privileges to work in his outside office and at his mansion. Florida prosecutors knew Epstein raped teenage girls 2 years before cutting deal, transcript shows

Florida prosecutors heard graphic testimony about how the late millionaire and financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually assaulted teenage girls two years before they cut a plea deal, according to transcripts released Monday of the 2006 grand jury investigation. The transcripts were at the center of a court battle for about a decade after media investigations into Epstein’s ties to the rich and the powerful seems to have allowed him to continue to rape and sex traffic teenagers without ever being sent to prison or serving a serious jail term. The transcripts show that the grand jury heard testimony that Epstein, who was then in his 40s, had raped teenage girls as young as 14 at his Palm Beach mansion. The teenagers testified and told detectives they were also paid to find him more girls. Source: nypost.com