Grand jury testimony from 2006 Jeffrey Epstein case may be released because of new Florida law
Grand jury testimony about the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein may be released thanks to a new Florida law that clears the way for the release of the long-sealed documents.
Epstein, who committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in Aug. 2019, was first investigated by Palm Beach police in 2006 for abusing teenage girls at his mansion in the South Florida city, which led to a grand jury investigation.
A controversial deal greenlit by prosecutors in 2007 allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges and pled guilty only to two state prostitution charges, including procuring a minor for sex.
The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman (R-Highland Beach) and Sen. Tina Polsky (D-Boca Raton), expands an exception to a prohibition on the disclosure of testimony or evidence received by grand juries, which is typically secret, CBS News reported.
While signing the bill at the Palm Beach Police Department, DeSantis said it was wrong for “a very rich and well-connected” person to “engineer an outcome that the average citizen would likely never have been able” to do.
“There needs to be a mechanism in some of these rare circumstances where people can get the truth and where we can try to pursue justice,” DeSantis said.
Polsky said she looks “forward to the transparency the legislation will provide” to people in the state.
“The public and the victims deserve to know if prosecutors steered the jury away from indicting Epstein on more severe charges,” Polsky said.
“We need to know if the system worked or failed in the pursuit of justice of this heinous individual.”
Epstein was arrested in New York in July 2019 on federal sex-trafficking offenses involving minor girls and died in the federal lockup weeks later.
The Palm Beach Post filed a lawsuit in 2019 in an effort to obtain a court order to unseal the 2006 grand jury records.
