On Saturday, July 6, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. He was arrested and killed in a jail cell five weeks later for his countless crimes of sex trafficking and abuse. His longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking. However, none of his other associates that enabled his behavior and were there alongside him, have been criminally charged in the United States. Since the death of Epstein, outrage and conspiracy theories sparked about why these powerful people have gone unpunished.
Just recently released from the Justice Department were millions of pages of emails, memos, interview transcripts, and other records to expose the crimes of Epstein and these people have been able to go unpunished for so long.
Part of the reason for why the investigations took so long were because of missed opportunities from both Democratic and Republican administrations, to bring him and those involved to justice. Evidence was unaddressed. A controversial plea deal in Florida left prosecutors unsatisfied. Years-long investigation by federal agents went nowhere. A miscommunication among federal officials ended a potential investigation in New York.
In the records, the federal prosecutors focused mainly on his sex crimes against teenage girls in the 2000s. Prosecutors continued investigations after the death of Epstein and believed they didn’t have enough evidence to to charge anyone besides Epstein and his companion Maxwell with the trafficking of minors or other federal crimes.
For example, they lacked proof that other men participated with Epstein in a child sex abuse ring. They did have evidence of possible crimes against women, but prosecutors believed it more to be state offenses than federal ones. Prosecutors also did not investigate other factors, such as how Epstein moved his money through banks around the world. They did not interview Epstein’s financial sponsors.
Outside of the United States, law enforcement in Britain arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew, and Peter Mandelson, a recent ambassador to the United States for taking part in the sex crimes.
Ever since the release of the Epstein files, over two dozen people — CEOs, members of government, from worldwide, have resigned. However, no arrests or investigations have been made in the United States by the Department of Justice. To this day, no comprehensive investigation of Epstein’s network has been pursued by any federal law enforcement agency.
