(New York) The request of the Department of Justice aimed at making the reports of the Grand Jury public in the context of prosecution against Jeffrey Epstein, chronic sexual attacker, and his ex-partner, should not satisfy the appetite of the public for new revelations on the crimes of the financier, according to former federal prosecutors.
Lawyer Sarah Krissoff, assistant to the United States in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, described this request, as part of the prosecution against Epstein and the British worldly imprisoned Ghislaine Maxwell, as “diversion”.
“The president tries to pretend to be someone who acts here, when it is nothing,” said Mr.e Krissoff to the Associated Press.
Deputy Prosecutor General Todd Blanche formulated this request on Friday, asking judges to make public reports of the hearings of the Grand Jury having led to the inculpations of Epstein and Maxwell, saying that “transparency towards the American public is of the utmost importance for this administration”.
This request comes as the administration seeks to contain the storm which followed the announcement not to disclose new files of the Epstein survey, despite its previous promises.
Jeffrey Epstein died at 66 in his federal prison cell in August 2019, a month after her arrest for sex trafficking. Maxwell, 63, purge a 20 -year prison sentence pronounced after his conviction for sexual traffic in December 2021 for having attracted girls so that they are sexually assaulted by Epstein.
Photos provided by Laura Cavanaugh, Agence France-Presse Archives
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein
Me Krissoff and Joshua Naftalis, Federal Prosecutor of Manhattan for 11 years before embarking on the private sector in 2023, argued that the presentations before the Grand Jury are voluntarily brief.
According to Me Naftalis, the South District Prosecutors present just enough elements in front of a large jury to obtain an indictment, but “that will not be all that the FBI and the investigators discovered on Maxwell and Epstein”.
“People want the complete file, whatever its length. This is simply not the case, “he said, believing that transcriptions would probably only exceed a few hundred pages.
“It won’t be much,” added Mr.e Krissoff, estimating the length at only 60 pages, “because the South New York district is used to providing as little information as possible to the big jury. »»
“They give the indictment to the great jury to the small spoon. This is what we will see, she said. I just think it will not be very interesting. (…) It will not be something new. »»
The two former prosecutors mentioned that the witnesses of the Grand Jury in Manhattan are generally federal agents summarizing their hearings.
Me Krissoff predicted that the judges who chaired Epstein and Maxwell affairs will reject the government’s request.
In the case of Maxwell, a request is before the Supreme Court of the United States, the remedies were therefore not exhausted. In the case of Epstein, the accusations are linked to the Maxwell case and the anonymity of many victims, whose identity has not been made public, is at stake, although Mr. Blanche has asked that the identity of the victims is protected.
Cheryl Bader, former federal prosecutor and criminal law professor at the Fordham law faculty, said the judges who presided over Epstein and Maxwell affairs could take weeks, even months, to rule.
“Especially here, where the case involved witnesses or victims of sexual abuse, many of which were minors, the judge will be very careful about what he will disclose,” she said.
The journalists of the Associated Press Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this article.
