A little more on the dashing little-girl fancier Jeffrey Epstein:

Saturday evening, federal agents carried out a search of his townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, according to witnesses who spoke to the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown, who has reported extensively both on Epstein’s alleged crimes and on a deal he received from the US attorney in Miami in 2008 during an investigation involving more than 30 underage victims.

Epstein is currently being held in New York, and is expected to be arraigned on Monday at a bail hearing in federal court in Manhattan. An anonymous source told the Herald they believe the hearing could allow Epstein to escape trial: “If they grant him bail, he has enough money that he will disappear and they will never get him.”

That’s what I’ve been thinking. He’d do a Polanski. He’d do that in a heartbeat, and then no doubt all the hipsters would rush to defend him the way they did Polanski. They’d be crazy to grant him bail.

The bureau collected copious evidence, and in 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to the solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution. However, because of deal made with former US attorney (and current US secretary of labor) Alexander Acosta, Epstein did not receive a long sentence.

It’s touching the way these guys stick together.

As Vox’s Jane Coaston and Anna North reported:

The FBI had prepared a 53-page sex crimes indictment for Epstein in 2007 that could have sent him to prison for life, according to the Herald. Instead, he cut a deal with Alexander Acosta, then the US attorney in Miami, which allowed him to serve just 13 months — not in federal or state prison, but in a private wing of a Palm Beach county jail.

He was granted work release to go to a “comfortable office” for 12 hours a day, six days a week, despite the fact that the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Department prohibited work release for sex offenders.

Epstein’s deal, called a “non-prosecution agreement,” granted immunity to “any potential co-conspirators,” meaning that if any of Epstein’s powerful friends were involved in his crimes, they would face no consequences. And Acosta agreed that the deal would be kept secret from the victims, preventing them from showing up in court to try to challenge it.

I did a post about the deal some time ago, but I don’t remember the part about no consequences for his powerful friends. I think I do remember the keep it secret from the victims part. God this stuff is sickening.

In February, a federal judge ruled the non-prosecution agreement to be unconstitutional. US District Judge Kenneth A. Marra said that the deal violated the 30-plus accusers’ right to speak with prosecutors about the terms of the arrangement.

But in late June, the Department of Justice declined to invalidate that deal. Prior to this decision, accusers had hoped Marra’s ruling would lead to the case being reopened.

What DoJ was that? Oh, the one that’s at the mercy of Donald Trump. That DoJ.

Them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose.

Attorneys for two of Epstein’s alleged victims said they hope that these latest charges will finally bring the financier to justice.

“It’s been a long time coming — it’s been too long coming,” attorney David Boies told the Daily Beast. “It is an important step towards getting justice for the many victims of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise.”

Connections. He’s got connections.

The financier met many a powerful person as an investment banker at Bear Stearns, and later as the head of his own financial firm that exclusively caters to billionaires. He once described the famous people with whom he associates as a “collection,” and his well-connected lawyers, Kenneth Starr and Alan Dershowitz, were key to his light sentencing in the 2008 federal case.

Kenneth Starr. Rich, isn’t it?