Jet-setting financier and convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein’s trial on child sex trafficking charges won’t start until next June, at the earliest.
Federal prosecutors clashed with lawyers representing the jet-setting financier Wednesday over when the trial should begin, with the government arguing it should kick off next June, while the defense advocated for a post-Labor Day 2020 start date.
The judge didn’t make a definitive ruling, though he said June 2020 is the earliest the high-profile trial, expected to last four to six weeks, would commence.
Martin Weinberg, one of Epstein’s attorneys, claimed that the defense had one million pages of discovery to wade through and argued that a September 2020 trial date would be preferable because “thirteen months sounds like the appropriate amount of time it takes to prepare a case of this magnitude.”
A federal prosecutor countered that the trial should start sooner than that, telling the judge that a delay is not in the public interest and arguing that Epstein should be tried as “swiftly as possible.”
Judge Richard Berman, who finds himself in the national and international spotlight while presiding over this case, hinted the trial might begin around June 8, 2020, but said he’d revisit the exact timing of the Epstein trial in the future.
“Let’s see where everybody is at as the months go by,” Berman said.
Berman scheduled a hearing for oral arguments on motions for Oct. 28.
Feminist attorney Gloria Allred, who was also in the courtroom, said after the hearing that she is representing some of Epstein’s alleged victims.
The defense team did not bring up concerns related to Epstein’s well-being or safety.
Epstein was reportedly found nearly unconscious on his cell floor with marks on his neck last week. Investigators have questioned Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer jailed on murder charges connected to drug-related killings in upstate New York, but the ex-cop has denied any involvement through his attorney. Investigators are still also considering whether the incident was an attempted suicide or a staged ploy as part of an effort to get transferred to a new prison.
Reporters observed Wednesday that Epstein did not appear to be in distress and did not see any marks on Epstein’s neck.
The 14-page indictment against Epstein unsealed earlier in July alleges that Epstein “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations” between 2002 and 2005 and perhaps beyond.
Prosecutors claim that Epstein “enticed and recruited, and caused to be enticed and recruited, minor girls … to engage in sex acts with him” and that he would then “give the victims hundreds of dollars in cash.” Some of the victims were as young as 14 at the time the alleged crimes occurred.
The wealthy businessman, already a convicted sex offender following a sweetheart plea deal in 2008, was arrested at the airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, after returning from an overseas trip to Paris. Epstein’s home in New York City was raided by law enforcement as well, and investigators found nude photographs of underage girls, thousands of dollars in cash, dozens of loose diamonds, and a foreign passport from the 1980s with Epstein’s picture and a false name.
In denying him bail earlier this month, Berman said that Epstein poses a “significant” danger to the community and agreed with prosecutors that he is a serious flight risk.
