The Daily Beast Podcast - Julie K. Brown Doesn’t Believe Jeffrey Epstein Killed Himself

Episode Date: July 25, 2021

In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Julie K. Brown, the reporter who pursued the Jeffrey Epstein story at the Miami Herald and author of Perversion of Justice, explains the four reasons she doesn’t believe the convicted pedophile died by suicide. Plus, she has some thoughts about Alan Dershowitz, Ghislaine Maxwell and what is next for this case. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another special bonus episode of The New Abnormal. We thank you so much for being here. Today we have an amazing episode with Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown, who's just come out with a new book that chronicles a lot of the reporting she's done and tells the story of Jeffrey Epstein. It's called Perversion of Justice, and we're going to get into what's inside the book with her today. Welcome to the New Abnormal, Julie K. Brown. Thanks for having me. Very exciting. I'm such a fan of yours.

I want to talk to you because you are the person who broke this story. And if it was not for you, Jeffrey Epstein would still be jetting around in his private jet. Who is the biggest villain in this story besides Jeffrey Epstein? Oh, man, you really put me on a spot. Sorry. You can have multiple. There's a lot of villains. Yeah.

There's a lot of different villains in this story. Many of the victims, for example, would say that it is Acosta, maybe. No, Gieland, me. Maxwell really because a lot of the victims that I'm saying the victims would say this because she really started this whole idea of going out and recruiting young girls for Epstein according to, you know, the allegations against her. So she used her sort of her motherly, you know, and this is what they told me and what they have said to authorities, that she was a nurturing kind of warm woman. and so they felt they could trust her, you know, and they got kind of lured into this web,

this horrible web of sex trafficking. Jesus. Just start a little bit with the beginning here, though. With Alex Acosta, explain to me how that happened because it was like Epstein was guilty, we all knew it, and then he got off. Well, it's a question of how much do we know and when we knew it. I think when this whole thing happens, they did a very good job of putting, putting a lid on what he did. They hired private investigators. They hired PR people, especially in New York.

Yeah, talk to me about the New York PR people. I really quite frankly don't know all the people he hired. I didn't really study that, but I do know that he hired people because if you examine the coverage of this case in New York versus the coverage that was happening in Paul Beach at the time, you'll see a huge difference. In Palm Beach, they were at least saying that this involved underage girls. And in New York, they were just saying, well, he got in trouble for prostitution, minimizing this. And to some degree, they were successful in doing it at Palm Beach as well because his lawyers and his PR machine got to the prosecutors, especially the state attorney who was overseeing the case, Barry Crisher, and somehow convinced him that these girls, who were, by the way, 13, 14, 15, were prostitutes. And, you know, as hard as that is to fathom back then, there still were laws on the books where someone who was that age,

who was accepting money from someone for sex, could technically be charged with prostitution. That's no longer the case, of course, but back then that was still on the book. So Epstein's machine convinced Barry Krischer, the prosecutor, that, look, these girls are, you're never going to win this case. You know, they got money for this. They were prostitutes. Ignoring the fact, of course, that there were, you know, ultimately dozens of them. And the way in which they were lured in there was really a means of fraud and coercion. It was not like, hey, we're going to pay you $100 for.

for giving this guy sex. They didn't do that. They lied to the girls. They misled the girls. I mean, you can't do that. Yeah. Talk to me about Alan Dershowitz because he's really got a big part in the story.

And he's kind of obsessed with you. And, you know, my story, I think, pushed a lot of his buttons. Yeah. Although, to be honest, if you, I didn't really put anything in my investigation in my series that I first released in 2018. I didn't put anything in there that wasn't already in the public record.

I was pretty careful with that story. There aren't any anonymous sources in it. Everything was based on an original interview or some kind of a public record. So it was sort of over the top, the way he reacted to it, given the fact that it was all information, for the most part, that was pretty already out there

in public. But it got a lot of attention. And I think he felt that somehow he had to find a way to discredit it just because it raised, you know, it brought him up as being in it again. He had also been very successful in convincing a lot of people in the media, quite frankly, that he had somehow been exonerated. There was a lawsuit that lawyers that named him as being involved with Epstein's scheme. You know, they had a victim, Virginia Joufrey, who accused Dershowitz of being involved. In fact, she said she had been pimped out to Dershowitz when she was 17. He sued her lawyers. And then there was this, you know, long negotiation and it was settled. And he somehow convinced the media that, oh, it was settled. I was exonerated. But that wasn't the settlement. And so I pointed that out at my story. It was accurate. And, you know, they, the lawyers in the settlement never said that Virginia was lying or the, or or that they were wrong. It was just a settlement, you know? Right. But Dershowitz was on the plane. He was at the island. I mean, his, you know, his defenses that he kept his underwear on. I mean, that's,

when your defense is that, it's not a great look. No. You know, he was in that Palm Beach house. There was a deposition by one of Epstein's butlers saying that he was there and that he was there when there were young women and girls there. Of course, you know, they didn't have any testimony. You know, these kinds of crimes don't happen with witnesses in front of something. Right. You know, how do you prove that he was having sex with these girls or young women? I mean, really, how do you prove it?

It is a difficult thing. You know, in the beginning, I was very, to be honest with you, I was very, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. You know, it's a serious, serious, serious. imagine being accused of something like this and you didn't do it. And I was very mindful of that. So I was really willing to give him a lot of time to tell me or show me or give me evidence that he said he had to disprove this. But every time I did that, it was such a long song and dance and battle that it just became clear to me that he just for whatever reason didn't want to really show me that that purpose. And, you know, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Just you never saw it.

So if it did exist, it's a bit odd that he wouldn't show it to you. Talk to me about Epstein. I have to ask you this question. It's like I hate to ask this question because I would rather talk about the victims and all they've been through. But do you think that Epstein killed himself? No, I don't think he killed himself. This is getting a lot of attention because I named, called one of my chapters, Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself. Maybe I should have posed it as a question.

But when people ask me that, I say, no, I just don't think, what am I going to say? Well, I could be that one of those journals to say, well, there's evidence on this side and there's evidence on that side. And I'm just not that kind of a person. I'm just going to tell you how I feel. And based on what I know, you know, and I don't have any proof, but based on the information that I know, I just don't think he did. Why? Well, number one, this was a man who felt he really was above the law. law. After this happened, you know, after he went to jail for this crime, even though it was not much

of a sentence, he was interviewed by a reporter who asked him about this crime and he compared what he did with these girls to stealing a bagel. Okay. So he never thought ever that he did anything wrong. Yeah. Number one. Number two, he thought he was above the law. Number three, he had beaten the system pretty resoundly once before. Number four, this was very early in the process for him to throw in the towel. He had all had his bail hearing. They hadn't had any litigation. He was still hiring lawyers up into the day that he allegedly committed suicide. This was a guy who didn't even tie his own shoe Lisa is probably. He had butlers doing everything for him. So how is he going to manage this feat of tying himself to the top bunk of his bed and pull himself with such force that he breaks single-handedly

breaks three bones in his neck? I mean, I just don't see him doing that by himself. Now, do I think it's possible it was an assistant suicide? Yes, I do think that's possible. Yes, I do think that's possible. There's just too many missing pieces to this story. So Ken Starr's involvement in this case is pretty interesting. Can you explain it to us? First of all, one of the things that Epstein was very brilliant at was hiring the people, the right lawyers, that each of them had some connection to the prosecutors in the case. They had friends, they went to school together, one of them had dated, one of the prosecutors, I mean, it goes on and on. Now, Ken Starr and Jay Lefkowitz were two lawyers that Epstein hired. Both of them were in what is known as the Federalist Society. This is a very conservative organization, mostly Republicans. That has picked all of our Supreme Court judges at this point. Yeah. Remember that Alex Acosta's dream was to be a Supreme Court justice. Yeah. His mentor, Alito, had just been sworn in prior to him taking this U.S. Attorney's job. So he wanted to be a Supreme Court

Justice. So who, you know, number one, you know, two members of the Federalist Society, but number two, these two lawyers, including Ken Starr, were a member of this very politically connected law firm, Kirkland and Alice. And Acosta had worked at Kirkland's in Ellis, and he knew Ken Starr from there. So these were very influential lawyers that Acosta had. to confront. And in doing my research for the book, I found even more documentation, these letters that Starr had written to, you know, Mark Phillip, who was then the assistant attorney general in the White House. And, you know, he really pulled out all the stops, you know, writing these very eloquent letters, citing the attorney general, citing, you know, all these principles and

It was over the top kind of language trying to convince the Justice Department not to prosecute that they didn't really even have the jurisdiction. You know, that was the main thing. Right. I'm going to argue they didn't have the jurisdiction to prosecute Epstein. And he was successful, really, because they didn't prosecute him. He got an immunity deal. There's a lot of talk about this like MIT, Harvard, Bill Gates, Dave. David Brockman. What are you seeing there? I mean, do you see anything there? Or do you think this is just like rich

philanthropists getting together? Or do you see more of a sort of connection there? This is just such a boys club, you know? It's like asking what goes on behind closed doors. They had this little boys club and do I think that they were all part of the sex trafficking? No. I do think that there were people that knew. There were people that enabled. There were people. people that, you know, look the other way. So you don't feel like Bill Gates is involved in this? You know, I don't know. I don't think anybody knows who all is involved in this.

I don't think anybody knows. You know, I think that there have been enough names floated around the authorities to be questioning some of these people. Les Wexner, for example, it's never been clarified that, you know, why he gave him millions of dollars. Yeah, yeah. What do you think the thinking there is with all that stuff where are you, have these situations, you have these people giving him millions of dollars.

I mean, there are a number of people throughout this story, including Leon Black and Les Wexler, who give Epstein millions of dollars or give him houses or, you know, there's all sorts of stuff like that. Do you have a sense for why that is? Well, there could be a lot of different reasons. I mean, of course, what they're saying is that it was because he provided them with financial advice. Well, think about it. Leon Black and Wes Wexner had the ability to hire the best financial minds in the world to help. Why Jeffrey Epstein? Why? What did Epstein have that, you know, one of your best advisors had? Well, one thing probably Epstein had, for example, was he probably kept a lot of secrets.

Right, exactly. Because we know he did because he had this. sex trafficking operation on the side. And so, you know, I'm not going to say they were involved. I mean, we just don't know. You know, a lot of people would like to know, but that's the job of authorities. And I hope that they were really digging into it because the problem with the first case was, you know, the authorities here in Florida came to suspect. And they knew because the FBI was starting to fly to New York, for example, into New Mexico to try to talk to more victims. And that's when the whole case kind of got shut down. So I think that this is a cautionary tale for prosecutors on the case, even now, to not, you know, hold back and not if they talk to someone who leads them to one of these important men, I hope they're going to pursue it.

Do we have any sense of what happens now with the case? Well, you know, they're going to prosecute Eelan Maxwell. they are. I think they're going to go through with it. Just because of what happened with Epstein, there's no way that they're going to give her a plea deal. So I think there will be a trial. She is taking a page out of the Jeffrey Epstein legal playbook and that she's hiring very powerful attorneys with connections who are throwing all kinds of motions in, you know, in an effort to drag the case, you know, along. And that's what Epstein did, to wear down the problem. And, prosecutors with all kinds, every single legal argument you can imagine.

I mean, that's what she's paying the big bucks for. She wants them to throw every legal argument they can, you know? Yeah. So we'll have to see what happens. Of course, she's going to argue that she was one of the unnamed. Well, she has alluded to the fact that she was a victim. I don't know how that's going to play. I mean, she was, you know, of age.

And she certainly had been with him for a very long time. time. She also, you know, how did, what did he do to force you to go out into Palm Beach at spas and all those places and, and try to recruit, um, yeah, so-called massage therapist. It's been forced to do that for so long. Have you heard at all about the arm stealing stuff? Is there any proof there or is that just wild conjecture? I mean, I don't, you know, to be honest, with you. I haven't followed that closely enough. There's all kinds of things like that out there. And if I had to follow everyone, I wouldn't ever. I think there's so many. Listen, when I first started this story, there's so many rabbit holes I could have jumped down. And at some point, you have to, and even with the book, you have to kind of, you know, put a period at the end of the sentence and you have to, you know, you have to finish it. And, you know, this is, you know, I've, I've,

been saying to other people, you know, there's a lot of journalists on the story. And I'm very happy that there are more journalists on the story because it is a big story. I can't do it by myself. I welcome everyone else that is working on it. I hope that they get to the truth. You know, the Miami Herald has spent an awful lot of money for a regional newspaper to keep fighting to unsealed documents. You know, there's still a lot we don't know and we're working toward. And I hope that people just keep

the pressure on. Well, you have been so dogged in your reporting and it is really, I mean, if any, if there's any justice for these women, it will be because of what you've done. I have one last question for you, which is, do you feel,

it feels to me like this case is so big and there are so many tentacles to it, that it is kind of a Roershack, that people just sort of put their own anxieties on the case. And do you know what I mean? Yeah, I see it all the time. I try to ignore that part of it because it's just overwhelming. For example, and my other question is like when it comes to the Trump, you know, some people will say Clinton was on the plane, which he was on the Epstein plane,

and then there's pictures of Epstein and Trump. Have you seen an either side connection to either of them? There's a connection on both sides. I mean, sexual assault and sexual abuse doesn't discriminate based on political party. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what makes this story in some ways, one of the rare ones in our country right now where almost everybody can agree upon was a horrible crime. And that people on both sides, whether they're Republican or Democrat or conservative or liberal, they were.

thought they should be punished, you know. Yes, agreed. Thank you so much, Julie. This was a really great interview. So interesting to talk to you. And thank you. Thanks for having me. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond

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