0:03

I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening

0:05

to Here is the thing. Saturday's

0:08

arrest of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein

0:11

at Teterborough Airport got

0:13

me thinking again about journalist Julie

0:15

Brown was un I'm

0:18

still I think the news

0:20

outlets say that the arrest might never

0:22

have happened if it weren't for the work

0:24

of the Miami Herald. It's Brown's

0:26

work they're talking about. In

0:29

three explosive articles, Julie

0:31

Brown tracked having two thousand

0:34

eight the US Justice Department shut

0:36

down an FBI investigation

0:39

that may have been on the verge of discovering

0:41

the full extent of a child sex

0:44

trafficking operation run by

0:46

billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. That's

0:49

after giving him a sweetheart plea deal

0:51

on the crimes that had been uncovered.

0:54

The U s attorney in charge of the case

0:56

was none other than alex A Costa, now

0:59

the unit, it states, the Secretary of Labor

1:01

under Donald Trump. A couple

1:03

of months ago, Julie and I sat down

1:05

in front of a live audience at w

1:08

n y c S Green Space to talk about

1:10

her Epstein reporting and what

1:12

drove her to pursue the story.

1:17

I had so much for coming UM.

1:21

You first started reporting on this case

1:23

when UM a year and

1:25

a half ago. But I knew about the case for a long

1:28

time, and you got involved in the case.

1:31

Why because I was I

1:33

did a lot of human rights reporting for the Miami

1:35

Herald. I covered the prisons, and I knew

1:38

that Florida was one of the states that had a

1:40

huge sex trafficking problem.

1:42

And I always everything

1:45

that I read was they

1:47

were going after little cases. But I knew

1:49

that there were some big fish, so to

1:51

speak, in Florida, that we're probably behind sex

1:53

You knew that, how I just

1:56

you know, it's it's it's just reasonable

1:59

to think that they're are this.

2:01

It's a big money making operation. It's it's

2:03

all over the country, all over the world, really human

2:06

trafficking and sex trafficking. There

2:08

really was nobody pursuing this at

2:10

all except for lawyers. And that was

2:12

one of the other things that didn't treat me about this

2:14

case. You know, you would read about it

2:16

and then you say, you know, how does this happen

2:19

and why isn't anybody standing up yelling

2:21

and screaming. But the case has been

2:23

ongoing for quite a while before you got involved,

2:25

well, it actually had quieted down. I compare

2:28

what I did in this case to what a

2:30

cold case detective does. Let's

2:33

say you have someone who disappeared, and

2:35

the detectives come in and they find

2:38

a suspect, but they can't prove it, and

2:40

then they put it all away in a box. And

2:42

then somebody comes along who maybe just

2:44

got hired by the police department, and they just

2:46

decide that they're going to, uh, hey,

2:49

I'm going to take a look at this, and when time goes

2:51

by. I know this also from other stories I've

2:53

covered, other people

2:55

come out of the woodwork, or

2:57

there might be people that didn't want to talk when it

2:59

happened. We're afraid for one

3:01

reason or another in time has gone by, or yeah,

3:05

or what happened right?

3:08

And and these girls were at the

3:10

time, you know, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years

3:12

old. Now they're in their only thirties.

3:15

Actually, what really launched

3:17

the piece was when Alexander

3:19

Acosta, who was the prosecutor, the federal

3:21

prosecutor in Miami who handled this

3:23

case, got nominated by President

3:26

Trump to be Labor Secretary. I thought

3:28

I knew about the case, and I thought, well, let's see

3:30

what happened, which involves to some degree prosecuting

3:33

human trafficking. Right, I mean, it

3:36

was really the most the biggest

3:38

scandal of his career because he

3:40

gave uh he really let

3:42

him almost walk away from

3:45

this crime, and not only walk away

3:47

from it, but they covered it up. They really

3:51

made sure that no one

3:53

really knew that know the scope of

3:55

this crime. Now, for

3:57

those people who don't know a

4:00

lot of the details of the case, so I want to start with

4:02

that which is described for people, who is

4:04

Epstein and what was he charged

4:06

with? And what was the eventual outcome

4:08

of the prosecution that Acosta

4:11

oversaw? Right, Well, he was

4:13

a billionaire financier and

4:16

he had a hedge fund. He had a hedge fund, and he

4:18

dabbled in a lot of other financing

4:20

things like at one point he wanted to

4:23

take over pan m Airlines. There

4:25

was a lot of different projects that

4:27

he invested money in and he made

4:29

a lot obviously made a lot of money. He owned,

4:31

uh two jets, and he owned

4:34

homes in New Mexico, the largest

4:36

single residents here in Manhattan, home

4:39

in Palm Beach, home in um

4:41

Paris. Uh So, he

4:43

was extremely wealthy, very

4:46

smart, you know, he was a mathematician

4:49

and Nobil Prize winning scientists

4:51

were in his circle here in New

4:53

York. He grew up in New York. He didn't finish

4:55

college, but he ended up getting a job at the Dalton School

4:58

uh teaching mathematic and

5:01

they're through the students

5:03

parents. He ended up working for Bear

5:06

Start and he sort

5:08

of left under mysterious circumstances

5:10

there um and then opened

5:12

his own, um, you know, financial

5:15

firm. And during

5:17

the course of the trial, was

5:19

it did it become was

5:21

it exposed or was it revealed? How

5:24

long he been doing this activity

5:27

with young girls. Assumed

5:29

he'd been doing this ongoing and he had

5:31

people helping him. It

5:33

was very organized. Described the operation.

5:38

It was like something if you saw a movie about it, you would

5:40

think, oh, yeah, right, this is really going to happen. But

5:42

it's exactly what he did. He had

5:45

a lot of money and he had

5:47

a lot of people around him. And what he

5:50

he liked massages. So

5:52

what he would do is he had people go

5:55

out to various areas

5:58

well. Initially it was like boss like.

6:00

In fact, one of the women that he recruited

6:03

was from our Lago, which is right around the corner

6:06

from his home uh in Palm

6:08

Beach, and once he

6:10

got his hold on a couple

6:12

of the girls, what he would say

6:14

to them is, you bring me a

6:16

couple more girls, and I'll give you

6:18

the same amount of money. So he would be paying

6:21

that. They were paid for services, yes,

6:23

from massage, from massages, and

6:25

then and then they were paid as recruiters to

6:27

bring in more people, right, and the recruiters

6:29

would recruit more, and it just went on

6:31

and on the pyramid, and it kept growing

6:34

and growing until they got to be by your estimation,

6:36

how many young women were coming in and out of that

6:38

house over time. I mean it had

6:40

to be over at least,

6:43

and they got like if I read correct,

6:45

and shopping malls and different. Because

6:47

what happened was once he got his foothold

6:49

into one of the high schools there, one

6:52

girl would tell another girl. And these were girls who

6:54

came from uh, you know, most

6:57

people think of Palmp Beaches everybody's wealthy,

6:59

but they're really is West Palm Beach

7:01

is a very struggling blue collar area. And

7:03

there were girls who lived in vulnerable

7:06

situations where they were in uh,

7:09

one step away from homelessness. One girl

7:11

told me, for example, you know, I've been wearing the same

7:13

pair of shoes for three years, and I thought,

7:15

I'm gonna go give him a massage. I'm going to get

7:17

some money, and I'm going to be abby to puy a pair

7:20

of shoes, which is really heartbreaking. Actually

7:22

every time I think about at that. I

7:24

met a young woman once on the set of the film who

7:26

had been a prostitute, and

7:28

she said, and every time I had sex with somebody for money,

7:31

all I kept seeing was the new drapes

7:33

in my mother's house, and oh my god,

7:35

what a You know. The other thing is

7:38

he sort of led

7:40

them to believe that he was going to help them out

7:42

of their misery, you know, like you're beautiful,

7:45

I'll get you. Yeah.

7:48

And he had people, He had people, you

7:50

know, I have people that kind of thing,

7:52

and he did. He didn't know some people, and actually some of

7:54

them did. A couple of them did become actresses,

7:57

you know, And so he

7:59

had some contacts, and he led a

8:01

lot of them to believe that that I'm going to get

8:03

you out of this. And I don't think of any of those actresses

8:06

one in Oscar. They would thank Jeffrey Epstein to their

8:08

acceptance. Probably not. Probably

8:10

did other victims come forward who

8:12

wanted to make charges against Epstein for

8:15

events that predated Palm Beach.

8:17

Yes, but the problem is a statue of

8:19

limitations. So there's there's quite a number

8:21

of girls in that category, and there's

8:24

really not a lot they can do because his activities

8:26

in that regard confined to Palm Beach,

8:28

or didn't do it in New York, And from

8:31

the women that I interviewed, he

8:33

did it everywhere. He had an island in the

8:36

Caribbean. Uh, he would send

8:38

one of the girls or probably more

8:40

than one, but one that I know of who I interviewed

8:43

out to for example, he had the island, so

8:45

they would take a furry or helicopter

8:48

from St. Thomas. What she told me was

8:50

we would go to the nightclubs in St.

8:52

Thomas and I would just bring

8:54

him more girls. And Uh,

8:57

there was Sarah Kellen who was a scheduler.

9:00

What did she schedule? She

9:02

scheduled the girls. Did you interview her? No,

9:04

she hasn't spoken to anybody, and she got immunity

9:07

under the non prosecution agreement

9:09

that he worked out. So she's

9:12

off the hook. A lot of people are off the hook.

9:14

We don't even know that immunity for what she

9:16

did, which only led to a thirteen

9:18

month jail sentenced for him with for him and work

9:21

released the whole time. They gave her

9:23

that for so little. Yeah, the person

9:25

you did interview who was a recruiter for him,

9:27

how did they strike you? What? What did they was it a man

9:29

or woman? Well, you know,

9:31

remember a lot of the girls were recruiters for

9:34

him too, and uh so

9:36

they you know, it's very

9:38

sad to think about how this changed

9:41

their lives. Imagine being fourteen years

9:43

old and you know, you basically

9:45

don't have any place to live, and you start

9:47

doing this and you're fourteen, and you know,

9:50

now you're thirty and you look back on it,

9:52

and and it's very painful to watch

9:54

how much they blamed themselves. They're very ashamed,

9:56

and they blamed themselves for the other girls

9:59

that they brought into it, and they

10:01

just didn't understand the ramification. A lot of

10:03

the people that you're referring to were very

10:05

young, whether they were uh

10:08

you know, involved in the massage

10:10

and other related sex activities with Epstein

10:14

or the recruitment. Were there some grown

10:16

women and men as particularly women. I'm

10:18

curious who were recruiters or we're

10:20

helping to kind of run the operations. Who

10:23

should have known better. Well, what he

10:25

did was though when girls got

10:28

older, he

10:30

didn't want them anymore, so then they turned

10:33

into you know, they stayed with

10:35

him and started doing it. So we don't really

10:37

know those older women.

10:40

We don't really know how they got wrapped

10:42

up into it. They could have very well been trafficked

10:44

the same way the younger girls were at a younger

10:47

age, but he kept them on. Paint a picture

10:49

of you will of who Epstein you think

10:51

is and why did he do this?

10:53

Because apparently not mistaken,

10:56

he had a women coming in and out of the house, and he

10:58

was having sex with multiple women day,

11:00

yes, like three times a day sometimes. Correct.

11:04

What did you what kind of a picture did you get

11:06

at him? Well, obviously he had some kind of an

11:08

illness to be doing something like that.

11:10

And I think

11:12

that the biggest thing that I came across

11:14

from reading everything and all the research that I did,

11:17

was he really

11:19

felt that he was above the

11:21

law. He just seemed

11:24

to know from the get go that he was going to get away

11:26

with it. Uh. He pressured,

11:30

intimidated, bullied,

11:32

hired the best lawyers

11:34

that his money could buy. And when those lawyers didn't

11:37

give him what he wanted, he hired more lawyers.

11:40

He hired politically connected people. He

11:42

pressured the girls, He hired private

11:44

investigators who followed their parents. Uh.

11:47

He deposed the girls and and got

11:49

her medical records,

11:52

saying that she had had portions, called

11:54

her parents, who were Catholic, and asked

11:56

her Catholic parents what the goal

11:58

was to at the victim? Oh yes, and

12:00

not only just the victims. Actually the police

12:03

who had been investigated were followed,

12:05

the prosecutors were

12:08

pressured. And I think that's what makes

12:10

this a story, really is

12:12

every step of the way with

12:15

the criminal justice system he powered

12:18

his way through to basically

12:20

get away with some of the people that you

12:23

some of the lawyers involved in this case. There's

12:26

a left court and Dershowitz

12:28

and and even ken Star.

12:32

I struggled to think that people at that level.

12:35

I struggled to think that people of that reputation,

12:37

at least in terms of their skills

12:39

as attorneys or just in

12:41

this for a deep pockets litigant

12:44

and and fees. I wonder

12:46

what else potentially were you led to believe there might

12:49

be something like Star, for example. I

12:51

was kind of taking it back because of course, here Star

12:54

who made his reputation

12:57

going after Clinton for sex crimes,

13:00

and here he's defending Epstein.

13:03

But with people like Dershowitz and left

13:05

Court and Star, what what do you think? What else?

13:07

What else do you think was behind it? If anything?

13:12

You know, it's hard to know. It was a different First of

13:14

all, it was a different time. It was well before

13:16

the mean too movement. Uh and

13:18

what does that mean? Essentially? Well, I'm

13:20

not excusing any of it, but I think

13:23

that they sort of thought

13:25

people can still get away with Yeah. I

13:27

think yeah. And here's

13:29

the big thing about it. Uh,

13:32

they didn't care about the girls. I

13:34

mean, these were they felt

13:36

these were throwaway girls. These were prostitutes.

13:39

Uh, they you know, essentially

13:42

what what was was Epstein's defense,

13:44

correct which he said, none of these women that came,

13:47

they came as prostitutes, were there

13:49

for a reason. I paid them. If you want to get me

13:51

on a prostitution rap, that's one thing. But

13:53

to say I was involved in sex trafficking, which is what they

13:55

try to do, he said, that's not

13:57

accurate. He wanted to contend that

14:00

they knew why they were there, they knew what they were there

14:02

to get paid for sex, and that he also,

14:05

if I'm not mistaken, you can you can uh highlight

14:08

this for us that he tried to explain

14:10

that he told everybody, don't bring me anybody here who's under

14:12

age, and he thought all of them were of

14:14

age. Is that correct? Yes? But

14:17

I mean the women that

14:19

I interviewed who were involved in it, was

14:21

one of whom, by the way, was involved in it for years,

14:24

said that he made it very clear

14:26

he didn't want anybody who was older. All

14:28

he wanted was young girls, and

14:30

the younger the better. I mean, that's basically what he always

14:33

told them, the younger the better. But of course you

14:35

know, this is what they say, and he

14:38

and his lawyers, i'm sure would say that they're

14:41

lying and that that was not the case described

14:44

for everyone. Um,

14:46

what happens in the case involved

14:48

with the costa in order to arrive at

14:50

the decisions, they arrived at the plea agreement, they

14:52

arrived at well, the state

14:55

prosecutors in Palm Beach first had

14:57

the case. The police brought it to them,

14:59

and with in a very short time, all these

15:01

lawyers that that Epstein

15:04

had hired. Uh began

15:06

to UH pressure

15:09

the state prosecutor to make

15:11

the case go away. And essentially the state

15:13

prosecutor was ready to make it go away, and

15:15

and really he was going to get anything

15:17

except a misdemeanor. And the police

15:20

chief, to his credit, UH said,

15:22

wait a minute, this isn't going to happen. Because

15:25

at the time this was happening more and more

15:27

girls every time they entered. To keep in

15:29

mind, since it was a sex pyramid scheme,

15:31

you would interview one girl and the one girl would

15:34

say, well, these two girls brought me, and then they go

15:36

to those two girls and they would say these two girls.

15:38

So they were getting an avalanche of

15:41

girls. And here you

15:43

have the state prosecutors saying, oh, we're just going

15:45

to let him off for a mr. Demeanor and the chief,

15:48

to his credit and the lead detective

15:50

said no, and they went to the FBI.

15:53

So then it became a federal case. And

15:55

Alexander Acosta was the uh

15:58

U s attorney and Miami at the

16:00

time and appointed

16:02

by George W. Yes. It was a Bush administration,

16:05

was Republican administration. Now, uh

16:07

Epstein was very much of a

16:10

Democrat and he had supported Clinton

16:12

and a lot of other democratic

16:14

causes, but he he was smart.

16:16

It was a Republican administration, so what do you

16:18

do you hire a republican lawyer star

16:21

kind of star Uh you know, left

16:23

court. And also the other connection

16:25

was Acosta had worked in the same politically

16:29

very important law firm of Kirkland

16:31

and Ellis, which was the same law

16:33

firm that uh Star worked for and

16:36

left court work for. And so

16:39

what they immediately started doing was try

16:41

to work out some kind of a plea agreement with him,

16:43

almost from the get go, even though the FBI was

16:46

uh on a parallel course

16:49

to charge him with sex trafficking, and

16:51

we're getting more and more information and

16:54

but so there were too two kinds of things

16:56

happening. One was the FBI was really going

16:59

full steam, was trying to prosecute him.

17:01

And then you have the prosecutors who were essentially

17:03

sending emails back and for saying, well,

17:07

why don't we charge him with this? Or can we

17:09

charge him with that? And it was this sort

17:11

of collegial thing going on between

17:13

the processors. They were asking defense

17:16

attorneys almost like would

17:18

you mind if we charge him with this? Yes?

17:21

They really I mean,

17:23

from what I read, I'm not an expert on

17:25

this. I've rarely heard

17:27

I've really observed such a difference by

17:30

prosecutors to the subject of a crime. Yeah.

17:32

And what was amazing about the whole

17:34

thing is if you follow the whole thing, which this took

17:37

me over a year and a half to do, you to follow the sequence

17:39

of events here is that they would

17:42

fight down and say okay, we're gonna

17:45

charge him with this, and and and he'd say

17:47

okay, we're going to do it. And then you look at it and gong go

17:49

no, I want a better deal than that than they'd start all

17:51

over. And they manipulated.

17:54

He manipulated the criminal

17:56

justice system like I've never seen before,

17:58

because every time got him, which was

18:01

a pretty good deal, he would say, well, it's still

18:03

not good enough, go back again. What

18:05

do you think was behind Acosta?

18:07

What do you think it was behind I mean, because to me, the

18:10

first thing that come across is they want to bury

18:12

this like it's some kind of radioactive

18:15

waste because there are other people,

18:18

big people. There's big names of people

18:20

who are clientele of Epstein's

18:23

massage spa. Are

18:27

there names of people you've heard are big

18:29

names that are buried in those files.

18:31

Yeah, and what we are doing at

18:33

the Miami Herald and and my company

18:36

that owns the Harold at McClatchy, I have to give them a

18:38

lot of credit because we're the

18:40

only news organization that has really done

18:42

this, uh is. We've

18:44

been systemically going through these

18:46

cases now and going to the

18:49

courts. We have a case right now here in

18:51

New York, uh involving Epstein

18:53

and his madam so to speaking,

18:55

he had a woman that was helping him allegedly

18:59

uh with this uh here in New York

19:01

here, and was a recruiter in New York. Yes, and in

19:03

pomp Beach she worked to pump each to Gilan

19:06

Maxwell. Yeah, and

19:09

this was a lawsuit involving her. And we're

19:11

trying to unseal the records because we

19:13

feel that there's more evidence in there. The New

19:15

York case, that's a New York and who wants

19:18

to keep those records sealed? Maxwell

19:20

and Epstein, But who else? Well,

19:23

there's a John says indifferent to the

19:26

is the New York Prosecutor's office, the d A's office

19:28

as in different toward letting

19:30

the light into those files as a custom wars.

19:33

Well, we'll see, I mean they

19:35

knew. Let's face it, they knew

19:38

that this was going on. They had the US

19:41

prosecutors here in New York because

19:43

he was doing in the same deferential treatment as

19:46

a democratic funds. Well, it's

19:48

the difference. Well, I

19:51

don't know, It's hard to say, but we do know that Vance

19:54

did make an attempt to lower his sex

19:56

offender registration to a lower level.

19:58

And that was a real joke. I

20:00

mean, because well,

20:03

he that he could do what the lower registration

20:06

level giving him a different codification

20:08

or a different kind of a label, what,

20:11

given more freedom what? Well, he wouldn't have to

20:13

check in, you know, like to Dalton and teach kids

20:15

math. Well, I don't know about that. I

20:18

mean, in this day and age, nothing would

20:20

surprise me. But uh,

20:22

you know, there was a lot of like the Weinstein

20:25

case, there was a lot of complicity. There was a lot

20:27

of people that knew what was going on, and

20:29

I think that they looked the other way. Pivot

20:32

for a minute to your

20:34

background in your life, you had a tough childhood. Yeah,

20:39

well, I moved out of the house when I was sixteen, became

20:41

a mass paidd miner, lived

20:43

with a bunch of different friends for a while,

20:46

worked the lampshade factory and delivered

20:50

flower as well. I finished school and then,

20:52

you know, I didn't have any money to go to college,

20:54

so I worked a bunch of jobs waitresses

20:57

and did struggled

21:00

in to the point that I realized I

21:02

better do something because I don't

21:04

want to work at kmart the rest of my life. Was that

21:06

something that that that you think cause

21:08

you to have great empathy for these girls? Yeah?

21:11

Yes, absolutely, I think personal

21:13

Yeah, well that person. It's just for

21:16

the underdog because I haven't

21:18

really only covered uh,

21:20

you know, women who have been abused. I

21:22

I did a huge for your project

21:25

on the Florida prison system, and I've never been in

21:27

prison, but I know that. Um.

21:29

You know, there's a lot of people out there who don't have

21:32

a voice in our criminal justice system,

21:34

and they end up in very bad places in

21:36

our system disposes of these

21:38

people and then continues

21:41

to mistreat them so they

21:43

never have a chance to to get ahead, even

21:45

if they do pay their debt to society.

21:49

What is the law the

21:51

Crime Victims Rights Act, that's

21:53

the law that was set aside

21:56

what happened to this victims writes law? Well,

21:58

the Crime Victims Rights grants

22:01

crime victims certain rights, and one of them is

22:03

they have the right to confer with prosecutors.

22:05

Well, the prosecutors weren't telling them what was going

22:07

on. They weren't even returning their phone calls. What

22:10

happened was they were telling

22:12

these girls all along, we're investigating

22:15

this, We're going to prosecute him,

22:17

you know, trying to convince

22:19

them to cooperate, you know, and of course

22:21

they were all very scared. They felt a

22:24

couple of them claimed that he had even threatened

22:26

them. More people that were around him

22:28

and threatened them, And so they

22:30

were saying, we're going to

22:33

go after this guy. And at

22:35

the same time, they really were working

22:38

out a deal with him, and they weren't telling the

22:41

girls. And then before that they

22:43

even knew it. Uh, he appeared

22:45

in court, he did a plea agreement,

22:48

and they saw it on TV and they said,

22:51

what the heck happened? I mean, I

22:53

just talked to the prosecutor or the

22:55

FBI agent a week ago and they were still,

22:58

you know, working on the case. So, uh,

23:00

they hired a lawyer, and a lawyer

23:03

said, what happened. They misled

23:06

these girls and their attorneys

23:08

into believing they were going after this guy when

23:10

they really were working out a deal with him, and left

23:12

them in the dark, and left them completely dark and

23:15

never told them. And if there's a police bargain,

23:17

you have a right to at least know about the

23:19

police bargain. You have a right to appear

23:22

at the sentencing. They didn't tell any of the girls

23:24

he's going to be in court. You know, they

23:28

found out about it on the news. In fact, at the sentencing

23:30

hearing, the prosecutors

23:32

essentially lied to the judge that the judge

23:35

asked the state prosecutor

23:38

to to the victims know about this.

23:40

Oh yeah, Judge, they know

23:42

all about it, and they're okay with this. Yeah,

23:45

everything's okay. Well, they didn't know about it. None

23:47

of the girls knew about it. None of their lawyers were

23:49

told about it. Uh so

23:51

he got this deal. And what

23:54

is even more

23:56

egregious, not only did they keep it from

23:58

them at the time that it happened,

24:01

but then when they the girls a couple

24:03

of the girls final lawsuit saying

24:06

you evaluated the Crime Victims Rights Act, they

24:09

didn't even turn over the non prosecution

24:11

agreements. So it took them months

24:14

before they even knew what had happened

24:16

because the government fought the girls.

24:19

They were going to keep its secret. They

24:21

did not want to reveal it and it

24:24

and they were hoping they would go away. Yeah.

24:26

Yeah, And keep in mind this

24:28

crime victims rights case has nothing to do with money.

24:31

A lot of people thinking, oh, these are gold diggers, are trying

24:33

to get money. They don't get any money

24:36

for the fact that they won this case. This

24:38

was not about money. It was about overturning

24:40

a plee deal. But too civil. Liigaans settled

24:42

with him at the end of last year. And

24:44

my question for you is, like people that

24:47

were involved, and again I'm not I'm not judging

24:50

them or criticizing them. I'm just wondering

24:52

what your opinion is. But do these settlements

24:54

do they stall justice in the end when you

24:57

have people taking money and they're the victims

24:59

of these crime and they take money.

25:01

I think Rose McGowan took money from from

25:04

Weinstein but there was no NDA involved. She

25:07

thought that does that get in

25:09

the way of us having real justice for

25:11

the probibly But I feel like because

25:13

our criminal justice system, unfortunately

25:15

in a lot of areas, is so heavily

25:18

weighted towards people who are powerful and wealthy.

25:20

It doesn't give them a lot of options because look

25:23

what happened with these girls. Uh,

25:25

they they had no I

25:27

mean, they were treated basically

25:29

like they were just I mean they were thirteen fourteen

25:32

year old girls. He was charged with

25:35

solicitation of prostitution

25:37

of someone under the age of eighteen, in other

25:39

words, child. There really isn't any such

25:42

thing as child prostitution. You

25:44

know that back then that was still sex

25:46

books in Florida, but it's no longer

25:48

on the books in Florida. Yeah, it's sex trafficking,

25:51

but in a lot of these people's

25:54

mind that you know, Epstein's camp, the

25:56

people that worked for him, Uh,

25:58

these girls were processed and he

26:01

didn't really do anything wrong. When

26:10

we returned Julie Brown on

26:12

other men accused by Epstein's victims,

26:15

and one of those men, attorney and scholar

26:17

Alan Dershowitz, has his say

26:20

in response. I

26:25

also check in with Julie Brown about

26:27

the events of the past week. That's in

26:29

a minute from Here's the Thing. I'm

26:36

Alec Baldwin and you're listening

26:38

to Here's the Thing. I spoke

26:41

this past spring with Julie

26:43

Brown, the Herald reporter who dug

26:45

into the plea deal Jeffrey Epstein was

26:47

given in two thousand and eight by Alex

26:49

Acosta, now President Trump's

26:52

Labor secretary, and even she

26:54

has troubled expressing how singular

26:56

his light sentence really was.

27:00

Florida has some of the toughest sex

27:02

offender laws in the country. Uh,

27:04

they send these guys to state

27:07

prison and Florida state prisons, I

27:09

can tell you because they're

27:12

they're vicious, you know. But

27:15

he managed to work

27:17

it out so that he would go to the Palm Beach

27:19

County jail. He had his own private

27:21

little wing. Was a cost of responsible for that as

27:24

well? Have to that

27:26

well, Acosta claimed he didn't.

27:28

He had no idea that that was going to happen,

27:31

because what a cost essentially did was

27:33

he washed his hands of the case

27:35

and gave it back to the state prosecutor.

27:38

And it didn't just stand there. I mean, he

27:41

had his driver picked him up. Explain

27:43

about the work release. Yeah, he got work released.

27:45

Now spex offenders don't

27:48

get work really, the work release was

27:50

what he was at. What I read was he's out for

27:52

twelve hours a day, six days

27:54

a week, six days. Driver picked him up, took

27:57

him to his nice waterfront office in West

27:59

Palm Beach, and uh, you know they

28:01

had they did have sheriff's deputies,

28:04

you know, standing outside the office, but they were

28:06

outside the office, and on the inside of

28:08

the office people were coming and going all

28:10

day, including women coming to visit

28:13

him. I interviewed one of these deputies

28:15

and I said, well, did you even

28:17

pay attention what he was doing in the office? You know he

28:19

had girls in there, And he goes, oh, no, that was not

28:22

our job. Yeah, so he could

28:24

have been continuing his

28:26

activities during the work

28:29

release from the private jail cell

28:31

of the Palm Beach and which he just could have kept it going

28:33

and going and going. Yeah. Yeah. Now

28:36

there are people who, um,

28:38

their names were pulled into this. Um.

28:42

I'm not going to say rightly or wrongly, but

28:45

that is always a really difficult consequence

28:47

of these kinds of things, for

28:49

people to be wrongly accused and have their

28:52

name dirtied up. I mean, as

28:54

I told you backstage, my name was in Jeffrey

28:56

Epstein's phone book, along

28:58

with countless thousands of people who were

29:00

celebrities, are well known people. Remember

29:03

when people online would attack me about

29:05

that. They'd say to me, you perv you

29:08

rapist? I mean to me, they said,

29:10

before my name was mentioned in anything to do with

29:12

the case, they'd write these things,

29:14

and I would think to myself, I literally said that away.

29:17

Where the hell did I ever meet Jeffrey

29:19

Epstein? I couldn't put it thought to myself in the nineties.

29:22

Was he at some event that was a fundraiser that

29:24

I knew? And of course I have a phone

29:26

number that we give people. That's what we in my office we

29:28

called the Dummy line, and

29:30

it's a number we've given out to four maybe

29:33

five million people over the course of the last twenty

29:35

five years. But there

29:37

are people who have had their

29:39

name pulled into this whole thing. Dersha Witz

29:42

is one. And do you think some

29:44

of the people whose names have been pulled through this are innocent

29:46

or you're not sure? I think with

29:48

dershe Witz, his name was on flight uh

29:51

manifest flying to his on his plane.

29:54

So before he became counsel

29:57

to Epstein, he was a guest of Epstein's

29:59

at his home. And I think that

30:01

that's the reason why

30:04

Dershowitz is significant

30:06

to a lot of people, is that

30:09

the idea is that he was

30:12

Epstein's friend, he stayed

30:14

at his Palm Beach house, he vacationed

30:17

at his Palm Beach house, and then he

30:19

represented him and he helped fashion

30:21

a plea deal that essentially

30:25

not only gave Epstein immunity,

30:27

but gave his co conspirators

30:30

both named an unnamed

30:33

immunity. So the implication

30:35

is that you know, and

30:37

I you know. I'm not saying Deerschwitz,

30:40

you know, is guilty or not. I'm

30:42

just saying the implication. The

30:45

reason why the lawyers representing

30:47

one of the victims brought it out was to

30:50

demonstrate that if if

30:52

you know, it is true that he was involved,

30:55

he definitely had a conflict of interest. How

30:57

how do people get immunity

31:00

as potential co conspirators?

31:03

How do they have they continued

31:05

to get away with that in court? I mean,

31:08

that's I've talked to so many

31:10

lawyers about this,

31:13

and I don't know of anybody that has ever

31:15

heard of a plea agreement like this before.

31:18

You know, it's impert It is unprecedented

31:21

that did anybody, any of the women come

31:23

forward and accuse Dershowitz

31:25

or anyone else. Two

31:28

women said he was a party to what happened

31:30

yes, and nothing has happened with that protected

31:33

by immunity. Well no, I'm not

31:35

saying he's part of that because they didn't name him

31:39

so, and of course he denies that he

31:41

had anything to do with it, but he

31:43

has been accused of being involved in this. He

31:47

insisted women, yes, by two

31:49

women, and uh he

31:51

insisted their liars. And you

31:53

know he has uh

31:56

you know, says that he has proof that

31:58

that this isn't true, but

32:01

it's been Uh. I

32:03

haven't seen the proof yet. You

32:05

know. I'm still trying to work with him on that, but

32:07

he's he's come out and attacked me pretty

32:10

aggressively. Uh So

32:12

we'll see what happens. I try, you know, I

32:15

try to keep an open mind. You know, it must

32:17

be a terrible thing to be wrong if

32:19

he's wrongly accused. To be wrongly accused,

32:22

this is a horrible crime. And

32:25

you know, I guess what I could say is I

32:27

still try to have an open mind,

32:29

and I want to. I mean,

32:31

the truth is the truth is the truth, you

32:34

know, and only one person can really be telling

32:36

the truth in this case. And I don't think anybody

32:38

really knows because these are he said. She said

32:40

in a lot of cases. Uh

32:43

so nobody. I mean, we might

32:45

never know. Do I

32:47

have a picture of you that were you sitting at a kitchen?

32:49

I mean, I'm gonna be very melodramatic now, but um,

32:52

were you sitting at a kitchen table at the end of

32:54

some days and just staring at a you

32:57

know, a cup of tea or something that's saying, you

32:59

know you you just couldn't believe, not not that

33:01

this not just that this happened, and

33:04

not that's just that it was covered up, but the

33:06

way that it was covered up, and this is so insidious,

33:09

how this was done. And they gave this guy

33:12

like, uh like he went to camp for a

33:14

while, an extended trip to camp. Yeah. And with

33:16

everything that I uncovered a little by little, you

33:18

know, it's like peeling away an onion. And

33:20

I get so tired because it's

33:23

a lot of dense court documents,

33:25

you know, ten thousand probably records,

33:28

I mean, just so much and it's a lot

33:30

of it is so it's all legally's

33:32

and I'm not a lawyer, and trying to make heads

33:34

or tails out of it, which just gets so tired.

33:36

For a good point backstage, backstage, which you said

33:39

the herold like other newspapers, are not wealthy

33:41

organizations and institutions anymore. So

33:44

this money meant a lot. They had spent a lot of dough to

33:46

do this legwork. Yeah. Yeah, they invested

33:48

a lot of money into this. They believed in

33:50

me. Be Bradley there in your

33:52

story. Yeah, well it was Casey

33:55

Frank. I have to give him. He's my editor who actually

33:58

even went to bat with me. The police chief to not

34:00

want to go public. He had never gone public

34:02

with this before. He had

34:04

been also, you know, his

34:06

career was because he went after Hepstein

34:09

to his career. Uh

34:11

was hurt by it. And well

34:14

a lot of people went after him, you know. And

34:17

is he still the police chief. No, he

34:19

retired and he wasn't taken out of office removed,

34:22

No, but it became hard for him to

34:24

be the police chief. And

34:27

he he and uh

34:29

and the detective Joe Ry Carey

34:31

who had who after I interviewed him, unfortunately

34:34

bested away. They were really

34:36

the only two people other than lawyers

34:39

who risked their careers really,

34:42

uh for these girls, and

34:44

uh, you know, and as I was mentioning my

34:47

he didn't want to talk to me. It took me

34:50

months to get him to

34:52

talk to me, because I said it has

34:54

to be on the record, you know, because he had he

34:57

had talked quite frankly. The reason why he didn't want

34:59

to talk to me, he said, he talked to a lot of reporters

35:01

off the record and sort of told

35:03

them where to go, and nothing ever happened. He was

35:05

convinced that a lot of media had squashed

35:08

this story, and he had was

35:10

really at the point where he was fed up and didn't

35:12

want to talk to any media anymore. And

35:14

so I said, we're not going to do it, and he said, no, somebody's

35:17

going to call your publisher and the next thing you

35:19

know, you're going to be assigned to the obit department.

35:22

So I said, no, you know, talk

35:24

to so Casey called him up and told

35:26

him, is that the game show host of the

35:29

journalism department dement? Yeah,

35:31

exactly, that's about it. Yeah,

35:34

Um, the like,

35:36

what was the part that really just made you go, oh

35:38

my god? It was really among

35:41

many things that I think, it was the fact

35:43

that the government now think about, um,

35:45

you know, we know about the abuse in the Catholic

35:47

Church, and the Catholic Church protected

35:50

the priests, and we know about the abuse

35:52

with the Olympic gymnasts. The university

35:55

had protected this doctor, but

35:57

this was our fermant,

36:01

even after they

36:03

knew what he had done. The

36:05

biggest thing that drove me was

36:08

how they continued to

36:10

fight these girls after they filed

36:12

this crime victims rights lawsuit. It

36:15

was almost like they were Epstein. The government

36:17

was in Epstein's camp, they were his counsel.

36:20

Yeah, and they were saying, we're

36:22

not giving you these documents. We're

36:24

not going to tell you what we did, like defense

36:26

attorneys, and that just I

36:28

mean, how do you do that? How

36:31

in good conscience do you do that?

36:33

What can we do to help protect young women

36:35

from this kind of sexual abuse? Well,

36:37

there's a lot of different things. Um. I think

36:39

our law enforcement agencies,

36:42

police officers, prosecutors especially

36:44

need to be better trained to handle these kinds of

36:46

cases. There's a whole different

36:48

way you handle trauma victims. You

36:51

can't treat them like just any

36:53

other victim. They're in a different category

36:55

because trauma does things to your brain and

36:58

it makes it so that you

37:01

you you react to things differently.

37:03

I mean, there's a whole science behind trauma

37:06

and so a lot

37:08

of law enforcement people don't know how to question

37:11

victims who are are victims of sexual assault.

37:14

They expect that they're going to go ask them a question,

37:16

and when they hesitate, you know, or they're not

37:18

consistent in some of the answers, that they're

37:20

unreliable witnesses. But I've interviewed

37:23

uh FBI experts who have who

37:25

have made their careers in this, and they said that actually,

37:28

you should expect that their

37:31

memories are not going to be

37:33

consistent, and if they are consistent,

37:36

that's a sign that that maybe they aren't

37:38

telling the truth because the consistency

37:41

is that they suffer from trauma

37:43

and they won't remember exactly every detail

37:45

the same way, because that's

37:47

the way your brain is. You you know, I've

37:49

been through some trauma and there are things in

37:51

my life that I can't remember. I

37:54

mean, I'll never remember, you know. So

37:56

uh, you know, you have

37:59

to have law enforcement people

38:01

who are really trained to understand

38:03

that. And there's a whole like I said, there's a whole science

38:05

behind it. Um, do we have any questions

38:07

from the audience from market? Um?

38:10

You got the mic here right over. UM.

38:13

I just wanted to ask if you

38:15

had received any pressure similar

38:18

to the people involved in the case, to

38:20

not continue the investigation, to not publish

38:22

the article. Uh

38:26

well, I wouldn't phrase it that way, but let's put

38:28

it this way. There's a lot of people

38:30

who have been pretty aggressive with trying

38:32

to uh discredit

38:34

me in certain ways. Uh,

38:37

so, you know, I'm pretty tough.

38:39

There are countless journalists that

38:42

are killed all over the world

38:44

for fighting for the truth and for democracy.

38:47

Um. There are countless journalists right now

38:50

being tortured in prisons all over

38:52

the world. And so anybody

38:54

that every time I you know, that question

38:56

comes up, of course, you know, you think about it in

38:58

the back of your head, but I think about all the other journalists

39:01

out there that are just really risking their

39:03

lives every single day. On

39:06

the end here, UM,

39:08

thank you. I have two questions.

39:11

First is did you have a chance to

39:13

interview him? And second

39:16

question is what happened this moment? Now?

39:18

Were they doing in life? And if you

39:20

touch with them an interview again? Yeah,

39:23

thank you. I tried several

39:25

times. I went to his house when I knew

39:28

he was there, knocked on the door, wrote

39:30

letters to him, certified letters, wrote wrote

39:32

letters to his lawyers, reached out to

39:34

people that I knew knew him, but no, I

39:37

I just he probably just thought I was this

39:39

little reporter from the Miami Herald.

39:42

It wasn't, you know, just like any other reporter,

39:44

just doing another rehash of the case.

39:47

So I you know, I don't think he felt

39:49

that he had to respond to me. And

39:52

that's just my guest. Uh. I

39:54

still stay in touch with the girls, and and

39:56

uh, I was really touched. They

39:59

were very young. Some never even told their

40:01

families that this happened. One

40:03

of the girls in that category who

40:05

shared her story to me, was scared to death about

40:08

how her grandparents would read

40:10

the story. And after

40:12

the peace came out, she called me and she said

40:14

that her grandparents had we turn

40:16

said that they were really proud of her. You

40:19

know. So I'm sorry, but that being

40:21

really touched because it takes a lot

40:23

of courage to do that. She she she was

40:26

really worried about what they would think of her. You

40:28

know, a lot of the girls, I'm sure field that way.

40:30

And uh and like I said, they feel really ashamed.

40:32

They really punished themselves. A lot of them

40:35

didn't turn out well. Some of them are dead. Um,

40:37

they've overdosed. Uh. Some

40:39

of them became strippers, and you know

40:42

we're we're victims of violence addicts.

40:45

The one girl I interviewed, I interviewed her the first

40:47

time I interviewed her. She was in prison. She was serving

40:49

a longer term for selling

40:52

drugs than he served for molesting

40:54

underage girls. So that that that's

40:56

amazing. I want to go over to this side

40:59

this Showman and the r In

41:01

the Southern District of New York,

41:04

there was a lawsuit brought by a Jane

41:06

Doe against Epstein

41:08

and Trump. It had previously brought in California.

41:12

Uh, it was subsequently this continued.

41:15

Uh do you know why it was?

41:18

And have you ever dealt with the Jane

41:20

Doe in that case? And what did you think of

41:22

her? Nobody knows

41:24

who that Jane Doe is. She's

41:27

sort of disappeared after

41:30

Uh that came out. And

41:33

you know, at the time, the

41:35

lawyer Lisa Bloom was representing her and

41:37

had said that she had been threatened

41:39

in some way and decided not to go through

41:42

with it. I haven't

41:44

been able to find out who she is or

41:46

find any evidence at all

41:49

that that that her story was true,

41:51

which is why most of the media

41:53

has not really written about it since because

41:56

Uh, you know, we can't find any evidence

41:58

that any of it had been then it was right

42:01

at the time of the election. I think it was a

42:03

couple of days before the election. So there's

42:05

a lot of Yeah, there, there's

42:07

a lot of people that

42:09

suspect it might have been politically motivated.

42:12

I'm not saying it was, but I've never

42:14

been able to find out any evidence that it's

42:16

true. And I have looked into it, and I've talked to a lot of

42:18

people who were affiliated with it,

42:20

and I haven't just been able to confirm it. And

42:23

this gentleman way in the corner right

42:25

First, I have to say bravo for the work

42:28

that you've dot. I

42:35

know, as a journalist you cannot pay

42:37

sources, and I didn't

42:39

hear a whole lot about whistleblowers

42:42

or leakers. If we

42:44

could incentivize leakers

42:47

in government, there have to

42:49

be people there that despise

42:52

what's going on, and it

42:54

wouldn't it be possible if

42:56

they could find a way to get to

42:59

you through a neutral source.

43:02

Is that at all possible? Well, you know

43:04

there's these Uh I have a pro proton

43:07

email. I'm new to all this kind of technology.

43:10

Yeah, well, it's encrypted, uh

43:12

email, thank you somebody. Other

43:14

people know about this. I have younger people fortunately

43:17

on my staff, on our staff, who

43:19

have helped me with this kind of new technology.

43:21

So there's ways for people to get me

43:24

and not reveal who they are, without you

43:26

know, having to pay anybody to do that.

43:30

That lady weigh in the back. I

43:33

want to get back to the safety of journalists.

43:35

What concerns, if any, do

43:37

you have about your own

43:40

personal safety. I want

43:42

to know what you do, what

43:44

locks you have, what the security

43:47

is. Well, for a

43:49

long time I had a nice loud dog when

43:51

I was covering the Florida prison system, and there

43:53

were some people that would show up, you know,

43:56

lurking outside my and the dog

43:58

would be so loud. It was my daughter's talk.

44:00

So now my daughter has her dog back,

44:02

So I'm thinking maybe I should get another dog. But

44:05

uh, you know, I don't

44:07

really think about it until people

44:09

ask me. Then I get worried. You

44:13

just keep doing your job. We

44:16

think you're from Florida. Automatically you carry

44:18

a gun, don't you. Yeah, well I've

44:20

had you know, I have a lot of friends who are

44:22

police officers. In fact, my ex husband is a

44:24

police officer. And they've all advised me that

44:27

I should have one, but I just can't bring myself

44:29

to do it. Like I said, I grew up in Philly, and

44:32

you know, you just pay attention to where you're

44:34

going and what you're doing. Look, if anybody really

44:36

wants to get you, they're going to get you. I can't

44:41

finished. If we didn't call, we didn't

44:43

call you. I'm sorry, We're gonna finish with you. SCA.

44:46

What do we know specifically about the relationship

44:48

between Epstein and Clinton.

44:51

Uh, he was absolutely

44:54

on Epstein's plane. Uh,

44:56

you know there it's been documented that he's

44:58

help where South Africa. Epstein

45:02

donated some money to the Clinton Foundation, and during

45:05

this time period, which was I think the early two

45:07

thousand's, uh you know,

45:09

they were the AIDS epidemic

45:11

was spreading in Africa, and there was you

45:14

know, a sort of a fact finding plane trip

45:16

that Epstein took trip Clinton

45:18

on. Now he went on

45:20

his plane more than that, though. We know that

45:23

there was probably like twenty trips, and

45:26

uh, you know, of course, a lot of people suspect

45:29

that maybe he was involved in some way. He's denied

45:31

that he was involved. And the one

45:33

girl that we know was very much involved.

45:36

Underage girl Virginia Roberts said

45:39

that she never saw him with any that's

45:43

correct. That's correct. Well,

45:48

I was gonna say I could talk about sex trafficking

45:50

all night long. I think

45:52

I've had about enough of that subject for now

45:55

and around the time, I want to

45:57

say that, you know, journalists

46:00

who do the job you're doing our

46:02

heroes, and I admire you very very much. That

46:05

please. I admire you to mens Thine

46:08

for what you've done. Uh,

46:10

thank you to my guest Julie Brown for the

46:12

Miami herold. I

46:15

thank you all for coming. Thank you Julie

46:18

Brown on threats to her safety and

46:21

that of other journalists around

46:23

the world. When former Epstein

46:26

lawyer Alan Dershawitz heard that his name

46:28

had come up, he wanted the opportunity

46:30

to respond. Here is our

46:33

conversation. Julie Brown

46:35

denied your listeners the

46:37

full truth about her

46:39

reporting. Um. She mentions

46:42

two women who accused me of

46:44

having sexual accounts with them. I never met

46:46

these women. I don't know who they are. They totally

46:49

came out of the blue. This is the only me too

46:51

case that I'm aware of where there was

46:53

no prior relationship, where

46:55

there was no knowledge. These

46:58

are just strangers who were for mostly accusing

47:00

me. These are both women who have

47:03

long records of falsely accusing famous

47:05

people. The first woman, named

47:07

Roberts, who Brown

47:10

relies on for her reporting, had

47:12

gotten a hundred sixty thou dollars from

47:14

The Mail in London for an

47:17

article in which she remembers vividly meeting

47:19

al Gore a typical or on Jeffrey Epstein's island.

47:21

They've never been on the island. Uh, secret

47:24

Service and other records confirmed that she also

47:26

remembers meeting Bill Clinton on the island. Secret

47:29

Service records confirmed he was not

47:31

on the island. Her

47:33

own lawyer, UH.

47:35

Robert's own lawyer admitted to me in a tape

47:37

recorded conversation that his client

47:40

was quote wrong, simply wrong. That I couldn't

47:42

possibly have been in any of the places where

47:44

she claimed to have sex with me. I produced all

47:47

my travel records every single day of

47:49

my life during the two years this woman and Jeffrey

47:51

Epstein and proved conclusively

47:54

that I couldn't have been at the places. That's

47:56

why uh. The

47:59

the head of the FBI, the former

48:01

head of the FBI, Louis Free, did a

48:03

complete and thorough investigation and concluded

48:05

that the stories were made up and that they

48:07

were a false The judge struck

48:09

the allegation sanctioned the lawyers, profiling

48:12

them. The lawyers then withdrew the allegation,

48:15

admitting that it was a mistake. And yet your audience

48:17

didn't hear anything about that. Um. The

48:19

second woman went to the New York Post

48:22

and claimed she had sex takes of Hillary

48:24

Clinton, of Donald Trump, of

48:27

Richard Branson, and of Bill Clinton.

48:30

And of course she was lying through her teeth,

48:32

and the New York Post threw her out the

48:34

reporter's name as a marine Callahan show confirm

48:37

all of this. And yet um,

48:40

they produced her as the second

48:42

woman after I was threatened that if I didn't withdraw

48:45

a bar charge against the first lawyer, they

48:47

would find a second woman. Because two women

48:49

are better than one. You know, people say when

48:51

they smoke this fire, sometimes when they smoked

48:53

this arson. This is a case of arson. This

48:55

is a case where two women for profit,

48:58

and they've earned an enormous amount of money. Yes,

49:01

um have falsely accused me to frame me,

49:03

and I'm sinking an FBI investigation. I've

49:05

asked for the FBI to investigate me

49:08

along with these two women because they filed out

49:10

to David's an eye filed after David And how

49:13

was that and how was that going? Is the FBI

49:15

responding to your request? Well, we're waiting

49:17

to hear obviously. I've also asked

49:20

for any law firm in the country

49:22

to conduct an independent investigation.

49:25

I'm willing to show

49:27

everything to everybody because i did

49:29

nothing wrong. I've lived an exemplary

49:32

private life for all

49:34

the years that are relevant to this, these

49:36

inquiries, and these women just made up these stories, and

49:38

and and Brown wants to win the fuel

49:40

is surprised, but you didn't tell the public

49:42

that the source she relied on, the major source,

49:45

Virginia Roberts, is a proven perjura

49:48

and a proven liar. I

49:50

won't rest until Virginia Roberts goes to

49:52

prison and the other woman goes

49:55

to prison. False accusations are serious,

49:57

whether it's the actor

49:59

in Chicago Smollet who

50:02

falsely accused people, or it's these

50:04

women. False accusations hurt

50:07

Me Too movement. They're very serious.

50:09

And Julie Brown hasn't reported the other

50:11

side of the story. Sure, she put into the story

50:13

that I denied it that's not enough. She

50:15

owed the readers the obligation to say,

50:18

I produced all my travel records, there was an

50:20

FBI report, the judge struck everything.

50:23

That's uh, that's true, and then nobody would

50:25

believe these stories. It's pure

50:28

advocacy. And if a lawyer ever behaved

50:30

that way, that lawyer would be disbarred for

50:32

failing to produce relevant

50:34

evidence that shows

50:36

that I was innocent when the women

50:39

are claiming falsely that I'm guilty.

50:41

So thank you for an opportunity to tell

50:43

your listeners the whole truth. Well, I mean, I

50:46

listen, I have tremendous in my own life

50:48

public life. I've had my

50:51

share of things that I felt were not reported

50:53

accurately or not really very fair,

50:55

and so I have tremendous empathy for that. I

50:58

only have one question, which is that in the we

51:00

live, and of course this is the American

51:02

way, which is to torpedo people's careers

51:04

over sexual charges. America is particularly

51:06

obsessed with the sexual clinton

51:09

and so everything is in other countries. The differences

51:11

they did it here, we no no, no no no

51:14

no, but didn't

51:16

do it no no no. I'm not disputing them. I'm just leading

51:18

up to something which is that that in this country

51:21

people are often doing this too, this

51:23

as a form of character assassination and

51:26

to nullify someone's career with these sex

51:28

charges. Because in other countries this doesn't play that much.

51:30

I mean in other countries, they don't care. In other

51:32

countries women would put in p But

51:35

but what I'm asking you is, so you think that these

51:37

two women that are making these false charges against

51:39

you, it's purely about money.

51:42

Well it started with money,

51:44

uh, driven by their lawyers. The

51:46

first woman, Roberts, told her best friend I

51:48

have it on tape that she was

51:51

pressured by her lawyers to name

51:53

me. She had never previously named

51:55

me. There are some emails now that are still

51:57

sealed, but we're waiting to get them unsealed. But

52:00

they show how the plot unfolded, how

52:02

they admitted, how she admitted she never

52:05

had any contact with me at

52:07

all, but she was told she had to put

52:09

me in her book because otherwise the book wouldn't

52:11

sell because I'm famous, and this is

52:13

a one with a long history of making

52:16

false acquisitions against famous people. She

52:18

claims to have had underage sex with the Prime

52:20

Minister of Israel, with the majority leader

52:22

of the United States Senate, the United States Ambassador

52:25

to the United Nations, with

52:27

the man who invented artificial intelligence.

52:30

You name it. I mean, it's a pantheon of famous

52:32

people. Professor Allen

52:34

Dershowitz I called

52:36

Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown

52:39

to get her take on what's transpired this

52:41

past week. So tell me what

52:44

just happened with the accousta news conference

52:46

room. Well, Mr Custa is elaborating

52:49

on explanations that he has given

52:51

in the past about why he didn't of

52:54

that really prosecute Mr Epstein. They

52:56

fall into two categories. One, he is

52:58

trying to explain the even itself

53:01

and and how they felt

53:03

that they wouldn't win a trial if

53:05

they had taken it to trial. And to

53:07

the second part of it is he's being grilled

53:10

about the secrecy part of the

53:12

agreement where they didn't inform the victims

53:15

and that part of it which led

53:17

to the judge ruling the

53:19

entire agreement was illegal. Um.

53:21

So to start with the top part, you

53:24

know, not having the evidence, I'm

53:26

saying that some of the witnesses were reluctant.

53:29

Um. Look, uh, you

53:31

know he could have continued to investigate

53:34

this the FBI wanted

53:36

to. They were getting new information and

53:38

new victims every day. You don't

53:40

need uh, twenty victims.

53:42

You don't need a whole lot of victims. You

53:44

just need two or three good victims.

53:47

So it's pretty disingenuous for

53:49

him to say, oh, well, there were some victims

53:51

who didn't want anyone to know that

53:53

this happened. They were reluctant. He

53:55

had thirty six and it would be

53:57

hard for me to believe that there weren't a

54:00

you know, a couple of those victims who

54:02

would have been really good witnesses

54:04

number one and number two. The FBI

54:06

was getting more information. It's

54:08

inexplicable that he would just cut

54:11

that investigation short, given the

54:13

breath of this crime,

54:16

and then the second part of this, the

54:18

secrecy part of it. Uh. He's

54:21

said, um that one of the reasons

54:23

why he didn't tell the victims was because

54:26

they they might have been

54:28

compromised by knowing that there was a restitution

54:30

provision in the agreement, um,

54:33

which is ridiculous because they didn't have to tell them

54:35

about the restitution part. All they had to do

54:37

was tell them that they had an agreement by

54:39

the time it was sentenced. Then they wouldn't have been

54:41

compromised. They could have mentioned something then.

54:44

So, Uh, it's a lot to unpack.

54:47

Um, it's a pretty lampy press conference.

54:49

It's still going on right now. How

54:51

did you learn about what happened on Saturday?

54:55

You know, somebody called me at home and

54:58

said, you know, Epstein's been arrested,

55:01

and we had plans to fly to the

55:03

middle of the country the next day to interview

55:05

two more victims. Um. It was

55:07

all set up for weeks and we had to quickly

55:09

change our plans and come to New York. You had

55:11

no idea that something was brewing, that they were going to

55:14

get him. I had heard rumors

55:16

that something was brewing, but I also heard

55:18

that everybody was keeping a pretty tight little on

55:20

it because they did not want to give him

55:22

a chance to plea. Um. They

55:24

thought that if he had found out that they were going to

55:27

arrest him, he might flee the

55:30

Uh. I mean

55:32

without you know, emotionalizing this, because this must

55:34

be this very powerful experience for you personally.

55:36

How did you feel when you heard about what happened Saturday?

55:39

I was stunned. I'm still I think in

55:42

shock. I I just I

55:44

thought maybe something would eventually happen, but I didn't

55:46

think it would happen this fast. So

55:49

New York must have some good information they

55:51

obvioust they do have some new information.

55:53

They obviously, I mean, the prosecutor

55:56

made it clear that he felt that a

55:58

cost and the prosecutors and Areta had

56:01

dropped the ball pretty badly. So,

56:04

um, we'll have to see where it shakes out. Have

56:06

you spoken to any of the victims since the story

56:08

broke, Yes, quite a few

56:10

of them called me. Um, they're related.

56:13

Um, they're emotional, they're

56:15

they're ecstatics, they're very happy. Now

56:18

what is there at this point that you want to know?

56:21

Now, well, I'd like

56:23

to know what prosecutors

56:25

in his office how you know, there's

56:28

some questions about whether his prosecutors

56:30

underneath him acted properly. Acosta,

56:32

I've got to go back to the set. Um.

56:35

Uh, they're calling me back. Okay,

56:37

thank you very much, thank you, all right, thanks,

56:44

Julie had to get off of our phone

56:46

call very quickly to get back to the

56:48

Acousta press conference. I'm

56:51

Alec Baldwin, and you're listening

56:53

to here's the thing,

57:02

foll