Why Jeff Epstein's 2007 Plea Agreement May Not Matter

By

Larry Jay Levine

Several of convicted and now dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's accusers and alledged victims have filed a motion asking a federal judge in Florida to invalidate Epstein's 2007 [NPA] Non Prosecution Plea Agreement that sheilded him and his co-conspirators from future prosecution. For the reasons outlined in this article, their arguments may not matter and the alleged perpetrators / future defendants are in deep shit! 

I'm Larry Levine and while I'm not a lawyer you might know me from my numerous appearances on CNN and Fox News. I served 10 years in Federal Prison where I helped hundreds of people with legal assistance and early releases and have a working knowledge of the Federal Prison System and Federal Judicial System and now run Wall Street Prison Consultants. 

While I beleive the Florida Court may actually be time barred and possibly lack legal authority to break a 12 year old plea agreement, had anyone understood the dynamics of Plea Agreements and been able to read the sealed 2007 agreement, they would've seen a "cookie cutter" clause in it saying that it only binds the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and not any other U.S. District Court in the U.S.

I saw this language in my own Plea Agreement in the Central District of California 1998 where I was charged with Narcotics Trafficking, Securities Fraud, Obstruction of Justice and Machine Guns as well as various people i have assisted over the last 20 years.

GLOBAL PLEA AGREEMENTS

By lacking such language clarifying it to be a "Global Plea Agreement," it opened the door to ANY future federal prosecution of anyone

In Epstein's case, had a Global Plea Agreement been authored, executed, and filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, specifically by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, and been accepted by the Judge hearing the case, it would have bound all the Federal District Courts across the United States from additional prosecutions, but it's highly unlikely the 2007 agreement written by then U.S. Attorney Jim Acosta would have contained such a clause, nor would it have protected against future crimes or expanded the statute of limitations, thereby leaving open the door for the prosecution of any new illegal conduct by Epstein or the people around him.   

Let me explain how it works! 

THE FEDERAL COURT SYSTEM 

The Federal Court System in U.S. is broken down into 98 U.S. Federal Court Districts with prosecutorial authority across the United States. Some states with smaller populations like Arizona, Nevada and Oregon have only one federal district where states with larger populations like California, New York and Texas have up to 4 Districts.  Florida where the 2007 Agreement was drawn up has three districts, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida being the originating District. 

Each District has its own Federal Court System and several Title III Federal Judges who are appointed for life and ratified by Congress, along with a politically appointed US Attorney who is also ratified by congress and is the Chief Federal Law Enforcement Officer for their district, along  with several Assistant US Attorney serving as front line prosecutors handling the actual cases in the courtroom.  

MULTI DISTRICT CHARGES

When a Defendant's criminal conduct straddles several different federal jurisdictions, the Feds sometimes combine the multi jurisdictional charges into a single Indictment for simplicity into a single prosecution containing multiple counts and issue a consolidated conviction at the time of sentencing. In the event another Federal District Court wants to bring charges of its own, they are free to do so for any crimes that happened in THEIR own jurisdiction. 

Because it's highly unlikely that Epstein's Plea contained a "Global Plea" clause, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York would be free to bring whatever charges they wanted against Epstein had he been still alive, and in fact still leaves a strong possibility of his co defendants being charged possible crimes, IF they fall within the Federal Statutes of Limitation and the Statute of limitations vary for many federal crimes.

STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS

When the founders of the U.S. were busy putting federal criminal laws together back in the 1700's during the First Congress, they made prosecution under those laws subject to specific statutes of limitation that continue to this day.

In 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court in its wisdom decreed in United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 324 (1971) "At some point events pass into history and due process restricts the extent to which they may be resurrected to build a criminal accusation, with or without an applicable statute of limitations" with Title 18 USC Section 3282 of the Federal Criminal Code stating "except as otherwise expressly provided by law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or information is instituted within five years next after such offense shall have been committed.

Now while a majority of federal crimes are governed by the five-year statute of limitations, longer periods cover specific types of crimes such as: 20 years for the theft of artwork, 10 years for arson and 10 years Bank Fraud.

CHILD SEXUAL CRIMES

But in cases involving (Chomos)  people who like to play with kids, the child sexual abuse the statutes of limitations are thrown out the window because Title 18 Section 3283 of the Federal Criminal Code allows indictments for charging kidnaping, or sexual abuse, or physical abuse, of a child under the age of 18 to be filed within the longer of 10 years or the life of the victim.

According to Mark Palmer who is Excutive Director of Jessica's Law Now there are between 5000 and 10,000 children who are sexually abused and exploited in the U.S. each year with many of the abusers never caught and sent to trial. 

While Title 18 Section 3283 of the federal criminal code covers the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse, Federal Prosecutors have several stautes realating to sexual abuse to charge a defendant with  including 2241 (aggravated sexual abuse of children), 2243 (sexual abuse of a ward or child), 2244 (abusive sexual contact), 2251 (sexual exploitation of children), 2251A (selling or buying children), 2252 (transporting, distributing or selling child sexually exploitive material), 2252A (transporting or distributing child pornography), 2260 (making child sexually exploitative material overseas for export to the U.S.), 2421 (transportation for illicit sexual purposes),2422 (coercing or enticing travel for illicit sexual purposes), 2423 (travel involving illicit sexual activity with a child). 

Despite Epstein's early demise, with the mountains of discovery seized from him and an UNLIMITED statute of limitations and a potpourri of charges to choose from, It seems certain the DOJ Indictment mill will be working full steam with new arrests and charges on the horizon.

When these child molesters hit a prison yard they're gonna be in deep shit, because unlike many chomos who end up inside and try to claim they got hit with drugs or fraud, these guys faces are gonna be splashed all over the news giving then no place to run or hide!