In a 2-1 decision delivered Tuesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied a writ of mandamus from Courtney Wild, one of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking and child abuse. Wild submitted her petition arguing that the negotiations of federal prosecutors to enter a non-prosecution agreement (NPA) with Epstein in 2007 violated her rights under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA) of 2004. She specifically alleged that federal prosecutors violated this law by denying her the right to confer with the government’s lawyers and be treated fairly by them.
The court agreed in this case that Wild and other survivors of Epstein’s abuse were “affirmatively misled” by government lawyers, but still denied her petition on the basis that criminal proceedings against Epstein had never begun. Because there were never criminal proceedings, the CVRA was not applicable.
This case began after a two-year investigation into Epstein’s conduct, which uncovered repeated and extensive abuses of more than 30 minor girls between 1999 and 2007. The district court found that federal prosecutors “never conferred with the victims about a[n] NPA or told the victims that such agreement was under consideration” despite working with or acceding to the requests of Epstein’s lawyers to keep the NPA’s existence secret from the victims. The circuit court in this case stated that the “government’s efforts seem to have graduated from passive nondisclosure to (or at least close to) active misrepresentation.”
The initial ruling by the district court in 2011 held that the CVRA does attach to cases before the government brings formal charges because statutory language in the act “clearly contemplates pre-charge proceedings.” Another eight years of litigation ensued until another case came before the district court in February 2019. In this case, the court ruled that the government had indeed infringed the rights of the petitioners under the CVRA. The court thus directed the parties to undertake various remedies, such as removing the NPA, holding a victim-impact hearing and more.
Following Epstein’s apparent suicide in August 2019, the district court dismissed the requested remedies and related suit, claiming that “Epstein’s death mooted any claim regarding the NPA’s continuing validity, as he was no longer subject to prosecution.”
Now, with the case before the Eleventh Circuit, they disagreed with the initial understanding by the district court that the CVRA can apply before criminal proceedings begin, stating that this interpretation of the CVRA is neither “best or most naturally read.”
Alex Acosta, who, at the time of the investigation into Epstein, served as the US attorney in Miami, has since resigned from his more recent role as US Secretary of Labor over criticism of his handling of the case. The acting head of the Bureau of Prisons was also removed after Epstein’s death.
