Billionaire Financier and Registered Sex Offender, Jeffrey Epstein,will remain in jail until trial on his most recent string of sex trafficking charges.
According to the Washington Post, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman announced the decision at a hearing, siding with prosecutors after the attorneys traded arguments for more than a week about whether Epstein could be released to some sort of home confinement.
“I find that the government has established danger to others and to the community by clear and convincing evidence,” Berman said.
The judge cited a list of reasons for his decision as evidence against Epstein. Judge Berman stated that Epstein had missed required sex-offender check-ins, and highlighted the “sexually explicit photos” investigators recovered at his home after his arrest, in addition to the “compelling” testimony of two women who allege Epstein abused them as children.
The Judge said the defense attorneys’ offer to have Epstein remain on home confinement, with several other conditions, was “inadequate.”
“I doubt that any bail package can overcome danger to the community,” Berman said, adding that he will post a written decision on the matter this (Thursday) afternoon.
Epstein pleaded not guilty to the new charges, which his attorneys have asserted are effectively an improper do-over of the old case. If Epstein had been granted bail, defense attorneys said, he would have been willing to put up his $77 million Manhattan mansion as collateral and agree to home confinement with 24/7 security that he would have funded.
Prosecutors argued that Epstein, whose financial records show is worth more than $500 million, is a frequent world traveler with access to two private jets and private islands.
Prosecutors also highlighted the expired passport with his picture but different name as proof of his propensity to access phony documentation, “that Epstein knows how to obtain false travel documents and/or assume other, foreign identities.”
Meanwhile, Epstein’s defense claimed that the financier needed the expired passport as a measure of security.
They asserted that “Epstein — an affluent member of the Jewish faith — acquired the passport in the 1980s, when hijackings were prevalent, in connection to Middle East travel.”
“The passport was for personal protection in the event of travel to dangerous areas, only to be presented to potential kidnappers, hijackers or terrorists should violent episodes occur,” they wrote.
Epstein will be held in the federal detention center in Manhattan.
