His biggest regret, or so he said, was that he never got to tell his side of the story. This was not the first time he had told me that, but it was the first time I did not laugh after he said it. I said, “If I write a book one day, I’ll make sure to include your side.”
Smiling, he said, “Maybe we can write it together. You write what you think happened and I’ll write what actually happened.”
“Deal,” I said.
He brushed that off. I said, “Either way, the CVRA case is still going forward, so we’re a long way from our final meeting.”
“You’ll lose that case soon enough,” he said confidently. “Other than the CVRA, you and I are done with each other, right?” he confirmed. He then went on to explain that he and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak were close friends who loved to talk about problems in the Middle East. He explained that they also talked about the greatest advancements in the conduct of war, and about how those great war generals from history on opposing sides met after battle to discuss the tactics and defenses they’d used. Every great battle, he said, had the right balance between offense and defense, aggressiveness and passivity. Even the defeated general had not completely lost if he had learned lessons from his mistakes.
“When the CVRA is done, we need to get together,” he said. “A meeting between war generals is necessary for both of us. You can come to my place in New York or I will come to your house, if you will have me. I owe you answers. And I have many questions myself. This has been a well-fought war, between you and me. We owe each other this meeting.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll see you in New York one day then.”
Despite the fact that there were details that still needed to be hammered out, I stood up and extended my hand. He said, “Because of germs, I don’t usually shake hands.”
I looked at him and said, “Come on, man, give me a break, I know where your hand has been and I’m still shaking it.” I had clearly just taken a shot at him. Rather than take offense, he laughed and agreed to shake on it.
We had a deal.
* * *
On November 28, a week before my trial was set to begin, while Courtroom View Network prepared for live coverage and other national media were paying attention, Julie Brown released her story on the Miami Herald website. It included print and videos detailing the crimes Epstein had committed, the cover-up, and compelling video interviews of four of Epstein’s victims, including Courtney, Michelle, Virginia, and Jena-Lisa, another client of mine. The story ended by telling the world that the Edwards-Epstein trial was about to begin the following week.
Julie didn’t know that Epstein and I had just resolved the case. Nobody knew. Her story caused a frenzy. It generated headlines around the world. Media calls flooded our office, my cell phone, and the email accounts of everyone who’d had any involvement with the story.
The timing could not have been better. In fact, Epstein’s lawyers believed that I had orchestrated it in order to maximize the attention on Epstein’s public admission of wrongdoing and apology.
FIFTY-THREE HIS SURRENDER
WHILE EPSTEIN AND I HAD reached a final agreement, nothing was ever final with him. There were only a few days between our Starbucks meeting and the trial date, which was when Epstein planned to deliver the public apology, but you never knew what could take the deal apart: the release of Julie’s story, some aspect of the still-scheduled trial, something totally unknown and unpredictable. The trial was set to go forward on December 4, on my oldest son’s birthday, and only a select few other people knew the trial was not going to happen.
The Epstein camp was fuming about the timing of the Miami Herald story. It was impossible to know for sure if this saga was really going to end. Even as Brittany and I drove to the courthouse the morning of the trial, I was waiting for a last-minute maneuver.
Driving north on I-95 from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach, I felt as if I were trapped in some alien territory in my own mind. Brittany turned to me and asked, “What’s going on? I’ve seen you happy, mad, frustrated, anxious, but never like this.” I really didn’t know how to respond. I was conflicted between wanting this trial to proceed at long last, and knowing it was smart to settle it. Especially since it was settling on my terms.
After years of work, the first trial I could control completely was not going to happen. I had uncovered so many witnesses, put together Epstein’s scheme, and had solid proof of the crimes he had committed throughout the country. While I knew how the judge had ruled on what would and would not be allowed into evidence, and I knew that much of the information I had accumulated would not be aired in this trial, this ending still felt deeply anticlimactic. I explained as much before we parked.
Brittany looked at me and said, “This has never been the case you cared about. Helping the girls through the CVRA has been your mission; making sure Epstein faces criminal charges, that’s all that matters. That’s all still alive. You’ve won at every stage of that case and you are going to win in the end. Today, Jeffrey is telling the world that you were doing the right thing all along and he intentionally tried to derail you. What more do you want?”
She was right. We parked next to Jack and walked into the courthouse together. The walls were lined with reporters waiting for jury selection to begin. When I entered the courtroom that morning, I didn’t see Jeffrey. This was not a good sign, but also not a surprise. I never believed he would actually show up.
Judge Hafele took the bench and the parties informed the court of the settlement. I heard a gasp from the crowd. Scott Link faced the reporters from the well of the courtroom and read a document that was a statement from Jeffrey Epstein:
While Mr. Edwards was representing clients against me, I filed a lawsuit against him in which I made allegations about him that the evidence conclusively proves were absolutely false. The truth was that his aggressive investigation and litigation style was highly effective and therefore troublesome for me. The lawsuit I filed was my unreasonable attempt to damage his business reputation and cause Mr. Edwards to stop pursuing cases against me. It did not work. Despite my efforts, he continued to do an excellent job for his clients and, through his relentless pursuit, held me responsible. I am now admitting that I was wrong and that the things I said to try to harm Mr. Edwards’s reputation as a trial lawyer were false. I sincerely apologize for the false and hurtful allegations I made and hope for some forgiveness for my acknowledgment of wrongdoing.
I never thought I’d hear those words or anything close to them. Even after he had said them to me at Starbucks. But, he stayed true to his word and delivered on his promise to publicly apologize to me.
After the apology was read to everyone in the courtroom, Judge Hafele spoke. He tried to find his usual way of being even-keeled by thanking everyone for their professionalism along the way. I don’t remember his exact words, but he gave a special thank-you to the victims who were courageous enough to come forward and stand up, like Courtney, Lynn, and Marissa.
It was difficult to reconcile his closing remarks with those that he spoke at the hearing many years earlier when he had caused me to move to recuse him from the case. But like everyone involved, I think he, too, had matured and had developed a better understanding of the case over the years.
The press was ready for a trial and not sure what to make of what had just happened. The words of the apology caught everyone off guard. It was an extraordinary and powerful ending caught on tape.
Those in the courtroom who were set up with video cameras permitted by the judge were rewinding and replaying the apology over and over. Jack Scarola spoke last before we left the courtroom, thanking the judge and explaining to the court and the public, “This was no settlement, it was a surrender.”
Our team filed down the hallway, passing reporters who were shoving microphones in our faces. We walked out the doors and across the street to where Jack had stacked dozens of boxes of Epstein trial material and exhibits for everyone to see. He had prep
ared the display and organized a massive press conference. He had not told me this was going to happen, but I was impressed. He stepped up to the microphones and began to speak.
I had planned to be a good client and let my lawyer talk, but many of the reporters’ questions felt as though they deserved answers only I could give.
I don’t remember what I said, only that I spoke with pure, unlawyerlike emotion and rawness including whatever came to mind. Video cameras captured it, so there must be a record of it somewhere. I think at some stage during the press conference, I even told the somewhat embarrassing story of how I entered this fight by scribbling the word “Emergency” on the top of the first pleading that I ever filed in federal court. I wasn’t there to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. I tried to give an earnest account of what had happened beyond this particular case, and why I would continue to fight with the CVRA case.
The press conference had ended, but it wasn’t really over. People had traveled from all over the country for the trial and were pulling me into unavoidable interviews. I was even filmed in an impromptu scene for a Netflix documentary where my legal team and I shared our thoughts on the settlement that had just occurred. When I finally left, I got home to see my family and celebrate what was left of my son’s birthday. Just like that, it was over.
This was the first time in a decade when there wasn’t personal litigation going on between Jeffrey Epstein and me. We were done. Or were we?
The public apology on the heels of Julie Brown’s story got the attention of the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York. They opened a highly secretive investigation knowing that if Jeffrey Epstein ever caught wind of it, he would find a way to shut it down. While they could covertly obtain information that our extensive investigation had uncovered, they could not talk to victims directly without risking it tipping off Epstein. However, by pure coincidence, or karma, they could catch a break.
FIFTY-FOUR CHECK
ON FEBRUARY 21, 2019, I was walking out of a hearing in the Jacksonville courthouse when I got a call from a friend of mine in the press. Judge Marra had ruled that “there was a violation of the victims’ rights under the CVRA.” This was not a surprising ruling because the evidence was overwhelmingly in our favor, but you never know until you know. This was what we set out to prove in July 2008, more than ten years earlier. We had waited so long for this day. I called Courtney. She started crying instantly.
I read the judge’s order quickly. The government had violated the victims’ right to confer at three separate times: (1) on and before September 24, 2007, when the government was negotiating and signing the non-prosecution agreement; (2) in and around January 2008, when it sent letters not telling the victims about the previously signed NPA but, rather, falsely counseling “patience” while the government supposedly “finished” its already long-finished investigation; and (3) on and around June 30, 2008, when the government notified or attempted to notify the victims about the impending state plea, but still did not tell them that the plea would effectively extinguish their rights to ever see Epstein prosecuted.
A clear-cut example of the government’s violating the victims’ rights was its remarkable decision in 2008, well after the NPA had been signed by Epstein and the federal government, to send the victims (and, in some cases, their attorneys) deceptive and dishonest information that the case was “currently under investigation” and that “this can be a lengthy process and we request your continued patience while we conduct a thorough investigation.”
Judge Marra’s decision confirmed what I had said in July 2008.
When Courtney and I finished celebrating over the phone, she asked, “So what does this mean? Where do we go from here?” It was a good question. Judge Marra ordered us to confer with the government to decide what remedy was appropriate given the finding of a violation. We tried to confer but were told by the U.S. Attorney’s Office that the Southern District of Florida was being recused, disqualified from participating in the formation of a remedy, and replaced in that task by federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Georgia, which was in Atlanta.
Now the press was all over the injustice of the NPA. Judge Marra’s order was appropriately critical of the blatant violations instigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, which, at the time the NPA was signed, was led by Alex Acosta. Acosta, no longer a U.S. attorney, had been appointed in 2017 by President Trump as the U.S. secretary of labor.
There were rumblings that there would be a congressional investigation into not only the plea agreement but any role Secretary Acosta and others had played in its creation. The press was constantly calling me for comment on Secretary Acosta or President Trump in an effort to bait me into providing them with quotable political commentary on information that was entirely irrelevant to our victory. I wasn’t comfortable with speculation, and really had no interest in playing into the media’s attempt to dilute our victory by turning it into some political conspiracy. So I took a pass.
FIFTY-FIVE CHECKMATE
OUR FOCUS WAS ON WHERE to go from here. What would be the remedy for the violation? Our position was since the court had ruled that secretly signing the NPA behind the victims’ backs was a violation, then the NPA was an illegal agreement that should be declared null and void. If the agreement was invalid, then so was the immunity protection it provided. This would mean that Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators could be prosecuted for the Florida crimes committed many years ago.
Of course, the government did not agree with our proposed remedy, but the thought of it made Epstein very nervous. Sensing danger, he reached out to me again. He wanted to help settle the CVRA case in any way that would avoid the remedy of invalidation of the NPA that we were seeking. In early March 2019, Jeffrey and I began talking again, and meeting every so often at Starbucks.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia needed to speak with all of Epstein’s victims again to get their view on what remedy they wanted to see for the violation of their rights. Epstein hated the fact that the government was now speaking directly with his victims, so he asked to formally participate in the case. As a result, we began working with the government and Epstein to set up a joint mediation. All the while, the government continued to interview victims. When he learned of the interviews through a statement made by the government in a pleading, he was annoyed, though he believed they were all related to the CVRA.
But at the same time, the U.S. attorneys from the Southern District of New York and the FBI had begun conducting interviews of their own, including interviews of my clients Courtney and Olivia. By coincidence, the CVRA was providing cover. While Jeffrey Epstein was worried about shutting down the CVRA case before we reversed his NPA and revitalized the possibility of a Florida prosecution, another investigation was building rapidly, and this time, it was Epstein who was in the dark.
Shortly after my clients and other victims were interviewed in the criminal investigation in March, I got a call from Julie Brown. She said she had a source that told her New York was investigating Epstein and that FBI agents were interviewing his victims. She needed me to be the second source so that she could report it. That would have destroyed the investigation and put many people in physical danger. I had to tell her that I had no idea what she was talking about and that any interviews being conducted were related to the CVRA. Whew, that was a close call.
It wasn’t long after that Jeffrey called me again. He wanted to meet at our Starbucks. We met in May 2019. He was different. Nervous. Pacing. He seemed almost paranoid. Did he know? I couldn’t tell, but he seemed frustrated by his inability to control the CVRA. We talked about ways of resolving things, but he equivocated, as usual, still unable to agree to all of my terms.
During the meeting, he went on an angry diatribe about Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz had just done an interview on The View and made comments essentially saying Epstein was guilty.
“This guy was m
y lawyer, and he’s talking about me like that?” he railed.
At one point, he got up from our outside table and walked to the end of the sidewalk with his phone to his ear. I could tell that he was yelling, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. He walked hurriedly back to the table and sat across from me.
He crossed his legs, leaned back, placed his phone on the lap of his gray sweatpants, and lowered his glasses. “I can be nice, but I can also be real mean,” he said referring to his call. “That was Alan. He’s going to stop talking.”
I have no idea whether he actually called Dershowitz or whether anyone was even on the other end of the line.
He looked right at me, “Brad, what is the end goal with the CVRA? Even if you win and the judge rules it’s invalid, there is no way they will prosecute me. This will go all the way up to the attorney general. You know Trump was my friend and Barr is his boy. Let’s end this CVRA thing and be done.”
Name-dropping was part of Epstein’s normal routine and I took everything he said with a grain of salt. He knew he could basically say whatever he wanted about his associations with powerful people and I had no real way to verify or disprove it.
Calming for a second, he thought out loud: “So what do you really want?”
“Courtney has been the driving force of the CVRA. She deserves to have her legacy preserved,” I explained.
He quickly retorted, “I’m not going to disagree with you. What does she want, though? What if I put up a building in her name? The Courtney Wild Center for Victims? What do you think? Would that do it?”
“Look, this isn’t just about her. This is about all of the victims. Courtney wants to help others and you know that.”
“Okay, Brad, so what’s fair? What if I give them all health insurance? For them and their families? Sound good?” he responded, growing antsy with my refusal to immediately agree with him.
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