HOUSE OVERSIGHT 023127 Miami — said prosecutors resolved the case based on the facts and evidence, and what he called "legal impediments," including the belief that many of Epstein's teenage victims were too "terrified" to cooperate in the case. "Given the obstacles we faced in fashioning a robust federal prosecution, we decided to negotiate a resolution," said Sloman, now in private practice. "We did not reach this decision lightly and it came only after significant and often rancorous internal debate." Jeffrey Sloman, who was second-in-command to then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta when the latter was deciding whether to prosecute Jeffrey Epstein, says the office handled the case properly. Aixa Montero Holt In a lengthy opinion piece submitted to the Miami Herald Editorial Board, Sloman alleges that the attacks on Acosta's role in the controversial case are politically driven by critics who failed to raise significant issues when Acosta was nominated and confirmed as the U.S. secretary of labor in 2017. Sloman's comments come two weeks after the Justice Department announced it had opened an investigation over whether there was prosecutorial misconduct in the case involving Epstein, who ran a sex pyramid scheme from his Palm Beach estate that targeted scores of underage girls from 2001 to 2006. About 30 members of Congress demanded the probe following a Miami Herald series of stories, "Perversion of Justice," that detailed how federal prosecutors, led