Epstein Data Wiki

Andrew C. Lourie

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tagsperson, prosecutor, usao-sdfl, non-prosecution-agreement, justice-department, criminal-division, florida
aliasesAndrew Lourie, Andrew C. Lourie, Andy Lourie, Lourie, Andrew, Lourie, Andrew C., A. Lourie

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What this page does not contain

Andrew Lourie supervised, and for one critical week personally conducted, the negotiation of the agreement that ended a federal sex-offence investigation. Nothing any complainant said appears on this page in any form: not quoted, not summarised, not characterised, not counted. Nine of the documents this page was scoped on are classed in this project’s index as FBI reports, hearing or deposition transcripts, and not one of them was opened at all. That is a refusal by label and not a finding about their contents: two of the nine are further printings of the Justice Department report, which this page uses from a printing that carries a different label, and no comparison between copies was made or is reported. The page is built on the other body of paper a supervising prosecutor leaves behind: the messages he wrote, the letters addressed to him, the pleading he signed, the office’s own account of what he approved, and his answers to the Justice Department’s internal investigators.

WhoCareer federal prosecutor. Joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida as a line prosecutor in 1994, after three years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New Jersey1
In the Epstein matterDeputy Chief of the office’s Criminal Division and Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney for the West Palm Beach branch, which made him the line prosecutor’s second-line supervisor12
ThenFrom late September 2007, on detail at the Justice Department in Washington as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division and Chief of Staff to Alice Fisher. He left the Department in February 2008 for private practice13
EarlierTwo details as Acting Chief of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, September 2001 to September 2002 and February 2006 to July 20061
What the office says he approvedThe office’s own letter to the Deputy Attorney General states that the proposed indictment package “had been reviewed and approved by Mr. Lourie in West Palm Beach and by attorneys with CEOS; however, it awaited review by Mr. Menchel and FAUSA Sloman”2
In his own words, May 2007Forwarding the prosecution memorandum: “I have some ideas about the indictment (needs to be ultra lean with only clean victims), so I am not sending that yet.”4
In his own words, September 2007To Epstein’s counsel, who had thanked him for the negotiation: “I enjoyed it as well. Mr. Epstein was fortunate to have such excellent representation.”5
Instruments he signedOne in the documents read for this page: the United States’ motion of 2 February 2007 in another criminal case in the same district, over a typed s-signature6
The Justice Department’s findingOne of five subject attorneys in the November 2020 report; no professional misconduct78

Andrew C. Lourie was the supervisor the defence went to. When the line prosecutor, A. Marie Villafaña, told Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers she wanted their documents before she would fix a meeting, they telephoned Lourie instead, and he agreed to the meeting. When she sought approval to indict, the package went up through him, and the office’s own later account to the Deputy Attorney General says he approved it. And in the week the agreement was settled he was no longer in Florida at all: he had moved to the Justice Department in Washington, and he negotiated the last terms from there.9210

He is one of the five lawyers the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility named as subjects of its November 2020 investigation. It found no professional misconduct by any of them.78

In 2023 his part in the case was still being argued over in a federal appeals court: Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers told the Second Circuit that his presence at Main Justice during the September 2007 negotiations was proof that the agreement was never meant to bind Florida alone.11

Where he sat

The Justice Department’s report sets out his career in a single paragraph:

Andrew C. Lourie joined the USAO as a line AUSA in 1994, after having served for three years as an AUSA in New Jersey. During his 13-year tenure at the USAO, Lourie served two terms on detail as the Acting Chief of the Department’s Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, first from September 2001 until September 2002, and then from February 2006 until July 2006. Between those two details, and again after his return to the USAO in July 2006, Lourie was a Deputy Chief of the USAO’s Criminal Division, serving as the Managing AUSA for the West Palm Beach branch office. Lourie was part of the supervisory team that oversaw the Epstein investigation and negotiated the NPA, participating in meetings and other communications with defense counsel. During September 2007, while the NPA was being negotiated, Lourie transitioned out of the USAO to serve on detail as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General1

The sentence finishes on the next sheet: “for the Department’s Criminal Division, a position in which he served as Chief of Staff to Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher. Lourie left the Department in February 2008 to enter private practice.”12

The office’s own account of the case, in a letter written in the first person by the First Assistant U.S. Attorney to Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip, puts the Public Integrity detail differently and adds who asked for it: Lourie “had returned to his position as the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division in West Palm Beach (head of the West Palm Beach branch office), after serving as the interim Chief of the Public Integrity Section at DOJ at the request of AAG Fisher.” The report says “Acting Chief”; the letter says “interim Chief … at the request of AAG Fisher”. Both readings are given here rather than reconciled.13

The two accounts also place him at different distances from the line prosecutor. The letter says, flatly, “Her immediate supervisor was Andrew Lourie”, and sets out the chain above him: “Above Mr. Lourie in the SDFL’s chain of command were Matthew Menchel, Criminal Division Chief, First Assistant USA Sloman and finally, U.S. Attorney Acosta.” The Justice Department’s report calls him instead “her second-line supervisor” and records that she had an immediate supervisor below him: “Villafaña’s immediate supervisor in West Palm Beach had little involvement in supervising the Epstein investigation, and at times, Villafaña directed her emails to Sloman, Menchel, and Lourie without copying” that supervisor. This page prints both accounts and reconciles neither.1314 A footnote on the same sheet of the letter records who took the post after him: “Rolando Garcia replaced Mr. Lourie as the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.”13

Internal records of the period give his title three further ways. A request for immunity authority of 10 March 2007 is addressed to him as “Andrew Lourie, then Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney, Northern Division”; the prosecution memorandum of 1 May 2007 is addressed to him as “Andrew Lourie, Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney, West Palm Beach”; and Epstein’s counsel addressed him in writing as “Andrew Lourie, Deputy Chief, Northern Region”.1516

January and February 2007: the meeting the line prosecutor was bypassed to get

The report’s account of how he entered the negotiation is that the defence went around the line prosecutor. One of Epstein’s attorneys asked her for a meeting; she asked for documents first; and the report’s next sentence is broken here at each of the producing party’s marks, because the page supplies nothing under them. It begins “Immediately after receiving Villafaña’s response,”; then, after a mark, “bypassed Villafaña and phoned Lourie, with whom she had worked when she was an AUSA, to press for a meeting. Lourie agreed to meet with”; then, after a second mark, “and Lefcourt.”17

His reason, in his own words to the investigators, is on the same sheet. He “explained to OPR, however, that it was his practice to grant meetings to defense counsel; he considered it ‘good for us’ to learn the defense theories of a case and believed that ‘information is power.’” The report adds that he “further explained that learning what information the defense viewed as important could help the USAO form its strategy and determine which counts relating to which victims should be charged”, and that he “also believed that as a general matter, prosecutors should grant defense requests to make a presentation, because ‘[p]art of [the] process is for them to believe they are heard.’”17

He did two further things that month, both recorded on the same sheet. He “sent” the defence “a narrowed document request, which responded to” its “complaint that the USAO’s earlier request was overbroad but which retained the demand for the computer-related items removed from Epstein’s home”; and, with the meeting set for 1 February 2007, he “asked” the defence “to provide the documents and materials to the USAO by January 25, 2007”. Both sentences are broken at the marks that cover the recipient’s name.17

The line prosecutor objected. The report records that she “and a West Palm Beach AUSA with whom she was consulting about the investigation, and who served for a time as her co-counsel, both recalled meeting with Lourie in his office to express their concerns about meeting with defense counsel. They perceived Lourie to be dismissive of their views.” A footnote on the same sheet carries what she says he told them: that “in a ‘heated conversation’ on the subject, Lourie told them they were not being ‘strategic thinkers.’” Her colleague “remembered Lourie’s ‘strategic thinker’ comment as well, but recalled it as having occurred later in connection with another proposed action in the Epstein case. Lourie did not recall making the statement but acknowledged that he could have.”18

A timeline of the correspondence prepared for the litigation that followed carries one item addressed to him that month. Its columns are headed “Date”, “To”, “From” and “Re:”, and against 22 January 2007 it logs an item to Lourie from Lilly Ann Sanchez whose description cell opens “Looking forward to the 2/1/07 meeting” and goes on, in this page’s own words rather than the sheet’s, to say that documents already given to the State Attorney’s Office would be sent by 25 January.19

The meeting took place on 1 February 2007. Gerald B. Lefcourt’s letter of that date opens with a salutation naming them both, ending “and Mr. Lourie:”.20 The office’s own later account says what came of it: “On February 1, 2007, Ms. Sanchez and Mr. Lefcourt met with AUSAs Lourie and Villafaña, as well as a member of the FBI, and presented defense counsel’s view of the case and promised a willingness to assist in the investigation. The SDFL was unpersuaded by their presentation and the investigation continued.” The same paragraph records that a former United States Attorney for the district, Guy Lewis, had contacted the line prosecutor and “later, Deputy Criminal Chief Lourie, when he learned that they were handling or involved in supervising the federal investigation of Epstein.”13

February 2007: the one instrument he signed

Among the documents read for this page there is exactly one that bears his signature block, and it is not an Epstein document. On 2 February 2007, the day after that first meeting, he filed the United States’ motion in a criminal case in the same district, United States v. Adam G. McDaniel, asking the court to amend an order it had entered on 16 January 2007. The closing block is set on separate lines, and they are quoted separately here for that reason: “Respectfully submitted,”; then “R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA” and “UNITED STATES ATTORNEY”; then, against a rule, “By:” and “s/Andrew C. Lourie”; and beneath the rule “ANDREW C. LOURIE” and “Assistant United States Attorney”. The certificate of service on the same sheet is subscribed “S/ Andrew Lourie” over a second rule. Both subscriptions are typed s-signatures and neither is ink.6

The court’s later order on that motion, entered on 9 October 2007, records what he argued at the hearing:

The Court notes that Lourie raised both arguments at the hearing on this Motion and vigorously advocated the position that Defendant’s sexual conduct with another minor was not relevant under Defendant’s guideline computation and the factors enumerated under 18 U.S.C. § 3661 (2006).21

Nothing else from either document is reproduced here. The order sets out the circumstances of individual young people; those passages were read and this page quotes, summarises and characterises none of them, and takes no name, age or detail from them.

In February 2019 a Miami Herald reporter put that episode to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in a request for comment, which the office forwarded internally on 26 February 2019. Her message says, in the part quoted here: “I am including Mr. Acosta and Lourie’s argument to amend the judge’s order, which I will mention in the story. But this all happened just before the Epstein deal was signed.”22 The rest of that sheet describes the facts of the earlier case and is not reproduced. That is a reporter’s characterisation of a sequence, recorded here as such; this page draws no inference from the order of the two matters.

May 2007: the prosecution memorandum, and what he wrote on top of it

On 1 May 2007 the line prosecutor sent an 82-page prosecution memorandum supporting a proposed 60-count indictment to R. Alexander Acosta, Jeffrey Sloman, Matthew Menchel, Lourie and her immediate supervisor.23

Lourie forwarded it to Menchel. The report reproduces his transmittal message, which begins after a mark covering a name:

did a 50 [sic] page pros memo in the Epstein case. I am going to start reading it tonight… . It’s a major case because the target is one of the richest men in the country and it has been big news. He has a stable of attorneys, including Dershowitz, [Roy] Black, Lefcourt,

Two further names in that sentence are covered on the sheet and are not supplied here. The message continues:

Jeff Sloman is familiar with the investigation. The state intentionally torpedoed it in the grand jury so it was brought to us. I am going to forward the pros memo to you so you can start reading it at the same time I do. The FBI is pushing to do it in Mid [sic] May, which I think is not critical, but we might as well get a jump on it. I have some ideas about the indictment (needs to be ultra lean with only clean victims), so I am not sending that yet.4

His own explanation of that last phrase is printed on the same sheet, and the page carries it here: “Lourie explained to OPR that by ‘clean’ victims, he meant those for whom the defense did not have impeachment evidence to use against them.”4

A hundred and thirty-two sheets later the report returns to the point and states a finding about it. Recording that he had recommended “preparing a ‘short’ charging document”, it continues: “The fact that Lourie apparently used information gleaned from the defense about the victims’ credibility to formulate his charging recommendation supported his statements to OPR that such meetings were, in his experience, a useful source of information that could be factored into the government’s charging strategy.”24

He pressed Menchel for a view. The report records that a few days later he asked whether Menchel had read the memorandum, directed him to particular pages, identified the two issues he thought decisive, asked for Menchel’s “very general opinion as to whether this is a case you think the office should do,” and reminded him that the State Attorney’s Office “went out of their way to get a no-bill on this … and thus only charged adult solicitation, which they would bargain away to nothing.”4

On 14 May 2007 Menchel answered the line prosecutor and Lourie together: “You will not have approval to go forward tomorrow with an indictment or to poceed by complaint.” The misspelling of “proceed” is as the released text of the sheet read for this page carries it.25

22 May 2007: two messages in his own voice

Lefcourt e-mailed him that afternoon attaching a letter seeking meetings. At 3:11 that afternoon Lourie forwarded it to Menchel and Sloman, copying the line prosecutor, under the subject “FW: Jeffrey Epstein”. The message is reproduced here whole:

Gentlemen,

Marie and I have already met with Lefcourt, which is really the meeting I promised him. I spoke to him last week and he said he had more information they wanted to present. I told him he could make an appointment to come in again if he wanted to and that we would meet with him again, but I did not promise that we would wait to give him a meeting “before” we charged.

So, I think he is really ready for the next level rather than a second meeting with me. Mike Tein also mentioned to me at some point that they wanted to make a presentation on the law and I suggested to him that he contact Matt without telling him exactly what stage of review we were at. I don’t know if Tein and Lefcourt have crossed wires or not.

In any event, I am forwarding this letter to you. I am going to suggest to Lefcourt the same thing that I suggested to Tein. I assume you would grant his attorneys a chance to make whatever presentation they desire. It would probably be helpful to us in any event to hear their legal arguments in case we have missed something. Whether Alex would be present or grant them another meeting after that is his call.

Andy26

At 6:32 that evening he answered Lefcourt directly:

I have your letter. I think we are on the same page, but to be sure I do want to clarify that we spoke the other week and I did say that if you want to meet with me again, I am ready to do so. The wording of your letter, however, suggests implicitly that I agreed to contact you before a decision is made to seek an indictment of Mr. Epstein. If that was your understanding, then please allow me to clarify. Our investigation is ongoing and if we decide to seek an indictment, we don’t intend to call Mr. Epstein’s representatives to let him know that. Of course, in the interim, if you would like to make a presentation to us, we are willing to listen.

Along those lines, given the fact that we have already met once, with schedules being what they are, it makes sense for our criminal chief, Matt Menchel, to be included when you make another presentation, rather than working up the chain incrementally. I realize you were being respectful in not attempting to leapfrog over me, which I appreciate. I will pass on your request to meet with the U.S. Attorney as well, but can’t commit for him one way or another. When you have some dates in mind, let me know and I will try to set up a meeting in Miami.27

He forwarded that exchange to the line prosecutor a minute later with a one-word note: “fyi”.27

The first of those two messages was later withheld from the two petitioners in the victims’ rights litigation. The office’s privilege log lists, against one Bates number, a “5/22/2007 email from Andy Lourie to Matt Menchel and Jeff Sloman (cc: Marie Villafaña) re letter received from Gerald Lefcourt discussing a meeting to discuss Epstein investigation”, claimed as work product and deliberative process. The sheet carrying that message prints the same Bates number at its foot.28

June to August 2007: the meetings, the term sheet, and the computers

The office’s letter to the Deputy Attorney General records where the charging package stood by the time of the first of them: “By that time, the proposed initial indictment package had been reviewed and approved by Mr. Lourie in West Palm Beach and by attorneys with CEOS; however, it awaited review by Mr. Menchel and FAUSA Sloman.”2

The same letter records two of the meetings in one sentence each. “On June 26, 2007, Mr. Menchel, Mr. Lourie, AUSA Villafaña, and FAUSA Sloman, and two FBI agents met with Alan Dershowitz, Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, and Lilly Ann Sanchez.” And: “On July 31, 2007, Mr. Menchel, Mr. Lourie, AUSA Villafaña, and FAUSA Sloman, and two FBI agents met with Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, and Lilly Ann Sanchez. On that date, the SDFL presented a written sheet of terms that would satisfy the SDFL’s federal interest in the case.”2

Between the two, on 6 July 2007, Lefcourt and Alan Dershowitz sent the office a 23-page letter against federal charges. Its addressee block names him as “Andrew Lourie, Deputy Chief, Northern Region”, at the West Palm Beach office, and its salutation reads “Dear Messrs. Sloman, Menchel and Lourie and Ms. Villafaña:”.16 A further letter of 13 July 2007 from Sanchez to him is logged as having been kept in a folder headed “Responses to Arguments from JE Counsel”, with his own handwritten notes on it, and withheld.29

On 8 August 2007, with the defence seeking to take the matter to Washington, he wrote to Acosta and Sloman asking that the office “stick to our deadline if possible”. He “pointed out that CEOS ‘has no approval authority’ and opined it was ‘a bit extreme to allow the defense to keep arguing this [case] to different agencies.’” Acosta answered that the matter would reach the Department anyway and that he would rather keep it in the district.30

Two weeks later he made a decision about the evidence the report returns to repeatedly. The line prosecutor had gone to court to obtain computer equipment removed from Epstein’s house before the state search warrant was executed. On 22 August 2007 a defence attorney, whose name is covered on the sheet, “reached out to Lourie … and obtained his agreement to a joint request for a stay until the week after Acosta’s meeting with defense counsel”.30 The United States’ own sealed surreply in the grand jury proceeding records a second concession on the same subject in his name: “The undersigned’s supervisor, Andrew Lourie, agreed with Mr. Black that Mr. Riley would not have to produce the disputed items if the motion was filed.”31

The litigation over the computers was never decided. The report’s finding is that the office “agreed to a term in the NPA that permanently ended the government’s ability to obtain possible evidence of significant crimes and did so with apparently little serious consideration of the potential cost.” Asked about it years later, Lourie told the investigators the computers might have contained “very powerful evidence” that possibly “could have changed our advice to [Acosta], or his decision making.”32

September 2007: the week he agreed the deal, from Washington

On 12 September 2007 the office met the State Attorney, Barry Krischer, and the state prosecutor Lanna Belohlavek about the state plea. The report’s account of what happened is contested on its face:

Villafaña recalled that when Belohlavek confirmed that Epstein would be required to register as a sexual offender if he pled to any one of the three charges, Lourie, speaking for the USAO, agreed to allow Epstein to enter his plea to just one state charge in addition to the pending state indictment, and the defense attorneys selected the charge of procurement of minors to engage in prostitution. Lourie, however, disputed Villafaña’s recollection that he made the final decision, stating that it was “illogical” to conclude that he had the authority to change the terms of agreement unilaterally.33

Two e-mails written that afternoon are in the record. At 3:43 p.m. the line prosecutor wrote to Jay Lefkowitz, copying Lourie: “Jay – It was nice seeing you again. Andy and I talked with Alex and Jeff. We are all satisfied in principle with the agreement, but the Office is uncomfortable with the recommended federal charge.” At 5:55 p.m. Lefkowitz replied to her and copied Lourie again, opening: “Andy - meant to copy you on my first attempt to respond to Marie. We appreciate the courtesy of today’s meeting and your agreement and Alex’s.”34 The report’s own footnote to the disputed passage says the same thing: “As noted below, a contemporaneous email indicates that shortly after the meeting, Lourie and Villafaña spoke with Acosta and Sloman, who concurred with the agreement.”33

Sloman then went on holiday, telling Acosta and the line prosecutor that in his absence Lourie had agreed “to help finalize this”. The report adds what that meant in practice: “Lourie spent the following work week at his new post at the Department in Washington, D.C., but communicated with his USAO colleagues by phone and email.”10

What he did from Washington is set out across six sheets of the report. He suggested two options, which the line prosecutor conveyed to Lefkowitz.35 He asked for the latest draft, read it, told her it was a “[g]ood job” and questioned certain provisions.36 On the morning of 18 September the incoming West Palm Beach manager e-mailed him suggesting that he “talk to Epstein and close the deal”, and:

Within moments, Lourie replied to the manager, with a copy to Villafaña, reporting that he had just spoken with Lefkowitz and agreed “to two fed[eral] obstruction[] charges (24 month cap) with nonbinding recommendation for 18 months. When [Epstein] gets out, he has to plead to state offenses, including against minor, registrable, and then take one year house arrest/community confinement.”37

About an hour later, in the report’s own words “[a]pproximately an hour after Lourie’s email reporting the deal he had reached with Lefkowitz”, Lefkowitz sent back a draft on different terms. The line prosecutor’s complaint, in the report’s quotation of it, was that the defence version was “completely different from what Jay just told Andy they would agree to.”37

The next afternoon, with the defence reinserting terms she had already rejected, she sent him the redlined version. His reply, in full, was: “I will reach out to Alex to discuss.”38 The report gives that stage of the negotiation its own heading: “Villafaña and Lourie Recommend Ending Negotiations, but Acosta Urges That They ‘Try to Work It Out’”.39

Around the same time, with Acosta refusing to open “a backchannel” with the defence, he settled the one term the office would not move on. The report places the instruction on the sheet that goes on to date the next morning as Friday 21 September 2007, and this page derives no date from that order. The report records the instruction in his own words: “Lourie instructed Villafaña, ‘U can tell [J]ay that [A]lex will not agree to a nonregistration offense.’”40

The agreement was signed on 24 September 2007. The report records that Lourie, “who had returned to the Department in Washington, D.C., had a phone conversation with Lefkowitz and sent additional comments on the final draft to Acosta and Villafaña,” and that the line prosecutor then sent a revision “incorporating edits from Acosta and Lourie” to Lefkowitz later that morning.41 See the 2008 non-prosecution agreement.

”I enjoyed it as well”

The evening the agreement was signed, Lefkowitz e-mailed him about the office’s plan to tell the Palm Beach police chief, Michael Reiter, what had been agreed. He wrote that he was “very concerned about leaks unduly prejudicing Jeffrey [Epstein] in the media”, and added, “I have enjoyed working with you on this matter.” The report gives the answer:

Lourie responded with an assurance that the Reiter notification was only “so he does not find out about it in the paper,” and he concluded: “I enjoyed it as well. Mr. Epstein was fortunate to have such excellent representation.”5

The report records on an earlier sheet that Lourie had asked that the police chief share information about the agreement only with the detective who had led the state investigation.42 That detective was Joseph Recarey.

The clause he did not comment on

The paragraph of the agreement promising not to prosecute “any potential co-conspirators” is the term senior Department officials later described to the investigators as unusual: the Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section called the provision “very unusual”, and a Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General said, “I don’t know how it is that you give immunity to somebody who’s not identified. I just don’t know how that works.”43 The clause’s own wording is set out at the 2008 non-prosecution agreement. On the afternoon of Friday 21 September 2007, the day he flew back to Florida from Washington, the line prosecutor told him she had put in the language the defence had asked for “regarding promises not to prosecute other people”, and commented, “I don’t think it hurts us.” The report’s finding is flat: “There is no documentation that Lourie, the West Palm Beach manager, or anyone else expressed disagreement with Villafaña’s assessment.”44

What he did answer, within a few minutes, is on the same sheet. She re-sent the message adding that the defence was still pressing for an immigration waiver, “to which Lourie responded, ‘No way. We don’t put that sort of thing in a plea agreement.’” She replied that she would pass that on and asked, “Any other thoughts?” The report’s next sentence is the one that matters: “When Lourie gave no further response, Villafaña informed defense counsel that Lourie had rejected the proposed immigration language.”44

The sequence raises a question this page states as a question and not as a finding: in one exchange he refused one term outright and said nothing at all about the other, and the term he did not answer is the one that became the agreement’s most criticised clause.44

Examining the point later, the report records that he had responded to a different concern in the same e-mail “but did not comment on the provision promising not to prosecute coconspirators or ask Villafaña to explain why she believed the provision did not harm the government’s interests,” and that when she asked him for “[a]ny other thoughts” there is “no indication that he provided further input.”45

Asked about the clause by the investigators, he “did not recall why the USAO agreed to it, but he speculated that he left that provision in the NPA because he believed at the time that it benefited the government in some way”,44 and he “described the promise not to prosecute ‘potential co-conspirators’ as ‘unusual,’ and told OPR that he did not know why it was included in the agreement, but added that it would be ‘unlike me if I read that language to just leave it in there unless I thought it was somehow helpful.’”46

The report’s conclusion on the clause is that “the evidence does not show that Acosta, Lourie, or Villafaña agreed to the non-prosecution provision to protect any of Epstein’s political, celebrity, or other influential associates.”46

November 2007 to February 2008: at the Criminal Division

By November 2007 he was the Assistant Attorney General’s Chief of Staff, and the Epstein defence had begun approaching the Department. The organisation chart the report prints places him directly beneath Alice Fisher as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, with an asterisk reading “Until late Feb. 2008”.3

On 16 November 2007 Kenneth Starr telephoned Fisher’s office. “At Fisher’s request, Lourie, who in late September 2007 had begun serving his detail as Fisher’s Principal Deputy and Chief of Staff, returned the call.” Neither of them could recall the substance for the investigators; a footnote reproduces what he reported back to her the next day: “He was very nice. Kept me on the phone for [a] half hour talking about [P]epperdine”.47

Over the following weeks he sent Sloman a copy of Starr’s letter, consulted the Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section about it, and, as Fisher’s Chief of Staff, “informed Starr that Fisher hoped Starr would speak to Acosta to ‘resolve the[] fairly narrow issues’ raised in Starr’s correspondence with Acosta.”48 His own handling of the agreement at that stage is recorded in one more line: “at [USAO-SDFL supervisor] Lourie’s request”, the line prosecutor “sent the NPA and its addendum to Lourie and Oosterbaan”, and the Section Chief answered that he was “not thrilled” about it.49

What he had said to the defence about the additional state charges surfaced in the line prosecutor’s own correspondence. Answering Lefkowitz on 13 December 2007, she wrote: “When Mr. Lourie told you that those charges would ‘embarrass the Office,’ he meant that the Office was unwilling to bend the facts to satisfy Mr. Epstein’s desired prison sentence”, and added that she agreed with the statement.50

He left the Department in February 2008, before the Criminal Division’s review of the case was finished.123

What the Justice Department concluded

The Office of Professional Responsibility named him one of five subject attorneys: “former U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, and former AUSAs Jeffrey H. Sloman, Matthew I. Menchel, Andrew C. Lourie”. The fifth is the line prosecutor, named earlier on this page. The quotation stops where it does because a producing party’s mark falls in the list at that point, and this page carries no quotation across a mark.7 It concluded that none of them committed professional misconduct, and that “Menchel, Sloman, Lourie, and Villafaña did not commit professional misconduct with respect to any aspect of the NPA because they acted under Acosta’s direction and with his approval.”8

On the question of how far he decided anything, the report sets out both possibilities without choosing: “Villafaña and Lourie participated in the negotiations, and Lourie either made decisions during the September 12, 2007 meeting with the defense and State Attorney’s Office, or at least indicated agreement pending Acosta’s approval.”51

It records his place in the reasoning that produced the agreement. One of the three sets of issues that influenced the decision, the report says, “arose from an assessment by Acosta’s senior advisers”, whom it names, between dashes, as Sloman, Menchel and Lourie, “that the case carried substantial litigation risks, including both witness issues and what some viewed as a novel application of certain federal statutes to the facts of the Epstein case.”52 And it records that he and the line prosecutor, at the end, wanted to stop: “Acosta was also unwilling to abandon the path that he had set, even when Villafaña and Lourie advocated to end the negotiations.”53

His own verdict on the outcome, given to the investigators more than a decade later, is printed in the report’s section on the sentence:

[E]verything else that happened to [Epstein] is exactly what should have happened to him… . He had to pay a lot of money. He had to register as a sex offender

followed by: “but ‘in the perfect world, [Epstein] would have served more time in jail.’”54

What neither office could produce

When the Office of Professional Responsibility asked for the office’s e-mail on the Epstein case, the office found it could not supply his. The internal traffic on the litigation hold is in the record. On 18 January 2011 a member of staff wrote: “I don’t have Attachment 1 or 5 for Alex Acosta, Jeff Sloman, Matthew Menchel or Andrew Lourie all no longer with us. Acosta and Sloman served as USA and their email should be at TechOne. How do we go about finding out if archived email for Menchel and Lourie exist in our system.” The same message adds: “We do have copies of their N drives. Lourie, Menchel departure was previous to USAMail.”55

The answer came back the same afternoon: “If Lourie and Menchel departed prior to USAMail implementation in FLS, we won’t have theirs. I can talk to our tech folks to see if it’s even worth doing additional searching, but I believe the answer is that it’s simply not available because of the way our systems were set up prior to USAMail.”55 On 23 February 2011 the question was still open: “And am I correct that Andy Lourie and Matt Menchel’s emails are no longer accessible, even at EOUSA?”56

The sequence raises a question this page states as a question and not as a finding: the Department investigated five lawyers, and the mailbox of one of the two who had left earliest was not available to it from the office’s own systems.5655

In 2019 the state prosecutor’s office answered the same question the same way. On 1 October 2019 the Office of the State Attorney for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit replied to a Palm Beach Post records request that had asked, among other things, for “any communication with federal officials, including, but not limited to, U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta and assistant U.S. attorneys A.” and, after a mark covering a name, “Villafana, Jeffrey Sloman, Andrew Lourie.” The answer: “Please be advised that in response to your requests 1 through 3, our office does not retain emails electronically prior to 2012. The only emails now existing are the physical copies of emails maintained within the state’s files and copies of the state’s files, including any emails have already been provided to you.”57

Separately, the messages of his that the office did hold were among those it declined to produce to the two petitioners in the victims’ rights litigation. A filing in that case records that the petitioners sought to find out “how the confidentiality provision operated, but the Court sustained the Government’s work product objections to production of this information”, citing the log’s claim of privilege over “emails between Alex Acosta” and two further prosecutors “and Rolanda Garcia regarding Lefkowitz email about keeping agreement from becoming pubic and confidentiality provision in agreement”.58 The quotation is broken where the released text damages a surname, and this page completes nothing; the misspellings inside the spans it does give are as the released text carries them, and that sheet was not read at the page image. See the 2015 supplemental privilege log and the 2013 privilege logs.

The argument built on him in 2023

Nearly sixteen years after the agreement, his two posts became the centre of an appellate argument. Maxwell’s reply brief in the Second Circuit, filed on 27 July 2023, used them to contend that the agreement was never confined to Florida:

The Government denies that Main Justice was involved in the plea negotiations. Br. 22. But the OPR demonstrates that Andrew C. Lourie, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department’s Criminal Division and Chief of Staff to Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher, was actively participating in a critical phase of plea negotiations in September “from his new post at the Department in Washington, DC.” SA101. After his transfer, he continued to be consulted on the negotiations and apprised of their status. He repeatedly rendered opinions, trying to close the deal involving a plea agreement and the NPA (SA106, 110).11

The sentence runs on to the next sheet: “On September 24, 2007, Lourie, now stationed in Washington D.C. at Main Justice, sent additional comments on the NPA ‘s final draft. SA110. That afternoon, the final version was circulated and signed.”59 The title the brief gives him, “Deputy Assistant Attorney General”, is not the title the report gives him; the report’s organisation chart and body text both say “Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General”.31 How the court disposed of the appeal is set out at the 2008 non-prosecution agreement.

What this page does not say

  • It does not say he decided the case. The report attributes the decision to Acosta and states that the four other subjects “acted under Acosta’s direction and with his approval”; on the one decision the record places with him personally, the September 12 concession, the report prints both the line prosecutor’s recollection and his denial and settles neither. The page does the same.833
  • It does not say why he agreed to meet the defence in January 2007. The report gives the line prosecutor’s account of his reasoning and his own statement that he could not recall it; no document read for this page carries a contemporaneous explanation.1860
  • It does not treat an s-signature as a signature. The one instrument in his name was subscribed in typed characters over a rule, not in ink, and the page says so.6
  • It does not quote a transcript, a deposition or an FBI report. Nine of the 129 documents this page was scoped on are classed as those three kinds in this project’s index, and none of the nine was opened. Four of the nine are provably something else: two run to 348 sheets and are further copies of the Justice Department report, one is a four-sheet memorandum to file, and one is a 453-sheet run. They were left closed anyway. The exclusion is by label, and it is not a claim that what those documents carry is absent from this page: the two 348-sheet printings are printings of the Justice Department report, which this page quotes at length from a printing that carries a different label and was opened. No comparison between copies was made or is reported.61
  • It reproduces nothing any complainant said, and no detail about any complainant. Several of the sheets it cites carry such material elsewhere on them; where that is so, the footnote says so, and nothing from it is read, quoted, summarised or characterised.
  • It makes no allegation and records none. Where the record holds his own answer to something adverse, his answer is printed beside it.

How this page is scoped

The name in these files is not one string, and the forms are not a single body of paper. A search of the released files for “Andrew Lourie” returns 82 documents; “Andy Lourie” returns 48; the index form “Lourie, Andrew” returns 32; “Andrew C. Lourie” returns 12; the initial form “A. Lourie” returns 18; and the damaged form “Drew Lourie” returns one. Taken together they are 128 documents and 658 sheets; one further document, which only a damaged spelling of the surname reaches, brings the body of paper this page was scoped on to 129. The overlap between them is small: “Andrew Lourie” and “Lourie, Andrew” share only four sheets. And the diminutive is not a duplicate of the formal name: 20 of the 48 documents carrying “Andy Lourie” are reachable by no other form on the list, as are 19 of the 32 under “Lourie, Andrew” and the single document under “Drew Lourie”, which is not a name anyone used but a damaged extraction of his forename. A page built on “Andrew Lourie” alone would have had 82 documents of the 128 and missed 46 of them.61

The surname on its own returns 193 documents, and not all of them are his. Read by which forename or initial stands beside it, and by the contents of the sheet where none does, those 193 divide as: the 128 carrying an Andrew, Andy, A. or Andrew C. form, or the one damaged form; 35 carrying the surname alone on a sheet whose other contents are this matter; 13 naming a Chicago attorney of the same surname in correspondence about a technology investment; 7 naming a different man met at a dinner in London; 6 giving the style of a Boston law firm; 2 naming an author and newspaper columnist; one naming a composer discussed in a concert notice; and one a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, named in a reported opinion that has nothing to do with this matter. Those figures sum to 193.61

Notes

Footnotes

  1. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Investigation into the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida’s Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation, November 2020, filed as Government Exhibit 3, Document 204-3 in United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330-PAE (S.D.N.Y.), 16 April 2021. EFTA02830776, p. 31 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 31 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 5. Read at the page image at the served file’s native resolution of 96 pixels per inch, which pdfimages reports for this document; the image carries the whole paragraph quoted here, which is the last paragraph on the sheet and runs over onto the next. One mark on this sheet falls inside another person’s biography; nothing under it is read, supplied or described here, and nothing from the other biographies on the sheet is used. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. Letter, United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, addressed to “Honorable Mark Filip” at the “Office of the Deputy Attorney General”, which the sheet sets on two lines and which are quoted separately here for that reason, marked “DELIVERY BY FEDERAL EXPRESS”, “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, dated June 3, 2008 on the copy read for this page, headed on its letterhead rule “First Assistant U.S. Attorney” and footed “Confidential and Privileged – Attorney Work Product”. EFTA00225102 p. 79 of a 276-sheet run, which is the letter’s own page 3. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; nothing on that sheet is covered. The sentence quoted in the infobox and the two meeting sentences are on that sheet. The letter’s first sheet, at p. 77 of the same run, was opened only to establish the letter’s date and addressee, and nothing else from it is read, quoted, summarised or characterised here: it and other sheets of the letter set out material about complainants. The Justice Department’s own report dates this letter 3 June 2008 as well. Other pages of this wiki date it 2 June 2008, citing other copies of it; this page gives the date it read at the image on 4 November 2026 and does not reconcile the two. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. Same report, p. 130 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 130 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 104. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. The sheet prints two organisation charts side by side, headed “Criminal Division” and “Office of the Deputy Attorney General”; the Criminal Division column runs Alice Fisher, Andrew Lourie, Sigal Mandelker and Andrew Oosterbaan, with an asterisk against his name keyed to a box reading “Until late Feb. 2008”. The image prints his surname with a capital L; the released text of this sheet renders it with a lower-case l, so the chart is given here from the paper. Nothing on this sheet is covered. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. Same report, p. 52 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 52 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 26. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. Three marks fall inside the quoted message: one at its opening, where the subject of the first sentence is covered, and two inside the list of attorneys. The quotations above begin and end at those marks and nothing under any of them is read, supplied or described here. The bracketed “[sic]” markers and the bracketed forename “[Roy]” are the report’s own, as is the ellipsis inside the quotation. The same sheet carries the sentence “Lourie explained to OPR that by ‘clean’ victims, he meant those for whom the defense did not have impeachment evidence to use against them,” and the paragraph about his follow-up e-mail to Menchel, including the two quoted fragments. A footnote at the foot of this sheet records the defence’s submissions about the statute; nothing from it is used here. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. Same report, pp. 112 and 113 of the 348-sheet filing. Lefkowitz’s message is on p. 112, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 86; the answer quoted here is the first sentence of p. 113, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 113 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 87. P. 113 was read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch, and the block quotation above is on it exactly as given; p. 112 was read in the released text only. The bracketed insertion inside Lefkowitz’s quotation is the report’s own. Lefkowitz’s second sentence runs across the two sheets: p. 112 ends at “I have enjoyed working with you on” and p. 113 opens with the three words that close it. The remainder of p. 113 concerns the appointment of an attorney representative and is not used here. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2

  6. “UNITED STATES’ MOTION” and conclusion, United States v. Adam G. McDaniel, No. 9:06-cr-80058-WJZ (S.D. Fla.), Document 61, entered on the docket 2 February 2007. EFTA01657888 p. 6 of a seven-sheet run, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 6 of 7” and whose foot prints the page number 6. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch, which pdfimages reports for this sheet. The sheet carries no producer mark. The closing block reads “Respectfully submitted,” then “R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA / UNITED STATES ATTORNEY”, then “By:” against a rule carrying the typed characters “s/Andrew C. Lourie” in italic, with “ANDREW C. LOURIE / Assistant United States Attorney” printed beneath it; the certificate of service below carries “S/ Andrew Lourie” over a second rule above the printed “Andrew Lourie / Assistant U.S. Attorney”. Both are typed s-signatures and neither is ink: the strokes are uniform, aligned on the rule, and in the same face as the printed text. Inside the three quotations above that carry an oblique, the oblique stands for a line break on the sheet and is the only character not printed there; the sheet sets the name and the title on separate lines. The obliques inside the s-signatures themselves are the sheet’s own. The released text of this sheet renders the first as “sl Andrew C Lourie”; the paper reads “s/Andrew C. Lourie”. This document was fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026 because it is in none of this project’s local asset stores; the fetch returned HTTP 200 and a real PDF of seven sheets, matching this project’s index, against a negative control fetched in the same call that returned HTTP 403 and 111 bytes. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Same report, p. 309 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 309 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 283: “OPR identified the following five former USAO attorneys as subjects of its investigation based on information indicating that each of them was involved in the decision to resolve the case through the NPA or in the negotiations leading to the agreement: former U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, and former AUSAs Jeffrey H. Sloman, Matthew I. Menchel, Andrew C. Lourie”, and there the quotation stops, because a producing party’s mark falls in the list at that point. Nothing under that mark is read, supplied or described here, this page does not say what it covers, and the fifth subject is identified on this page from the report’s findings elsewhere, which name her. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. Same report, p. 160 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 134. That sheet carries “In any event, whatever the level of Sloman’s, Menchel’s, Lourie’s, and Villafaña’s involvement, they acted with the knowledge and approval of Acosta.” The conclusion quoted in the text, that the four “did not commit professional misconduct with respect to any aspect of the NPA because they acted under Acosta’s direction and with his approval”, is at the same narrative page and is reproduced on the page for the 2019 written response to OPR, which cites the same sheet. Released text only. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. The three findings in this paragraph are sourced separately above: that the defence telephoned him after the line prosecutor refused a meeting, at 17; that the indictment package was approved by him, at 2; and that he negotiated the last terms from Washington, at 10 and 41. ↩

  10. Same report, p. 95 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 69: “At this point, Sloman left on vacation, and he informed Acosta and Villafaña that in his absence Lourie had agreed ‘to help finalize this.’ Lourie spent the following work week at his new post at the Department in Washington, D.C., but communicated with his USAO colleagues by phone and email.” Released text only. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  11. Reply brief for the defendant-appellant, United States v. Maxwell, No. 22-1426, Document 87, filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on 27 July 2023, the sheet whose own header reads “Page16 of 35” and whose foot prints the page number 10. EFTA02844213 p. 1374 of a 1,523-sheet run. Released text only. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; the sheet carries no producer mark. The brief’s own record citations are kept inside the quotation, and nothing is elided from it. A second copy is at DOJ-OGR-00020385 p. 1374. ↩ ↩2

  12. Same report, p. 32 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 32 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 6. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. The sheet opens mid-sentence with the continuation quoted here. One mark falls on this sheet; nothing under it is read, supplied or described here, and the remainder of the sheet, which concerns a different person, is not used. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2

  13. Same letter, the sheet carrying its own page 2. EFTA00225102 p. 78 of the 276-sheet run. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; nothing on that sheet is covered. It carries the career sentences quoted here, the chain-of-command sentence, the account of the 1 February 2007 meeting and its outcome, the sentence about the former United States Attorney who contacted him, and, at its foot, footnote 5, “Rolando Garcia replaced Mr. Lourie as the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.” Footnote 4 on the same sheet establishes the letter’s authorship on its own face: “Although I, Jeffrey H. Sloman, am writing this letter, I will continue to refer to myself as ‘First Assistant USA Sloman’ or ‘FAUSA Sloman’ to help reduce any confusion.” The same passage stands in a second copy, EFTA00224728 at its own p. 3, which Alice Fisher’s page cites. The last paragraph of this sheet concerns the focus of the investigation and is not used here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  14. Same report, p. 44 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 18: “At this point, although Villafaña’s immediate supervisor was aware of the case, Villafaña did not inform Andrew Lourie, who was then in charge of the West Palm Beach office and her second-line supervisor, about the matter or that she was briefing Acosta and Sloman.” And p. 47 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 21: “Villafaña’s immediate supervisor in West Palm Beach had little involvement in supervising the Epstein investigation, and at times, Villafaña directed her emails to Sloman, Menchel, and Lourie without copying” that supervisor. The same sheet records that “Although Lourie learned of the case at this point from Sloman, and eventually took a more active role in supervising the investigation, Villafaña continued to update Acosta and Sloman directly on the progress of the case.” Released text only. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩

  15. “DECLARATION OF WIFREDO A. FERRER”, Government’s Exhibit A, Document 238-1 in Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 v. United States, No. 08-80736-CIV-MARRA (S.D. Fla.), entered on the docket 20 September 2013, describing the documents the government was withholding. Its own p. 1 of 10 carries the declaration’s opening; the two descriptions quoted here are on pp. 2 and 4 of the same ten-sheet run: a memorandum “dated March 10, 2007, requesting approval for granting immunity under 18 U.S.C. § 6001 for witnesses in the Jeffrey Epstein criminal investigation … addressed to Karen Atkinson, then Chief of the Northern Division of this Office; Andrew Lourie, then Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney, Northern Division; Matt Menchel, then Chief, Criminal Division; and R. Alexander Acosta, then United States Attorney”; and the “prosecution memorandum in the Epstein case, dated May 1, 2007, and revised on September 13, 2007 … addressed to R. Alexander Acosta, U.S. Attorney; Jeff Sloman, First Assistant U.S. Attorney; Matt Menchel, Chief, Criminal Division; Andrew Lourie, Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney, West Palm Beach; and Karen Atkinson, Chief, West Palm Beach”. EFTA01141941 pp. 2 and 4 of a ten-sheet run. Released text only. A second copy is at EFTA02754652. ↩

  16. Letter, Law Offices of Gerald B. Lefcourt, P.C., 6 July 2007, marked “BY FEDERAL EXPRESS”, “Jeffrey Epstein”. EFTA00176507 p. 2 of a 92-sheet run, which is the letter’s own first page. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. The addressee block reads “Jeffrey Sloman, Esq., First Assistant United States Attorney / Matthew Menchel, Esq., Chief, Criminal Division / The United States Attorney’s Office / Southern District of Florida / 99 NE 4th Street / Miami, Florida 33132” and “Andrew Lourie, Deputy Chief, Northern Region / A. Marie Villafaña, Assistant United States Attorney / The United States Attorney’s Office / Southern District of Florida / 500 South Australian Avenue, Suite 400 / West Palm Beach, Florida 33401”, and the salutation reads “Dear Messrs. Sloman, Menchel and Lourie and Ms. Villafaña:”. Inside both addressee quotations the oblique stands for a line break on the sheet and is the only character not printed there; the sheet sets each element on its own line. Two marks on this sheet cover the firm’s telephone and facsimile fields; nothing under them is read, supplied or described here, and no contact value from the letterhead is reproduced. Nothing from the body of the letter is used on this page. The letter itself is treated at its own page. Fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026, HTTP 200, 92 sheets matching this project’s index, against a negative control returning HTTP 403 in the same call. ↩ ↩2

  17. Same report, p. 49 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 49 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 23. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. Marks on this sheet cover an attorney’s name at every occurrence; nothing under any of them is read, supplied or described here, and every quotation above is broken at each mark rather than carried across it. The report’s own uncovered prose on this sheet uses a female pronoun of that attorney; this page does not name her, and the pronoun inside the quotation is the report’s and not this page’s. The last paragraph of the sheet reproduces the line prosecutor’s account of what the defence intended to say about individual complainants; none of it is read, quoted, summarised or characterised here. See 62. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  18. Same report, p. 50 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 50 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 24. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. The quoted body sentences are the first three on the sheet; the three further sentences quoted here are its footnote 35. One mark on the sheet covers a word inside a different sentence; nothing under it is read, supplied or described here, and that sentence is not quoted. The sheet’s account of the 1 February 2007 meeting reproduces the defence’s characterisations of individual complainants and records that two of them are named in the defence’s own letter; none of that is read, quoted, summarised or characterised here, and no name is taken from this sheet. See 62. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2

  19. “EPSTEIN INVESTIGATION TIMELINE”, a tabular log filed in the victims’ rights litigation whose five column headings are “Date”, “To”, “From”, “Re:” and “Exhibit #”. They are not quoted as one string: the separators that would be needed to print them as one are not on the sheet. The row used here falls against 22 January 2007, with “Andrew Lourie” in the second column and “Lilly Ann Sanchez” in the third. EFTA00224943 p. 4 of a 51-sheet run. Released text only; this sheet was not read at the page image. The direction is taken from the table’s own column headings, printed at the head of the same sheet; under them the second column is the recipient and the third the sender. The row is NOT quoted as a unit: a table row is not a sentence, and the pipe separators that would be needed to print it as one are not on the sheet. Only the opening phrase of the description cell is quoted, because the released text of this sheet runs a value from the neighbouring column through the middle of that cell; the rest of the cell is given in this page’s own words and no completion of it is attempted. This is a container listing and no confirmation on this page rests on it. The same document is treated at its own page. ↩

  20. Letter, Law Offices of Gerald B. Lefcourt, P.C., 1 February 2007, marked “BY HAND”, whose addressee block names two recipients at the “Office of the United States Attorney, Southern District of Florida, 500 South Australian Avenue, Suite 400, West Palm Beach”, the second of them “Andrew Lourie, Esq., Deputy Chief, Northern Region”, and whose salutation names them both and ends “and Mr. Lourie:”. The first addressee line is damaged in the released text of this sheet and is not quoted; the salutation is quoted only from “and” onward because the released text damages the surname before it. This sheet was not read at the page image, so no bracketed completion of either is attempted and no claim is made about what is printed on the paper. EFTA02756416 p. 2 of a 26-sheet filed exhibit. Released text only. Nothing from the body of the letter is used here. ↩

  21. Order, United States v. Adam G. McDaniel, No. 9:06-cr-80058-WJZ (S.D. Fla.), Document 70, entered on the docket 9 October 2007. EFTA01657895 p. 5 of a fifteen-sheet run, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 5 of 15” and whose foot prints the page number 5. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; the sheet carries no producer mark. The released text of this sheet renders his surname as “Lourie” in this sentence and as “Laurie” elsewhere in the run; the paper reads “Lourie”. An earlier sheet of the same order records that he and the line prosecutor appeared at the hearing of 13 March 2007. The order’s account of the conduct of individuals in that case is not read, quoted, summarised or characterised here in any respect, and no person other than the two prosecutors is named from it. Fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026, HTTP 200, fifteen sheets matching this project’s index, against a negative control returning HTTP 403 in the same call. ↩

  22. E-mail within the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, Subject: Fwd: Julie Brown is planning another story - Request for comment, Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 08:18:55 +0000, forwarding a message of 25 February 2019 and, beneath it, a request for comment from a Miami Herald reporter dated 25 February 2019 at 6:32:55 PM EST. EFTA01657871 p. 1, a single-sheet item. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. Marks cover the sender and recipient fields of all three messages and a signature line; nothing under any of them is read, supplied or described here, and no message on this sheet is attributed to any individual on this page except the reporter, whom the forwarded message names as its author. The two sentences quoted above are the only text taken from this sheet. The rest of the reporter’s message sets out the facts of the earlier case, including the circumstances of individual young people, and is not read, quoted, summarised or characterised here. Fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026, HTTP 200, against a negative control returning HTTP 403 and 111 bytes in the same call. ↩

  23. Same report, p. 51 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 25: Villafaña “drafted an 82-page prosecution memorandum directed to Acosta, Sloman, Menchel (who had replaced Sloman as the USAO’s Criminal Division Chief the previous October, when Sloman became the FAUSA), Lourie, and her immediate supervisor”, supporting a proposed 60-count indictment. Released text only. The date 1 May 2007 is given from the index of exhibits cited at 15, which prints it cleanly. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩

  24. Same report, p. 184 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 184 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 158. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; the sheet’s only mark covers a name in a later paragraph that is not used here. The quoted sentence is the second sentence on the sheet. The clause immediately before it reproduces his own characterisation of individual complainants’ credibility; this page does not reproduce that characterisation, which adds nothing the report’s own finding does not already carry. EFTA02830776. ↩

  25. Internal e-mail of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, From: Menchel, Matthew (USAFLS), Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 10:52 AM, To: Villafana, Ann Marie C. (USAFLS); Lourie, Andrew (USAFLS), Subject: Re: Operation Leap Year. EFTA00179797 p. 18 of a 194-sheet run. Released text only; this sheet was not read at the page image, and the quotation is given only as far as the released text carries it. The same message appears at EFTA00191148 p. 9. It is set out more fully on Matthew Menchel’s page. ↩

  26. Internal e-mail of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, From: Lourie, Andrew (USAFLS), Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 3:11 PM, To: Menchel, Matthew (USAFLS); Sloman, Jeff (USAFLS), Cc: Villafana, Ann Marie C. (USAFLS), Subject: FW: Jeffrey Epstein, with one attachment named in the attachments line. EFTA00189112, a single-sheet item. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. The sheet’s From line names him, and that is what establishes the attribution; the message is quoted whole, including the sign-off. The sheet’s only mark falls in the quoted signature block of the message beneath; nothing under it is read, supplied or described here. The foot of the sheet prints the production stamp P-013981. Fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026, HTTP 200, one sheet matching this project’s index, against a negative control returning HTTP 403 in the same call. ↩

  27. Internal e-mail of the same office, From: Lourie, Andrew (USAFLS), Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 6:32 PM, To: 'Gerald Lefcourt', Subject: RE: Jeffrey Epstein, reproduced beneath his own forward of it, From: Lourie, Andrew (USAFLS), Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 6:33 PM, Subject: FW: Jeffrey Epstein, whose body reads in full “fyi”. EFTA00227071 p. 6 of a 154-sheet run, the sheet whose foot prints the page number 152. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. Both From lines on this sheet name him, and that is what establishes the attribution; the quotation is given whole, from the paper. The released text of this sheet is damaged across the opening words of the message and across two words later in it, so the quotation above is quotable only from the image; a quotation checker looking for the exact string in the released text of this sheet will not resolve it. Marks on this sheet cover the recipient field of the forward, the recipient and copy fields of the incoming message, and two contact fields in a signature block; nothing under any of them is read, supplied or described here. Fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026, HTTP 200, against a negative control returning HTTP 403 in the same call. ↩ ↩2

  28. “SECOND SUPPLEMENTAL PRIVILEGE LOG – BOX #4”, Document 329-1, entered on the docket of Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 v. United States, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla.) on 23 June 2015, its own p. 1 of 18: against P-013981, “5/22/2007 email from Andy Lourie to Matt Menchel and Jeff Sloman” and, the quotation resuming after a parenthesis that names the line prosecutor, “re letter received from Gerald Lefcourt discussing a meeting to discuss Epstein investigation”, against Work Product and Deliberative Process. EFTA00211410 p. 3 of a 20-sheet run. Released text only; this sheet was not read at the page image. The parenthesis is not quoted because the released text damages the surname inside it, and nothing is completed. The stamp is read as this row’s own because on this sheet each production stamp is printed immediately above the description it belongs to: the five rows preceding this one run stamp, then description, in that order without exception. The log is treated in full at the 2015 supplemental privilege log. The production stamp P-013981 printed at the foot of the sheet cited at 26 was read at the page image, which is what ties the log row to the message. ↩

  29. “Privilege Log”, filed in the victims’ rights litigation, Box #3, P-011923 through P-011966: a folder entitled “Responses to Arguments from JE Counsel” containing, among other items, a “7/13/2007 letter from Lilly Ann Sanchez to Andrew Lourie with handwritten attorney (Lourie) notes” and a second row for a “6/25/2007 letter from Gerald Lefcourt to Jeffrey Sloman” and others “with handwritten attorney” notes, withheld against attorney-client privilege, work product, deliberative process and other grounds. That second row is quoted only in the two fragments given, because the released text of the sheet damages the surnames between them and this page completes none of them. EFTA00191199 p. 34 of a 65-sheet run. Released text only. This is a container listing and no confirmation on this page rests on it. The same Box #3 table is at EFTA00211385 p. 21 and EFTA00591958 p. 19. A different row of the same log, at Box #2, P-008517 through P-008535, records a “6/25/2007 Letter from Gerald Lefcourt to Jeffrey Sloman and Andrew Lourie” and states on its face that it is “not being withheld as privileged” and “will be produced to opposing counsel upon lift of stay by” the Eleventh Circuit. That row is on a different sheet of each copy: EFTA00191199 p. 27, EFTA00211385 p. 14 and EFTA00591958 p. 12. The row is broken into three quotations here because the released text runs the court’s bracketed note into the description. ↩

  30. Same report, p. 86 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 86 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 60. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. One mark on this sheet covers the name of the attorney who reached out to him on 22 August 2007; nothing under it is read, supplied or described here, and the sentence is quoted only as far as the mark allows. The paragraph between the two passages used here records what an interview of one individual produced; it is not read, quoted, summarised or characterised on this page. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2

  31. “UNITED STATES’ SURREPLY TO REPLIES FILED BY WITNESS WILLIAM RILEY AND INTERVENOR JEFFREY EPSTEIN RE: MOTION TO QUASH GRAND JURY SUBPOENAS”, filed under seal in In re Grand Jury Subpoenas FGJ 07-103(WPB), Duces Tecum Numbers OLY-63 and OLY-64 (S.D. Fla.). EFTA00222977 p. 1 of a three-sheet run. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; the sheet carries no producer mark. The quoted sentence is the second sentence of the filing’s numbered paragraph 1. The same paragraph records that the witness would appear before the grand jury on 18 September 2007. The filing is signed by “the undersigned Assistant United States Attorney”, who is not named on this sheet and is not supplied here; it is not his signature. Fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026, HTTP 200, three sheets matching this project’s index, against a negative control returning HTTP 403 in the same call. ↩

  32. Same report, p. 204 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 178, for the finding about the term that ended the government’s ability to obtain the evidence; and p. 87 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 61, for “very powerful evidence” and “could have changed our advice to [Acosta], or his decision making.” Released text only for both spans. The bracketed insertion is the report’s own. EFTA02830776. ↩

  33. Same report, p. 91 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 91 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 65. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; nothing in the passage quoted is covered. The report’s footnote 107, at the foot of the same sheet, reads: “As noted below, a contemporaneous email indicates that shortly after the meeting, Lourie and Villafaña spoke with Acosta and Sloman, who concurred with the agreement.” The remainder of the sheet sets out what the parties discussed about the conditions of Epstein’s incarceration and is not used here. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  34. Internal and external e-mail of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida on one sheet: From: Villafana, Ann Marie C. (USAFLS), Sent: 09/12/2007 03:43 PM AST, To: Jay Lefkowitz, Cc: "Lourie, Andrew (USAFLS)", Subject: Jeffrey Epstein; and above it From: Jay Lefkowitz, Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 5:55 PM, To: Villafana, Ann Marie C. (USAFLS), Cc: Lourie, Andrew (USAFLS), Subject: Re: Jeffrey Epstein. EFTA00226107 p. 3 of a 289-sheet run, the sheet whose foot prints the page number 19. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. Marks on this sheet cover three address fields; nothing under them is read, supplied or described here. The two messages carry their times in different forms, one a zoned header and one an unlabelled field, so no interval between them is derived on this page. Both messages carry him on their copy line, and that is what establishes that he was copied. ↩

  35. Same report, p. 96 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 70: “Later that day, Villafaña sent Lefkowitz a lengthy email to convey two options Lourie had suggested: ‘the original proposal’ for a state plea but with an agreement for an 18-month sentence, or pleas to state charges and two federal obstruction-of-justice charges.” Released text only. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩

  36. Same report, p. 101 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 75: “Early that afternoon, Lourie—who was participating in the week’s negotiations from his new post at the Department in Washington, D.C.—asked Villafaña to furnish him with the last draft of the plea agreement she had sent to defense counsel, and she provided him with the ‘18/12 split’ draft she had sent to Lefkowitz the prior afternoon. After reviewing that draft, Lourie told Villafaña it was a ‘[g]ood job’ but he questioned certain provisions”. Released text only. The bracketed insertion inside the inner quotation is the report’s own. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩

  37. Same report, p. 99 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 99 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 73. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; nothing in the passages quoted is covered. The bracketed insertions inside his quoted message are the report’s own. The report’s footnote 118 at the foot of the same sheet records that the manager “told OPR that he probably meant this as a joke”. The “completely different from what Jay just told Andy they would agree to” quotation is the last full paragraph on the same sheet. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2

  38. Internal e-mail of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, From: Lourie, Andrew, Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 4:21 PM, To: Villafana, Ann Marie C. (USAFLS), Subject: RE: epstein, whose body reads in full “I will reach out to Alex to discuss.” EFTA00189132 p. 1 of a 27-sheet run, the sheet whose foot prints the production stamp P-014108. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; the sheet’s From line names him, and that is what establishes the attribution. Small marks on the sheet cover names inside a numbered list in a different message; nothing under them is read, supplied or described here, and nothing from that list is quoted. Fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026, HTTP 200, 27 sheets matching this project’s index, against a negative control returning HTTP 403 in the same call. ↩

  39. Same report, p. 102 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 76, which carries the section heading “G. Villafaña and Lourie Recommend Ending Negotiations, but Acosta Urges That They ‘Try to Work It Out’”. The same heading is printed in the report’s table of contents at p. 17 of the 348-sheet filing. Released text only. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩

  40. Same report, p. 105 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 105 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 79. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. The released text of this sheet renders the second bracketed insertion as “[Apex”; the paper reads “[A]lex”, and the quotation above is given from the paper. The bracketed insertions are the report’s own. The same sheet dates the following morning as “Friday, September 21, 2007”, which is the date given in the section on the co-conspirator clause below. Two marks on this sheet cover names in a different exchange; nothing under either is read, supplied or described here, and that exchange is not quoted. EFTA02830776. ↩

  41. Same report, p. 110 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 84: “Lourie, who had returned to the Department in Washington, D.C., had a phone conversation with Lefkowitz and sent additional comments on the final draft to Acosta and Villafaña. Villafaña sent a new revision, incorporating edits from Acosta and Lourie, to Lefkowitz later that morning.” Released text only. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩ ↩2

  42. Same report, p. 111 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 85: “Villafaña also told him that Lourie had asked that Reiter share information about the NPA only with the PBPD Detective who had led the state investigation of Epstein.” Released text only. The report does not name the detective in that sentence; the identification of Joseph Recarey as the detective who led the state investigation is made on his own page and in the page on the Palm Beach police investigation. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩

  43. Same report, p. 212 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 212 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 186, in its footnote 258: “CEOS Chief Oosterbaan told OPR this provision was ‘very unusual.’ Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General John Roth commented, ‘I don’t know how it is that you give immunity to somebody who’s not identified. I just don’t know how that works.’” Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. The released text of this sheet renders the first quotation as “very unusual?’”; the paper carries a full stop inside the closing quotation mark, and the quotation above is given from the paper. The same footnote block records that the Deputy Attorney General “called the provision ‘pretty weird’” and that a successor Criminal Chief “had never heard of such a thing in his 33 years of experience as a prosecutor”. A mark on the body of this sheet covers one term in an unrelated sentence; nothing under it is read, supplied or described here, and the remainder of the footnote, which reproduces a third lawyer’s extended answer, is not used. EFTA02830776. ↩

  44. Same report, p. 106 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 106 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 80. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; nothing on the sheet is covered. Every span quoted in this section is on it: “Later that day, Villafaña alerted Lourie (who had arrived in Florida from Washington, D.C. early that afternoon) and the new West Palm Beach manager (copying her first-line supervisor and co-counsel) that she had included language that defense counsel had requested ‘regarding promises not to prosecute other people,’ and commented, ‘I don’t think it hurts us.’ There is no documentation that Lourie, the West Palm Beach manager, or anyone else expressed disagreement with Villafaña’s assessment.”; the “No way” exchange and the sentence about the immigration language; and “Lourie did not recall why the USAO agreed to it, but he speculated that he left that provision in the NPA because he believed at the time that it benefited the government in some way.” The date comes from the preceding sheet, p. 105, which opens the sequence “On the morning of Friday, September 21, 2007” and carries no later date before the passage quoted; “Later that day” is therefore that Friday. The two sentences following the speculation passage set out what he said about who could theoretically have been charged; they are not reproduced here. The clause and the four people it names are set out at the 2008 non-prosecution agreement. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  45. Same report, p. 193 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 167. Released text only. The bracketed insertion inside the quotation is the report’s own. EFTA02830776. ↩

  46. Same report, p. 194 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 194 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 168. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; nothing on the sheet is covered. The report’s concluding sentence on the clause, quoted second, is the last sentence of the section on the same sheet. The two sentences of that paragraph which set out what he said about who could theoretically have been charged are not reproduced here. EFTA02830776. ↩ ↩2

  47. Same report, pp. 120 and 121 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheets whose feet print the report’s page numbers 94 and 95. The body text dating the call to 16 November 2007 and recording that he returned it at Fisher’s request is on p. 120; the report’s footnote 152, carrying the e-mail he sent Fisher the next day, runs over onto p. 121. Released text only. The bracketed insertions are the report’s own. The passage is set out at Alice Fisher’s page, which records that a term at the end of the quoted sentence is covered on the sheet; nothing from that term is supplied here. EFTA02830776. ↩

  48. Same report, p. 121 of the 348-sheet filing for the copy of the Starr letter sent to Sloman and the consultation with the Section Chief, and p. 125 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 99, for “As Assistant Attorney General Fisher’s Chief of Staff, Lourie had informed Starr that Fisher hoped Starr would speak to Acosta to ‘resolve the[] fairly narrow issues’ raised in Starr’s correspondence with Acosta.” Released text only. The bracketed insertion is the report’s own. EFTA02830776. ↩

  49. The government’s omnibus memorandum in opposition to the defendant’s pre-trial motions, Document 204 in United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330-PAE (S.D.N.Y.), filed 16 April 2021, quoting the Justice Department report at its narrative page 95: “At the same time, at [USAO-SDFL supervisor] Lourie’s request”, then, the quotation resuming after the line prosecutor’s name, “sent the NPA and its addendum to Lourie and Oosterbaan. Oosterbaan responded to Lourie that he was ‘not thrilled’ about the NPA; described Epstein’s conduct as unusually ‘egregious,’ particularly because of its serial nature”. DOJ-OGR-00002935 p. 39 of a 239-sheet filing. Released text only; this sheet was not read at the page image. The quotation is broken where the released text damages the surname, and nothing is completed. The bracketed insertion is the memorandum’s own, and the memorandum attributes the passage to the Justice Department report. The same passage is set out at Alice Fisher’s page from the report itself. ↩

  50. Letter, A. Marie Villafaña to Jay P. Lefkowitz, 13 December 2007, its own page 3 of 5, which the sheet heads, on three lines, “JAY P. LEFKOWITZ, ESQ. / DECEMBER 13, 2007 / PAGE 3 OF 5”. The two obliques stand for those line breaks and are the only characters in that quotation not printed on the sheet. EFTA01718606 p. 23 of a 69-sheet run. Released text only; this sheet was not read at the page image. The letter is set out more fully on A. Marie Villafaña’s page, which cites a different copy and records that the dashes on that copy were measured at the image. The remainder of this sheet concerns the charges and the state proceedings and is not used here. ↩

  51. Same report, p. 160 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 134: “Villafaña and Lourie participated in the negotiations, and Lourie either made decisions during the September 12, 2007 meeting with the defense and State Attorney’s Office, or at least indicated agreement pending Acosta’s approval.” Released text only. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩

  52. Same report, p. 167 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 141: “The second arose from an assessment by Acosta’s senior advisers—Sloman, Menchel, and Lourie—that the case carried substantial litigation risks, including both witness issues and what some viewed as a novel application of certain federal statutes to the facts of the Epstein case.” Released text only. EFTA02830776. ↩

  53. Same report, p. 209 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 183: “Acosta was also unwilling to abandon the path that he had set, even when Villafaña and Lourie advocated to end the negotiations and even though Acosta himself had learned that the state authorities may not have been a reliable partner.” Released text only. EFTA02830776. See 62. ↩

  54. Same report, p. 205 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose own header reads “Page 205 of 348” and whose foot prints the report’s page number 179. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; the sheet carries no producer mark. The passage is quoted with the report’s own bracketed insertions and its own ellipsis. The released text of this sheet renders his surname as “Laurie”; the paper reads “Lourie”. EFTA02830776. ↩

  55. Same chain, EFTA00208296 p. 3 of the three-sheet run. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. The sheet carries two messages of 18 January 2011, one sent at 2:33 PM and one at 4:10 PM; the request quoted second in the text is from the 2:33 PM message and the answer quoted first is from the 4:10 PM message, so the two are given here in the order the page sets them out rather than in the order the sheet prints them. Marks cover the sender and recipient fields of both messages and two further fields; nothing under any of them is read, supplied or described here, and neither message is attributed to any individual on this page. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  56. Internal e-mail of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, Subject: RE: Jeffrey Epstein -- OPR Request / Lit. Hold # 2010-FLS-0004, Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:26:15 +0000, Importance: Normal. EFTA00208296 p. 1 of a three-sheet run. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. Marks cover the sender and recipient fields of every message on the sheet; nothing under any of them is read, supplied or described here, and no message on this sheet is attributed to any individual on this page. The sentence quoted is the second line of the top message’s body. The same sheet records, in an earlier message in the chain, that “OPR received an allegation of misconduct, and they asked for e-mails pertaining to the Epstein case”. Fetched read-only from the site’s own per-document path on 4 November 2026, HTTP 200, three sheets matching this project’s index, against a negative control returning HTTP 403 and 111 bytes in the same call. ↩ ↩2

  57. Letter, Office of the State Attorney, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach County, David Aronberg, State Attorney, 1 October 2019, to a reporter at The Palm Beach Post, “RE: Response to Public Records Request”. EFTA02735306 p. 1 of a three-sheet run. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch. A diagonal watermark reading “NOT A CERTIFIED COPY” crosses the sheet. That watermark is why this is the one document on which the released text gives his forename as “drew”: the paper reads “Andrew Lourie” in full, and this page takes the name from the paper. One mark falls inside the quoted request; nothing under it is read, supplied or described here, and the quotation is broken at the mark rather than carried across it. The reporter is named on the sheet and is not named on this page; an electronic address printed beside her name is not reproduced. This document is reached by no clean spelling of his name in the released text, so it is outside the 128-document union and is the one document that brings this page’s scope to 129. ↩

  58. Petitioners’ filing in Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 v. United States, No. 9:08-cv-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla.), recording that “the Court sustained the Government’s work product objections to production of this information” and quoting the log’s claim of privilege over “emails between Alex Acosta” and two further prosecutors “and Rolanda Garcia regarding Leflcowitz email about keeping agreement from becoming pubic and confidentiality provision in agreement”. EFTA01081533 p. 15 of a 22-sheet run. Released text only; this sheet was not read at the page image. The quotation is broken where the released text damages a surname, nothing is completed, and the misspellings inside the spans given are as the released text carries them; no claim is made about what is printed on the paper. A second copy is at EFTA02755984 p. 18. ↩

  59. Same brief, the sheet whose own header reads “Page17 of 35” and whose foot prints the page number 11. EFTA02844213 p. 1375 of the 1,523-sheet run. Read at the page image at the served file’s native 96 pixels per inch; the sheet carries no producer mark, and nothing is elided from the quotation. The paper sets the possessive with a space before the mark, “the NPA ‘s final draft”, and the quotation gives it as the sheet prints it. ↩

  60. Same report, p. 183 of the 348-sheet filing, the sheet whose foot prints the report’s page number 157: “Lourie could not recall his reasoning for meeting with Epstein’s defense counsel, but he told OPR that his general practice was to meet with defense counsel when asked to do so.” Released text only. EFTA02830776. ↩

  61. How the searches were run, and what they returned. All figures are counts in the full-text search index this project maintains over the released files, taken in a single run on 4 November 2026 against the database whose size was asserted before any count was taken, with a known-positive control returning 752,295 sheets, a second known-positive control returning 371 documents, and a freshly generated nonsense control, verified unused in both the index and this project’s own files before it was used, returning none. Documents are counted by stripping the sheet suffix from each sheet identifier; sheets are counted on the composite key of identifier and sheet number. “Andrew Lourie” returns 82 documents across 370 sheets; “Andy Lourie” 48 across 93; “Lourie, Andrew” 32 across 160; “A. Lourie” 18 across 65; “Andrew C. Lourie” 12 across 22; “Drew Lourie” one across one. The forms with and without a full stop return identical figures, because the index discards the punctuation. The union of all six is 128 documents and 658 sheets, and one further document, reached only through a damaged spelling of the surname, brings the figure used on this page to 129. Overlaps measured on the sheet key: “Andrew Lourie” and “Lourie, Andrew” share four sheets and nine documents; “Andrew Lourie” and “Andy Lourie” share 19 sheets and 23 documents; “Lourie, Andrew” and “A. Lourie” share no sheet at all. Measured form by form, and independently of the order in which the forms are added: 45 documents are reachable by “Andrew Lourie” and by no other form on the list, 20 by “Andy Lourie” and no other, 19 by “Lourie, Andrew” and no other, one by “Andrew C. Lourie” and no other, one by “Drew Lourie” and no other, and none by “A. Lourie” alone. An earlier figure of 25 for the “Andy Lourie” form was an order-dependent increment, measured by adding that form second to a running union, and it is not the count of documents the form alone reaches; the figure measured here is 20. Tested and returning nothing: “A. C. Lourie”, “Hon. Andrew Lourie”, “Acting Assistant Attorney General Lourie”, “Assistant Attorney General Lourie”, “Andrew G. Lourie”, “Andy C. Lourie”, “Lourie, Andy”, “Andrew Lourie Jr.”, “Andrew C. Lourie Jr.”. “Lourie, Andrew C.” returns one document, and it is in the union already. Four damaged spellings of the surname were tested: three return documents, and of those all but one are documents the union already holds. “Mr. Lourie” returns 26 documents, and every one of them is this subject: six stand inside the union, and the other 20 are among the 35 that carry the surname alone on a sheet whose other contents are this matter. The bearer question. The surname alone returns 193 documents. Read by which forename or initial stands beside it, and by the contents of the sheet where none does, those 193 divide as 128 in the union, 35 carrying the surname alone on a sheet whose other contents are this matter, 13 naming a Chicago attorney of the same surname, 7 naming a different man named in a private message, 6 giving the style of a Boston law firm, 2 naming an author and newspaper columnist, one naming a composer, and one a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Those figures sum to 193. On the document kinds. This project’s index classes the 129 documents as, in order of frequency, court filings, e-mail headers, plea-agreement material, state court filings, FBI reports, travel itineraries, memoranda, subpoenas, letters, indictments, hearing transcripts, news clippings and six further kinds of one document each. Those labels are this project’s and not the producer’s, and they are demonstrably wrong on several documents: four of the five classed as travel itineraries run to 237 or 239 sheets and are copies of a court filing, and of the nine classed as FBI reports or transcripts, two run to 348 sheets and are further copies of the Justice Department report. None of those nine was opened, because the risk of what an FBI report or a transcript contains outweighs what either could add about a supervisor’s decisions. Of the 119 union documents that were opened, exactly one carries a signature block in his name, measured by a signature-shape arm proved live on a planted positive and silent on a planted negative; every other match on that arm belongs to a different lawyer whose forename is also Andrew. The 129th document, which the union reaches only through a damaged spelling, was read and is a public-records request to a state prosecutor; it was not run through that arm. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  62. On the spelling of the line prosecutor’s surname inside quotations from this report. The released text of this filing renders it inconsistently, and several damaged forms occur. Eighteen sheets of this document were read at the page image for this page (pp. 31, 32, 49, 50, 52, 86, 91, 92, 99, 105, 106, 113, 130, 184, 194, 205, 212 and 309). Seventeen of the eighteen carry the surname at all, and on every one of those seventeen the paper carries “Villafaña” with the tilde; p. 205 does not carry the surname. Every quotation on this page therefore gives the spelling the paper carries. Where a sheet of this report was read only in the released text, the spelling is still given as “Villafaña”, on the strength of those seventeen image reads of the same printed document, and that normalisation is disclosed here rather than made silently. It applies only to quotations from this report, which is the only document whose sheets were read at the image in quantity; quotations from every other document on this page are given as that document carries the surname, or are broken where it is damaged, and two of them are broken for that reason. It is the only normalisation made inside any quotation on this page, and no other character, word, punctuation mark or elision has been altered anywhere. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14

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