Epstein Data Wiki

The December 2007 victim notification letters

Properties2
tagstopic, usao-sdfl, non-prosecution-agreement, victim-notification, crime-victims-rights-act, kirkland-ellis, department-of-justice, 2007
aliasesDecember 2007 victim notification letters, victim notification letters 2007

38 min read

What was in disputeWhether the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida would send victim notification letters, and whether Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers were entitled to review the letter before it went out12
The date at issueFriday, 7 December 2007. The Office’s own letter of 4 December directs its prosecutors “not to issue victim notification letters until this Friday at 5 p.m.”; the defence’s letter reads that as an intention “to issue the victim notification letters on Friday, December 7”21
The defence’s answerA letter of 5 December 2007 urging the U.S. Attorney to withhold the letter1
Over whose signatureTwo signature blocks on the letter’s own page 2, each a printed signature rule with a printed name below it and a cursive mark above: “Kenneth W. Starr”, and beneath it “Jay Lefkowitz”1
Addressed to”Honorable R. Alexander Acosta / United States Attorney / United States Attorney’s Office / Southern District of Florida”3
How it was sentBy facsimile from Kirkland & Ellis LLP’s Los Angeles office, “Pages w/cover: 3”, from “Kenneth W. Starr” to “Hon. R. Alexander Acosta”4
Copied to”Honorable Alice Fisher, Assistant Attorney General”; a black bar about two text lines deep stands beneath the cc entry and nothing under it is supplied here1
What happened nextThe letters were prepared on 7 December and not sent; Jeffrey Sloman answered the request for permission to send them with “Hold the letter”5
Anchor documentEFTA01659874, three sheets, Data Set 104

In the first week of December 2007 the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida wrote to Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers that he was “directing our prosecutors not to issue victim notification letters until this Friday at 5 p.m.”2 The defence, answering the next day, read that as a statement that his Office intended “to issue the victim notification letters on Friday, December 7”.1 On 5 December Kenneth W. Starr and Jay Lefkowitz faxed him a letter, over both their signatures, saying that it was “wholly inappropriate” for his Office to send the letter “under any circumstances”, that it was “certainly inappropriate” to issue it without giving the defence “the right to review it”, and urging him to withhold it until they could take the matter to an Assistant Attorney General in Washington.1 Two days later the letters were prepared and were not sent.5

This page is about that dispute: who asked for what, on what date, over whose signature, addressed to whom, and what followed. The defence’s own eight-point objection of 29 November 2007 to the draft letter, and the Office’s point-by-point reply of 6 December, are set out on Jay Lefkowitz and are not repeated here. The account the prosecutor who prepared the letters gave to the Office of Professional Responsibility is on A. Marie Villafaña. The litigation that followed in 2008 is Doe v. United States.

The Office’s own file

A run of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s own internal email about the notification letter sits in Data Set 10 of the release. The messages cited on this page are printed Outlook items dated between 19 November and 13 December 2007, and every sheet of every one of them was read at the page image for this page. On each of them the From: and To: lines carry black boxes, as does the Cc: line on the three of the nine messages that have one, and the subject line and the RFC Date: header are printed whole. Boxes also fall inside several of the attachment file names and inside several passages of message text; each is marked as a box where this page quotes it. Most of the messages close over a printed signature block reading “Assistant U.S. Attorney / 500 S. Australian Ave, Suite 400 / West Palm Beach, FL 33401”; on two of them the lines beneath “Assistant U.S. Attorney” are boxed, and one carries no signature block at all.6789101112131415

The Date: headers on these messages are stamped +0000. Where a message quotes the header of the message beneath it, the quoted Sent: line reads five hours earlier than the outer header: 11:04 AM against 16:18 on 6 December, 3:46 PM against 20:48 the same day, and 1:38 PM against 18:41 on 5 December.11129 The outer headers are therefore in UTC and the quoted lines in the local Eastern zone, and the times given below are named for the header they come from.

The earliest of the messages used here is dated 19 November 2007 and is headed “Draft Letter to Victims”. An Assistant U.S. Attorney circulated a file whose name ends “Plea Notification Letter.pdf” with the line: “Hi [name blacked out] – Can you take a look at this and see if there are any problems? Thanks.”6

The Office sets a deadline, then moves it

On 30 November 2007 R. Alexander Acosta wrote to Starr at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, over the heading “DELIVERY BY FACSIMILE”; the address lines beneath the firm’s name are blacked out on the copy read here.16 That letter runs six sheets. The first is the Department’s letterhead sheet and carries no running head; the other five are headed “KENNETH STARR, ESQ. / NOVEMBER 30, 2007 / PAGE n OF 6”.17 It closes over the typed block “R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA / UNITED STATES ATTORNEY” with a demand for a signed statement of Epstein’s intention to abide by the agreement “by close of business on Tuesday, December 4, 2007”, a plea and sentencing “no later than December 14, 2007”, and a warning that otherwise the Office would “deem the agreement to be rescinded and will proceed with the prosecution.”18 That closing paragraph is quoted at length on Alex Acosta and is not repeated in full here. What matters on this page is what it does not contain: the letter says nothing about victim notification.17

It had been drafted the evening before. On 29 November an Assistant U.S. Attorney sent two colleagues a file named “071129_Acosta_Letter_to_Starr.pdf” with the message: “Hi guys – Sorry. Can you look at this and let me know if it is alright? I need to send it to the bigwigs tonight. I haven’t written the Sloman letter yet (referenced in Footnote 1). Thx”.7 Footnote 1 of the letter as sent records that the First Assistant U.S. Attorney “is sending a letter under separate cover addressing some of the items in the correspondence from you and Mr. Lefkowitz, since he has been directly involved in discussions of those issues.”16 At 03:53 UTC on 1 December, which on the Eastern clock is late on the Friday evening of 30 November, an Assistant U.S. Attorney sent that second letter, as “071130_Sloman_Ltr_to_Lefkowitz.pdf” and again in WordPerfect, to “Acosta, Alex (USAFLS)” and one other recipient under the subject “Draft Response to Jay”: “Sorry to send so late, but I think I addressed every point in Starr’s letter, Lefkowitz’s letter, and the most recent e-mails. I don’t have a printer here, so I couldn’t do a good proofread, but I will do that in the morning.”8

On Tuesday 4 December, the day that letter had set as its deadline, a second letter went out over Acosta’s signature. It is the letter that fixed the notification date. Its sixth page reads: “I would reiterate that it is not the intention of this Office ever to force the hand of a defendant to enter into an agreement against his wishes. Your client has the right to proceed to trial. Although time is of the essence (I understand that certain filings are due to our Office no later than December 7th and that certain events must take place no later than December 14th), I am directing our prosecutors not to issue victim notification letters until this Friday at 5 p.m., to provide you with time to review these options with your client. We are available by phone or in person, in the interim, to”2 The sentence finishes at the head of the seventh page: “address any matters that might remain unaddressed in this letter.” That page closes: “We expect a written decision by this Friday at 5 p.m., indicating whether the defense team wishes to reaffirm, or to unwind, the Agreement,” above the typed block “R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA / UNITED STATES ATTORNEY”, beneath a manuscript signature that stands clear of it.19

A footnote on that same sixth page answers a suggestion in Starr’s correspondence that the Office’s dealings with potential witnesses might have compromised the investigation, and in answering it states what the victims had not been told: “I have raised this matter with AUSA Villafaña who informed me that the victims were not told of the availability of Section 2255 relief during the investigation phase of this matter.”2 Higher on the page the U.S. Attorney records that he “consulted with the chief prosecutor in this case, who has advised me that she is ready to unwind the Agreement and proceed to trial if necessary or if appropriate.”2

The Office’s own copy shows when the letter left. All seven sheets of the copy filed as Exhibit 4 in the compilation EFTA00234570 were read at the page image, and each carries an outgoing transmission banner across the head of the sheet, printed on one line: the date 12/04/07, the day TUE, the time, the sending facsimile number, the sending office name “EXECUTIVE OFFICE” and the fax’s own page counter, which runs 002 to 008. The times run from 16:46 on the letter’s first sheet to 16:48 on its sixth and seventh, the clock being the sending machine’s.20219 The next afternoon an Assistant U.S. Attorney asked a colleague, in a message the release preserves from the bottom up, under the subject line “Do you know if the letter went out?”: “I know that Goldberger is meeting with the State Attorney’s Office tomorrow and I want to make sure they have digested the letter beforehand.” The answer, timed 1:32 PM: “Yes. Last night. [name blacked out] has copies.” The chain ends with the file “epstein_12.4.07.pdf” being forwarded on with the note “Here is the final letter, fyi. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”910

A second copy of the same letter is in the release at EFTA01659888, and it is the copy Doe v. United States cites.21 None of that copy’s seven sheets carries a transmission banner, and no date appears on its face.21

The demand of 5 December

At 15:23 by the sending machine’s clock in Los Angeles on Wednesday 5 December 2007, a three-sheet fax went from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, 777 South Figueroa Street, to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. The first sheet is the firm’s printed fax transmittal form. Its “To” box reads “Hon. R. Alexander Acosta”, its “Company” box “United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida”, its “From” box “Kenneth W. Starr”, its “Date” box “December 5, 2007” and its “Pages w/cover” box “3”. The “Message” box is empty, and the form’s number fields are blacked out.4

Sheets 2 and 3 are the letter, on Kirkland & Ellis letterhead, addressed to Acosta at 99 NE 4th Street, Miami, under the subject line “Re: Jeffrey Epstein” and opening “Dear Alex:”. It begins by acknowledging the letter the Office had just sent: “We are in receipt of your letter faxed to Jay on December 4 and faxed to Ken today in Los Angeles, and write to inform you that we will respond in full to that letter no later than Friday, December 7.”3

It then reaffirmed the agreement and gave notice of where the defence intended to take the argument: “First and foremost, we reaffirm the Non-Prosecution Agreement (the ‘Agreement’). Mr. Epstein has no intention of unwinding the Agreement. Indeed, he has already performed under the Agreement by directing his lawyers to urge the State of Florida to allow him to plead guilty to crimes more egregious than the State believes he committed, and to sentence him more harshly than the State still believes is appropriate. However, as you know, we take serious issue with your staff’s interpretation and implementation of the Agreement, in particular the use of Section 2255, but also other aspects of your office’s investigation and prosecution of this matter. As we have expressed to you on prior occasions – where you have made clear you have no objection – we hope to address these issues with Assistant Attorney General Fisher in Washington.”3 On the deadlines the Office had set, the letter denied knowledge of them and asked to be told what they were: “your letter makes reference to ‘certain filings’ that you state are due to your Office by December 7 and to ‘certain events’ that must occur before December 14. We have no knowledge of any such deadlines and in fact do not know what filings and events to which you are referring. Please let us know what the December 7 and December 14 deadlines are, if any, so that we can make sure to comply with them.”3

The operative paragraph is the last, on the letter’s own page 2:

Finally, you state that you intend to issue the victim notification letters on Friday, December 7. However, in a discussion late last week between [name blacked out] and Lilly Ann Sanchez, [name blacked out] indicated that your Office would send us a revised version of the notification letter, which we have not received to date. While we believe that it is wholly inappropriate for your Office to send this letter under any circumstances, it is certainly inappropriate to issue this letter without affording us the right to review it. We strongly urge that you withhold the notification letter until after we are able to discuss this matter with Assistant Attorney General Fisher.1

Beneath it stand two signature blocks under “Yours Sincerely,”, each a printed horizontal signature rule with a printed name below it and a cursive mark above: the upper mark over the printed name “Kenneth W. Starr”, and below that a second mark over the printed name “Jay Lefkowitz”, whose descending strokes cross that printed name. The cc entry beneath them reads “Honorable Alice Fisher, Assistant Attorney General”; a black bar about two text lines deep runs below it, and nothing under that bar is supplied here.1

The paragraph makes two requests of different kinds. One is that the letter should not be sent at all. The other is procedural: that the defence be given the letter to review before the women it was addressed to received it. On the defence’s account the Office had already undertaken to send a revised version over, and had not done so.1

The Office answers, 6 December

A file named “epstein_ltr_from_starr.pdf” was moving through the Office’s West Palm Beach branch the next morning. It was sent internally at 11:04 AM Eastern on 6 December under the subject “ltr from Ken Starr”; fourteen minutes later, at 16:18 UTC, an Assistant U.S. Attorney forwarded it on again with a single line of commentary: “This is what happens when you don’t send out the letters when they are supposed to go out.”11

The Office answered the same day. Its four-page reply to Lefkowitz, which conceded some of the defence’s objections to the wording of the notification letter and refused others, is set out on Jay Lefkowitz.22 OPR later recorded that Jeffrey Sloman sent it, with copies to Acosta and Villafaña, and that it enclosed “a revised draft victim notification letter that was substantially similar to the prior draft provided to the defense”; OPR added that Villafaña “was the primary author of the document” and that Sloman approved and signed it.2324 On the question of whether the Office was obliged to notify at all, that reply took a position at the time. The statute it invoked was the Victims’ Rights and Restitution Act of 1990, which OPR sets out as “34 U.S.C. § 20141, Services to Victims” and under which a responsible official shall “inform a victim of any restitution or other relief to which the victim may be entitled under this or any other law and manner in which such relief may be obtained”.25 OPR records the reply as “asserting that the VRRA obligated the government to notify victims of the 18 U.S.C. § 2255 proceedings as ‘other relief’ to which they were entitled”, and quotes Sloman writing: “The victims identified through the federal investigation should be appropriately informed, and our Non-Prosecution Agreement does not require the U.S. Attorney’s Office to forego [sic] its legal obligations.”23 At 3:46 PM Eastern an Assistant U.S. Attorney reported “just faxed to lefkowitz”, attaching “epstein_ltr_victim_notification_12_06_07.pdf”; at 20:48 UTC the message was forwarded on with the words “Thank you, [name blacked out]. You are my hero.”12

7 December: “Hold the letter”

Friday 7 December was the day the 4 December letter had run its instruction to, and the day by which the defence had said it would respond in full. OPR’s report describes what the Office did with it. Villafaña “prepared letters containing the above information to be sent to multiple victims and emailed Acosta and Sloman, requesting permission to send them.” Sloman had that day received a letter from a sender whose name is blacked out on the copy read here, advising that Epstein’s plea hearing was set for 4 January 2008 and asking the Office to “hold off” sending the victim notification letters until “we can further discuss the contents.” Starr and Lefkowitz also submitted to Acosta that day two “independent ethics opinions” supporting the defence’s arguments against the § 2255 provision. “Sloman responded to Villafaña’s request with an email instructing her to ‘Hold the letter.’”5

Sloman’s own account to OPR was that he “wanted to push the [victim notification] letter out,” but that his instruction to Villafaña was “the product of me speaking to somebody,” and he could not be definitive as to whom. He told OPR that once the agreement “looked like it was going to fall apart,” the Office “had concerns that if we g[a]ve them the victim notification letter … and the deal fell apart, then the victims would be instantly impeached by the provision that you’re entitled to monetary compensation.”5 Earlier on the same page OPR records him saying he had been “proceeding under the belief that we were going to notify [the victims], even though it wasn’t a federal case. Whether we were required or not.” The sentence OPR places immediately after that one is the answer Sloman gave OPR on the question of obligation: Sloman “also told OPR that while ‘we didn’t think that we had an obligation to send them victim notification letters … I think … [name blacked out] and … the agents … were keeping the victims apprised at some level.’”5 The letter his Office had sent on 6 December 2007, quoted above, had asserted that the government was obliged to notify.23

The case agent had objected the day before. OPR’s footnote to that paragraph records that the FBI case agent emailed Villafaña on 6 December: “The letter that is currently being revised needs to take into account that several victims have never been notified by your office or mine,” and, “I do not feel that [the defense] should have anything to do with the drafting or issuing of this letter. My primary concern is that we meet our federal obligations to the victims in accordance with federal law.”26

After the deadline

The correspondence did not stop. On 11 December an Assistant U.S. Attorney forwarded a further defence letter into the Office’s file with the request “Can you add these to the book of letters?”, the observation “The attacks are growing more and more vicious,” and the note that a meeting with “Alex” was set for the Friday at 1:00.13 On 12 December another message, subject “My letter”, circulated a revised draft “071211 Ltr to Lefkowitz.wpd” with “I made a few revisions. I would like to send this out today.”14 On 13 December an Assistant U.S. Attorney sent a message attaching a letter whose file name ends “_final.pdf”, under the subject “Correspondence” and over the line “Please review the enclosed. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”15

The 14 December plea date the Office had been holding the defence to did not hold either. The letter Sloman received on 7 December advised that the hearing was scheduled for 4 January 2008.5 In the event the state plea and sentencing took place on 30 June 2008, and the first petition under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act was filed a week later, on 7 July 2008; both dates are set out on Doe v. United States and are not re-sourced here.27 What the Office had and had not told the women on its list became the subject of that litigation and, a decade afterwards, of the Office of Professional Responsibility inquiry.

Notes on the documents

The Office’s internal messages cited here are printed Outlook items whose From and To lines carry black boxes on every message quoted, as does the Cc line on the three of the nine that carry one. No name that one of those boxes covers is supplied on this page, and where a box falls inside a quotation it is marked as a box. Where this page does name a sender or a recipient of one of these messages, the name is one the document prints itself, and the sheet it is taken from was read at the page image before the name was used. Telephone and facsimile numbers printed on the letterheads and message footers of these documents are not reproduced.

Footnotes

  1. Same letter, its own p. 2, headed “Honorable R. Alexander Acosta / December 5, 2007 / Page 2”, carrying the closing paragraph quoted in full in the body, the signature blocks and the cc entry. The sheet is the third of the three-sheet fax and its own release stamp reads EFTA01659876 although the document is EFTA01659874; the release stamps each sheet. Two names are blacked out in the paragraph, one before “and Lilly Ann Sanchez” and one opening the following clause; neither is supplied here. Under “Yours Sincerely,” there are two signature blocks, each a printed horizontal signature rule with a printed name below it and a cursive mark above. On the 600 dpi render the upper rule occupies rows 2837-2849 and the printed name “Kenneth W. Starr” the band 2862-2936: the mark above it crosses its own rule, its lowest stroke stopping six pixels past the rule’s foot at a darkness threshold of 128 and twelve pixels past it at thresholds of 200 and 235, and at none of those three does any ink of it reach the printed name. The lower mark does cross its printed name: a descending stroke runs through “Jay Lefkowitz” and the terminal loop falls below the band the printed name occupies. Whether either mark is ink cannot be told from a black-and-white scan. The cc entry reads “Honorable Alice Fisher, Assistant Attorney General” and a solid black bar stands immediately below it: measured on the same 600 dpi render at a darkness threshold of 128 it is a single rectangle 1,938 px wide and 200 px deep, about two text lines at this sheet’s 106 px line pitch, and about half the 3,720 px width of the justified text block. Read from the page image at 300 dpi, and for the signature blocks and the bar at 600 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659874 p.3 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  2. Same letter, its own p. 6, foot-numbered “-6-”, carrying the paragraph quoted in the body, the sentence about the chief prosecutor immediately above it, and its footnote 3, which reads in full: “It is not clear from your letter whether you believe that attorneys in this Office have acted improperly. Your letter, for example, alludes to the need to engage in an inquiry to assure that disclosures to potential witnesses did not undermine the reliability of the results of this federal investigation. As a former Department of Justice attorney, I am certain that you recognize that this is a serious allegation. I have raised this matter with AUSA Villafaña who informed me that the victims were not told of the availability of Section 2255 relief during the investigation phase of this matter. If you have specific concerns, I ask that you raise these with me immediately, so that I can make appropriate inquiries.” The banner on this sheet reads 12/04/07 TUE 16:48 and the page counter 007. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00234570 p.27 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  3. Letter, Kirkland & Ellis LLP to “Honorable R. Alexander Acosta / United States Attorney / United States Attorney’s Office / Southern District of Florida / 99 NE 4th Street / Miami, FL 33132”, 5 December 2007, “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, its own p. 1, carrying the first three paragraphs quoted in the body. The sheet is the second of the three-sheet fax and its own release stamp reads EFTA01659875. The letterhead carries Kenneth W. Starr’s name and email address; his direct-dial line and the facsimile block are boxed. The destination facsimile number printed above the addressee block is not reproduced here. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659874 p.2 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. Fax transmittal cover, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, 777 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, to “Hon. R. Alexander Acosta”, “United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida”, from “Kenneth W. Starr”, dated “December 5, 2007”, “Pages w/cover: 3”. The Message box is blank; the Fax # and Direct # fields for both sender and recipient are covered by black boxes, as are the Phone and Fax lines in the printed heading and the notify-us number in the confidentiality block. The transmitting machine’s banner across the head of the sheet reads 12/05/07 WED 15:23 and identifies the sender as Kirkland & Ellis LLP; the sending number is not reproduced here. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659874 p.1 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. Same report, narrative p. 215, which is sheet 241 of the ECF filing. “On December 7, 2007, Villafaña prepared letters containing the above information to be sent to multiple victims and emailed Acosta and Sloman, requesting permission to send them. Sloman, however, had that day received a letter from [black box], advising that Epstein’s plea hearing was scheduled for January 4, 2008, and requesting that the USAO ‘hold off’ sending the victim notification letters until ‘we can further discuss the contents.’ Also that day, Starr and Lefkowitz submitted to Acosta the two lengthy ‘independent ethics opinions’ supporting the defense arguments against the federal investigation and the NPA’s use of 18 U.S.C. § 2255. Sloman responded to Villafaña’s request with an email instructing her to ‘Hold the letter.’” The sender of the “hold off” letter is blacked out on this copy and is not supplied here. The same page carries Sloman’s account: “wanted to push the [victim notification] letter out,” “the product of me speaking to somebody,” “had concerns that if we g[a]ve them the victim notification letter … and the deal fell apart, then the victims would be instantly impeached by the provision that you’re entitled to monetary compensation.” Higher on the same page, in the paragraph above the 7 December narrative, OPR sets out two consecutive sentences: “Sloman told OPR that he was ‘proceeding under the belief that we were going to notify [the victims], even though it wasn’t a federal case. Whether we were required or not.’ Sloman also told OPR that while ‘we didn’t think that we had an obligation to send them victim notification letters … I think … [black box] and … the agents … were keeping the victims apprised at some level.’” The name in that second sentence is blacked out on this copy and is not supplied here. OPR gives both of Sloman’s statements on this sheet without a date for the interview at which he made them. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02830776 p.241 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  6. Email, subject “Draft Letter to Victims”, Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:16:44 +0000, attachment “[box]_Plea_Notification_Letter.pdf”. The From and To lines are covered by a single black box; the salutation name and the leading portion of the attachment file name are separately boxed. The signature block prints “Assistant U.S. Attorney / 500 S. Australian Ave, Suite 400 / West Palm Beach, FL 33401” above a further black box. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659902 p.1 ↩ ↩2

  7. Email, subject “Letter — Please review”, Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:56:25 +0000, attachment “071129_Acosta_Letter_to_Starr.pdf”, quoted in full in the body. The From line carries a boxed name, then the office marker “(USAFLS)” in the clear, then a boxed address; the To line carries two addresses, all names and addresses boxed. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659895 p.1 ↩ ↩2

  8. Email, subject “Draft Response to Jay”, Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 03:53:52 +0000, attachments “071130_Sloman_Ltr_to_Lefkowitz.pdf” and “071130_Sloman_Ltr_to_Lefkowitz.wpd”. The To line reads "Acosta, Alex (USAFLS)" <box> followed by a second boxed recipient marked “(USAFLS)”; the From line is boxed. A short black box stands inside the second paragraph, which reads “Alex – I already wanted [box] about the harshness of the second sentence in paragraph 2, but he and I will soften it before it goes out.” That sentence is not relied on here beyond the fact of the exchange. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659885 p.1 ↩ ↩2

  9. Email, subject “FW: Do you know if the letter went out?”, Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:41:16 +0000, attachment “epstein_12.4.07.pdf”: “Hi Karen — Here is the final letter, fyi. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.” Beneath it the chain runs, latest first: a message timed “Wednesday, December 05, 2007 1:38 PM” reading “Attached is the letter. Let me know if this is ok.”; one timed “1:33 PM” reading “Hi [box] — Can you fax or e-mail the signed letter to me? Thank you.”; and one timed “1:32 PM” reading “Yes. Last night. [box] has copies.” above the line “Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld”. All From and To lines are boxed. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659886 p.1 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Same message, its second sheet (release stamp EFTA01659887), carrying the foot of the chain: “Sent: Wed Dec 05 13:20:27 2007 / Subject: Do you know if the letter went out? / I know that Goldberger is meeting with the State Attorney’s Office tomorrow and I want to make sure they have digested the letter beforehand. Thank you!” above the printed “Assistant U.S. Attorney / 500 S. Australian Ave, Suite 400 / West Palm Beach, FL 33401”. The From and To lines of both messages on this sheet are covered by black boxes. The two BlackBerry-format Sent: lines carry no zone; they read 13:20 and 13:26 against the outer header’s 18:41 UTC and are treated as Eastern on that basis. Read from the page image at 300 dpi, including the line the name in the body quotation is taken from. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659886 p.2 ↩ ↩2

  11. Email, subject “FW: ltr from Ken Starr”, Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:18:07 +0000, attachment “epstein_ltr_from_starr.pdf”, body in full: “This is what happens when you don’t send out the letters when they are supposed to go out.” Beneath the signature block the quoted inner message reads “Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 11:04 AM”; its From and To lines are boxed and its subject line is printed whole, “ltr from Ken Starr”, above the attachment marker ”<>”. From and To on the outer message are covered by one black box; the Phone and Fax lines under the signature block are boxed. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659873 p.1 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. Email, subject “FW: just faxed to lefkowitz”, Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:48:46 +0000, attachment “epstein_ltr_victim_notification_12_06_07.pdf”, body: “Thank you, [box]. You are my hero.” The quoted inner message reads “Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 3:46 PM … Subject: just faxed to lefkowitz” and its body “<<epstein ltr victim notification 12 06 07.pdf>> let me know if you need anything”. The outer message has From, To and Cc lines and all three are boxed; the inner message has From and To lines, both boxed, and no Cc line. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659870 p.1 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  13. Email, subject “FW: Emailing: epstein 12.11.07.pdf”, Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:57:51 +0000, attachment “epstein_12.11.07.pdf”: “Hi [box] — Can you add these to the book of letters? / [box] — The attacks are growing more and more vicious. / [box] are meeting with Alex on Friday at 1:00.” The name or names before “are meeting with Alex” are covered by a long black box and are not supplied here. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659871 p.1 ↩ ↩2

  14. Email, subject “My letter”, Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:47:06 +0000, attachment “071211_[box]_Ltr_to_Lefkowitz.wpd”: “[box] – I made a few revisions. I would like to send this out today. Thank you.” The From line, one To line and two Cc lines are boxed, each marked “(USAFLS)”, as is the salutation name and one segment of the attachment file name. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659872 p.1 ↩ ↩2

  15. Email, subject “Correspondence”, Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:03:01 +0000, attachment “071213_[box]Ltr_to[box]_final.pdf”: “Dear [box] Please review the enclosed. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” The From line, the To line and three Cc entries are boxed, as are the salutation name and both name segments of the attachment file name. The From entry and each of the three Cc entries carry the office marker “(USAFLS)” outside the box; the To entry carries no marker outside its box, and nothing on the sheet says who the recipient was. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659869 p.1 ↩ ↩2

  16. Letter, R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney, Southern District of Florida, to “Kenneth W. Starr, Esq., Kirkland & Ellis LLP”, 30 November 2007, “DELIVERY BY FACSIMILE”, “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, its own p. 1 of 6. The date “November 30, 2007” is printed at the right beneath a boxed block. The addressee block reads “Kenneth W. Starr, Esq.” above “Kirkland & Ellis LLP” above two further lines wholly covered by a black box; no address is legible on this sheet, and none is supplied here. This sheet carries no running head. Footnote 1 at the foot of the page reads: “First Assistant U.S. Attorney [box] is sending a letter under separate cover addressing some of the items in the correspondence from you and Mr. Lefkowitz, since he has been directly involved in discussions of those issues.” The name in that footnote is blacked out on this copy and is not supplied here. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659896 p.1 ↩ ↩2

  17. All six sheets of https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659896 were searched in the document’s own text layer for “notification”, “certain filings”, “December 7”, “this Friday”, “notify”, “notice” and “inform”. “December 14” and “December 4” return on p. 6 only, in the closing paragraph quoted above; “inform” returns twice, in passages about the 2006-07 negotiations and a state charging document, and neither concerns notifying victims; the remaining terms return nothing on any sheet. The running head “KENNETH STARR, ESQ. / NOVEMBER 30, 2007 / PAGE n OF 6” returns on sheets 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and on no other sheet; sheet 1 is the Department of Justice letterhead sheet and carries no running head. Sheets 1 and 6 were read at the image at 300 dpi. ↩ ↩2

  18. Same letter, its own p. 6 of 6, headed “KENNETH STARR, ESQ. / NOVEMBER 30, 2007 / PAGE 6 OF 6”, carrying the closing paragraph quoted in the body above the typed block “R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA / UNITED STATES ATTORNEY”. There is no manuscript mark over the typed name on this copy. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659896 p.6 ↩

  19. Same letter, its own p. 7, foot-numbered “-7-”: the end of the sentence carried over from p. 6, the closing paragraph and the signature block. A manuscript signature beginning with the letter “R” stands above the typed block “R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA / UNITED STATES ATTORNEY” and does not touch it. On the 600 dpi render, at a darkness threshold of 200 the signature’s ink occupies rows 1600-1949 and the printed name “R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA” the band 1956-2030; at a threshold of 128 the signature’s last ink is row 1943 and the printed name’s first is row 1962. Rows 1950-1955 are blank at thresholds 128, 200 and 235 alike. Whether the mark is ink cannot be told from a black-and-white scan. The banner on this sheet reads 12/04/07 TUE 16:48 and the page counter 008. The cc block at the foot of the sheet reads “cc: Alice Fisher, Assistant Attorney General / Jeffrey Sloman, First Assistant U.S. Attorney / AUSA A. Marie Villafaña”. Read from the page image at 300 dpi, and for the signature block at 600 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00234570 p.28 ↩ ↩2

  20. Letter, R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney, Southern District of Florida, to “Kenneth W. Starr, Esq, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, 777 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90017”, “DELIVERY BY FACSIMILE”, “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, “Dear Mr. Starr:”, its own p. 1. Cited from the copy filed as Exhibit 4 in the 135-page compilation https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00234570, Data Set 9, which occupies pp.22-28 of that compilation (release stamps EFTA00234591 to EFTA00234597); the sheet before it carries the words “Exhibit 4” and the sheet after the last the words “Exhibit 5”, both read from the page images at 200 dpi. The compilation’s first sheet, read from the page image at 200 dpi, is itself an exhibit divider: it carries the words “Exhibit 1” and nothing else, with no caption, docket line or signature block. What the compilation was assembled for is not stated on any of the sheets read here. Beneath the letterhead rule the sheet prints “R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA / UNITED STATES ATTORNEY” at the left and the Miami street address with a telephone and a facsimile line at the right; the numbers are not reproduced here. No date is typed on the sheet. The outgoing facsimile banner runs across the head of the sheet on a single line: 12/04/07 TUE 16:46, then the sending facsimile number, then “EXECUTIVE OFFICE”, then the fax’s own page counter at 002. The sending number is not reproduced here. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00234570 p.22 ↩

  21. The second copy, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659888, Data Set 10, runs seven sheets (release stamps EFTA01659888 to EFTA01659894). Its p. 6 carries the body paragraph quoted at 2 word for word; the footnote 3 at the foot of that page is not word-identical between the two copies, because on this copy the name in it is covered by a black box, and this page quotes that footnote from the copy that prints it. Its p. 7 carries the same closing paragraph, foot-numbered “-7-”. All seven of its sheets were read at the image and none of them carries a facsimile banner. On its first sheet the block at the left of the letterhead rule is covered by a black box and no date appears anywhere on the sheet; on its last sheet the typed name beneath the manuscript signature is covered by a black box above the printed line “UNITED STATES ATTORNEY”. The dating is not settled on this page: what the images show is that this copy bears no date, that the copy at EFTA00234570 carries a 12/04/07 transmission banner on every sheet, that the letter of 30 November 2007 at EFTA01659896 sets a different deadline and does not mention victim notification, and that the Starr and Lefkowitz letter of 5 December 2007 answers a letter “faxed to Jay on December 4”, quoting back the December 7 and December 14 phrasing that appears on this letter’s p. 6. Sheets 1, 6 and 7 read from the page images at 300 dpi; sheets 2 to 5 at 150 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659888 pp.1-7 ↩ ↩2

  22. The four-page length of the Office’s reply of 6 December 2007 is established on Jay Lefkowitz, which sets it out from the 52-page correspondence run in Data Set 9 at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00209047 and places “the office to Lefkowitz, 6 December 2007” at that run’s pp.17-20, boundaries established there by reading every page’s header. It is not re-sourced here. ↩

  23. 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; narrative p. 214, which is sheet 240 of the ECF filing; the report’s narrative pagination begins 26 sheets into the filing. “The Starr and Lefkowitz letter asserted it was ‘wholly inappropriate’ for the USAO to send the proposed victim notification letter ‘under any circumstances,’ and ‘strongly urg[ed]’ Acosta to withhold the notification letter until after the defense was able ‘to discuss this matter with Assistant Attorney General Fisher.’”; “The following day, Sloman sent a letter to Lefkowitz, with copies to Acosta and Villafaña, asserting that the VRRA obligated the government to notify victims of the 18 U.S.C. § 2255 proceedings as ‘other relief’ to which they were entitled. Sloman also stated that the VRRA obligated the government to provide the victims with information concerning restitution to which they may be entitled and ‘the earliest possible’ notice of the status of the investigation, the filing of charges, and the acceptance of a plea. (Emphasis in original). Sloman added:”; and, set out as an indented quotation on the same sheet, “Just as in 18 U.S.C. § 3771 [the CVRA], these sections are not limited to proceedings in a federal district court. Our Non-Prosecution Agreement resolves the federal investigation by allowing Mr. Epstein to plead to a state offense. The victims identified through the federal investigation should be appropriately informed, and our Non-Prosecution Agreement does not require the U.S. Attorney’s Office to forego [sic] its legal obligations.”; “Along with this letter, Sloman forwarded to Lefkowitz for comment a revised draft victim notification letter that was substantially similar to the prior draft provided to the defense.” The italics are the report’s. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02830776 p.240 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  24. Same page, its footnote 315: “Emphasis in original. Sloman also stated that the USAO did not seek to ‘federalize’ a state plea, but ‘is simply informing the victims of their rights.’ Villafaña informed OPR that Sloman approved and signed the letter, but she was the primary author of the document. OPR notes that Villafaña was the principal author of most correspondence in the Epstein case, and that following the signing of the NPA, regardless of whether the letter went out with her, Sloman’s, or Acosta’s signature, the three attorneys reviewed and edited drafts of most correspondence before a final version was sent to the defense.” Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02830776 p.240 ↩

  25. Same report, Part Two, narrative p. 248, which is sheet 274 of the ECF filing (release stamp EFTA02831049). The section heading reads: “The Victims’ Rights and Restitution Act of 1990 (VRRA), 34 U.S.C. § 20141, Services to Victims (formerly cited as 42 USCA § 10607)”. The report reproduces the statute beneath that heading; its subsection (c)(1)(B) requires a responsible official to “inform a victim of any restitution or other relief to which the victim may be entitled under this or any other law and manner in which such relief may be obtained”. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02830776 p.274 ↩

  26. Same page, its footnote 316: “The FBI case agent had emailed Villafaña the day before stating, ‘The letter that is currently being revised needs to take into account that several victims have never been notified by your office or mine.’ The case agent also stated, ‘I do not feel that [the defense] should have anything to do with the drafting or issuing of this letter. My primary concern is that we meet our federal obligations to the victims in accordance with federal law.’” The case agent is not named in the footnote. Read from the page image at 300 dpi. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02830776 p.241 ↩

  27. The state plea and sentencing date and the filing of the CVRA petition are set out on Doe v. United States and the 2008 non-prosecution agreement; neither is re-sourced here. ↩

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