Epstein Data Wiki

Operation Leap Year

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tagstopic, court-records, fbi, usao-sdfl, palm-beach

38 min read

What the name belongs toThe federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein run from West Palm Beach between 2006 and 2008: a U.S. Attorney’s Office file and the FBI case that ran with it123
Who named it, and whenA. Marie Villafaña, on opening the office’s file on May 23, 20061
Why that nameThe state investigation “had identified approximately 29 girls as victims of Epstein’s conduct”1
U.S. Attorney’s Office fileLIONS No. 2006R01181; the abbreviation used on its own paperwork is OLY4
FBI caseOpened July 24, 2006 by the FBI in West Palm Beach, per the Department’s report and the FBI’s own briefing deck; the Bureau’s own 2025 case-summary table gives July 25, 2006256; file 31E-MM-1080627
Grand juriesFGJ 05-02 (WPB), marked with an expiration of 2/1/07, and Federal Grand Jury 07-103 (WPB)48
SubpoenasA control series running OLY-01 through OLY-819
FBI case agentsE. Nesbitt Kuyrkendall and Jason Richards3
OutcomeResolved, in the Department’s own later description, “through the Florida state plea and federal non-prosecution agreement”10; the agreement was signed September 24, 200711
Recorded status of the file”Operation Leap Year remains an open case”, declared under penalty of perjury September 3, 201312; “31E-MM-108062 – Pending Inactive” in an FBI email written the evening of March 17, 202513; the Bureau’s own case-summary table dates that designation to July 25, 2017 and records four of the file’s five sibling Epstein case numbers as closed6

Content note: this page concerns an investigation into the sexual abuse of minors. It identifies no complainant, reproduces no account of what was done to anyone, and takes no name, date of birth or other identifier from any victim record.

Operation Leap Year is the name that attaches to a particular set of federal instruments: a United States Attorney’s Office case file, two federal grand juries sitting in West Palm Beach, a numbered series of grand jury subpoenas, and an FBI investigative file that outlived all of them; the prosecution memorandum and proposed indictment the office prepared from that grand jury work are addressed at A. Marie Villafaña. This page is about the file itself: how it was named, what it generated, and what happened to it afterwards, including a court-ordered production of the case file for a judge’s private inspection in 2013 and a Department review of its handling in 2019.

The events themselves are carried elsewhere and are not repeated here. The state investigation and the referral that produced the federal case are at the Palm Beach Police Department investigation; the instrument that ended it is at the 2008 non-prosecution agreement; the victims’ challenge to that agreement is at Doe v. United States; the conduct of the two officials most closely concerned is at Alex Acosta and A. Marie Villafaña.

The name, and who gave it

The name was given inside the U.S. Attorney’s Office, not by the FBI. The Department’s 2020 review of the case records that on May 23, 2006 A. Marie Villafaña “prepared the paperwork to open a USAO case file”, that her immediate supervisor approved it, and that “on May 23, 2006, it was formally initiated.”1 Of the name itself the report says only this: “The investigation was named ‘Operation Leap Year’ because the state investigation had identified approximately 29 girls as victims of Epstein’s conduct.”1 A footnote on the same page adds that the file was opened in the same month in which the Department launched its Project Safe Childhood initiative, and that Acosta designated the same prosecutor as the office’s Project Safe Childhood coordinator.1

The FBI’s own case came two months later, the day after the state charge became public. Epstein “self-surrendered to be arrested on the indictment, but was not detained, and the charges were made public” on July 23, 2006.14 “On July 24, 2006,” the report states, “Villafaña alerted Sloman, who informed Acosta, that the State Attorney’s Office had charged and arrested Epstein. On that same day, the FBI in West Palm Beach formally opened the case, assigning the case agent and, later, a co-case agent, to investigate it.”2 A footnote to that passage records that on the same day Jeffrey Sloman emailed Andrew Lourie, who had not yet been briefed on the case, “noting that Operation Leap Year was ‘a highly sensitive case involving some Palm Beach rich guy.’”2 A 2025 FBI table tracking the case gives the opening date as July 25, 2006, a day later than the OPR report and the FBI’s own briefing deck; the source followed here is the OPR report and the briefing deck, and the divergence is recorded rather than resolved.6

The name is on the paperwork throughout. The office’s grand jury subpoena log is headed “GRAND JURY SUBPOENA LOG / In Re: Operation Leap Year”, under the office’s LIONS number 2006R01181 and the line “Investigation No. OLY”.4 The grand jury transcripts are captioned “IN RE: OPERATION LEAP YEAR”.8 So is the office’s own criminal matter and case initiation form, which enters “OPERATION LEAP YEAR” as the first of its participants, gives the summary of facts as “Internet Solicitation – Interstate travel to have sex with a minor”, names the FBI as the investigating agency and 18 U.S.C. §§ 2422(b) and 2423(b) as the primary charge, and assigns the matter to A. Marie Villafaña; its supervisory signature line is blacked out and the date written beside it is 5/31/06.15 Seven years later, when the file had to be produced to a court, the FBI’s own emails about it were headed “Operation Leap Year Case File” and “Operation Leap Year (OLY)”.1617

The grand jury, the subpoenas and the file

Two federal grand juries in West Palm Beach are named on the operation’s own paperwork. The subpoena log is written against “FGJ 05-02 (WPB) Fridays”, marked “[expiration 2/1/07]”, and its first page records ten subpoenas, OLY-01 to OLY-10, all returnable on August 18, 2006, with the subpoenaed party and the records sought blacked out on every row and OLY-10 marked “never served”.4 The transcripts are captioned to Federal Grand Jury 07-103; one of them, dated February 27, 2007, is the testimony of the FBI case agent.8 The full run of the series is recorded in the government’s own privilege log, which describes the “Operation Leap Year Grand Jury Log containing subpoenas OLY-01 through OLY-81, correspondence and research related to enforcement of same, documents produced in response to some subpoenas; and attorney (Villafaña) handwritten notes.”9

The case agent’s own account of the investigative methods, declared under penalty of perjury in 2013, is short: “Over the course of the investigation, the FBI obtained hundreds of documents through the use of grand jury subpoenas, public records, and law enforcement databases. FBI agents conducted interviews with females believed to have been sexually abused by Mr. Epstein and underage at the time of the assault, as well as other individuals who might have relevant information.”18 The declaration gives no count of those interviews and no date range for them.

The file was not a single object. The FBI’s serial report for one of its sub-files, the forfeiture sub-file 31E-MM-108062-FF, lists nine serials running from a request to open sub-files in the captioned case through status reports to a request that the forfeiture sub-file be closed.19 The privilege log, which inventories three boxes of the office’s own materials, lists among them a “Composition book entitled ‘Operation Leap Year’ containing attorney handwritten notes regarding investigation and case strategy”.20

What the grand jury was to be asked is recorded in one of at least two versions of a seventeen-page outline headed “GRAND JURY PRESENTATION / OPERATION LEAP YEAR”: one sets out an introduction summarising a new indictment and its charges, a plan to break the overt acts into flights, telephone calls and meetings, and then the case agent’s testimony;21 the other breaks the overt acts into two categories rather than three.22 It is a plan for a presentation and not a record of one. No indictment was returned.23 The FBI’s own later briefing deck on the Epstein investigations records, on its Florida slide, “5/2007 – 60 count indictment drafted against Epstein”; the drafting, the May 1, 2007 prosecution memorandum behind it and the fight over approval are set out at A. Marie Villafaña.5

The operation’s subpoenas were contested at the time. The privilege log lists, in the same box as the composition book, a “Motion of Jeffrey Epstein to Intervene and to Quash Grand Jury Subpoenas and Incorporated Memorandum of Law”, an affidavit of Roy Black in support of it, and the United States’ response and cross-motion to compel.20

January 2008: the delay

By the beginning of 2008, with the agreement signed and the plea not yet entered, the investigative team was still waiting. On January 29, 2008 an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the West Palm Beach office wrote an email under the subject line “Operation Leap Year” asking for the status of a meeting with Epstein’s counsel. Every header field of the copy in the release is blacked out, as is the signature above the office address, so the sender and the recipients are not identified here.11

Four reasons were given for wanting an answer. The writer and a colleague were meeting seven victims that week: “The victims are moving away to college, graduating from college, etc. In addition to being more difficult to find, they are, quite simply, getting older.” The sentence that follows attributes to a person whose name is blacked out the remark, “we need to do the trial before the girls start menopause.”11 Judge Marra had been set as duty judge for February, which would make it easy to restore a hearing on Epstein’s motion to quash a subpoena for computer equipment removed from his home, a motion Epstein had agreed to withdraw as part of the signed agreement “but never did”.11 Third, “we are getting into a ‘Catch-22’ situation with the local FBI office”: there were expensive steps the office wanted taken before an indictment, “namely, interview victims in Australia and New York”, but “management doesn’t want to spend that kind of money unless they know that we will indict.”11 And last: “the delay is becoming unbearable for the investigators and for me.” The sentence that follows records that the writer and a colleague first met the defence attorneys on February 1 and 20, 2007, that the indictment package went to Miami on May 1, and that the non-prosecution agreement was signed on September 24, 2007.11

The case file in the CVRA litigation, 2013 to 2015

The file became an object of litigation in the victims’ Crime Victims’ Rights Act case. By an Omnibus Order of June 18, 2013 the district court directed the government to produce responsive documents and, for anything withheld on a claim of privilege, to file a privilege log and “submit all responsive documents withheld on claim of privilege to the court for in camera inspection.”2425

That order set off the correspondence in the release. On the evening of June 26, 2013 the Assistant U.S. Attorney wrote to the two case agents: “We need to produce the OLY case file for in camera review by Judge Marra on June 19th”, the month being the document’s own error, and asked whether they had a copy locally, or an index of its contents, and could prepare a list of the physical evidence in storage in Miami.16 The case agent replied the next morning that he saw no difficulty with “the JULY 19th date set by the court”.16 He forwarded the thread up his own chain; an FBI colleague wrote that “The USAO has been order to produce an FBI case file and all evidence for a civil case on July 19, 2013” and that the actual file had been sent “to the RMD for a FOIA request”.16 The supervisory special agent to whom the case agent forwarded it replied with a question: “What is Leap Year?” Told “Epstein case”, he answered, “Take whatever time you need.”16

A further email of July 15, 2013, from the Bureau’s Palm Beach County Resident Agency and with every name redacted, reports that “The FBI has been ordered to produce the FBI OLY case file for in camera review by Judge Marra this Friday, July 19, 2013”, describes the civil suit it arose from, and asks whether there were “certain protocols and/or policies we need to follow to remove the ‘Brown and Whites’ and associated ‘Red Wallets’ from FBI space when providing them to the District Judge.”17

The production went in on July 19, 2013, with a notice of filing and a twenty-three page privilege log covering three boxes.25 Two further logs followed.24 The petitioners moved to compel production of documents they said were not privileged, and on September 3, 2013 the government filed its opposition, with the case agent’s declaration as Exhibit A.26 Of the documents this page cites, that declaration is the fullest description of the operation the government put on the record. It gave three grounds for withholding the FBI file, which the opposition then summarised: that the interview reports contain “highly personal and intimate details”; that, of those interviewed who did not reveal any intimate details, many “will be displeased if their cooperation with the FBI is made public”; and that the file would reveal “sensitive FBI investigative and operational methods, procedures and techniques”.182728

Judge Marra resolved the privilege claims in an Opinion and Order of July 6, 2015. By then, the order records, “The Government produced 1,357 pages of documents to Petitioners, filed three privilege logs, and submitted nearly 15,000 pages to the Court for in camera inspection.”24 The court found the logs adequate, and found it “unnecessary to consider whether the deliberative process and investigative privilege apply in this case as other, stronger, privileges are at play”, many of the documents covered by those two claims being in its view irrelevant to the case.29 On the grand jury material it held: “The Court concludes that Petitioners have not met their heavy burden of demonstrating a compelling and particularized need for the disclosure of grand jury materials pertaining to the investigation of Epstein.”23 It ordered the government to produce documents in accordance with a table appended to the order and occupying its remaining twenty-six pages, granted Epstein’s motion to protect the grand jury materials from disclosure, denied the petitioners’ motion to seal, and unsealed one filing.30

”Remains an open case”

The declaration executed on September 3, 2013 states, at its seventh and last substantive paragraph, “Operation Leap Year remains an open case.”12 It was not an incidental remark: the petitioners had asserted the opposite, and the government’s brief answered them by name: “Contrary to petitioners’ assertion (D.E. 225-1 at 22, ¶ 112), Operation Leap Year remains an open case.”28

The designation had consequences for records handling that the release documents directly. On August 11, 2020 a PAE government information specialist working the FBI’s Record/Information Dissemination Section, processing a Freedom of Information/Privacy Act request whose “subject is Jeffrey Epstein”, wrote to the division’s counsel and the case agent, having located file “31E-MM-108062” as responsive, and set out “RIDS standard questions for handling pending cases”, noting that the answers “will determine the exemptions or whether exclusion is appropriate for this request”; the first question asks for “the current status of the pending investigation”.7 The designation had not lapsed by 2025: an FBI email written the evening of March 17, 2025 tracking Epstein case numbers for grand jury material purposes lists “31E-MM-108062 – Pending Inactive”, against one case number recorded as “Pending appeal” and four recorded as “Closed case”.13

The Bureau’s own case-summary table is more specific still. It never uses the operation’s name, but its entry for file 31E-MM-108062 matches Operation Leap Year on every particular already established on this page (the opening office, the opening date to within a day, and the state guilty plea), which no other single footnote on this page does. Compiled from “a Case Indexes email from NY sent on March 12, 2025”, it reads in full: “31E-MM-108062 Child Prostitution case against Epstein brought by Palm Beach County Police Department (PBPD), opened 07/25/2006 by FBI Miami Palm Beach RA, resulting in a guilty plea in State Court. This case has remained in Pending Inactive status since 07/25/2017 and case materials have been preserved for a civil litigation hold.”6 The same table, in the same voice, records four of the Bureau’s other five Epstein-related case numbers as closed, with dates: the obstruction case against a former Epstein employee “closed on 03/13/2013”; the case against two correctional officers charged over Epstein’s death in custody, “Closed in December 2022”; a contraband investigation at the jail, “closed in October 2023”; and a case opened over online threats to a victim, “closed on 5/12/2020”. The fifth, the child sex trafficking case against Epstein himself, also carries no closing date: the table records it too as remaining “in Pending Inactive status”, immediately after describing his 2019 suicide and Maxwell’s 2021 conviction and sentencing. The Florida file carries no comparable explanation for its own absence of closure.6 The searches described below returned no document recording the Florida file as closed.

The office had considered reopening the investigation once already. A conflict-of-interest memorandum from the First Assistant U.S. Attorney’s office, dated July 26, 2011, addresses whether “the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida re-initiates a grand jury investigation of Jeffrey Epstein” over a separate matter, warning that doing so “will be perceived — correctly or incorrectly — as having been done at the insistence of the victims” in the CVRA litigation; the memorandum’s own section on “The FBI’s Current Investigation” treats that prospective inquiry as distinct from Operation Leap Year.31 Two years after that memorandum discussed reopening a grand jury investigation, the FBI declared under penalty of perjury that Operation Leap Year itself had never closed.12

The Department’s 2019 review, and the file afterwards

When the Office of Professional Responsibility opened its review of the office’s handling of the matter it used the operation’s name to identify it. On February 28, 2019 an OPR counsel wrote to two FBI Miami agents that the office was “conducting an investigation into certain allegations of professional misconduct relating to the USAO-SDFL handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, originating in 2006 as Leap Year, that was ultimately addressed through the Florida state plea and federal non-prosecution agreement.” Having reviewed the U.S. Attorney’s Office records, OPR now needed the FBI’s: “I understand that while the evidence is still held in Miami, much of the case file is at the FBIHQ Records Management Unit in order for response to various FOIPA requests.”32 The email asks for a point of contact at that unit and says OPR would approach the division’s Chief Division Counsel to arrange access to the Miami holdings; the reply the next morning supplied the contact.33

Seven weeks later an OPR counsel wrote to a former participant whose name and role are blacked out, repeating the same description of the matter and adding: “My OPR colleagues and I have obtained and reviewed extensive records from the USAO-SDFL and FBI, and we have interviewed the then-case agents[redacted]. We now wish to interview you.”10 The review’s findings are set out at the 2008 non-prosecution agreement and on the pages of the officials it named.

Two things this page does not say

The 2009 obstruction case was a separate case. The FBI’s briefing deck records that on October 28, 2009 the Miami Palm Beach Resident Agency “opened an obstruction of justice case” with a former Epstein employee as its subject, following a failure to comply with a federal subpoena and an attempt to sell the subpoenaed documents, and that he was arrested on December 8, 2009.34 The deck records it as a case opened on its own date and against its own subject, and the Bureau’s 2025 status list carries six Epstein case numbers of which the Florida investigation is one.13 It is covered at Alfredo Rodriguez.

“Task force” is Epstein’s word, not the record’s. None of the documents the searches below returned describes Operation Leap Year as a task force. Epstein did. On February 1, 2019 he forwarded to the author Michael Wolff, under the line “have fun”, the same message he had sent to his own address that morning attacking the investigation. In it he wrote that the FBI “puts a task force together” under that title, the operation’s name standing in quotation marks in his own text, “to investigate my personal massage activity ?! nuts.”35 The rest of that message makes assertions about complainants and about named third parties which are not reproduced or relied on here. Epstein died on August 10, 2019, and those searches returned no later statement by him about the operation.

The search run for this page

The corpus was searched on the exact phrases “operation leap year”, “leap year”, “OLY”, “OLY case file” and “Brown and Whites”; on the FBI file number “31E-MM-108062”; and, to test the open-case statement against documents that would contradict it rather than against the vocabulary of the documents already held, on “31E-MM-108062” together with “closed” (49 hits across 36 documents), on “Leap Year” together with “closed”, on “administratively closed” together with “Epstein”, on the closure vocabulary “closing communication”, “close captioned case”, “closing this case”, “case is being closed”, “recommend closing” and “Pending Inactive”, and on the phrases “forfeiture subfile” and “108062-FF”. The last of those returned the sub-file closure records and the serial reports cited above. Among the 49 hits, read in full, were the case-summary table cited above, the March 2025 status list, the 2020 records-processing email and a set of Sentinel serial headers carrying “(Pending)” against this file number. None of the documents read, the case-summary table included, records the Florida investigation itself as closed.

Documents

DocumentWhat it is
EFTA02830776DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility report, November 2020, 348 pages, filed as an exhibit in United States v. Maxwell; the naming and opening of the file are at its narrative pp. 18 and 21
EFTA01702617Grand jury subpoena log, “In Re: Operation Leap Year”, at pp. 68–73 of the run
EFTA00211385United States’ notice of filing privilege log and the log itself, Documents 212 and 212-1, July 19, 2013
EFTA01245169Grand jury transcript, “IN RE: OPERATION LEAP YEAR”, Federal Grand Jury 07-103, February 27, 2007; title page only is used here
EFTA01731290”Grand Jury Presentation / Operation Leap Year”, a 17-page outline
EFTA01659971Email under the subject “Operation Leap Year”, January 29, 2008
EFTA01657290”Operation Leap Year Case File” email chain, June 26–27, 2013
EFTA01657289”Operation Leap Year (OLY)” email chain, July 15–17, 2013
EFTA01657747Declaration of E. Nesbitt Kuyrkendall, September 3, 2013, filed as Respondent’s Exhibit A
EFTA01142189Respondent’s opposition to the motion to compel, Document 229, September 3, 2013
EFTA01657752Opinion and Order on the privilege claims, Document 330, July 6, 2015
EFTA01660427OPR request for access to FBI case materials, February 28, 2019
EFTA01659527OPR interview request, April 2019
EFTA01683983FBI records-processing email on a FOIPA request, August 2020
EFTA01649099FBI email tracking Epstein case numbers and their status, written the evening of March 17, 2025 (header dated March 18 UTC)
EFTA00163964FBI case-summary table, “Epstein and Maxwell Related Investigations”, compiled March 2025, covering all six Epstein-related case numbers
EFTA00205964Memorandum, “Re: Jeffrey Epstein Investigation”, First Assistant U.S. Attorney’s office, July 26, 2011; p. 3 only is cited here
EFTA01656152FBI briefing deck, “Jeffrey Epstein Investigations”, 20 slides; a presentation, not a case file

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.), April 16, 2021, EFTA02830776, p. 44 (narrative p. 18): “On May 23, 2006, Villafaña prepared the paperwork to open a USAO case file”; “The investigation was named ‘Operation Leap Year’ because the state investigation had identified approximately 29 girls as victims of Epstein’s conduct.”; and n.20, “Villafaña opened ‘Operation Leap Year’ during the same month in which the Department launched its ‘Project Safe Childhood’ initiative, and Acosta designated Villafaña to serve as the USAO’s Project Safe Childhood coordinator.” Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. Same report, EFTA02830776, p. 47 (narrative p. 21): “On July 24, 2006, Villafaña alerted Sloman, who informed Acosta, that the State Attorney’s Office had charged and arrested Epstein. On that same day, the FBI in West Palm Beach formally opened the case, assigning the case agent and, later, a co-case agent, to investigate it.”; and n.28, “On the same day, Sloman emailed Lourie, whom Villafaña had not yet briefed about the case, noting that Operation Leap Year was ‘a highly sensitive case involving some Palm Beach rich guy.’” Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  3. Declaration of E. Nesbitt Kuyrkendall, Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 v. United States, Case No. 08-80736-CIV-MARRA (S.D. Fla.), executed September 3, 2013 and filed as Respondent’s Exhibit A, EFTA01657747, p. 1, ¶ 2: “In 2006, I was assigned as the case agent in an investigation into allegations that Jeffrey Epstein had engaged in unlawful sexual contact with girls under the age of 18. The case was called Operation Leap Year. FBI Special Agent Jason Richards and I conducted most of the investigation, and worked with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, on Operation Leap Year.” Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2

  4. Grand jury subpoena log, EFTA01702617, p. 68, headed “GRAND JURY SUBPOENA LOG / In Re: Operation Leap Year / Lions No. 2006R01181”, with “FGJ 05-02 (WPB) Fridays [expiration 2/1/07]” and “Investigation No. OLY”. The table’s ten rows run “OLY-01” to “OLY-10”, each with the appearance date 08/18/2006; the SUBPOENAED PARTY and RECORDS SOUGHT columns are blacked out on every row and the last row is marked “never served”. Read from the page image. The log continues to p. 73. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. FBI briefing deck, “Jeffrey Epstein Investigations”, EFTA01656152, slide 3: “7/24/2006 – FBI West Palm Beach Resident Agency opened investigation at the request of Palm Beach County who obtained 1 state felony charge indictment”; “5/2007 – 60 count indictment drafted against Epstein”. The slide’s heading is covered by a redaction block, as are the case numbers on the title slide. Read from the page image. This is a presentation prepared for a briefing and is not a case file; its own timeline slides carry dates that other records contradict, and it is cited here only for these two lines. ↩ ↩2

  6. “Epstein and Maxwell Related Investigations”, “Summaries provided from Case Indexes email from NY sent on March 12, 2025”, EFTA00163964, pp. 1-2. The row for 31E-MM-108062 reads in full: “Child Prostitution case against Epstein brought by Palm Beach County Police Department (PBPD), opened 07/25/2006 by FBI Miami Palm Beach RA, resulting in a guilty plea in State Court. This case has remained in Pending Inactive status since 07/25/2017 and case materials have been preserved for a civil litigation hold.” The table’s other rows close, in the same terms: for 50D-NY-3027571, “This investigation remains in Pending Inactive status.”; for 72-MM-113327, “This investigation was closed on 03/13/2013.”; for 90A-NY-3151227, “Closed in December 2022.”; for 90C-NY-3154599, “Case closed in October 2023.”; and for 9A-NY-3144791, “closed on 5/12/2020.” The table never uses the phrase “Operation Leap Year”; the identification with this file rests on the matching office, date and outcome, not on the name. A second, duplicate copy of the same table exists in the release; only this copy is cited here. Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  7. FBI email on FOIPA request 1458180-0, sent Tuesday, August 11, 2020 and followed up on August 18, 2020, EFTA01683983, p. 2: “FILE NUMBER (including sub-files): 31E-MM-108062”; “Below you will find RIDS standard questions for handling pending cases.”; “Your responses to the questions below will determine the exemptions or whether exclusion is appropriate for this request.”; “What is the current status of the pending investigation (e.g., investigation is ongoing, awaiting U.S. Attorney decision to prosecute, trial is pending, an appeal from the trial is pending, etc.)?” Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2

  8. Grand jury transcript title page, EFTA01245169, p. 1: “UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT / SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA / IN RE: OPERATION LEAP YEAR / Federal Grand Jury, 07-103 / West Palm Beach, Florida / February 27, 2007”, over “TESTIMONY OF E. NESBITT KUYRKENDALL”. Read from the page image; only this page is cited, and nothing from the testimony itself. The foreperson named on the page is a private individual and is not named here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. “Privilege Log”, Jane Does #1 and #2 v. United States of America, No. 08-80736-Civ-Marra/Matthewman (S.D. Fla.), Document 212-1, entered on the FLSD docket July 19, 2013, EFTA00211385, p. 3, Box #1, Bates P-000040 thru P-000549: “Operation Leap Year Grand Jury Log containing subpoenas OLY-01 through OLY-81, correspondence and research related to enforcement of same, documents produced in response to some subpoenas; and attorney (Villafaña) handwritten notes”. Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2

  10. Email chain, subject “RE: Your Assistance in DOJ OPR Investigation”, April 18, 2019, EFTA01659527, p. 2: “the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is conducting an investigation into certain allegations of professional misconduct relating to the USAO-SDFL handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, originating in 2006 as Leap Year, that was ultimately addressed through the Florida state plea and federal non-prosecution agreement during 2007-2008.”; “My OPR colleagues and I have obtained and reviewed extensive records from the USAO-SDFL and FBI, and we have interviewed the then-case agents”; “We now wish to interview you.” The recipient’s name and role are blacked out. Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2

  11. Email, subject “Operation Leap Year”, Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:53:23 +0000, EFTA01659971, p. 1. The From, To and Cc fields and the name above the signature block are blacked out at image level; the signature reads “Assistant U.S. Attorney / 500 S. Australian Ave, Suite 400 / West Palm Beach, FL 33401”. Quoted: “The victims are moving away to college, graduating from college, etc. In addition to being more difficult to find, they are, quite simply, getting older.”; “we need to do the trial before the girls start menopause.”; “Epstein was supposed to withdraw the motion to quash, but never did.”; “Third, we are getting into a ‘Catch-22’ situation with the local FBI office.”; “namely, interview victims in Australia and New York”; “management doesn’t want to spend that kind of money unless they know that we will indict.”; “Lastly, the delay is becoming unbearable for the investigators and for me.”; “and I first met with the defense attorneys almost a year ago (on February 1st and 20th). The indictment package was presented to Miami on May 1st. The non-prosecution agreement was signed on September 24, 2007.” The email supplies no year for February 1st and 20th; the year given in the body text is derived by counting back “almost a year” from the email’s own date. The name of the person to whom the remark about a trial is attributed is blacked out. Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  12. Same declaration, EFTA01657747, p. 3, ¶ 7: “Operation Leap Year remains an open case.”; ¶ 8, “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.”; “EXECUTED on September 3, 2013”, over the signature “E. NESBITT KUYRKENDALL / Special Agent / Federal Bureau of Investigation / West Palm Beach, Florida”. Signature block read from the page image. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  13. Email, subject “Grand Jury Material Guidance”, header timestamped Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:29:49 +0000, EFTA01649099, p. 1: “Good evening, Heather,” and “My apologies for this late email.”; “We are tracking the following cases, and we just wanted to make sure we are prepared with 6(e) letters in the event IMD is not redacting GJ material for some cases.”; the list reads “50D-NY-3027571 – Pending appeal / 31E-MM-108062 – Pending Inactive / 72-MM-113327 – Closed case / 90A- NY-113327 - Closed case / 90C-NY-3154599 - Closed case / 9A-NY-3144791 – Closed case”. The header time is 00:29:49 UTC on March 18, which is 8:29 p.m. Eastern on March 17; the message’s own “Good evening” and apology for lateness confirm the Eastern reading. No local timestamp or sibling copy exists to corroborate independently. Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  14. Same report, EFTA02830776, p. 46 (narrative p. 20): “On July 23, 2006, Epstein self-surrendered to be arrested on the indictment, but was not detained, and the charges were made public.” Read from the page image. ↩

  15. “U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE / SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA / CRIMINAL MATTER/CASE INITIATION FORM”, EFTA00223932, pp. 2-3. At p. 3 the PARTICIPANTS field reads “OPERATION LEAP YEAR”; the SUMMARY OF FACTS reads “Internet Solicitation – Interstate travel to have sex with a minor.”; the PRIMARY CHARGE reads “18 USC 2422(b), 2423(b)”; the investigating agency is given as “FBI”; and the form reads “ASSIGNED TO: AUSA Marie Villafaña” above a blacked-out “SUPERVISORY AUSA SIGNATURE” and the handwritten date “5/31/06”. The conflict-of-interest certification at p. 2 carries a case-name field reading “OPERATION LEAP YEAR” after a small redaction box, and is not quoted across that box. Read from the page images. A police business card reproduced on p. 2 carries a handwritten telephone number, which is not reproduced. ↩

  16. Email chain, subject “Operation Leap Year Case File”, June 26–27, 2013, EFTA01657290, pp. 1–2. From p. 2, the message of Wed Jun 26 21:32:59 2013: “We need to produce the OLY case file for in camera review by Judge Marra on June 19th. I understand that the FBI case file is up at headquarters. Do you have a copy here? Or an index of the file’s contents? And can you also prepare a list of the physical evidence that is in storage in Miami?”; and the reply of Thu Jun 27 06:53:32 2013: “I do not see any issues with the JULY 19th date set by the court and meeting your requests with ample time for USAO to review.” From p. 1, the message of Thu Jun 27 07:58:12 2013: “The USAO has been order to produce an FBI case file and all evidence for a civil case on July 19, 2013”; “The actual file was sent to the RMD for a FOIA request”; and the exchange of Thu Jun 27 08:05, 08:06, 08:22 and 12:23: “What is Leap Year?” / “Epstein case.” / “Take whatever time you need.” The “June 19th” and “has been order” are the document’s own errors, in the image. Read from the page images. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  17. Email chain, subject “Operation Leap Year (OLY)”, July 15 and 17, 2013, EFTA01657289, p. 1: “The FBI has been ordered to produce the FBI OLY case file for in camera review by Judge Marra this Friday, July 19, 2013. This is regarding a civil suit against the United States by two or three of Mr. Epstein’s victims alleging their rights were violated when the government did not discuss ahead of time a Non-Prosecution Agreement agreed upon and signed by the USAO and Mr. Epstein.”; “…certain protocols and/or policies we need to follow to remove the ‘Brown and Whites’ and associated ‘Red Wallets’ from FBI space when providing them to the District Judge.” (In full, the sentence reads: SA [name blacked out] and I were wondering if there are certain protocols…) Every name in the chain is blacked out at image level; the signature block reads “FBI Miami/PBCRA / 505 S. Flagler Drive, Suite 500 / West Palm Beach, Florida 33401” above redacted telephone and fax lines, which are not reproduced. Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2

  18. Same declaration, EFTA01657747, pp. 1-2, ¶ 3: “Over the course of the investigation, the FBI obtained hundreds of documents through the use of grand jury subpoenas, public records, and law enforcement databases. FBI agents conducted interviews with females believed to have been sexually abused by Mr. Epstein and underage at the time of the assault, as well as other individuals who might have relevant information.”; and, on p. 2, “The interview reports of the young women interviewed contain highly personal and intimate details” and “For those interviewed who did not reveal any intimate details, many will be displeased if their cooperation with the FBI is made public.” The declaration’s paragraph 5, which concerns the effect on individuals interviewed, is not reproduced. ↩ ↩2

  19. “Serial Report for Case: 31E-MM-108062-FF”, EFTA01697389, p. 3, listing serials 1 to 9 from “(U//FOUO) TO REQUEST THE OPENING OF SUB-FILES IN CAPTIONED CASE.” to “(U//FOUO) REQUEST CLOSING OF FORFEITURE SUBFILE FF.” ↩

  20. Same log, EFTA00211385, p. 21, Box #3: “Composition book entitled ‘Operation Leap Year’ containing attorney handwritten notes regarding investigation and case strategy”; and the entries immediately below it, “Motion of Jeffrey Epstein to Intervene and to Quash Grand Jury Subpoenas and Incorporated Memorandum of Law”, “Affidavit of Roy Black, Esq. in Support of Motion of Jeffrey Epstein to Intervene and to Quash Grand Jury Subpoenas”, and “United States’ Response to Motion of Jeffrey Epstein to Intervene and to Quash Grand Jury Subpoenas and Cross-Motion to Compel”. Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2

  21. “GRAND JURY PRESENTATION / OPERATION LEAP YEAR”, EFTA01731290, p. 1 of 17: “I. INTRODUCTION A. New Indictment 1. Summarize Changes 2. Summarize Current Charges 3. Review Law/Instructions”; “B. Summarize How the Evidence Will Be Presented 1. Charts 2. Break Overt Acts into Three Categories: a. Flights – Manifests b. Calls – Telephone Records”; “III. KUYRKENDALL TESTIMONY”. The document is undated and is an outline of what was to be said, not a transcript. Read from the page image. ↩

  22. A second, differently-organised version of the same outline, “GRAND JURY PRESENTATION / OPERATION LEAP YEAR”, EFTA00192670, p. 1 of 77: “B. Summarize How the Evidence Will Be Presented 1. Chart 2. Break Overt Acts into Two Categories: a. Meetings/Sexual Activity – Grouped by victim – Testimony re Interviews with the Girls b. Flights – Manifests”. Only this page of this document is cited here; other pages of the same run carry complainant material and are not used. Read from the page image. ↩

  23. Same order, EFTA01657752, p. 7: “The Court concludes that Petitioners have not met their heavy burden of demonstrating a compelling and particularized need for the disclosure of grand jury materials pertaining to the investigation of Epstein.” Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2

  24. “Opinion and Order”, Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States of America, No. 08-CV-80736-KAM (S.D. Fla.), Document 330, entered on the FLSD docket July 6, 2015, EFTA01657752, pp. 2-3, reciting the Omnibus Order’s terms — a privilege log “clearly identifying each document[] by author(s), addressee(s), recipients(s), date, and general subject matter” and a direction to “submit all responsive documents withheld on claim of privilege to the court for in camera inspection” — and recording: “The Government produced 1,357 pages of documents to Petitioners, filed three privilege logs, and submitted nearly 15,000 pages to the Court for in camera inspection.” Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  25. Same filing, EFTA00211385, p. 1, “UNITED STATES’ NOTICE OF FILING PRIVILEGE LOG”: “The documents referenced in the Privilege Log are being delivered today to the Chambers of U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra for ex parte in camera review, pursuant to the Court’s Omnibus Order.” The log at pp. 3–25 runs to twenty-three of its own numbered pages. The service list at p. 2 carries counsel’s telephone and facsimile numbers and is not reproduced. ↩ ↩2

  26. “Respondent’s Opposition to Petitioners’ Motion to Compel Production of Documents That Are Not Privileged”, Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 v. United States of America, No. 08-80736-CIV-MARRA (S.D. Fla.), Document 229, entered on the FLSD docket September 3, 2013, EFTA01142189, p. 1. Read from the page image. ↩

  27. Same declaration, EFTA01657747, p. 2, ¶ 4: “Information contained within FBI investigative files can also reveal sensitive FBI investigative and operational methods, procedures and techniques.” ↩

  28. Same opposition, EFTA01142189, p. 9: “The government has asserted the law enforcement investigative privilege in response to petitioners’ request for documents from the FBI case file in the Epstein investigation, and investigative materials from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Epstein matter.”; “The investigation into Jeffrey Epstein was called Operation Leap Year. Exhibit A, Declaration of FBI Special Agent E. Nesbitt Kuyrkendall, ¶ 2. Contrary to petitioners’ assertion (D.E. 225-1 at 22, ¶ 112), Operation Leap Year remains an open case.” Read from the page image. ↩ ↩2

  29. Same order, EFTA01657752, p. 4: “the Court finds that the logs—describing nearly 15,000 pages of documents— are adequate to facilitate a meaningful in camera inspection and assessment of the asserted privileges”; “the Court finds it unnecessary to consider whether the deliberative process and investigative privilege apply in this case as other, stronger, privileges are at play, or, as discussed further below, many of the documents over which the deliberative process and investigative privileges are asserted are irrelevant to this proceeding.” Read from the page image. ↩

  30. Same order, EFTA01657752, p. 25: “it is hereby ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Government shall produce documents consistent with the following Table. It is further ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that Intervenor Epstein’s Motion for the Court to Protect From Disclosure Grand Jury Materials (DE 263) is GRANTED, and Petitioners’ Motion to Seal (DE 267) is DENIED”; signed “KENNETH A. MARRA / United State District Judge” and dated “this 6th day July, 2015”. The table runs from p. 26 to p. 51. Signature block read from the page image. ↩

  31. Memorandum, “Re: Jeffrey Epstein Investigation”, First Assistant U.S. Attorney’s office, July 26, 2011, EFTA00205964, p. 3: “One of the other attorneys on the case has suggested that emails he considers to be embarrassing to the Office will not be disclosed if we re-open our investigation of Epstein and prosecute him.”; “If the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida re-initiates a grand jury investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, it will be perceived — correctly or incorrectly — as having been done at the insistence of the victims in the CVRA Action.”; “V. The FBI’s Current Investigation” (heading only). Only p. 3 of this document is cited; pp. 1-2 and 4 carry sustained complainant narrative and are not used. Read from the page image. ↩

  32. Email, subject “DOJ OPR matter (request)”, Thu, 28 Feb 2019 23:02:09 +0000, EFTA01660427, p. 1: “DOJ OPR is conducting an investigation into certain allegations of professional misconduct relating to the USAO-SDFL handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, originating in 2006 as Leap Year, that was ultimately addressed through the Florida state plea and federal non-prosecution agreement. My colleagues and I have obtained and reviewed records from the USAO-SDFL, and now need to review, and probably obtain some copies of, FBI case materials. I understand that while the evidence is still held in Miami, much of the case file is at the FBIHQ Records Management Unit in order for response to various FOIPA requests.” Every name is blacked out at image level. Read from the page image. ↩

  33. The same email with the reply of Friday, March 1, 2019 attached, EFTA01660413, p. 1, whose reply reads “The point of contact with Records Management Division is” followed by a blacked-out name. This is the same underlying message as the preceding note, in a second run; it is cited only for the reply. ↩

  34. Same deck, EFTA01656152, slide 4: “10/28/2009 - FBI Miami Palm Beach RA opened an obstruction of justice case with subject Alfredo Rodriquez, a former employee of Epstein. Rodriquez failed to comply with a federal subpoena and attempted to sell the requested documents to the attorney for $50,000.”; “12/8/2009 - Rodriquez was arrested for obstruction”. The surname is spelled as printed. Read from the page image. ↩

  35. Email from “J [email protected]” to Michael Wolff, Fri, 01 Feb 2019 10:18:49 +0000, EFTA01028632, p. 1, reading in full “have fun” above a forwarded message Epstein had sent to his own address at 5:18 a.m. the same morning, which includes the sentence rendered in the image as: FBI / puts a task force together title “ operation leap year ” to investigate my personal massage activity ?! nuts. The page quotes only the fragments “puts a task force together” and “to investigate my personal massage activity ?! nuts.” so as not to close a quotation over the document’s own inner quotation marks. Spelling, spacing and punctuation are the document’s own. Read from the page image. The remainder of the forwarded message concerns complainants and named third parties and is not reproduced or relied on here. ↩

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