Epstein grand jury documents released; prosecutors blame teenage victim

Prosecutors tasked with bringing Jeffrey Epstein to justice instead scrutinized his teenage victim’s MySpace profile and called her a prostitute during a jury trial.

WEST PALM BEACH — After prosecutors and the jurors charged with holding him accountable learned that Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused a 14-year-old girl at his Palm Beach mansion, they did everything but do it.

Transcripts of the long-guarded grand jury trial released Monday show extraordinary exchanges between prosecutors and the victim they called to testify: Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Ann Duggan interrupted the girl to ask what kind of bra and underwear she was wearing at the financier’s residence and whether she “had a drug problem.”

Duggan grilled the girl on her MySpace profile, selectively saying lines that portrayed her as a rebellious and unpredictable teenager. She said she had four piercings, the prosecutor read aloud. She listed beer as her alcohol of choice. She said she smoked pot and shoplifted.

More: Jeffrey Epstein 2006 grand jury documents are public. Read for yourself what happened

Duggan’s questions set the stage for the rapid-fire questions jurors asked soon after. The girl, treated more like a criminal than a criminal’s victim, also drew little sympathy from jurors.

“Do you have any idea, deep down, that you — what you’re doing is wrong?” asked the juror, whose name and the girl’s were redacted from the documents.

“Have you set yourself a goal to never do this again?” one of them asked. “And you are fully aware of what you are doing to your reputation?”

Assistant State’s Attorney Lanna Belohlavek, Duggan’s co-counsel, interjected: “Do you realize you’ve committed a crime?”

The teen answered “yes” to each question. The questions—asked more like accusations—continued, mostly in the context of the girl’s decision-making. Did it ever occur to her that Epstein might have “cut you up”? one asked.

“Now that I think about it, a lot of things could have happened,” the girl said. “I thought about it a lot.”

The juror interrupted her. “I should think about this for a while.”

Kept a secret for nearly two decades, why a Palm Beach County judge has now released grand jury transcripts

Epstein’s criminal prosecution has been controversial for nearly two decades. The Palm Beach Post filed a lawsuit in 2019 seeking disclosure of testimony given to a grand jury during the first investigation into Epstein in 2006, which ended with just one charge against him.

U.S. District Judge Donald Hafele dismissed the lawsuit in 2021, ruling that he had no statutory authority to disclose grand jury materials in the Epstein case. The Post appealed his decision and won.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Luis Delgado, who took over from Hafele, in 2023 and ordered the judge to review the grand jury materials in the Epstein case and determine whether public disclosure would constitute “advancing justice.”

Meanwhile, Florida Sen. Tina Polsky and Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, a Democrat and Republican from Boca Raton, have advocated for an amendment to the law that would broaden the definition of “advancing justice.” Lawmakers unanimously passed HB 117, which took effect Monday.

“The public deserves to know who was involved in Jeffery Epstein’s human trafficking,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “No one should be shielded from justice because of their wealth or status, and those who harm children should be exposed and punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

Hannah Phillips is a public safety and justice reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at [email protected].