Federal prosecutors had originally plotted a much broader inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein and the people who helped him. Documents that were only recently made public – under a new law that forces the Justice Department to disclose all Epstein‑related files – show that the Southern District of New York was already considering a variety of approaches before the financier was killed.
The key source is a single‑page summary that came from an assistant U.S. Attorney (their name was removed). It lists a set of memos that charted possible investigative routes. One of the items, a “corporate prosecution memo” dated December 2019, was apparently never even discussed. The memo outlined plans for a corporate case that would have gone forward after Epstein’s death.
Another bullet point in the same chain referred to “co‑conspirators we could potentially charge.” That list, which the documents identify as containing roughly ten individuals, names the likes of Ghislaine Maxwell, billionaire Victoria Secret owner Les Wexner, and French modeling agent Jean‑Luc Brunel. Only Maxwell eventually faced court; she was convicted for her role in an international sex‑trafficking scheme organized by Epstein.
Within the same release is a 26‑page “prosecution memo” that talks about a different subject. The document was supposedly discussed just three weeks before it was filed, and it was distributed only five days after Epstein died. A longer, 86‑page memo from December 2019 also identified members of the same alleged conspiracy.
The investigation did not happen in isolation. The New York Police Department and the FBI’s Child Exploitation Human‑Trafficking Task Force were involved, and their records show that they even collected photographs of suspected co‑conspirators. A staff member sent a note on August 19, 2019, with the subject line “Epstein Co‑conspirator pics” – ten days after Epstein was taken to the Brooklyn jail – but those images and related emails have not surfaced elsewhere in the public file.
The full story is expected to become clearer when the Justice Department releases the anticipated one‑million‑document batch that was announced on December 24. The files should shed more light on how far the SDNY’s inquiry reached.
Former FBI criminal‑investigations chief Chris Swecker, who had previously worked at the SDNY, has voiced his confusion about why the investigation did not go further. He told the New York Post:
> “I was an FBI agent in Miami for eight years, and [former U.S. Attorney] Alex Acosta was down there then. That investigation was clearly stifled.”
> “Honestly, I think they’re still stifling and holding some information back. I don’t know if it’s the bigger, grander conspiracy that a lot of people think that it is. But I think they’re being very, very, very cautious about curating what comes out.”
Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky also criticized the pace and scope of the release, noting that the volume of documents had ballooned to 1.7 million after the December deadline.
The new material offers a clearer glimpse into the original strategy of the federal inquiry, revealing that law‑enforcement agencies had already mapped out a multi‑angle approach that remained largely undisclosed until now.
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