Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein pleads not guilty to sex trafficking charges

Jeffrey Epstein, who counts Donald Trump as a friend, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and sexually assaulting teenage girls.

Facing court in New York on Monday afternoon, billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and conspiracy charges including accusations of abusing dozens of underage girls as young as 14. The fresh charges come eleven years after US federal prosecutors let Epstein off lightly with a once-secret deal, where he served just 13 months after pleading guilty for soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution.

Mr Epstein is an acquaintance of US President Donald Trump and as news of Mr Epstein’s arrest broke, an embarrassing comment that Mr Trump made in 2002 resurfaced. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Mr Trump said, according to an article in New York magazine.

Mr Epstein was arrested over the weekend and on Monday was ordered to be kept in jail until a Thursday bail hearing. Prosecutors are likely to argue he is a flight risk and should remain in jail to await his trial. At a press conference on Monday, prosecutors alleged that the federal police found “perhaps thousands” of photos of nude and near-nude females, including at least one underage girl, when agents broke into Epstein’s seven-storey, $110 million townhouse in Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Saturday.

Jeffrey Epstein pictured in New York in 2005. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Epstein, a 66-year-old hedge fund manager who once hobnobbed with some of the world’s most powerful people, was charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy in an indictment unsealed on Monday.

The charges carry up to life in prison. He was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Florida and New York. Mr Epstein “intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18,” prosecutors said. He also paid some of his victims to “recruit additional girls to be similarly abused by Epstein.”

“In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit in locations including New York and Palm Beach,” prosecutors said.

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Donald and Melania Trump pictured with Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, 2000. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Epstein’s lawyer did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment.

Mr Epstein, whose friends have included US President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew, was arrested over the weekend at an airport in New Jersey, just outside New York, after his private jet touched down from France. He was being held in Manhattan. Former federal prosecutor David Weinstein said there was almost no chance Mr Epstein would be allowed out on bail.

“The guy is a millionaire or a billionaire. He has unrestrained assets,” he said. “If they let him out on a bond, he may take off, go to a jurisdiction where they don’t have extradition, and they may never get him back.”

In this 2008 photo, Jeffrey Epstein is shown in custody for sex offences in West Palm Beach, Florida. Picture: AP

Mr Epstein’s arrest came amid increased #MeToo-era scrutiny of the 2008 non-prosecution deal that allowed Mr Epstein to plead guilty to lesser state charges while maintaining a jet-set lifestyle that includes homes in Paris and the US Virgin Islands and a luxury Bentley.

Under the deal - overseen by Alexander Acosta, who was the Assistant Attorney-General in Miami at the time and is now Mr Trump’s label secretary - Mr Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution. He avoided a possible life sentence and served 13 months in jail. The deal also required that he reach financial settlements with dozens of his victims and register as a sex offender.

Mr Acosta has defended the agreement as appropriate, though the White House said in February that it was looking into his handling of the case.

Virginia Roberts holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she alleges Palm Beach multi-millionaire Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually. Picture: Getty Images.

The deal, examined in detail in a series of stories in The Miami Herald, is being challenged in federal court in Florida. A federal judge ruled earlier this year that Mr Epstein’s victims should have been consulted under the law about the agreement, and he is now weighing whether to invalidate it.

Federal prosecutors recently filed court papers in the Florida case contending that Mr Epstein’s deal, known as an NPA, must stand.

“The past cannot be undone; the government committed itself to the NPA, and the parties have not disputed that Epstein complied with its provisions,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.

The home of Jeffrey Epstein has a large waterfront footprint in the Town of Palm Beach, not far from President Trump's Mar-a-Lago. Picture: Getty Images

It was not immediately clear whether that case and the new charges involved the same victims, since nearly all have remained anonymous.

Mr Epstein’s guilty plea involved only state crimes, while the current case involves federal law. As a result, his constitutional protection against double jeopardy does not apply.

According to court records in Florida, authorities say at least 40 underage girls were brought into Mr Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion for what turned into sexual encounters after female fixers looked for suitable girls locally and in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world.