Labor Secretary Alex Acosta Resigns Amid Epstein Controversy

President Trump’s Labor Secretary Alex Acosta has resigned Friday as pressure mounted surrounding his handling of a plea deal given to convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein while he was the U.S. Attorney in Miami.

According to CNBC:

Labor Secretary Alex Acosta stepped down on Friday amid controversy over the way he handled a sex crimes case against wealthy businessman and hedge fund manager Jeffrey Espstein a decade ago when he was U.S. attorney for southern Florida.

The issue resurfaced on July 6, when the politically-connected Epstein, whose friends have included Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, was arrested on sex trafficking charges by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force. Epstein had long been under investigation by both federal and local law enforcement for sex crimes against underage girls that took place from 2002 to 2005 in New York and Florida.

Acosta, as U.S. attorney for southern Florida, struck a controversial secret plea deal with Epstein allowing him to avoid prosecution on similar charges more than a decade earlier. Epstein in 2005 was accused of luring dozens of underage girls to his Palm Beach mansion and paying them for sex, as well as sex-trafficking of minors.

Acosta’s team struck the plea deal with Epstein in 2008, according the the Miami Herald, concealing the number and extent of his crimes from his victims. The deal allowed the pedophile to avoid federal prosecution and shuttered an ongoing FBI investigation that might have revealed other victims and accomplices. Epstein served just 13 months in county jail, avoiding a potential life sentence. He was also required to register as a sex offender. As part of the arrangement, Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims.

On Tuesday Acosta held a press conference to justify his actions in the handling of the case but those attempts appear to have not been fruitful.

A judge ruled in February of this year that the prosecutors broke federal law by not disclosing the plea agreement to around 30 of the victims.


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