Criminal Justice
Jeffrey Epstein had dinners with top criminal prosecutor following favorable deal, documents show
Multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein in March 2017. (Photo from the New York State Sex Offender Registry via the Associated Press)
The former criminal division chief in the U.S. attorney’s office who offered a favorable plea deal to multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein had appointments, phone calls and dinners with the money manager beginning four years after he left his post, according to documents reviewed by the Miami Herald.
The lawyer, Matthew Menchel of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida, had offered the deal in 2007 to a lawyer for Epstein whom he had formerly dated, the Miami Herald reports, citing information in a 2020 report by the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
The meetings and dinners happpened in 2011, 2013 and 2017, according to the materials released by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Friday. The Miami Herald report on its findings was also published in the Tampa Bay Times.
Former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, who led the office that offered the plea deal, told the House Oversight Committee on Sept. 19 that he and other federal prosecutors didn’t want to take the Epstein case to trial because some underage victims didn’t want to testify and an acquittal was possible. He did not recall reading a recommendation by the lead line prosecutor, Ann Marie Villafaña, that Epstein should be charged with sex trafficking in a 60-count indictment.
Lawmakers asked Acosta about a photograph said to show Epstein skiing with Menchel, possibly in the early 2000s, but they did not produce it when Acosta asked for more information.
The plea deal agreed to drop federal charges against Epstein if he pleaded guilty to state charges. Epstein then served 13 months in jail after pleading guilty in 2008 to two state charges of prostitution in connection with allegations that he sexually abused minor girls at his Florida mansion. Epstein was allowed to go to his West Palm Beach, Florida, offices each day while in jail.
Menchel left his job as prosecutor in August 2007 to joint the international law firm Kobre & Kim. The plea deal was finalized in 2008.
Menchel previously denied having business relationships with Epstein “at any point, not before, during or after my tenure at the U.S. attorney’s office.” He referred to that previous denial when contacted by the Miami Herald. After the publication published its story Friday, Menchel denied ever skiing with Epstein but did not deny that he met with Epstein after leaving his prosecution job, according to the article.
After the Miami Herald published a story about the plea deal in 2018, Epstein was indicted on sex-trafficking charges in 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He died by hanging while in jail in 2019.
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