(Bloomberg) -- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered an investigation into the controversial handling of Jeffrey Epstein's 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from minors and the unusually lenient terms of his imprisonment in Palm Beach County.
The Palm Beach County sheriff was already looking into how its office handled the case, as well as the decision to allow Epstein to spend 6 days a week at work during the 13 months he spent in prison, but asked DeSantis to reassign the case to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to maintain “the public's trust,” the sheriff wrote to DeSantis in a letter Tuesday.
DeSantis said in announcing the inquiry that the investigators would look into both the work release and “other irregularities concerning the case's disposition.”
Epstein's lenient deal has already cost Alex Acosta his job as U.S. Labor Secretary. Acosta, who as the top federal prosecutor in Miami at the time signed off on Epstein's plea deal, resigned shortly after Epstein was arrested last month, accused of trafficking minors for sex.
Read more here:
- Sheriff Ric Bradshaw's letter
- DeSantis's executive order
Labor Chief Acosta Quits After Furor Over Epstein Sex Inquiry
- Epstein's Money Once Silenced Women. This Time Is Different
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Levin in Miami at jlevin20@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Heather Smith, Peter Blumberg
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