An Internal Affairs investigation ordered by Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw will look into his deputies’ supervision of multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who is accused of inappropriate sexual contact during his 13-month jail sentence.
Sheriff Bradshaw “wants to determine if any actions taken by the deputies assigned to monitor Epstein during his work release program violated any agency rules and regulations, during the time he was on PBSO work release program,” according to a news release.
Epstein negotiated a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in 2007, which reduced federal sex-trafficking charges in exchange for a guilty plea to lesser state crimes.
That agreement meant that during his 13-month sentence in 2008 and 2009, he was allowed to leave jail to work in an office 12 hours a day, six days a week.
During that time, victims’ attorney Bradley Edwards alleged, Epstein was engaging in inappropriate sexual acts.
Epstein pleaded not guilty earlier this month to charges of conspiracy of sex trafficking. From 2002 to 2005, Prosecutors say he paid hundreds of dollars to girls as young as 14 to have sex with him, some of whom he paid to recruit other victims.
On Thursday, a federal judge rejected Epstein’s request to remain in his Upper East Side mansion under supervision instead of remaining in jail pending trial.
“Mr. Epstein’s alleged excessive attraction to sexual conduct with or in the presence of minor girls – which is said to include his soliciting and receiving massages from young girls and young women perhaps as many as four times a day,” the judge wrote in a 33-page decision filed with the court, “appears likely to be uncontrollable.”
CNN’s Tina Burnside, Erica Orden, Kara Scannell and Brynn Gingras contributed to this report.
