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Associated Press
6 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
A timeline of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, now 20 years old
Interest in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation has exploded over the past month even as President Donald Trump urged the public and media to move on from a saga he sees as ' pretty boring.' Conspiracy theories and outrage have swirled around Epstein since 2006, when the financier first faced criminal charges related to sexual exploitation of underage girls. He killed himself after more charges were brought in 2019. Fascination with the case reached new heights after Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested she had an Epstein 'client list' on her desk but then didn't release documents with any new information. Here is a timeline of the criminal cases against Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping him abuse teenage girls. ___ March 2005: Police in Palm Beach, Florida, begin investigating Epstein after the family of a 14-year-old girl reports she was molested at his mansion. Multiple underage girls, many of them high school students, would later tell police Epstein hired them to give sexual massages. May 2006: Palm Beach police officials sign paperwork to charge Epstein with multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor, but the county's top prosecutor, State Attorney Barry Krischer, takes the unusual step of sending the case to a grand jury. July 2006: Epstein is arrested after a grand jury indicts him on a single count of soliciting prostitution. The relatively minor charge draws almost immediate attention from critics, including Palm Beach police leaders, who assail Krischer publicly and accuse him of giving Epstein special treatment. The FBI begins an investigation. 2007: Federal prosecutors prepare an indictment against Epstein. But for a year, the money manager's lawyers engage in talks with the U.S. attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, about a plea bargain that would allow Epstein to avoid a federal prosecution. Epstein's lawyers decry his accusers as unreliable witnesses. June 2008: Epstein pleads guilty to state charges: one count of solicitating prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. He is sentenced to 18 months in jail. Under a secret arrangement, the U.S. attorney's office agrees not to prosecute Epstein for federal crimes. Epstein serves most of his sentence in a work-release program that allows him to leave jail during the day to go to his office, then return at night. July 2009: Epstein is released from jail. For the next decade, multiple women who say they are Epstein's victims wage a legal fight to get his federal non-prosecution agreement voided, and hold him and others liable for the abuse. One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, says in her lawsuits that, starting when she was 17, Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, set up sexual encounters with royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and other rich and powerful men, including Britain's Prince Andrew. All of those men deny the allegations. November 2018: The Miami Herald revisits the handling of Epstein's case in a series of stories focusing partly on the role of Acosta — who by this point is President Donald Trump's labor secretary — in arranging his unusual plea deal. The coverage renews public interest in the case. July 6, 2019: Epstein is arrested on federal sex trafficking charges after federal prosecutors in New York conclude they aren't bound by the terms of the earlier non-prosecution deal. Days later, Acosta resigns as labor secretary amid public outrage over his role in the initial investigation. Aug. 10, 2019: Guards find Epstein dead in his cell at a federal jail in New York City. Investigators conclude he killed himself. July 2, 2020: Federal prosecutors in New York charge Ghislaine Maxwell with sex crimes, saying she helped recruit the underage girls that Epstein sexually abused and sometimes participated in the abuse herself. Dec. 30, 2021: After a monthlong trial, a jury convicts Maxwell of multiple charges, including sex trafficking, conspiracy and transportation of a minor for illegal sexual activity. June 28, 2022: Maxwell is sentenced to 20 years in prison. January 2024: Public interest in the Epstein case surges after a judge unseals thousands of pages of court records in a civil lawsuit involving one of his victims. Almost all of the information was already public and the dayslong document dump proves disappointing to people who hoped it would spill new secrets about wrongdoing by the rich and powerful. But it fuels demands for even more records to be made public. 2024: Trump, who was in office when Epstein was arrested, suggests during the presidential campaign that he'd seek to open the government's Epstein files. February 2025: Attorney General Pam Bondi suggests in a Fox News Channel interview that an Epstein 'client list' is sitting on her desk. The Justice Department distributes binders marked 'declassified' to far-right influencers at the White House, but it quickly becomes clear much of the information had long been in the public domain. July 7, 2025: The Justice Department says Epstein didn't maintain a 'client list' and it won't make any more files related to his sex trafficking investigation public. July 17, 2025: The Wall Street Journal describes a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump's name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein's 50th birthday. Trump denies writing the letter, calling it 'false, malicious, and defamatory.' The next day Trump sues the paper and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. July 18, 2025: The Trump administration asks a federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Epstein's case in an effort to put a political crisis to rest. July 23, 2025: A judge rejects a Trump administration request to unseal transcripts from the Epstein grand jury investigation in Florida but similar requests for grand jury transcripts in the cases against Epstein and Maxwell in New York remain pending. Meanwhile, a House Oversight subcommittee voted to subpoena the Justice Department for files. The full committee issued a subpoena for Maxwell to testify before committee officials in August.
News.com.au
22-07-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Massive penthouse sale as beachfront tower unveiled
An interstate buyer has splashed $9.1m on a luxury penthouse set to be unveiled within days as the scaffolding comes down on Palm Beach's newest tower. The bumper off-the-plan sale is the biggest deal inked for Graya's beachfront Kloud project, the company's first multiresidential offering on the Gold Coast. Tennis ace Ash Barty is among other buyers in the 23-unit development, with the Wimbledon champion dropping close to $4m on a half-floor apartment. Winner refused to live in 'too perfect' $4m prize home Graya director Rob Gray said just three units were still available within the 41.25m-high tower. 'These have just come to market as the scaffolding starts to come down to reveal the exterior design. 'Construction hit top-out just before the penthouse was launched to the market, leaving just the interior work to be completed,' Mr Gray said. The penthouse was marketed by White Fox agent Nic Whitehead and sold within 15 days, with three offers received. 'Most of our buyers have been Queensland locals, but the penthouse sold to an interstate buyer looking to holiday in beautiful Palm Beach,' Mr Gray said. The 507 sqm penthouse spans two full floors, comprising a luxury living level and rooftop entertaining terrace with spectacular ocean views and resort-style amenities 'We wanted to capture the exclusivity of living sky high without sacrificing the experience of being barefoot on the sand,' said fellow Graya director, Andrew Gray. 'The penthouse achieves this through seamless transition from inside to outside spaces and the feeling of freedom and sophisticated comfort.' The apartment has four bedrooms, a media room, and statement kitchen with an island dining bar with stunning fluted stone accents. The private rooftop hosts a decadent indoor steam room, and a barbecue kitchen overlooking the alfresco terrace with dining area, lounging space, fire pit, spa and a pool with wading ledge. Rob Gray said the residence set a new benchmark for high-end living on the beachfront, where boutique developers were scrambling to meet demand from cashed-up local and interstate apartment buyers. Kloud was expected to be completed in November.
Fast Company
21-07-2025
- Fast Company
He went undercover to catch art thieves. Now he's using tech to stop forgeries
In many ways, the case that sent Daniel Elie Bouaziz to prison in 2023 for money laundering felt like just another chapter in Ronnie Walker's storied career. Over the course of his nearly 30 years working as an undercover agent with the FBI, Walker had taken part in countless stings like this: posing as a buyer or dealer, meeting suspects in art-scented lounges or dusty storage units, working to earn their trust. He caught Warhol counterfeiters slapping fake signatures over bogus canvases. He helped recover stolen Rembrandt paintings from a Seattle-area art thief. He spent months earning the trust of Earl Marshawn Washington, the now-infamous printmaker and forger who created and sold thousands of knockoffs. The Bouaziz case stood out only for how little effort it seemed to require. His Palm Beach gallery peddled fakes—Georgia O'Keeffe, Keith Haring, and Banksy among them— marketing inexpensive reproductions as originals, aided by bogus provenance documents and falsified signatures. His con worked well, for a while at least: Pieces could fetch prices into the tens or even hundreds of thousands. Walker knew how that line worked. As a founding member of the FBI's Art Crime Team, he'd gone undercover in dozens of operations. Formed in 2004 in response to the looting of Iraqi museums and growing international art trafficking, the Art Crime Team was designed as a specialized unit of agents trained in cultural property law, art history, and international smuggling.
