Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has ordered a criminal probe into the Palm Beach Sheriff and State Attorney’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s 2008 sex trafficking case.
“Floridians expect and deserve a full and fair investigation,” DeSantis said in an official statement announcing the decision.
Executive order 19-183, signed Tuesday by DeSantis, says the Florida Department of Law will now take over the investigation and “may initiate a preliminary inquiry beyond the work release of Jeffrey Epstein and into other irregularities surrounding the prior state investigation and the ultimate plea agreement.”
Epstein was accused in a 2007 federal indictment of grooming a harem of underage girls he paid and coerced into sex, yet he was ultimately allowed to plead guilty to a meager state charge of soliciting prostitution with one minor under the age of 18.
With that plea, which included a non-prosecution agreement struck by former US Labor Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, Epstein was sentenced to just 18 months in jail.
The wrist-slap plea included other perks, including allowing Epstein to leave the jail on a near-daily basis for work release.
He ultimately served just 13 months and returned to society as a designated sex offender — until he was slapped with a massive new underage sex trafficking case in July in Manhattan federal court.
Epstein remains in custody on those charges and has pleaded not guilty.