Perversion of Justice, a book title that could not be more apt

PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: The Jeffrey Epstein Story by Julie K. Brown has the same kind of horror-show effect as Empire of Pain — a chilling reminder of how evil people can be and how easy it is for evil people with money to get away from it. There’s a scene early in the book where Brown references one of the victims, identified by police as “Jane Doe #103.” That number drives home what a vile thing Epstein was.

Like Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill, this is partly the story of Brown’s own investigation. As a reporter for the long-struggling Miami Herald — she quips at one point that when she was working on the story, she was getting paid almost as much as when she started at the paper — she’d taken a break from her regular beat (prisons) to write about sex trafficking in South Florida. The name Epstein came up a lot, and then Alex Acosta, the federal prosecutor who helped Epstein get his sweetheart deal, was nominated as a cabinet secretary. Suddenly Epstein’s bust and plea bargain were a hot topic.

Brown traces Epstein’s life from private-school teacher, where he made the connections that launched him into an investment-adviser career. Even back then, he committed some crimes (selling fake bonds, for instance) and skated where his associates did time. Eventually he wound up very, very rich. And connected politically. And free to let his inner monster out.

The way the forces of law and order bent to accommodate him is every bit as awful. There were decent cops working to nail him and some decent prosecutors but the odds were against them. People in the state prosecutor’s office did their best to sabotage the Epstein case; frontline prosecutors folded eventually; the Department of Justice likewise did its best to sink the case (though the DOJ later concluded Alex Acosta, point man on the case, did nothing wrong). The Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office made the sweetheart plea bargain deal even sweeter; there’s one point where Brown describes deputies waiting outside Epstein’s office while he Skypes an associate and masturbates. In the Virgin Islands, Epstein also operated with impunity. And he doesn’t even have Elon Musk class wealth, leaving an estate of $630 million.

After Epstein’s death I thought the odds were reasonable it was suicide: what did he have to live for? It wasn’t like he could skate the way he did in Florida … was it? Turns out his lawyers had an angle, that the plea bargain’s immunity provisions blocked New York state from charging him. And while pedophiles are not popular in prison, Epstein was pouring money into the commissary accounts of other cons, buying loyalty. It was possible he’d have beaten the rap again … so yeah, murder.

The book isn’t perfect. Brown writing about her investigation is one thing; she gets way into her personal life as a single mom with two kids and as I often say, the writer’s personal life ain’t what I’m reading for. But that’s a minor flaw in a book that’s otherwise a chilling look at how the rich can cheat justice and law.

As Laurie Penny puts it, talking about Elon Musk: “No longer will any of us who wish to be leaders of men be obliged to grow up and learn things. No longer will we be subjected to woke ideas like manners or bedtime or please try for a just a moment to understand that other people matter. If you’re rich enough, you probably don’t even have to potty-train anymore. That’s what power means now. It means you can regress as loudly and violently as you like, and the rest of us have to put up with it.” (Which puts me in mind of my post about Jekyll, Hyde and the Purge franchise).

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