Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story

By Julie K. Brown

Dauntless journalist Julie K. Brown recounts her uncompromising and risky investigation of Jeffrey Epstein's underage sex trafficking operation, and the explosive reporting for the Miami Herald that finally brought him to justice while exposing the powerful people and broken system that protected him.

For many years, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's penchant for teenage girls was an open secret in the high society of Palm Beach, Florida and Upper East Side, Manhattan. Charged in 2008 with soliciting prostitution from minors, Epstein was treated with unheard of leniency, dictating the terms of his non-prosecution. The media virtually ignored the failures of the criminal justice system, and Epstein's friends and business partners brushed the allegations aside. But when in 2017 the U.S Attorney who approved Epstein's plea deal, Alexander Acosta, was chosen by President Trump as Labor Secretary, reporter Julie K. Brown was compelled to ask questions.

Despite her editor's scepticism that she could add a new dimension to a known story, Brown determined that her goal would be to track down the victims themselves. Pouring over thousands of redacted court documents, travelling across the country and chasing down information in difficulty and sometimes dangerous circumstances, Brown tracked down dozens of Epstein's victims, now young women struggling to reclaim their lives after the trauma and shame they had endured.

Brown's resulting three-part series in the Miami Herald was one of the most explosive news stories of the decade, revealing how Epstein ran a global sex trafficking pyramid scheme with impunity for years, targeting vulnerable teens, often from fractured homes and then turning them into recruiters. The outrage led to Epstein's arrest, the disappearance and eventual arrest of his closest accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and the resignation of Acosta.

Tracking Epstein’s evolution from a college dropout to one of the most successful financiers in the country—whose associates included Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and Bill Clinton—Perversion of Justice builds on Brown's original award-winning series, showing the power of truth, the value of local reportage and the tenacity of one woman in the face of the deep-seated corruption of powerful men.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Jul 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9780008388775

Julie K. Brown

Julie K. Brown is an investigative reporter with the Miami Herald. During her 30-year career, she has worked for a number of newspapers, focusing on crime, justice and human rights issues. As a member of the Herald’s prestigious Investigative Team, she has won dozens of awards, including a George Polk Award in 2018 for “Perversion of Justice,” a series that examined how a rich and powerful sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, managed to arrange a secret plea deal and escape life in prison -- even though he was suspected of sexually abusing more than 100 underage girls and young women. The series, and her subsequent dogged coverage of the case in 2019, led to the resignation of President Trump’s labor secretary, Alex Acosta, Epstein’s arrest on new federal charges in New York and reforms in the way that prosecutors treat victims of sex crimes. Brown previously won acclaim for a series of stories about abuses and corruption in Florida prisons. The stories led to the resignations of top agency officials, firings of corrupt corrections officers and an overhaul in the treatment of inmates with mental and physical disabilities, as well as women in Florida prisons. That series also won a Polk Award. A native of Philadelphia, she is a graduate of Temple University.

Reviews for Perversion of Justice

[carolfoisset · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have found the facts of the Jeffery Epstein story unbelievable and shocking since reading "Filthy Rich" many years ago. When he found himself back in the news (thanks to Brown's reporting), I was very interested in following the story. I am so impressed with Brown and her dedication to giving a voice to these girls, who were abused both by Epstein and by so many systems in our country that should have helped them. It is a vile, disgusting story but it needs to be told - just like Nassar (and so many others) - in hopes we can shed light on, and change some of the systems that allow these men to get away with these acts for years and years. Excellent audio read by the author - highly recommend.

[mldavis2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This investigation must have taken the author an incredible amount of time to research. It is a fairly easy read as additional subjects appear to have been connected with this criminal enterprise, and some well-known persons were rather obviously involved based on the facts reported. To her credit, Brown states situations in which her evidence is not definitive, but highly suspect.

What the reader leaves with is a withering sense of the corruption in our criminal justice system as a result of money and politics. We can only hope that more honest judges and prosecutors will replace those who contributed to the perversion of justice evidenced in this book.