The Pressure on Epstein’s Prosecutors to Charge Others Just Got Higher

The women who stood up in court on Tuesday, one after another, to tell their stories of sexual assault by Jeffrey Epstein faced the judge, but their real audience may have been the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, seated behind them in the front row.

If U.S. District Judge Richard Berman meant to increase the already intense pressure on him to bring charges against those suspected of conspiring with Epstein to traffic in children for sex, he could scarcely have done better than to invite the women to testify.

“The government is in the hot seat, and this just turned up the temperature,” said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and a professor at Loyola Law School. “That’s exactly why these women were in court. They didn’t think justice had been done in the first place.”

Now, Levenson said, “everyone is trying to figure out how do we get justice from a dead man and everyone who was associated with him.” read more »

Video from 2005 raid on Jeffrey Epstein’s estate shows images of underage girls

Newly surfaced video from a 2005 police raid on Jeffrey Epstein’s sprawling Palm Beach estate offers a disturbing glimpse into the late pedophile’s tastes — including photographs of scantily clad underage girls, according to reports.

Detectives investigating Epstein’s alleged sexual relationships with young girls enter the mansion with guns drawn and read a search warrant to the house manager.

“The court, being satisfied of the existence of said ground [for search] set forth in the affidavit and that the laws of the State of Florida have been violated in or on a premises known and described as follows, to wit 358 El Brillo Road,” one detective reads, according to footage obtained by CBS 12.

The officers then sweep through the $16.4 million waterfront compound, where they come across a photo of a girl who appears to be about 6 years old bending over in a short dress with her behind exposed, according to the Daily Mail. Authorities blurred the image.

Another photograph features a girl who appears to be about 15 posing in a tiny bikini — hanging right above a naked girl lying on a beach, the video shows. read more »

Former Pa. scoutmaster, citizen of the year focus of inquiry into decades of sex abuse

For decades, Charles Quinton “C.Q.” Smith was seen as a pillar of the community in Chambersburg, Pa. Scoutmaster. Businessman. Citizen of the year. But former scouts say he was a sexual predator.

John Piper can’t stand the late fall, when the smell of a wood-burning stove takes him back to the trauma he suffered in Boy Scout Troop 127.

It was November 1977. Piper was 11, one month away from his 12th birthday.

His parents were divorced. So Piper said he looked up to his scoutmaster, Charles Quinton “C.Q.” Smith, as a male role model. He was a U.S. Army veteran, Sunday school teacher and business leader.

But instead, Piper said Smith gave him alcohol and pornographic magazines and then sexually assaulted him at a cabin in Horse Valley, which is 20 miles northwest of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. And he isn't the only one who says Smith abused them. read more »