Florida Department of Law Enforcement

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is the statewide law enforcement agency of Florida, whose duties and procedures are set by Chapter 943 of the Florida Statutes. In August 2019, after Jeffrey Epstein's arrest in New York and a letter from Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Governor Ron DeSantis directed the department to take over the criminal investigation of state officials' handling of Epstein's 2005 to 2009 case, including his state plea under the Epstein non-prosecution agreement and his work release from the custody of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. Its investigative summaries, released in May 2021, found that Epstein "received differential treatment" in the sheriff's custody but that no evidence showed any crime, bribe or impropriety by the sheriff's office, former State Attorney Barry Krischer or Assistant State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek.¹²³⁴

Organization

The department is composed of five areas: Executive Direction and Business Support, Criminal Investigations and Forensic Science, Criminal Justice Information, Criminal Justice Professionalism, and the Florida Capitol Police.¹

The Epstein Investigation

Bradshaw asked the governor to assign the department to the matter in 2019, after his own office opened an internal affairs review of the deputies who had guarded Epstein during work release. DeSantis said: "Floridians expect and deserve a full and fair investigation." The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which had no jurisdiction over state officials, recorded that the state inquiry "focuses on Epstein's state plea agreement and the Palm Beach County work release program." Because it was pending when OPR interviewed him, Krischer declined to explain his office's prosecutive decisions to the federal investigators.²³⁵

The department's Office of Executive Investigations released a series of summaries of its preliminary inquiries on May 10, 2021, finding no evidence of criminal activity in the investigation, prosecution or punishment of Epstein. On the prosecutors, it found no evidence that Krischer or Belohlavek "committed any crimes, accepted any bribes or gifts, or did anything improper in their handling of the case." On the sheriff's office, it reported that "Epstein was provided differential treatment," but that the actions "were explained by PBSO and . . . were determined not to be a criminal matter." Work release had allowed Epstein out "for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week."³⁴⁶

The sheriff's office stated that the department had determined "there was NO inappropriate or criminal activity on the part of any PBSO member with respect to their participation in Epstein's work release or the permit detail," and that an internal affairs investigation into possible administrative violations was continuing. The attorney Stuart Kaplan criticized the inquiry for its "lack of search warrants, subpoenas or a grand jury."³⁶

In June 2026, after Epstein's former assistant Sarah Kellen told congressional investigators that Epstein had arranged for cash and Disneyland tickets to be taken to a deputy at the jail, the sheriff's office cited the department's 2021 finding and said, "The investigation is complete."⁷