Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office is the county sheriff's department of Palm Beach County, Florida, based in West Palm Beach and the largest law enforcement agency in the county. Through its Department of Corrections it runs the county's Main Detention Center and, in 2008 and 2009, housed minimum-security inmates, including those on work release, at its Stockade facility. Ric Bradshaw has been sheriff since January 2005. Jeffrey Epstein served his 2008 to 2009 state sentence under the Epstein non-prosecution agreement in the office's custody; it placed him on work release less than three and a half months into his term, allowing him to leave the Stockade for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, for the Florida Science Foundation, which paid the office 128,136 dollars for off-duty deputies assigned to him. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement found in 2021 that Epstein had "received differential treatment" but that no member of the office had committed a crime.¹²³

Assurances on Work Release, 2007 to 2008

Federal prosecutors raised work release before Epstein pleaded. In November 2007 FBI agents were told by a "jail supervisor" that although Epstein, as a sex offender, would not qualify for work release, a judge could order it if he was sentenced to a year or less. The day after Epstein's June 30, 2008 plea, Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Marie Villafaña and her supervisor met a sheriff's office official, who told them that "Epstein would be eligible for work release and will be placed on work release," contradicting the jail supervisor and the defense lawyer Jack Goldberger, who days earlier had "specifically told [Villafaña] that [Epstein] would not get work release." She told the official that the Florida Science Foundation did not exist until November 2007 and that its address was Goldberger's office, and asked that the office notify the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida if Epstein applied. The federal office's investigation log records a July 2008 email between Villafaña and "Col. M. Gauger" of the sheriff's office "re Epstein work release with attachment." State Attorney Barry Krischer later told the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility that work release was "within the control of the Sheriff's Office, not my office."²⁴

Placement and Protest

The federal office "never received notice of Epstein's work release application." On October 10, 2008 the sheriff's office placed him in the program. According to Villafaña, the FBI case agent reported that the Stockade's work release coordinator told her he had been led to believe the government knew of Epstein's application and that he had been threatened with legal action if he did not allow Epstein to participate. The Palm Beach Daily News reported in December 2008 that Epstein was being "treated differently."²

On December 3, 2008 Villafaña wrote to her supervisors that Epstein "has hired off-duty Sheriff's deputies to provide him with 'protection.' It appears that he is paying between $3000 and $4100 per week for this service, despite the work release rules barring anyone from the Sheriff's Office (and the Sheriff's Office itself) from having 'any business transactions with inmates . . . while they are in the custody or supervision of the Sheriff. . . .'" She also wrote that Goldberger and Krischer had told federal prosecutors Epstein would be housed at the county jail, not the Stockade, although "he would not have been eligible for work release if at the jail." On December 11 she wrote to the office's Corrections Division that Epstein was ineligible and that his application was inaccurate: the Florida Science Foundation's listed telephone number belonged to Goldberger's law firm, and the foundation vice president named as his "supervisor," who lived and worked in the New York area, had told the Internal Revenue Service that Epstein worked one hour a week for no pay while telling the sheriff's office that he worked six 12-hour days a week. "The Sheriff's Office neither acknowledged nor responded to Villafaña's letter." In March 2009 First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman wrote to Alan Dershowitz that his office "will not interfere with how the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office administers the sentence imposed by the Court," while stating it would object to alternative custody or home detention if asked.²

Permit No. 7804

The office's Extra Duty Permits System carried the detail as Permit No. 7804, "Florida Science Foundation," with posts titled "FL Science Foundation - Plain Clothed Position." Deputies' overtime reports for July 1 to 14, 2009 describe the work as "Provide security for Jeffrey Epstein," including keeping a log of visitors and escorting him at midday from the office to his house at 358 El Brillo Way and back. The office's media relations unit faxed the reports on July 21, 2009, and the pages were later produced to federal prosecutors in New York. Records obtained by the West Palm Beach station WPTV show that the foundation paid the sheriff's office 128,136 dollars during Epstein's incarceration. Epstein received gain time and was released to home confinement on July 22, 2009, having served less than 13 months of an 18-month term.⁵⁶⁷⁸

The 2019 to 2021 Reviews

In August 2019, after a letter from Bradshaw, Governor Ron DeSantis directed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to take over the criminal investigation of the matter: "Floridians expect and deserve a full and fair investigation." The department released a series of investigative summaries on May 10, 2021. It found that it "appears that Epstein received differential treatment" in the office's custody, and that no evidence showed criminal activity by any identified member of the office. 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," adding that the victims' own attorney had stated "there is 'NO alleged wrongdoing by the Deputies.'"⁹¹⁰

The 2026 Allegation

In June 2026 the Miami Herald reported that Epstein's former assistant Sarah Kellen had told congressional investigators, "I know that he arranged to have cash and, like, Disneyland tickets, taken to one of the officers," naming a sheriff's deputy. A spokeswoman for the sheriff's office responded that "[t]he Epstein investigation did not reveal these allegations, and they were never investigated," cited the 2021 finding, and said, "The investigation is complete."¹¹