U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York is the Department of Justice office that represents the United States in criminal and civil cases before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the district's bankruptcy court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Its district covers Manhattan and the Bronx and Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester counties. In July 2019 the office indicted Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges in a case assigned to its Public Corruption Unit, eleven years after the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida had resolved his federal case with the Epstein non-prosecution agreement. After Epstein died at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York in August 2019, the office charged the two guards on duty, prosecuted and convicted Ghislaine Maxwell, and in 2025 and 2026 figured in the government's handling of the Epstein files under U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.¹²³

The Office

The office is led by the U.S. Attorney and has a Criminal Division, a Civil Division and a White Plains Division within the Criminal Division, with more than 220 Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Its criminal division sits at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, its civil division at 86 Chambers Street, and its White Plains office at 50 Main Street.¹

The Epstein Prosecution

According to an FBI case history written in 2025, the FBI New York Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force opened its Epstein case on December 6, 2018 at the office's request, eight days after the Miami Herald published Julie K. Brown's series on the Florida agreement. A grand jury returned an indictment on July 2, 2019 charging sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy based on conduct in Manhattan and Palm Beach from 2002 to 2005, and Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport on July 6. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said on July 8 that "we were assisted by some excellent investigative journalism." The case was assigned to the Public Corruption Unit, which typically handles cases involving public officials or funds, and Berman declined to explain why. The prosecutors were Alex Rossmiller, Alison Moe and Maurene Comey. The office argued that the Florida agreement "didn't purport to bind any other office or district."²³⁴⁵

A search of Epstein's Manhattan house found a safe holding more than 70,000 dollars in cash, 48 loose diamonds and an Austrian passport from the 1980s bearing his photograph under another name and a Saudi address; the office told the court that it carried stamps showing use "to enter France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s." Judge Richard M. Berman denied bail on July 18, 2019. Epstein was found hanging in his cell on August 10, 2019. The office filed a nolle prosequi; at an August 27 hearing more than a dozen of Epstein's victims, including victims of the conduct resolved in Florida, spoke, and the indictment was dismissed on August 29.⁶⁷

The Guards

On November 19, 2019 the office charged Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, the officers on duty in Epstein's unit, with conspiracy and falsifying records of the counts and rounds they had not performed the night he died. Both entered deferred prosecution agreements on May 25, 2021 and the charges were dismissed after they complied. According to the Justice Department's inspector general, the office declined to prosecute other staff of the jail who had created false documentation.⁸⁹

The Removal of Berman

On the night of June 19, 2020 Attorney General William Barr announced that Berman was "stepping down" and that President Donald Trump would nominate Clayton, then chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, in his place, while the office was investigating Trump's lawyer Giuliani. Berman said he had not resigned. Barr wrote to him the next day that he had "asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so," and Berman left after Barr agreed that his deputy, Audrey Strauss, would lead the office as acting U.S. Attorney. On July 2, 2020 the office under Strauss announced Maxwell's arrest.¹⁰¹¹

Maxwell

A sealed indictment of Maxwell was returned on June 29, 2020 and unsealed on her arrest on July 2. The 2025 FBI case history records that "SDNY proffered Maxwell with her Defense counsel prior to indictment." The office defeated her motion to dismiss on the ground that she was a beneficiary of the Florida agreement's co-conspirator clause. A jury convicted her on December 29, 2021 on five of six counts, and she was sentenced on June 28, 2022 to 20 years. The two perjury counts arising from her 2016 deposition in Giuffre v. Maxwell were never tried; the same FBI history gives the reason as "the perjury charges were dropped to prevent the victims from testifying in another trial." The Second Circuit affirmed in 2024, holding that the Florida agreement bound only the Southern District of Florida.^5121314

The Florida Report

In August 2020 the chief of the office's Public Corruption Unit reviewed a draft of the report of the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility on the Florida office's handling of Epstein and asked for two wording changes, both accepted: "at least one victim known to be a minor" became "at least one victim believed to be a minor," to "more accurately reflect[] our position in the bail arguments regarding Epstein," and investigators "were aware" that Epstein used hidden cameras in his New York house became investigators "had learned" it. On February 5, 2020 an unsolicited message titled "Khashoggi connects to Epstein" reached the office and was forwarded internally with the note "I am passing this on."¹⁵¹⁶

2025 and 2026

On July 7, 2025 the Justice Department and FBI stated that their review of Epstein holdings "revealed no incriminating 'client list'" and that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted." On July 16 the office dismissed Comey, the lead prosecutor on the Maxwell case, by email "[p]ursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution." According to her lawsuit, Clayton, then interim U.S. Attorney, told her: "All I can say is it came from Washington. I can't tell you anything else." On November 14, 2025, at Trump's request, Attorney General Pam Bondi assigned Clayton to investigate Epstein's dealings with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman and JPMorgan Chase. In September 2026 federal prosecutors in Manhattan were reported to be investigating Epstein's estate executors, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn; a Justice Department spokesman said, "We don't comment on the existence, or lack thereof, of investigations."¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹