Gerald Lefcourt

Gerald B. Lefcourt is a New York criminal defense lawyer, a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and for more than twenty years the New York State Assembly Speaker's designee to the state Commission on Judicial Nomination, who represented Jeffrey Epstein in the Palm Beach state investigation and the federal investigation that ended in the Epstein non-prosecution agreement. He opened the defense's contact with the federal prosecutor in August 2006, co-signed the July 2007 letter that put the Steven Pinker opinion before the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, and was one of the two defense lawyers who signed the agreement on September 24, 2007.¹²³

Practice and Bar Positions

Lefcourt holds a B.A. in political science from New York University, a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and an LL.M. in taxation from the New York University School of Law. His clients have included the Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman and leaders of the Black Panther Party, the Drexel Burnham Lambert securities trader Bruce Newberg, the real estate owner Harry Helmsley, the actor Russell Crowe, the New York Assembly Speaker Mel Miller, the Brooklyn Democratic leader Vito Lopez, the Murder Inc. Records head Irv Gotti, and the campaign treasurer of the New York mayoral candidate John Liu.¹

He was president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 1997 and 1998 and later of its Foundation for Criminal Justice, has co-chaired its annual White Collar Crime Conference since 2004, and founded both the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the New York Criminal Bar Association. He served for more than twenty years as the Assembly Speaker's designee to the statewide Commission on Judicial Nomination, which recommends to the Governor the candidates for the New York Court of Appeals, and he sits on the Magistrate Selection Committee of the Southern District of New York.¹

The State Investigation

Lefcourt began representing Epstein during the state investigation, which the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility later reviewed. After Epstein hired the West Palm Beach lawyer Jack Goldberger, whose law partner was married to the assistant state attorney on the case, that prosecutor was removed and Lanna Belohlavek took over; "Goldberger, together with Gerald Lefcourt, a nationally known New York criminal defense attorney also representing Epstein, then directed their efforts at Belohlavek and [State Attorney Barry] Krischer to dissuade the office from prosecuting Epstein, largely by attacking the credibility of the victim witnesses." A 2006 letter from Lefcourt to the State Attorney's Office showed that "the defense team had thoroughly researched the details and ramifications of Florida's sexual offender registration requirement"; the office "did not find evidence indicating similar research and consideration by the USAO." The plea eventually entered rested on conduct involving a victim who was at least 16, which, because the age of consent in New Mexico was 16, exempted Epstein from registration there.²

The Federal Investigation

Lefcourt made the first defense contact with the line prosecutor, A. Marie Villafaña, in August 2006. On November 15, 2006 Lilly Ann Sanchez, a former Deputy Chief of the office's Major Crimes Section, wrote to Villafaña that she and Lefcourt represented Epstein and asked that all contact be directed to them. When Villafaña insisted on documents before any meeting, Sanchez telephoned the West Palm Beach manager, Andrew Lourie, a former colleague, who granted one. At the February 1, 2007 meeting Sanchez and Lefcourt presented a 25-page letter arguing that there was no federal jurisdiction, that the Petite policy barred a second prosecution, and that the state's two principal victims had "damaging histories of lies, illegal drug use, and crime."²

The federal investigation's subpoenas of May 31, 2007 to Financial Trust Company, the J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation, J. Epstein & Company and "Epstein Interests" listed Lefcourt as the correspondent. On May 22, 2007 he wrote to Lourie to "confirm" that the defense would be heard before any charging decision; Villafaña wrote to First Assistant Jeffrey Sloman and Criminal Division chief Matthew Menchel: "I just want to again voice my disagreement with promising to have a meeting or having a meeting with Lefcourt or any other of Epstein's attorneys. . . . This is a case where the defendant is facing the possibility of dozens of years of prison time."²⁴

On June 25, 2007 Lefcourt sent a 19-page letter arguing that voluntary sexual activity with "young adults, 16 or 17 years of age" was "strictly a state concern" and that 18 U.S.C. 2422(b) was aimed at "internet trolling." Alan Dershowitz led the defense presentation at the Miami office the next day. On July 6, 2007 Lefcourt and Dershowitz wrote on Lefcourt's letterhead to Sloman, Menchel, Lourie and Villafaña that the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker had found their narrow reading of the statute "the sole rational reading," annexing Pinker's opinion. The office's investigative chronology lists a further submission from Lefcourt and Dershowitz to Menchel titled "Data that strongly supports the arguments made that no charge can or should be made under 18 U.S.C. 2422(b)."²⁵⁶

The Agreement

After the office presented its term sheet at a July 31, 2007 meeting with Lefcourt, Sanchez and Roy Black, Epstein added Kenneth Starr and Jay Lefkowitz of Kirkland & Ellis. Shortly after Acosta's September 7 meeting with Starr and Lefkowitz, which Lefcourt did not attend, he spoke with both Alexander Acosta and Lourie and proposed that Epstein serve 15 months in jail followed by 15 months of home confinement; Villafaña called it "a reasonable counteroffer in light of our starting position of 24 months," but "a really low sentence." On September 11 she sent Lefcourt a revised draft with Acosta's edits, and on September 12 he, Lefkowitz and Goldberger met the federal prosecutors together with Krischer and Belohlavek.²⁶

The agreement was signed on September 24, 2007 by Epstein and, for the defense, by Lefcourt and Sanchez. A December 11, 2007 letter from the office to Lefkowitz, written by the line prosecutor over Acosta's name, stated: "The agreement itself was signed by Mr. Epstein, Ms. Sanchez, and Mr. Lefcourt, whose experience speaks for itself." Lefcourt and Sanchez also signed the addendum of October 29, 2007, which governed the selection of an attorney representative for victims' civil claims. Lefcourt attended the December 14, 2007 meeting with Acosta in Miami with Starr, Dershowitz and Martin Weinberg, and a January 7, 2008 meeting at which the defense presented "federal jurisdiction issues, legal issues, and [a] request for de novo review."²³