Lanna Belohlavek

Lanna Belohlavek is a Florida prosecutor who, as an Assistant State Attorney and chief of the Crimes Against Children Unit of the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office under Barry Krischer, handled the 2005 to 2006 state case against Jeffrey Epstein. She declined to file the felony charges sought by the Palm Beach Police Department, offered Epstein a probationary plea that he rejected, and on July 19, 2006 presented the case to a Palm Beach County grand jury that returned a single count of felony solicitation of prostitution. In September 2007 she sat with Krischer in the joint meeting with federal prosecutors and Epstein's lawyers that preceded the Epstein non-prosecution agreement. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility interviewed her in its 2019 to 2020 review but had no jurisdiction over state officials, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported in May 2021 that it had found no evidence that she or Krischer committed any crime or acted improperly.¹²³

The State Case

The police brought the Epstein case to the State Attorney's Office in 2005 without having made an arrest, and it was assigned to the Crimes Against Children Unit. Belohlavek told OPR that she and an experienced Assistant State Attorney who first worked the case with her "were at a disagreement" with the police department "over what the state . . . could ethically charge." She did not believe the evidence would satisfy the elements of the two felonies the police wanted filed, unlawful sexual activity with a minor under Florida Statute 794.05(1) and lewd and lascivious molestation under 800.04(5), and "the police were not happy with that." Victims had given contradictory statements and the original complainant had recanted her allegation of sexual contact. In April 2006 the office offered Epstein a plea to third-degree felony aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony, with adjudication withheld and five years' probation with no unsupervised contact with minors, which he rejected. She told OPR that she never considered charging procurement of a minor for prostitution, the offense Epstein later pleaded to under the federal agreement, because "the police had not presented it," and that prostitution was a misdemeanor charge and "she did not handle misdemeanors."²

Krischer told OPR that Epstein's local counsel brought Alan Dershowitz to see him and the Assistant State Attorney, and that Dershowitz threatened, "We're going to destroy your witnesses; don't go to court because we're going to destroy those girls." Epstein then hired Jack Goldberger, with whom Krischer had "a working relationship." Because the husband of Belohlavek's colleague on the case was Goldberger's law partner, Belohlavek recused that prosecutor to remove "even the appearance of any kind of conflict" and took over the case herself. The lead police detective described the same episode to federal prosecutors in May 2006 as the defense having "orchestrated the removal of the Assistant State Attorney initially assigned to handle the matter, who was viewed as an aggressive prosecutor, by hiring a defense attorney whose relationship with the Assistant State Attorney created a conflict of interest for the prosecutor." Goldberger and the New York lawyer Gerald Lefcourt then directed their efforts at Belohlavek and Krischer, "largely by attacking the credibility of the victim witnesses."²⁴

Belohlavek told OPR that her office took the allegations "seriously, because . . . it was an organized scheme to involve young girls by offering them money. And I wouldn't say that we ... thought they were prostitutes ... [but] I think there was solicitation," and that although Epstein's "behavior was reprehensible, . . . I'm limited by . . . the state statutes as to what I can charge."²

The Grand Jury

The grand jury heard the case on July 19, 2006 in a session of under four hours, taking testimony from two police officers, an investigator from the State Attorney's Office and two of the girls. Belohlavek presented the case. When the transcript was released on July 1, 2024 by Circuit Judge Luis Delgado, it showed her asking one of the teenage witnesses, "You aware that you committed a crime?" The girl answered, "Now I am. I didn't know it was a crime when I was doing it." A grand juror separately asked the girl whether she had "any idea deep down inside of you that...what you're doing is wrong?" Spencer Kuvin, who represented one of the girls who testified, said after reading the transcript: "It was just atrocious the way they handled it. . . . They basically tanked their own case," and "It just reaffirmed what we always knew was happening is that the state attorney was afraid to prosecute him." The grand jury returned one count of felony solicitation of prostitution under Florida Statute 796.07, and the police department took the case to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.⁵⁶⁷

Coordination with the Federal Office

Belohlavek and Krischer attended a joint meeting on September 13, 2007 with federal prosecutors Andrew Lourie, Rolando Garcia and A. Marie Villafaña and Epstein's lawyers Jay Lefkowitz, Lefcourt and Goldberger, and from September 19 to 25, 2007 they exchanged emails with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida about a further meeting with Epstein's attorneys. The federal agreement signed on September 24 required Epstein to plead guilty in state court to her office's solicitation indictment and to a new information for procurement of minors for prostitution. On September 27 Villafaña wrote to Krischer and Belohlavek asking when and before which judge Epstein would plead, adding that "the agents and I would really like to be there, 'incognito.'"⁸⁹¹⁰

On November 16, 2007 the FBI case agents met Belohlavek and asked whether her office would oppose a request that Epstein be granted work release. According to OPR, "Belohlavek was noncommittal," and when the agents asked her to include language in the state plea agreement barring work release, she answered that she would have to discuss it with the State Attorney. Krischer later told OPR that work release was "within the control of the Sheriff's Office, not my office." The state plea agreement did not address work release, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office placed Epstein on work release in October 2008.¹¹

Reviews

OPR interviewed Belohlavek and Krischer among more than 60 witnesses, but stated that "because OPR does not have jurisdiction over state officials, OPR did not investigate, or reach conclusions about, their conduct regarding the state investigation." In August 2019, after a letter from Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Governor Ron DeSantis directed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to take over the investigation of the state's handling of the case. Its May 2021 summary 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."¹³