Lilly Ann Sanchez

Lilly Ann Sanchez is a Miami defense lawyer and former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, where she was a Deputy Chief of the Major Crimes Section until September 2005. From late 2006 she represented Jeffrey Epstein before her former office, and on September 24, 2007 she and Gerald Lefcourt signed the Epstein non-prosecution agreement for the defense. The office's Criminal Division chief, Matthew Menchel, who had been her supervisor, told the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility that they had dated briefly in 2003; he had not disclosed it to his superiors, and the office found that it "would have been prudent" for him to do so.¹²³

Entry into the Case

Sanchez served in the office from 2000 to September 2005 and was a Deputy Chief of the Major Crimes Section while Menchel was its chief. In November 2006, shortly after a former U.S. Attorney had made the defense's first overture, she telephoned First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman to say that she too represented Epstein; according to Sloman's contemporaneous email, she said the defense believed the matter had been "elevated" within the office and that Epstein "wanted to be as transparent and cooperative as possible." On November 15, 2006 she wrote to the line prosecutor, A. Marie Villafaña, that she and Lefcourt represented Epstein and that all contact should go through them. In January 2007, when Villafaña required the documents she had requested before any meeting, Sanchez "bypassed Villafaña and phoned [Andrew] Lourie, with whom she had worked when she was an AUSA, to press for a meeting," and Andrew Lourie agreed. At the February 1, 2007 meeting she and Lefcourt presented a 25-page letter attacking federal jurisdiction and the credibility of the state's two principal victims.¹

The Two-Year Offer

The office's first plea overture was made by Menchel in a conversation with Sanchez before the June 26, 2007 defense presentation, about resolving the federal case with a state plea requiring jail time and sex offender registration; according to Menchel's own email it "was a non-starter" for the defense. When Villafaña protested in early July that it was "inappropriate for you to enter into plea negotiations without consulting with me or the investigative agencies," Menchel answered that her email was "totally inappropriate" and that "Lilly called me before, not after, the June 26th meeting. It was an informal discussion and not in the nature of an official plea offer but rather a feeling out by both sides as to what it might take to resolve the matter," made "with the US Attorney's full knowledge." On July 30 he wrote to Villafaña: "While Lilly has represented in the past that this would likely not happen, I never conveyed it in quite these terms before."¹

After the office presented its term sheet at a July 31, 2007 meeting with Sanchez, Lefcourt and Roy Black, Sanchez wrote to Menchel on August 2 on behalf of the defense team: "We welcomed your recognition that a state prison sentence is neither appropriate for, nor acceptable to, Mr. Epstein, as the dangers of the state prison system pose risks that are clearly untenable." She proposed two years of home confinement with no mandatory incarceration, described the proposal as "significantly punitive," and added: "We must keep in mind that Jeffrey Epstein is a 54-year-old man who has never been arrested before. He has lived an otherwise exemplary life." The office's reply of August 3, addressed "Dear Lilly" and signed by Menchel under Acosta's name, stated that "[t]he Office has never agreed that a state prison sentence is not appropriate for Mr. Epstein," that "a plea to two federal misdemeanors was never extended or meant as an offer," and that the two-year term was "a non-negotiable minimum." It was Menchel's last day in the office before he joined a private firm; he told the Office of Professional Responsibility that the timing was a "total coincidence."¹

Registration and the Signing

In September 2007 Alexander Acosta, Drew Oosterbaan, Sloman, Villafaña and another prosecutor met Kenneth Starr, Jay Lefkowitz and Sanchez. On Saturday, September 22, two days before the deadline, Sanchez sent Lourie a series of emails objecting to the requirement that Epstein plead to a registrable offense. She wrote that she had "spoke[n] to [M]att," that "we only agreed to the solicitation with minors because we believed and [State Attorney Barry Krischer] and [Assistant State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek] confirmed it was NOT registrable," and that lifetime registration was a "life sentence" imposed "simply [because] the FBI wants it, in return for all there [sic] efforts." She wrote that Epstein's lawyers had "consistently emphasized their goal of 18 months in a federal camp," sent Lefcourt's number "in case you want to speak to him directly," and closed: "[I]mposing a life sentence on him is not something anyone will eventually be proud of. Please reconsider and help me get a fair result." Lourie did not reply to the emails but called Acosta.¹⁴

The agreement was signed on September 24, 2007 by Epstein, Lefcourt and Sanchez, and the two lawyers signed its addendum on October 29, 2007. The office's December 11, 2007 letter to Lefkowitz, written by the line prosecutor, listed "you, Ms. Sanchez, Mr. Lewis, and a host of other highly skilled and experienced practitioners" as her counterparts and stated: "The agreement itself was signed by Mr. Epstein, Ms. Sanchez, and Mr. Lefcourt, whose experience speaks for itself."¹²

Victim Notification

After First Assistant Sloman moved in late November 2007 to notify victims, Sanchez wrote on December 7, 2007 asking the office to "hold off on sending any victim notification letters," and none were sent that month. On December 19, 2007 Acosta wrote to her that the office would provide notice of the federal resolution but would "defer to the discretion of the State Attorney regarding whether he wishes to provide victims with notices of the state proceedings."³

The Menchel Relationship

Menchel told the Office of Professional Responsibility that he and Sanchez had had a social relationship in the office that included, in 2003, "a handful of dates over a period of two to three weeks," after which "we mutually agreed to not do that," and that by the time he worked on the Epstein case he had married and his contact with her was limited to office events and his wedding. He said the relationship did "[n]ot at all" affect his handling of the case. Acosta, Sloman and Lourie each said they had not known of it in 2007. The office's Professional Responsibility Officer said that, "[g]iven the sensitivity of the [Epstein] matter, [my advice] would probably have been to tell him to step back and let somebody else take it over." The report concluded: "Although OPR does not conclude Menchel's prior relationship with [Sanchez] influenced the Epstein investigation, OPR assesses that it would have been prudent for Menchel to have informed his supervisors so they could make an independent assessment as to whether his continued involvement in the Epstein investigation might create the appearance of a loss of impartiality."¹⁵

Villafaña told the office that Sloman had once said of the two-year offer, "Well, I always figured that . . . Lilly asked Matt to do her a solid . . . and to get her a good deal so that she would be in Epstein's good graces." She could not later recall whether he had asserted it or merely "figured" it, and said she knew of no information "expressly [indicating] that there was any sort of exchange of . . . a favor in either direction." The office concluded that "there is no evidence supporting the suggestion that the plea was instigated by Menchel as a favor to defense counsel," noting that the defense had rejected the two-year proposal and pressed for home confinement. The office found that Epstein "retained Lilly Ann [Sanchez] a former AUSA who had been Menchel's deputy and with whom he had socialized," among attorneys chosen for their connections to the prosecutors, and that Menchel had called that tactic "ham-fisted" and "clumsy."¹

Later Practice

Sanchez practices at The LS Law Firm in Miami. The Chambers guide ranks her in white-collar crime and government investigations in Florida and describes her as "a go-to for individuals facing allegations of fraud, money laundering and public corruption," drawing on "her expertise as a former federal prosecutor." No public statement by Sanchez on her role in the Epstein negotiations has been located.⁶