Matthew Menchel

Matthew I. Menchel is an American trial lawyer who was chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida from October 2006 to August 2007, the months in which the office declined to approve an indictment of Jeffrey Epstein and offered him instead a two-year state plea, the offer that became the Epstein non-prosecution agreement. Menchel communicated the offer to Epstein's lawyers and left the office in August 2007 for the firm Kobre & Kim, before the agreement's terms were negotiated. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility later found that he had dated, in 2003, a former deputy who by 2007 was one of Epstein's defense lawyers, that his supervisors did not know it, and that it "would have been prudent" for him to tell them. Epstein's records released in 2025 showed appointments, telephone calls and dinners between the two men in 2011, 2013 and 2017; Menchel denied any business relationship with Epstein.¹²³

Manhattan and Miami

Menchel served eleven years as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, where according to his firm biography he was director of legal training. He joined the Miami office in 1998, became chief of its Major Crimes Section after several years as a line prosecutor, and was named chief of the Criminal Division by Alexander Acosta in September 2006, taking office that October alongside the new First Assistant, Jeffrey Sloman.¹³⁴

The Charging Decision

The line prosecutor, A. Marie Villafaña, submitted her prosecution memorandum on May 1, 2007. On May 14 she asked Menchel and Andrew Lourie whether she could file charges the next day, as Epstein flew from the Virgin Islands to New Jersey. Menchel answered: "[y]ou will not have approval to go forward tomorrow," explaining that Acosta "has your [prosecution] memo" and "wants to take his time making sure he is comfortable before proceeding," and that he had "trouble understanding" her "rush" "given how long this case has been pending." In his OPR interview Menchel described her as "out over her skis a little bit" and "ahead of Acosta in terms of his analysis of the case," and said, "This [was] not a case [we were] going to review in two weeks and make a decision on." In a July 5, 2007 email he rebuked her for having "led the agents to believe that [filing charges in] this matter was a foregone conclusion." Villafaña's immediate supervisor told OPR that it appeared "Miami didn't want the case prosecuted." OPR recorded that Menchel and Villafaña gave contradictory accounts of several events.⁵

The Two-Year Offer

The office's first plea overture came before June 26, 2007, when Menchel spoke with Epstein's lawyer Lilly Ann Sanchez about resolving the federal case with a state plea requiring jail time and sex-offender registration; according to an email, "[i]t was a non-starter" for the defense. Menchel told Villafaña in early July that he had raised the state resolution with Acosta's "full knowledge." At a July 26, 2007 meeting, according to Villafaña, Menchel announced that "Alex has decided to offer a two year state deal," and on July 31 the office delivered the terms to the defense. Menchel told OPR that he did not recall how the office arrived at two years. OPR itself was "unable to determine the reasoning underlying the decision to offer two years as the term of incarceration, as opposed to any other term of years," and concluded that Acosta knew of and approved it.⁶⁷

Shortly after the offer was extended in early August 2007, Menchel left the office for private practice. OPR noted in its findings that the three supervisory subjects other than Acosta "left the USAO, were transitioning to other jobs, or were absent at critical junctures" during the negotiations that followed.¹⁸

The Relationship with Defense Counsel

OPR found that "Epstein's wealth enabled him to hire multiple attorneys who had preexisting personal connections to some of the government attorneys involved in his case," and that Epstein "retained Lilly Ann [Sanchez], a former AUSA who had been Menchel's deputy and with whom he had socialized." Menchel told OPR that he and the former colleague had had a social relationship in the office that included, in 2003, "a handful of dates over a period of two to three weeks. We decided that . . . this was probably best not to pursue, and we mutually agreed to not do that." He said they had remained "close" and "hung out," that this was known in the office, and that by 2007 their contact was "most likely" at office events and at his wedding; his Outlook records showed at least one scheduled lunch with her in early 2006, after she left the office. "[T]hat was three and a half years [prior] for a very brief period of time," he said, "and I don't think I gave it a moment's thought."⁶

Acosta, Sloman and Lourie each told OPR that in 2007 they did not know Menchel had dated her. The office's Professional Responsibility Officer told OPR that he would have expected Menchel to raise it with Acosta, and 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." OPR did not conclude that the relationship influenced the investigation, but assessed 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." Menchel told OPR that the relationship did "[n]ot at all" affect his handling of the case, that prior ties gave defense lawyers credibility but did not "move the needle in any major way," and that he and his colleagues viewed Epstein's attempt to exert influence through his choice of counsel as "ham-fisted" and "clumsy."⁶⁹

In a December 2018 email, Villafaña wrote that Sloman had once told her Sanchez "asked Mr. Menchel to 'do her a solid' and convince Mr. Acosta to offer two years." Sloman did not recall the remark, Villafaña could not recall its exact words, and OPR concluded "that there is no evidence to support the statement in Villafaña's 2018 email that Menchel had extended a two-year plea deal as a favor to one of Epstein's attorneys."⁶

Kobre & Kim

Menchel joined the litigation firm Kobre & Kim in August 2007. He became a partner in its government enforcement defense practice, a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and head of the firm's trial advocacy program. The firm credits him with the "landmark acquittal" of the UBS banker Raoul Weil and with a defense verdict "against the CFTC on all causes of action" for the trading firm DRW. In 2015 the Chambers guide quoted clients describing him as "strategic, smart, attentive to detail and [having] outstanding common sense." Lourie, the West Palm Beach manager on the Epstein case, joined Kobre & Kim after leaving the Justice Department, and the firm's 2015 announcement quoted the guide as saying that his "skills are extraordinary, and his judgment is first-rate."³¹⁰

Contacts with Epstein

Documents from Epstein's estate released by the House Oversight Committee in October 2025 showed that Menchel had appointments, phone calls and dinners with Epstein in 2011, 2013 and 2017, beginning four years after he left the office. At Acosta's September 19, 2025 transcribed interview, members of the committee asked about a photograph said to show Epstein skiing with Menchel, possibly in the early 2000s, but did not produce it. Menchel had earlier denied having business relationships with Epstein "at any point, not before, during or after my tenure at the U.S. attorney's office," referred the Miami Herald to that denial, and after publication denied ever skiing with Epstein; he did not deny meeting him after leaving the office.²