Ric Bradshaw

Ric L. Bradshaw is an American law enforcement officer who has been Sheriff of Palm Beach County, Florida, since January 4, 2005, after serving as chief of the West Palm Beach Police Department. Jeffrey Epstein served his 2008 to 2009 state sentence in the custody of Bradshaw's Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, which admitted him to its work-release program and assigned off-duty deputies, paid through Epstein's Florida Science Foundation, to "Provide security for Jeffrey Epstein." In 2019 Bradshaw ordered an internal affairs inquiry into the arrangement, and a state review found that Epstein had "received differential treatment" but that no crime had been committed.¹²³⁴

Career

Bradshaw graduated from Lake Worth High School, served in the United States Marine Corps, and took a bachelor's degree in human resources management from Palm Beach Atlantic University and a master's degree from Lynn University. He joined the West Palm Beach Police Department as a road patrol officer and rose through detective sergeant, lieutenant, captain, major and assistant chief; in 1996 he was appointed chief of police. He was elected sheriff in 2004 and sworn in on January 4, 2005, and was reelected in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024. His official biography lists him as a member of the executive board of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force and chairman of the Florida Sheriffs Emergency Task Force for Region 7.¹⁵

Epstein's Work Release

Epstein pleaded guilty in state court on June 30, 2008 under the Epstein non-prosecution agreement and was sentenced to 18 months in county custody. Federal prosecutors had tracked the sheriff's work-release rules for months: their investigation log records "Research re State Work Release" beginning in November 2007, a November 26, 2007 request for the sheriff's "Post Orders for the Work Release Program," a July 2008 email between Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Marie Villafaña and "Col. M. Gauger" of the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office "re Epstein work release with attachment," and a July 7, 2008 discussion of a "meeting with Sheriffs Office about work release program." According to Villafaña's summary of a conversation with the defense lawyer Jack Goldberger at the time of the plea, Epstein was to serve his sentence in confinement "24-hours-a-day."⁶

The sheriff's office nonetheless approved Epstein for work release, and from October 2008 he spent up to 12 hours a day at the Florida Science Foundation, an entity he had incorporated, housed at the West Palm Beach office of one of his attorneys; the foundation paid the sheriff's office 128,136 dollars during his incarceration. On December 3, 2008 Villafaña wrote to her supervisors that "since Day 1, Goldberger and Krisher [sic] . . . have been scheming to get Epstein out on work release," and that "Epstein has hired off-duty Sheriff's deputies to provide him with 'protection.' It appears that he is paying between $3000 and $4100 per week for this service, despite the work release rules barring anyone from the Sheriff's Office (and the Sheriff's Office itself) from having 'any business transactions with inmates.'" On December 11, 2008 she wrote to the sheriff's Corrections Division that Epstein was not eligible for work release and that his application contained inaccuracies: the telephone number given for the Florida Science Foundation was that of Goldberger's law firm, and the foundation officer listed as his supervisor had told the Internal Revenue Service that Epstein worked one hour a week for no pay while telling the sheriff's office that he worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. "The Sheriff's Office neither acknowledged nor responded to Villafaña's letter." In March 2009 First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman assured the defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz that his office "will not interfere with how the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office administers the sentence imposed by the Court."²⁶⁷

The sheriff's Extra Duty Permits System, under a header reading "PALM BEACH COUNTY Ric L. Bradshaw, Sheriff," carried the detail as Permit No. 7804, "Florida Science Foundation," with posts titled "FL Science Foundation - Plain Clothed Position" and "Unmarked only - Plain Clothed Position" running from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. Deputies' overtime reports for July 2009 record the work as "Provide security for Jeffrey Epstein," keeping "the log of visitors," and escorting him from the office to his residence at 358 El Brillo Way around midday and back two and a half hours later; one deputy wrote that at the house he "backed into the drive way and provided security to prevent unwelcome guest from entering his property" and "did not go into the residence." The sheriff's media relations office faxed the July 2009 reports on July 21, 2009, the day before Epstein's release to home confinement, and the pages were later produced to federal prosecutors in New York.⁸⁹

The 2019 Review

After Epstein's July 2019 arrest in New York, Bradshaw's office announced on July 19, 2019 an internal affairs investigation to "determine if any actions taken by deputies assigned to monitor Epstein during his work release violated any agency rules and regulations,"¹⁰ stating: "All aspects of the matter will be fully investigated to ensure total accountability and transparency." Bradshaw said the question of whether Epstein's wealth and lawyers had won him favorable treatment would be taken "very seriously." In August 2019, after a letter from Bradshaw, Governor Ron DeSantis ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the state's handling of the case. Its May 2021 reports found that Epstein had "received differential treatment" in the sheriff's custody, that the off-duty deputies had been hired mainly for his protection rather than to monitor him, and that there was no evidence of bribery or of any crime by sheriff's or prosecutors' staff.³⁴

Michael Gauger, the sheriff's chief deputy during Epstein's incarceration and second in command of the office, acknowledged meeting Epstein for lunch and going to his mansion for dinner; emails released in 2026 dated the dinner to September 2009, after Epstein's release to home confinement. Gauger said Epstein was "so smooth." Gauger, by then retired, ran against Bradshaw in 2024 and lost by 416,564 votes to 301,364. In June 2026 the Miami Herald reported that Epstein's former assistant Sarah Kellen had told congressional investigators that Epstein "arranged to have cash and, like, Disneyland tickets, taken to one of the officers in the jail"; a sheriff's office spokeswoman responded that "The Epstein investigation did not reveal these allegations," citing the state finding of no "inappropriate or criminal activity on the part of any PBSO member," and said, "The investigation is complete."¹¹¹²