In March 2005, a woman called Florida's Palm Beach Police Department because she was concerned about what happened to her 14-year-old stepdaughter. She said to them that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been taken to Epstein's mansion by an older girl. In the mansion, the woman claimed that her stepdaughter been paid $300 to strip and massage Epstein. The stepdaughter was claimed to be undressed. When she left Epstein's mansion, she wearing still wearing her underwear.
Police spent 11 months investigating Epstein and his home. The Federal Bureau of Investigation were also investigating Epstein and his home. It was discovered that Epstein was confirmed to have paid girls under 18 years old to perform sexual acts on him. Both the police and the FBI interviewed five claimed victims and 17 witnesses about this incident. Based on what they were discussing in the interviews, it was discovered that there are photos of abused underaged girls found in Epstein's trash. In fact, some of the trashed photos were confirmed to match the interviewed victims.
In 2006, it was discovered that Epstein would often secretly install cameras everywhere around his property. Often he installs secret cameras everywhere around his property so that he can record sexual activity with underage girls by famous people. It was also discovered that Epstein used blackmail to threaten those famous people deceptively through his secret recordings. These criminal claims were obtained from information relating to a previous lawsuit made by those famous people in 2006. Epstein was claimed to have used underaged girls to spy on those famous people, which allowed him to blackmail those famous people. In 2015, it was revealed that Prince Andrew, Duke of York was one of the victims who were abused by Epstein's blackmailing. One of the former employees who worked for Jeffrey Epstein had stated that Epstein would receive three massages per day by the underaged girls. Eventually the FBI received proof that indeed Epstein was blackmailing famous people by spying on famous people.
In May 2006, the Palm Beach police had concluded that Jeffrey Epstein will be charged with four counts of unlawful sex with minors and one count of molestation (forcing sexual abuse). However, the court disagrees. Epstein had a team of defense lawyers. His team of defense lawyers included Roy Black, Russell Crowe, Gerald Lefcourt, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. In 2007, Ken Starr, the Special Prosecutor of Bill Clinton, joined in to protect Epstein. The police chief of Palm Beach, Michael Reiter, blamed the court for being too flexible when it comes to Epstein's criminal case. Additionally, the police chief was not satisfied that court did not pass on the information clearly enough to the FBI.
In the end, the grand jury said only that Epstein had a single charge of unfair payment of prostitution. In 2006, they concluded that Epstein had pleaded not guilty.
On February 6, 2008, an anonymous woman from Virginia filed a lawsuit worth $50 million against Epstein. She claims that when she was 16 years old between 2004-2005, she was sexually assaulted by Epstein. Initially, she was "recruited to give Epstein a massage", but later on Epstein went naked and had sexual intercourse with her. He paid her $200 immediately afterwards. On March 2008, a similar $50 million lawsuit was filed against Epstein by another woman who was sexually abused. However, these lawsuits alongside similar lawsuits were dismissed (all of these lawsuits were cancelled and ignored). Epstein deals with these types of lawsuits outside of court by paying the victims with compensation money.
On 2008, he had a secret non-prosecution agreement with court that allowed him to have a lower court penalty while at the same time still keeping his luxury private locations. Instead of having a life sentence, he was only jailed for 18 months (but served 13 months in jail) and only had to settle the victims with payments of money. However, he still had to register as a sex offender.
On 2008, he had a secret agreement with court that he would receive a lower court penalty. Along with a shorter jail sentence, he was allowed "custody with work release", which means that he was allowed to be outside of prison for up to 16 hours per day. Epstein spent 13months inside jail. After he was released from jail, he received one year of house arrest (punishment by "jailing" into their own house while supervised with a supervisor officer) with probation (regular official supervision required by law) until August 2010. While he was on probation, he was allowed to travel in his plane to his private homes in the city Manhattan and in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He was allowed long shopping trips and to walk around Palm Beach "for exercise".
After a difficult court hearing (a type of law negotiation where a change in court penalty is to be discussed and agreed upon) was made in January 2011, he had stayed registered in New York State as a "level three" (high risk of repeat offense) sex offender for the rest of his life. At that court hearing, the Manhattan District Attorney tried to argue that Epstein should be reduced to a low-risk "level one", but he was refused by the judge. Epstein told the judge that his "main" home was in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The judge told him that he had to check in with the New York Police Department every 90days. Even though Epstein had been a level-three registered sex offender in New York since 2010, the New York Police Department never enforced the 90-day regulation, despite the fact that not following these rules is considered against the law.
On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey because he was doing sex trafficking. According to witnesses and sources, it is believed that the FBI broke into Epstein's Manhattan townhouse, the Herbert N. Straus House, to investigate Epstein's criminal behavior further. Two days later, the Public Corruption Unit of the Southern District of New York charged Epstein for attempted sex trafficking of minors. Court documents show that Epstein was attempting to bring at least 40 underaged girls to his mansion to sexually abuse them. Judge Kenneth Marra is currently deciding whether Epstein should continue being protected from harsher court punishments.
It was discovered that Epstein owned a private Boeing 727 jet that he had used to invite underaged guests to his mansion. He would travel in his private jet frequently, logging "600 flying hours a year (...) usually with guests on board."
Jeffrey Epstein had long history with meeting with famous people because he was a successful businessman. He was friends with Prince Andrew and Tom Barrack, and had joined parties with many famous people, including Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, Donald Trump, Katie Couric, and Woody Allen.
Epstein also is interested in funding science research and education. In 2000, he established the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, which funds science research and education. Before 2003, the foundation funded Martin Nowak's research at the Institute for Advanced Study in the city of Princeton, New Jersey. In May 2003, Epstein had created the "Program for Evolutionary Dynamics" at Harvard University, a program aimed to research evolution, with a $30 million gift.
On July 23, 2019, he was found unconscious in his jail cell with injuries to his neck. His cellmate, former police officer Nicholas Tartaglione, was asked by police if he had tried to murder Epstein at 1:30am, since he had history of murdering people. He told them that he didn't do anything violent to Epstein. When police asked Epstein about that incident, Epstein refused to reply to them. After that incident, he was placed on suicide watch.