Emails in the Epstein files suggest chummy relationship between sex offender and prominent attorney
Plenty of prominent names have surfaced in the latest tranche of documents released by the Department of Justice known as the Epstein files. One of those names is Ken Starr, the federal judge who in the 1990s served as independent counsel in the investigation of a failed real estate venture involving Bill and Hillary Clinton known as Whitewater.
While Starr’s investigation led to 14 criminal convictions, the Clintons were not charged with any wrongdoing. However, the investigation led to the disclosure of sexual activity between then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky and President Clinton, which eventually led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate.
From 2004 to 2010, Starr served as dean at what is now the Caruso School of Law at Pepperdine University. He later served as president of Baylor University. Starr died in 2022.
With the release of emails between Starr and Epstein, new questions are being raised about Starr’s legacy. While he sought to project a public image as a principled legal scholar, the emails reveal a more complex persona.
Starr served as Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer beginning in 2006 when the billionaire financier was under investigation for, among other crimes, the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl. Starr was called a “fixer” in legal journals for his role in Epstein’s 2008 plea deal. He negotiated an unusual and then-secret Non-Prosecution Agreement whereby no federal charges were made and Epstein pled guilty to two lesser state felony counts — solicitation of prostitution and procurement of a minor (under age 18) for prostitution. Starr also secured what attorneys described as a “sweetheart deal” after Epstein’s sentencing to 18 months in a Palm Beach County jail. Epstein only served 13 months and was infamously granted a work release allowing him to leave jail for 12 hours a day, six days a week, to work at his home office at his nearby mansion.
The Epstein files reveal more than an attorney-client relationship between the two, years after Epstein’s release. In one email dated March 2012, Starr addresses Epstein as “Jeffrey, My friend, my brother…” In others, Starr ends his emails with “Hugs” or “Luv ya.” In a Christmas 2016 email, Starr gushes to Epstein, “A prince thou art.” In an email dated Nov. 22, 2017, about arranging a visit to Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion, Starr signs off, “I’ll be there with bells ringing.” Other emails say “Hugs, Ken,” “miss you,” and yet another says “in your corner.”
The Above the Law legal news website suggests that Starr knew the details of the allegations against Epstein due to his access as defense counsel to memos from federal prosecutors that have been released in the latest document dump. One memo from 2008 describes: “One girl broke down sobbing … she said she was having nightmares about Epstein.” The email describes how the alleged victim could not compose herself and the interview was stopped. The memo continues: “The second girl, who has a baby girl of her own, told us she was very upset about the 18 month deal….she had heard that the girls could get restitution, but she would rather not get any money and have Epstein spend a significant time in jail.”
Lawyers routinely represent unpopular clients based on the principle that representation does not equal endorsement. Nevertheless, the apparently warm relationship between the two men is seen as troubling by critics who are poring through the files. These concerns are amplified by the circumstances surrounding Starr’s departure from Baylor University. He was demoted from his position as university president and later resigned after an external investigation found the school had mishandled multiple sexual assault allegations involving members of the football team. The investigation by an independent law firm found that under Starr’s leadership, the university had discouraged victims from reporting assaults.
In a 2018 email thread recently released, Starr defended the lenient plea deal he helped secure for the registered sex offender. Starr wrote that Epstein “was subjected to an unprecedented federal intrusion into a quintessentially local criminal matter in South Florida.” He asserted that “Epstein has paid his debt to society” as well as “millions of dollars to the asserted victims and their highly-creative lawyers.” Starr argued in conclusion, “In the spirit of the bedrock American belief in second chances, that unhappy chapter in Jeffrey’s otherwise magnificent life should be allowed to close once and for all.”
Epstein died by reported suicide in 2019 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City while being held awaiting trial on federal criminal charges, including sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors.