Add New York's Finest and the Manhattan district attorney's office to the long list of institutions that bobbled the ball in the decade Jeffrey Epstein escaped proper prosecution and punishment for alleged sex crimes against dozens of girls.
Epstein, required to register as a sex offender in 2011 when he (kinda sorta) moved back here after a 2008 Florida conviction for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old, proceeded to never once check in with the NYPD, despite state laws requiring tier 3 sex offenders _ that's the most severe tier _ show their faces to cops every 90 days.
Who's taking ownership for the screw up? We hear crickets, of all things, in New York City.
DA Cy Vance's office, whose attorneys initially shocked the judge when they argued Epstein should be registered as the lowest-tier offender before backtracking, blame police. The police blame the criminal justice system (who's that?).
At that first hearing, Epstein's attorneys argued his palatial 71st St. manse is just a pied-a-terre away from his Virgin Islands home base, and promised he'd give them the heads-up whenever he dropped in. (He didn't do that either.) The judge said too bad, the 90-day rule stayed in force. No one followed up.
How many other rich sex offenders are using the residency loophole to come and go as they please?
