An appeals court on Tuesday upheld a 2007 deal between Jeffrey Epstein and prosecutors allowing him to avoid federal sex trafficking charges — denying an effort by one of his accusers to challenge the action in a lawsuit.
The big picture: A judge ruled last year that federal prosecutors in Florida violated the law by striking the deal. "It's not a result we like, but it's the result we think the law requires," a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in its opinion following the 2-1 ruling. A lawyer for Courtney Wild, who's spoken of being molested by Epstein at age 14, said in a statement they plan to file a petition for a rehearing.
Read the federal appeals court's decision via DocumentCloud:
Go deeper: The life and death of Jeffrey Epstein
