NEW YORK _ Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested last week on sex trafficking charges, is worth more than $500 million, federal prosecutors said in a court filing, citing records obtained from a financial institution.
"The defendant is extravagantly wealthy," prosecutors said, seeking to hold Epstein in jail and deny him bail. They didn't name the financial institution.
Epstein earns at least $10 million per year, the government said, adding that he has not supplied financial statements.
Prosecutors also said Epstein wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to two unidentified co-conspirators, who could be witnesses, days after the Miami Herald renewed interest in his case with articles late last year.
Epstein, 66, was arrested on charges of alleged conspiracy and sex trafficking in minors and has pleaded not guilty. He's accused of molesting girls from 2002 to 2005 and could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted.
In a letter filed to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman on Friday, prosecutors argued that Epstein, given his means, couldn't be trusted not to flee in the face of such serious charges.
"Against this backdrop of significant _ and rapidly-expanding _ evidence, serious charges, and the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence, the defendant proposes to be released on conditions that are woefully inadequate," they wrote.
Responding to a proposal Epstein filed Thursday, they said, "Electronic monitoring would merely give the defendant less of a head start in fleeing _ and does not guard against the risk of him endangering victims in the very home where he has continued to hoard nude images of young women and girls."
Berman will hold a hearing Monday to consider whether to let Epstein out of the downtown Manhattan jail where he's been locked up since his arrest Saturday night.
The argument by prosecutors follows a 16-page letter filed Thursday by Epstein's legal team in which they proposed a series of "highly restrictive conditions" that would ensure the fund manager doesn't flee. They argued that Epstein could post a "substantial bond" secured by his mansion, valued in the tens of millions of dollars. He would wear a GPS ankle bracelet, ground his private jet and consent to extradition from any country he might run to.
Epstein also suggested that he could hire armed guards to watch him 24 hours a day, an arrangement used in several past cases in New York involving wealthy defendants, but one Berman has criticized in the past.
Prosecutors, who have called Epstein "a serial sexual predator who preyed on dozens of minor girls over a period of years," also say he poses a danger to the community.
