Justice has seemed elusive these past three years. One of the most discouraging themes has been the pattern of powerful white men who seem to get away with sexual misconduct and even criminal behavior toward women and young girls: Donald Trump, Roy Moore, Brett Kavanaugh, among them. Some days, it feels like the idea of “justice” is nonexistent when it comes to this type of powerful perpetrator and conduct.
The case of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, thus far, is one of the most egregious examples. Epstein actually got caught: He was arrested and charged last decade by federal authorities for running a sex-trafficking operation in which minor girls experienced horrible sexual abuse and rape in Florida. But then Epstein was given a slap-on-the-wrist deal in 2008 from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and some of his co-conspirators were shielded from prosecution. To make matters even worse, that deal seems to have been the product of some serious gamesmanship by a cabal of other powerful white men, including Alex Acosta, then-U.S. attorney and now secretary of labor.
