Here’s the narrative: the shadowy rich man, friend of the louche and

Here’s the narrative: the shadowy rich man, friend of the louche and disgraced President, at all times surrounded by a retinue of gorgeous retainers doing his bidding, is now found to have gathered a network of wrong-side-of-the-tracks Palm Beach girls to provide him with weird sexual services. (It somehow reads weirder that he doesn’t have sex with them.) To boot, his former girl friend, Ghislaine Maxwell the daughter of the disgraced Robert Maxwell—encouraged at least one of the girls to come to Epstein’s home (and forever more has become a fixture of further weird possibilities in this tale). Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter is reported to say: “This is bigger than Rush Limbaugh,” who, in a storm of publicity, has just been arrested in Palm Beach for possession of controlled drugs. On one side are some of the nation’s most powerful defense attorneys (who, increasingly, seem more stumblebum than effective), on the other side, a round-up of hapless girls, with sensational tales of perversion and infamy (in the telling they are not so much sex workers, as Dickensian victims), relatively speaking giving the Palm Beach authorities the choice between utter capitulation to the powerful or standing on the side of the exploited and powerless. Still, with a critical eye, it also quite appears to be a straightforward tale of prostitution (however more or less kinky). And even though some of the girls are minors, age is not a distinguishing factor in a prostitution charge in Florida, nor in most places (in New York, for instance, at this time soliciting sex with anyone over the age of 14 is a class D misdemeanor calling for a $100 fine). In fact, Saige Gonzales told the police that she lied about being 18 because otherwise she knew she would not have been admitted to the house. The local sex crimes prosecutor, Lana Belhalevic, interviews the girls and determines that the offense is solely related to prostitution—that there are no innocent victims. Dershowitz rejects a series of lower-level plea deals and Palm Beach District Attorney Barry Krischer takes the unusual step of empanelling a grand jury, which returns with a recommendation of a single count of soliciting a prostitute—a charge without jail time. (And Epstein can apply to have his record expunged after a year.) At which point, Reiter, the police chief, at odds with the District Attorney’s office, recruits the involvement of the FBI. This is of course the Bush-era FBI and Epstein presents quite the Clinton-connected scandal. Still, solicitation, even of a minor, is not a federal crime. The FBI hits on the novel HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022722