A Perverse Justice

When the parents of a young teenager went in to see Police Chief Michael Reiter and told him how Jeffrey Epstein had sexually abused their daughter, Reiter could have politely listened to the couple and backed away from a serious investigation of one of Palm Beach’s wealthiest resident. Instead, the chief instituted a serious undercover investigation that led to Epstein’s arrest. Reiter did not let matters rest there, but pushed to have the New York businessman indicted on charges that would have put him away for years. Instead, Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to relatively minor offenses for which he was sentenced to a year and a half in jail. That was bad enough but it is disgraceful beyond imagination that Epstein is now out six days a week on a work-release program. The Palm Beach Police Department did not make their extraordinary efforts to have a perversion of justice that equals the perversion of Epstein himself.