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Who were Jeffrey Epstein's criminal defense attorneys during the 2006 state case and the 2019 federal probe?
Executive summary
Jeffrey Epstein’s 2006 state prosecution and the revived 2019 federal indictment involved overlapping but not identical teams of high-profile lawyers. Reporting and official documents identify Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, Alan Dershowitz and former solicitor general Ken Starr among attorneys who worked on Epstein’s defense in the mid-2000s; Manhattan prosecutors led the 2019 federal case after prosecutors in Florida declined broader federal charges in 2006, and the Justice Department files and news accounts describe Epstein’s 2019 indictment being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York while his 2019 defense team interacted with federal prosecutors [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. “The 2006 fight: ‘dream team’ of private lawyers in state matters”
Contemporaneous reporting and later summaries describe Epstein assembling a roster of prominent Florida and national defense lawyers during the 2005–2007 investigations that led to a 2006 grand jury and ultimately the 2008 state plea: public names tied to Epstein’s defense include Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr; local accounts also note other high‑powered Florida counsel and advisers participated in negotiations with prosecutors [1] [5] [6] [7].
2. “Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr: national figures who negotiated the deal”
Alan Dershowitz is repeatedly cited as a member of Epstein’s early defense team and is reported to have helped negotiate the 2006–2007 non‑prosecution agreement (NPA); news outlets and coverage of the legal fights over disclosure name Dershowitz and Ken Starr as national‑profile attorneys who argued for the state resolution and later defended the legality of how the matter was handled [2] [7].
3. “Local counsel, grand juries and the ‘deal of the century’”
Local reporting from the Palm Beach area and federal reviews document that Epstein’s team negotiated with state prosecutors and federal investigators in 2006 — the same period Palm Beach police and the state attorney’s office were handling evidence that produced a single felony solicitation charge in July 2006. These accounts underline the role of local defense lawyers and the interaction between Epstein’s counsel and prosecutors that produced the controversial NPA [5] [8] [9].
4. “What changed in 2019: federal indictment in Manhattan”
In 2019, Manhattan federal prosecutors filed a new indictment charging Epstein with sex trafficking of minors; that prosecution was handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (New York federal prosecutors), reopening federal exposure that had not been pursued to indictment in 2006 after the earlier Florida‑based resolution [3] [4].
5. “Epstein’s 2019 defense posture and interactions with prosecutors”
Available sources say Manhattan prosecutors brought the 2019 charges and that Epstein had counsel who engaged in the federal proceedings and post‑arrest litigation (including matters around detention and his death), but the documents and reporting provided here focus more on the prosecutors’ actions and the Justice Department’s release of files than on a comprehensive roster of every private attorney on Epstein’s 2019 defense team [3] [4] [10]. Available sources do not list an exhaustive, single roster of Epstein’s 2019 criminal defense attorneys in the provided reporting.
6. “Victims’ lawyers and post‑deal litigation”
By contrast, attorneys representing victims — such as Brad Edwards — pursued civil claims and litigation challenging the secrecy and terms of the 2006–2008 arrangements and later helped prompt renewed scrutiny; that advocacy is central in many accounts of why the federal case was revived in 2019 [11] [4].
7. “Conflicting narratives and institutional reviews”
The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility and subsequent media investigations produced competing takes: some reporting and official reviews cleared certain federal actors of misconduct in the 2006 resolution while other local investigations and victims’ advocates criticized the handling and documented close interactions between Epstein’s lawyers and prosecutors [12] [8]. These documents underscore why the identities and roles of Epstein’s counsel remain politically and legally consequential.
8. “Limitations in available reporting”
The provided search results name several prominent attorneys from the mid‑2000s defense (Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, Alan Dershowitz, Ken Starr) and establish that Manhattan federal prosecutors led the 2019 indictment, but they do not supply a single, authoritative list of every lawyer who represented Epstein in 2019 or every private attorney involved across both periods. Where sources do not mention specific names or a full roster for 2019, I note that those details are not found in the current reporting [1] [2] [3] [4].
Takeaway: Multiple high‑profile lawyers are documented as part of Epstein’s mid‑2000s defense team (Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, Alan Dershowitz, Ken Starr) while the 2019 case was brought by Manhattan federal prosecutors; the reporting here emphasizes prosecutors’ roles, victims’ lawyers’ challenges to the earlier deal, and that an exhaustive name‑by‑name list for Epstein’s 2019 defense is not provided in the available sources [1] [2] [3] [11].