To Avoid Jail Before Trial, Epstein Offers Up His Mansion and Jet as Bond

Later Thursday, Mr. Epstein’s lawyers asked the judge that any disclosures about Mr. Epstein’s finances be kept secret under court seal. The New York Times has reported that his image as a math whiz who used his formidable skills to build a fortune may be exaggerated.

Mr. Epstein was arrested Saturday aboard a private jet at Teterboro Airport after arriving from Paris. He has been detained at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a high-security facility in Lower Manhattan where accused terrorists, mobsters and, most recently, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, have awaited trial.

If convicted, Mr. Epstein faces up to 45 years in prison on sex-trafficking and conspiracy charges. In the indictment unsealed on Monday, the office of Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said that between 2002 and 2005, Mr. Epstein recruited dozens of underage girls to engage in sex acts with him, after which he paid them hundreds of dollars in cash.

The indictment also accused Mr. Epstein of encouraging some of his victims to recruit other underage girls that he could then abuse, and paying his “victim-recruiters” hundreds of dollars for each girl that they brought to him. “In so doing, Epstein maintained a steady supply of new victims to exploit,” the indictment said.

In the bail memorandum, Mr. Epstein’s lawyers made it clear their client would fight the charges and gave a preview of what his defense might be. They argued that even though the government may have witnesses — some younger than 18 at the time — who said Mr. Epstein had paid them for sexual massages, prosecutors could not prove he had committed the federal crime of sex trafficking. They contended that Mr. Epstein should have been prosecuted in New York State court.

“There are no allegations in the indictment that Mr. Epstein trafficked anybody for commercial profit; that he forced, coerced, defrauded, or enslaved anybody,” the lawyers, Reid Weingarten, Marc Fernich and Martin G. Weinberg, wrote. “No one seeks to minimize the gravity of the alleged conduct, but it is clear that the conduct falls within the heartland of classic state or local sex offenses.”