What the public record establishes
- Victim-notification letters were prepared. OPR says they were being readied for transmittal to about 30 victims and that they described a coming state plea, invited attendance or a written statement, and referenced 18 U.S.C. § 2255 damages.
- Lilly Ann Sanchez wrote Sloman requesting that the U.S. Attorney’s Office “hold off on sending any victim notification letters” until the contents could be discussed. OPR also records that Jay Lefkowitz asked that sending be delayed until after a discussion of the contents.
- AUSA A. Marie Villafaña emailed U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman requesting permission to send the letters.
- Sloman replied with an email instructing her to “Hold the letter.”
- Sloman told OPR he had wanted to push the letter out, but that the instruction was “the product of me speaking to somebody,” although he could not be definitive as to whom. In another OPR passage he recalled a conversation with somebody about whether the CVRA applied.
Documented. Letters prepared. Defense asked the office to wait. Villafaña asked to send. Sloman wrote “Hold the letter.”
Not established as fact. That Sanchez was Sloman’s “somebody.” That Acosta personally ordered the final hold. That intelligence caused the NPA. That Main Justice ordered survivors silenced. Those are inferences. GAH does not promote them.
Evidence
Native source acquired. GAH has now verified EFTA00013764, the one-page December 7, 2007 email itself. The embedded original message shows Villafaña asking at 17:05:56 whether she was free to send the victim-notification letter. The reply header is 22:08:19 +0000, corresponding to 17:08:19 EST, and the body reads “Hold the letter.” The elapsed time between the embedded inquiry and reply is 2 minutes 23 seconds.
This strengthens the timing of the operational freeze; it does not identify Sloman's later-recalled “somebody,” establish who he consulted during that interval, or prove a hidden instruction beyond the email.
Source control: EFTA00013764 · locally verified SHA-256 5e4075e08ec2a1248eea0ecdb530cfa0c6751ed57ebe8ef3049fbbf64cab0117.
Open EFTA00013764 at DOJOpen the OPR court copy
The draft letter
OPR describes the draft as stating that the federal investigation had been completed, that Epstein would plead guilty in state court, that the parties would recommend 18 months of imprisonment, and that Epstein would compensate victims for monetary damages claims under 18 U.S.C. § 2255. It invited victims to attend the change-of-plea hearing or provide a written statement to the State Attorney’s Office.
What happened next
On February 21, 2019, Judge Kenneth A. Marra found a CVRA conferral violation in Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States. On September 16, 2019, the court closed the case without rescinding the NPA. In 2021 the Eleventh Circuit sitting en banc denied mandamus, holding that the CVRA does not authorize that kind of standalone suit. In 2022 the Supreme Court denied certiorari. The 2019 district finding remains a historical finding, not a surviving appellate-affirmed merits holding.
Limitations
This page uses OPR’s reconstruction and later public docket history. It does not open sealed victim identities. It does not reconstruct the NPA victim list. It does not treat missing records as proof of a hidden order.
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