On Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill formally allowing the release of documents from a 2006 grand jury investigation in Palm Beach County into the late Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls.
“Today I signed HB 117, which allows for the public release of grand jury documents like those in the Jeffrey Epstein case,” DeSantis wrote on social media platform X. He added: “No one should be above the law, regardless of wealth, status or relationships. he said. “The public deserves to know who participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation, and the survivors deserve justice.”
Today I signed HB 117, which allows for the public release of grand jury documents like those in the Jeffrey Epstein case.
No one should be above the law, regardless of wealth, status, or connections. The public deserves to know who participated in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking…
– Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 29, 2024
“The bill will take effect July 1, though a South Florida Circuit judge may release the texts soon as part of a lawsuit filed by the Palm Beach Post,” WPTV reported.
DeSantis held a press conference Thursday in Palm Beach, coinciding with the signing of HB 117, during which he said: “They say justice delayed is justice denied. “And I think in many ways this whole ordeal has proven that to be true.”
He said the lack of access to grand jury materials “frustrated” the investigation. “There has to be a mechanism in some of these rare circumstances where people can get the truth and where we can try to get justice,” DeSantis added.
Governor DeSantis signs legislation to allow release of Jeffrey Epstein grand jury documents https://t.co/u513T4KJtR
– Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 29, 2024
“We are now sitting here, decades later, and you had Epstein and then after that,” DeSantis said in his speech to his audience at the press conference. [Ghislaine] Maxwell is already in prison in Florida, yet nothing else has happened with any of this.
He continued: “How is this possible in light of the magnitude of what is happening? And what was happening in Florida was only a fraction of what was happening because there were activities and abuse in New York City, in the Virgin Islands, and this was a very massive operation here that was targeting these very young girls. The failure to achieve justice in this matter was a major black spot in our judicial system.
Before the signing, DeSantis invited two of Epstein's accusers, Haley Robson and Gina Lisa Jones, to speak on the stand.
Both women thanked DeSantis.
“I can’t express my gratitude for this bill,” Robson said as she looked at DeSantis with tears in her eyes. “I'm just trying to put the pieces together on the final pieces of this puzzle to help me move forward and finally have the peace that I deserve in my life. And I'm so grateful. And I would really just like to know, why Jeffrey Epstein was given such grace and mercy for his inhumane crimes, and why… Exposing us in the media and treating us so badly?
DeSantis invited Jones to speak next. “We were left in the dark for a long time without answers to what was happening and why things turned out the way they did,” Jones said.
DeSantis then invited Robson, Jones and a third person to join him at the table as he signed HB 117 into law.
Epstein, a billionaire American hedge fund manager, was arrested on July 6, 2019 on sex trafficking charges, which included minor girls as young as 14 years old.
Less than a month later, on August 10, he was found hanging dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan while awaiting trial. Epstein was 66 years old.
Although autopsy reports confirmed that Epstein died by suicide, there has been much speculation about whether his death was actually a murder that was staged as a suicide.
Cameras in Epstein's cell were mysteriously turned off at the time of his death and his cellmate was moved out the day before his death.
Epstein, who was on suicide watch, did not get a new cellmate.
In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, which was released on January 4, Epstein's brother Mark also wondered whether Jeffrey had died by suicide.
This article originally appeared in The Western Journal.
