Prosecutors in Florida knew two years before the deal that Epstein had raped teenage girls, according to a transcript

Florida prosecutors heard testimony that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein raped teenage girls, but still cut a deal with him in 2008, according to recently released court records.

The 150-page transcript of the 2006 grand jury investigation shows that the court heard testimony that Epstein sexually abused girls as young as 14 in his Palm Beach mansion.

The victims also told investigators they were paid to find more girls for Epstein to abuse. The harrowing case ended with the pedophile being sentenced to less than two years in prison after a deal with prosecutors.

Florida District Judge Luis Delgado, who released the pages on Monday, warned that the transcript would likely outrage anyone who read it.

“The details in the file will be outrageous to decent people,” Delgado wrote in his decision.

“The grand jury testimony concerns activities ranging from completely unacceptable to rape – all of the conduct involved is sexually deviant, abhorrent and criminal.”

Transcripts show that Palm Beach Police Detective Joe Recarey began investigating Epstein in March 2005 when a woman reported that her stepdaughter had received $300 for “sexual activity with a man in Palm Beach.”

Another teenager then told investigators that when she was 17, a friend told her she could earn $200 by giving a massage at Esptein’s home.

When the teenager arrived at Epstein’s home, she told investigators that Epstein demanded that she take off her clothes and give him a massage, according to Recarey’s testimony.

When he tried to touch her, the teenager told him she was uncomfortable.

Epstein then told the girl that he would pay her money if she brought other “girls” to his home, stressing that they had to be young girls.

“And he told her, ‘The younger the better,'” Recarey said.

Over time, the teenager told investigators that she had brought six friends from her high school to Epstein’s home, including a 14-year-old girl.

She added that when she brought a 23-year-old friend with her, Epstein refused, telling her the woman was too old.

The teenager allegedly received $200 each time she brought a friend, and Epstein also paid for her to rent a car.

“The more you did, the more money you made,” Recarey testified. “She explained that there would be a massage or possibly touching and that you would have to do the massage either topless or nude.”

Recarey noted that the 17-year-old who recruited girls for Esptein compared herself to “Hollywood Madame” Heidi Fleiss, who ran a notorious prostitution ring in Los Angeles in the 1990s.

The disturbing testimony has once again put the spotlight on the deal that federal prosecutors made with Epstein in 2008, which was widely criticized as being too lenient.

This deal allowed Esptein to avoid a serious federal charge by pleading guilty to state charges of procuring and soliciting a person under the age of 18 for prostitution.

Over the next decade, Epstein continued to create victims before being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in New York in 2018.

Epstein, 66, was found dead in a New York prison cell in August 2019. His death was ruled a suicide.

Delgado had previously scheduled a hearing to discuss how and when to release the transcripts next week, but he opted to release the records on Monday, the earliest possible date since Gov. Ron DeSantis issued the order in February.

He called Esptein “the most notorious pedophile in American history.”

“For nearly twenty years, the story of how Jeffrey Epstein victimized some of Palm Beach County’s most vulnerable has been the subject of great anger and, at times, tainted public perceptions of the criminal justice system,” Delgado wrote.

“Epstein is indeed notorious and nefarious, and it is widely reported that he boasted about his wealth while socialising with politicians, billionaires and even members of the British royal family,” the judge added.

“Given these reports, it is understandable that the public is very curious about what the (news) agencies described as ‘special treatment’ in connection with his prosecution.”

With post wires