It's been more than six years since the death of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a case that continues to spark outrage, suspicion, and calls for transparency.
Scripps News has compiled a timeline of events leading to the release of the so-called Epstein files.
March 2005 – Police in Palm Beach, Florida, begin investigating Epstein after the family of a 14-year-old girl reports she was molested at his mansion. Multiple underage girls, many of them high school students, would later tell police that Epstein hired them to give sexual massages.
May 2006 – Palm Beach police officials sign paperwork to charge Epstein with multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor, but the county’s top prosecutor, State Attorney Barry Krischer, takes the unusual step of sending the case to a grand jury.
July 2006 – Epstein is arrested after a grand jury indicts him on a single count of soliciting prostitution. The relatively minor charge draws almost immediate attention from critics, including Palm Beach police leaders, who assail Krischer publicly and accuse him of giving Epstein special treatment. The FBI begins an investigation.
2007 – Federal prosecutors prepare an indictment against Epstein. But for a year, the money manager’s lawyers engage in talks with the U.S. attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, about a plea bargain that would allow Epstein to avoid a federal prosecution. Epstein’s lawyers decry his accusers as unreliable witnesses.
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June 2008 – Epstein pleads guilty to state charges: one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. He is sentenced to 18 months in jail. Under a secret arrangement, the U.S. attorney’s office agrees not to prosecute Epstein for federal crimes. Epstein serves most of his sentence in a work-release program that allows him to leave jail during the day to go to his office, then return at night.
July 2009 – Epstein is released from jail. For the next decade, multiple women who say they are Epstein’s victims wage a legal fight to get his federal non-prosecution agreement voided, and hold him and others liable for the abuse. One of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, says in her lawsuits that, starting when she was 17, Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, set up sexual encounters with royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and other rich and powerful men, including Britain’s Prince Andrew. All of those men deny the allegations.
November 2018 – The Miami Herald revisits the handling of Epstein’s case in a series of stories focusing partly on the role of Acosta — who by this point is President Donald Trump’s labor secretary — in arranging his unusual plea deal. The coverage renews public interest in the case.
July 6, 2019 – Jeffrey Epstein is arrested on federal sex trafficking charges involving minors from the early 2000s, a decade after his controversial plea deal on prostitution charges.
August 10, 2019 – Epstein is found dead in his jail cell. The medical examiner rules it a suicide, but irregularities in jail protocol fuel conspiracy theories and public mistrust.
December 29, 2021 – Court cases mount against banks and Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell is tried, convicted of sex trafficking, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
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2021–2024 – Journalists, lawyers, and survivors fight to unseal records about Epstein’s network of powerful acquaintances. Some documents, including flight logs and deposition transcripts, are released, but the Department of Justice holds far more. Survivors — estimated to number upwards of 1,000 women — continue pressing for the release of all files.
June 2, 2024 – The push for releasing Epstein’s records becomes a motivating factor for many supporting President Trump’s 2024 campaign, as he promises to make them public. In his first year in office, neither he nor Republican congressional leaders acted on this promise.
February 22, 2025 – Attorney General Pam Bondi suggests she has an “Epstein client list” on her desk.
July 8, 2025 – Five months later, the DOJ backtracks, announcing Epstein never had a client list and declaring the investigation effectively closed.
July 23, 2025 – The House of Representatives begins investigating the federal government’s handling of the Epstein case and starts issuing subpoenas.
August 11–20, 2025 – Multiple judges deny DOJ requests to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Epstein and Maxwell.
November 18, 2025 – In a bipartisan move, Congress forces a vote to release Epstein’s personal files held by federal agencies. The bill passes, the president signs it into law, and a 30-day deadline begins for releasing all records — with some possible redactions.
November 19, 2025 - President Trump signs bill into law.
The Associated Press contributed to the timeline.
