By David Smiley and Alex Daugherty

Miami Herald

A defiant U.S. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta said Wednesday that he would not resign, and defended his efforts a dozen years ago as the U.S. attorney in Miami to prosecute accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

With calls growing for his ouster, Acosta called an afternoon news conference at the Department of Labor to push back on criticism that he gave Epstein a “sweetheart deal” in 2008 when his office allowed the accused pedophile to execute a non-prosecution agreement that avoided federal charges and allowed him to plead guilty to two lesser state charges.

Acosta referred to the possibility of trying Epstein at a federal trial as “a roll of the dice.” He stressed that his office only got involved in the case because the Palm Beach County state attorney was going to let Epstein plead to a misdemeanor and avoid jail time, which he said was “unacceptable.”

“The goal here was straightforward: put Epstein behind bars and ensure he registers as a sexual offender,” he said.

The deal Acosta’s office ultimately worked out in 2007 resulted in Epstein serving a 13-month jail sentence in Palm Beach County, during which he was allowed to leave most days on a work release program. Acosta said the decision to grant Epstein the ability to leave jail to go to his West Palm Beach office was “not what was expected,” and was “complete B.S.”

Acosta has been under intense pressure to resign following Epstein’s arrest over the weekend in New Jersey and a New York indictment on charges that he preyed on dozens of teenage girls from 2002 to 2005 in New York and Palm Beach — similar to the allegations reviewed a dozen years ago by Acosta.

Epstein, who pleaded not guilty Monday, faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted. Acosta agreed in 2007 to set aside a 53-count federal indictment and allow Epstein to plead guilty to state prostitution charges involving girls under the age of 18.

Acosta’s fate has become one of the many controversies surrounding the Trump White House after the Miami Herald in the fall published a series, Perversion of Justice, detailing the extent of the allegations against Epstein and the details behind the plea deal negotiated with Acosta’s office.

Acosta said he spoke Tuesday to President Donald Trump, who told him he continues to have the president’s support. At the news conference Wednesday, Acosta’s staff distributed to the press affidavits from prosecutors that he said bolstered his argument that his office made appropriate efforts to prosecute Epstein and to consider the lives of Epstein’s victims.

Acosta declined to apologize to any of Epstein’s victims, asserting that “today’s world” treats sex trafficking victims differently than it did a dozen years ago, when he said defense attorneys were allowed to grill victims and soil their characters.

“I understand from today’s perspective that people scratch their heads and say ‘Why?’ How many other times have you seen the U.S. attorney’s office intervene in a state matter and say stop the state’s plea because it is insufficient?”

Acosta said it’s difficult to look back to 2007 and question whether he would have done things the same. But a federal judge in Miami recently ruled that Acosta’s office improperly kept the deal secret, initially, from Epstein’s victims.

“He should resign because he was part of a process which really exposes the two-tier criminal justice system in America,” presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders said Tuesday on CNN.

Two dozen Department of Labor staffers stood watch over a wood-paneled press briefing room inside the agency’s headquarters. The Department of Labor Building, which was recently invaded by mice and bedbugs, isn’t a typical place for high-profile Washington press conferences.

Shortly before Acosta spoke to reporters, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings announced that he had sent a letter inviting Acosta to testify during a July 23 hearing delving into his actions on the Epstein case in South Florida. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a South Florida Democrat who sits on the committee, subsequently issued a statement saying that “Secretary Acosta has a disturbing record on sexual and human trafficking that stretches … up to his time now as Labor Secretary.”