The ex-Palm Beach police chief who investigated Jeffrey Epstein slams prosecutors' 'failure' to do right by his victims in Florida

• The former police chief who investigated Jeffrey Epstein in 2005 blasted prosecutors in Florida for failing to bring justice for Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's accusers.
• Michael Reiter praised federal prosecutors in New York for successfully trying Maxwell.

A former Florida police chief who investigated Jeffrey Epstein in 2005 released a blistering statement in the wake of Ghislaine Maxwell's conviction on Wednesday, excoriating state and federal prosecutors who he said previously failed to bring justice for the late financier's victims.

Michael Reiter, the former head of the Palm Beach Police Department, praised federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York who handled Maxwell's trial and had brought similar charges against Epstein before he died by suicide, noting that those actions "should have been done in the Florida case 15 years ago."

A New York jury found Maxwell guilty of five of six charges related to sex-trafficking girls alongside Epstein, and sexually abusing them herself.

"The importance of the failure of the Florida case cannot be overstated," Reiter said in his statement, which was published Thursday in the Palm Beach Daily News. "Now that the courts have spoken, I hope and pray that the professionals in our justice system learn from this case."

Under Reiter's leadership, the Palm Beach Police Department had meticulously gathered evidence from months of investigating and dozens of interviews with witnesses and victims, and found probable cause to charge Epstein with four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

But ultimately, in 2007, Epstein struck a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution.

Reiter blasted Florida prosecutors for initially charging Epstein with "procuring a child for prostitution," which Reiter said wrongly labeled child victims as prostitutes.

"The use of the term 'child prostitution' should be banished from our laws and our lexicon," Reiter said. "Law school professors should teach this case in legal ethics courses as examples of how not to treat victims of sex crimes and as a forewarning to prosecutors on how they can be influenced to fail in their duties to both victims and the public."