US federal prosecutors have offered to release American financier Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of child prostitution, if he agrees to testify against President Donald Trump.
This was reported by the New York Post, referring to the businessman's cellmate in the New York correctional center, former police officer Nicholas Tartaglione.
“Prosecutors told Epstein that if he claimed that President Trump was involved in his crimes, he could be released“, Tartaglione wrote in his July clemency application, which was obtained by the newspaper. The document does not specify what crimes are in question. Epstein himself has maintained that Trump was not involved, the petitioner noted.
Epstein was arrested by New York State law enforcement on July 6, 2019. Prosecutors said they had evidence that between 2002 and 2005, he arranged visits to his Manhattan home for dozens of underage girls, the youngest of whom was 14 years old. Epstein's circle of friends and acquaintances included a large number of former and current officials not only from the United States but also from many other countries, including former heads of state, as well as prominent entrepreneurs and celebrities from show business. The financier's criminal prosecution in the US was dropped after he committed suicide in his prison cell on August 10, 2019.
As The Wall Street Journal reported on July 23, citing Washington administration officials, Attorney General Pam Bondi informed Trump in the spring that his name appeared in documents related to Epstein, along with the names of “many other prominent figures“. The White House dismissed the report as false.