Alexander Acosta

Jeffrey Sloman, one of the prosecutors in the case, defended the agreement in a February 2019 op-ed piece in the Miami Herald: "Our priorities were to make sure Epstein could not hurt anyone else and to compensate Epstein's victims without retraumatizing them. Our team worked diligently to build a federal case against Epstein. Throughout the investigation, we took care to be respectful of the pain Epstein's victims had endured. As we continued, however, it became clear that most of Epstein's victims were terrified to cooperate against him. Some hired lawyers to avoid appearing before a grand jury. One of the key witnesses moved to Australia and refused to return calls from us. We also researched and discussed significant legal impediments to prosecuting [in federal court] what was, at heart, a local sex abuse case. Given the obstacles we faced in fashioning a robust federal prosecution, we decided to negotiate a resolution. ... You can disagree with the result we reached, but our whole team — from Alex [Acosta] on down the chain of command — always acted with integrity and in good faith."

In February 2019, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility notified Senator Ben Sasse that it had opened an investigation into Epstein's prosecution.

On February 21, 2019, a ruling in federal court returned Acosta's role in the Epstein case to the headlines. The decision to keep the deal with Epstein secret until after it was finalized has been considered by some to be a violation of the Crime Victims' Rights Act of 2004 (CVRA), which requires notifying victims of the progress of federal criminal cases. The CVRA was new and relatively untested at the time of the Epstein non-prosecution agreement. In 2008, two of Epstein's victims filed a lawsuit in federal court aiming to vacate the federal non-prosecution agreement on the grounds that it violated the CVRA. For more than a decade, the U.S. Attorney's office denied that it acted in violation of victims' rights laws and argued that the CVRA did not apply in the Epstein case. The government's contention that the CVRA did not apply was based on questions of timing (whether or not CVRA applied prior to filing of federal charges), relevance (whether the CVRA applied to non-prosecution agreements), and jurisdiction (whether the case should be considered a federal case or a state case under the CVRA). The court rejected those arguments in the February 21, 2019 ruling, finding that the CVRA did apply and that victims should have been notified of the Epstein non-prosecution agreement in advance of its signing, to afford them the opportunity to influence its terms. At the conclusion of his ruling, the federal judge in the case noted that he was "not ruling that the decision not to prosecute was improper," but was "simply ruling that, under the facts of this case, there was a violation of the victims rights [for reasonable, accurate, and timely notice] under the CVRA."

On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force on sex trafficking charges stemming from activities alleged to have occurred in 2002–2005.

In 2019, Acosta proposed cutting the funding of his department's International Labor Affairs Bureau from $68 million in 2018 to under $20 million in 2020. That agency combats human trafficking (including child sex trafficking), child labor and forced labor internationally.

Acosta resigned as Labor Secretary, effective July 19, 2019, following criticism of his role in the Epstein case.

In late 2018, as rumors circulated that Acosta was being considered as a possible successor to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Miami Herald published an investigation detailing Acosta's role in the Epstein case. Among other revelations, the Herald reported that Acosta took the unusual step of meeting with Epstein's attorney Jay Lefkowitz at the Marriott Hotel 70 miles from the U.S. Attorney's office in Miami and that it was he who finalized the agreement. According to the article: "In email after email, Acosta and the lead federal prosecutor, A. Marie Villafaña, acquiesced to Epstein's legal team's demands, which often focused on ways to limit the scandal by shutting out his victims and the media, including suggesting that the charges be filed in Miami, instead of Palm Beach, where Epstein's victims lived."

In December 2018, a Labor Department spokesperson replied to questions about renewed interest in the Epstein case as follows: "For more than a decade, this prosecution has been reviewed in great detail by newspaper articles, television reports, books, and Congressional testimony, and has been defended by the Department of Justice in litigation across three administrations and several attorneys general. If the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General chooses to review this matter, Secretary Acosta welcomes the opportunity to participate."

President Donald Trump announced in a press conference on February 16, 2017, that he would nominate Acosta to fill the position of Secretary of Labor after the nomination of Andrew Puzder was withdrawn. Acosta was recommended by White House counsel Don McGahn. Acosta is the first, and – as of May 2019 – the only Hispanic person to serve in Trump's cabinet. Jovita Carranza was nominated to Trump's cabinet on April 4, 2019, but not yet confirmed, to serve as the Administrator of the Small Business Administration.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held confirmation hearings on March 22, 2017, and Acosta's nomination was reported out of the committee on March 30, 2017.

On April 27, 2017, Acosta was confirmed as Secretary of Labor by the U.S. Senate in a 60–38 vote. He received the support of eight Democratic Senators and all Republican senators except Senator Pat Toomey, who did not participate in the vote. On April 28, 2017, Acosta was sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence.

During Acosta's confirmation hearing, he discussed the need and his support of apprenticeship as a workforce development tool to close the skills gap. On June 15, 2017, President Trump signed Executive Order 13801, "Presidential Executive Order Expanding Apprenticeships in America," establishing the Task Force on Apprenticeship Expansion with Acosta serving as the chair. The task force held five public meetings and issued their final report to President Trump on May 10, 2018.

A key issue was that prosecutors agreed not to inform victims that the deal was in the works. The Herald describes an email from Epstein's attorney after his off-site meeting with Acosta: "'Thank you for the commitment you made to me during our Oct. 12 meeting,' Lefkowitz wrote in a letter to Acosta after their breakfast meeting in West Palm Beach. He added that he was hopeful that Acosta would abide by a promise to keep the deal confidential. 'You ... assured me that your office would not ... contact any of the identified individuals, potential witnesses or potential civil claimants and the respective counsel in this matter,' Lefkowitz wrote." The Herald article contended that certain aspects of Acosta's non-prosecution agreement violated federal law. "As part of the arrangement, Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims. As a result, the non-prosecution agreement was sealed until after it was approved by the judge, thereby averting any chance that the girls — or anyone else — might show up in court and try to derail it." Victims, former prosecutors, and the retired Palm Beach police chief were among those quoted criticizing the agreement and Acosta's role in it.

Because the CVRA does not specify penalties for failure to meet victims notification requirements, the judge offered both parties opportunities to suggest remedies—Epstein's victims who were party to the suit asked for rescission of the federal non-prosecution agreement with Epstein, while the government suggested other approaches, maintaining that other victims were against rescinding the agreement due to privacy concerns and possible impacts to restitution paid under the agreement.

On December 31, 2013, Acosta became the new chairman of U.S. Century Bank, the largest domestically owned Hispanic community bank in Florida and one of the 15 largest Hispanic community banks in the nation. During his tenure as chairman, U.S. Century Bank had its first year-end profit since the start of the Great Recession. Acosta was a member of the Board of Trustees of Gulliver Schools, where he served a past term as board chairman.

On July 1, 2009, Acosta became the second dean of Florida International University College of Law. He spearheaded the effort to establish the Master of Studies in Law in banking compliance, Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering at FIU Law.

Acosta has twice been named one of the nation's 50 most influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business Magazine. He serves or served on the Florida Innocence Commission, on the Florida Supreme Court's Commission on Professionalism, Florida Supreme Court's Access to Justice Commission, and on the Commission for Hispanic Rights and Responsibilities. In 2008, Acosta was named as one of the 100 most influential people in business ethics by the Ethisphere Institute.

In 2007–2008, as U.S. attorney, Acosta approved a plea deal that required Jeffrey Epstein to plead guilty to a state charge of solicitation for the purposes of prostitution involving a 14-year-old girl. After Epstein's arrest in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges, Acosta faced renewed and harsher criticism for his role in the 2008 non-prosecution agreement, as well as calls for his resignation; he resigned on July 19 and was replaced by Eugene Scalia.

In 2007–2008, while serving as the U.S. attorney for Southern Florida, Acosta approved a federal non-prosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein, which has since been ruled illegal by a federal judge. Epstein was a wealthy hedge fund manager with influential connections, including Prince Andrew, Tom Barrack, Leon Black, Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz, Wilbur Ross, and Donald Trump, among others. He was believed to have recruited minor girls for lewd massages and other paid sexual activities at his Florida mansion. Under the agreement, Epstein, along with four co-conspirators and any unnamed "potential co-conspirators," did not face federal criminal charges. The agreement required Epstein to plead guilty to two state prostitution charges, serve jail time, register as a sex offender, and pay restitution to victims identified by the FBI. Prosecutors had identified 36 victims of Epstein, most of whom had been inappropriately deprived of knowledge of the plea deal or opportunity to give input.

Subsequent to the federal non-prosecution agreement of 2007–2008, claims were made in news reports, books, and civil lawsuits that Epstein's activities prior to his 2008 conviction may have been significantly more extensive than those known at the time of the agreement—perhaps affecting hundreds of minors, said to have been recruited from the U.S. and overseas to attend sex parties and perform sexual favors for Epstein and his guests at Epstein's homes in Florida, New York, New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and aboard his private jet. None of the civil lawsuits related to these additional claims have gone to trial.

In 2005, Acosta was appointed as the U.S. attorney for Southern District of Florida, where his office successfully prosecuted the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the terrorism suspect José Padilla, the founders of the Cali Cartel, and Charles McArther Emmanuel, the son of Liberia's former leader.

Then, he became Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division on August 22, 2003, where he was known for increasing federal prosecutions against human trafficking. Acosta authorized federal intervention in an Oklahoma religious liberties case to help assure the right to wear hijab in public school, and worked with Mississippi authorities to reopen the investigation of the 1955 death of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black youth whose abduction and killing helped spark the civil rights movement. He was the first Hispanic to serve as Assistant Attorney General.

Acosta served in four presidentially appointed, U.S. Senate-confirmed positions in the George W. Bush administration. From December 2001 to December 2002, he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. From December 2002 to August 2003, he was a member of the National Labor Relations Board for which he participated in or authored more than 125 opinions.

Following law school, Acosta served as a law clerk to Samuel Alito, then a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, from 1994 to 1995. Acosta then worked at the office of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in employment and labor issues. While in Washington, Acosta taught classes on employment law, disability-based discrimination law, and civil rights law at the George Mason University School of Law.

Acosta is the only son of Cuban refugees. He is a native of Miami, Florida, where he attended the Gulliver Schools. Acosta received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard College in 1990 and received a Juris Doctor degree cum laude from Harvard Law School 1994. He is the first member of his family to graduate from college.

Rene Alexander Acosta (born January 16, 1969) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 27th United States Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019. President Donald Trump nominated Acosta to be Labor Secretary on February 16, 2017 , and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 27, 2017 . Acosta is the only Hispanic person to have served in President Trump's Cabinet.