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| Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump |
Missouri attorney Douglas L. Healy, taking a page from the playbook of the late convicted pedophile and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, has sicced private investigators on the mother of his "bastard child in Poplar Bluff."
Epstein, of course, recently committed "suicide" at a U.S. holding facility in Manhattan, according to federal authorities. Numerous prominent voices, from all sides of the political spectrum, have taken to social media to express doubts about what really happened to Epstein. This much is certain: While still alive and free, Epstein hired private investigators to harass and intimidate his accusers in Florida.
Healy, who admits in court documents that he is the father of a boy (now age 4) in Southeast Missouri, has engaged in similar behavior. Healy has been angry at the mother (DeAnna Kelley) since she refused his demand to have an abortion or give the child up for adoption.
A Republican and a prime backer of the $2.5-billion Grain Belt Express wind-energy project, Healy apparently thinks he has the financial and political clout to make others bend to his wishes. He hired at least two private investigators to tail Kelley, and she caught one roaming around in her back yard. When she confronted the PI and asked if she could help him, he replied, "I've got everything I need."
Kelley eventually met the man at a Burger King for coffee, and he said he had been hired to help convince her to turn over custody of her son to Healy, "or they would make my life hell." The PI's unwelcome presence in Kelley's back yard points to a crime (criminal trespass), and his words point to another crime (extortion). He claimed to be operating on behalf of, and with funds from, Healy -- suggesting the attorney could be an accessory to said crimes. A finding that Healy was an accessory to criminal acts could place his standing with the Missouri Bar Association in jeopardy -- and might give Grain Belt Express supporters pause about being connected to him.
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| Doug Healy |
Not long after a 14-year-old girl reported Jeffery Epstein to authorities in 2005, she says she received a warning from someone who claimed to be in contact with the well-connected financier.
The girl would be paid cash if she agreed not to cooperate with law enforcement, the person told the accuser, adding that "those who help him will be compensated and those who hurt him will be dealt with," according to a Palm Beach, Florida, police report reflecting the accuser's statement.
The threat was one of many intimidation and bare-knuckle tactics that accusers and witnesses told police they faced after Florida authorities opened their first investigation into Epstein.
Epstein was charged on July 8, 2019, by the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York with sex trafficking of minors. He pleaded not guilty and faced as much as 45 years in prison if convicted -- prior to his apparent death early on August 10. The first investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against Epstein began more than a decade ago -- and his response to the accusations sound an awful lot like Doug Healy's actions in Missouri. Reports CNN, on Epstein's tactics in the early 2000s:
During that probe, at least three private investigators who police believed were working on Epstein's behalf tracked down accusers and possible witnesses to the alleged attacks, according to the police reports. They sat in black SUVs outside the homes of accusers, questioned their current and former boyfriends, and chased one parent's car off the road, according to police reports and a lawyer for three accusers. Epstein's current attorney Reid Weingarten, denied in a court filing Thursday any knowledge of the alleged car chase and said if it happened, it was not authorized by Epstein.
"It was incredibly intimidating," Spencer Kuvin, an attorney for three accusers, told CNN. "You have to remember these girls were 14 and 15 (years old) when this was happening."
Epstein even played hardball with prosecutors. From CNN:
The aggressive tactics didn't stop with witnesses or accusers, according to court filings, police reports, and attorneys, but also extended to the prosecutors.
Prosecutors with the US attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida, led by Alex Acosta at the time, considered charging Epstein with obstruction of justice or witness intimidation in 2008, according to court filings. Weingarten, in Thursday's filing, said it was a hypothetical idea prosecutors debated with Epstein's previous counsel and prosecutors "ultimately did not believe there was factual support for the allegations."
Acosta described a "year-long assault on the prosecution and prosecutors" in a 2011 letter that was cited in part in court filings and published in its entirety by the Daily Beast.
"I use the word assault intentionally, as the defense in this case was more aggressive than any which I, or the prosecutors in my office, had previously encountered," he wrote.
How did Epstein's use of PIs unfold in Florida? CNN explains:
The Florida investigation began in 2005 when the parent of one of the accusers, a 14-year-old girl later represented by Kuvin, reported Epstein to the local police.
A few months later, private investigators police believed were working with Epstein appeared. One private investigator contacted one of Epstein's former house managers looking to "meet with him to ascertain what he was going to tell the police," one police report said. Epstein's local attorney told authorities that "they" were under the direction of Black, the other attorney, according to the police report.
"Our firm, like most lawyers, engages private investigators who typically worked in law enforcement for many years, when appropriate to assist in gathering information in support of our clients' interests," Black, Srebnick, Kornspan and Stumpf said in a statement. "We have no knowledge of any improper conduct by any of the private investigators who assisted us."
How invasive and intimidating did Epstein's investigative tactics get? The answer is "very," according to CNN:
The private investigator often made telephone contact with accusers either just before or after a police investigator spoke with them, according to the police report.
Several months later in February 2006, as the state grand jury was under way, [lawyer Alan] Dershowitz provided the state prosecutor with information apparently intended to discredit the accusers. He provided postings from MySpace, the social media website, that appeared to show some of the accusers using drugs and alcohol, according to the police report and court documents.
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| Grain Belt Express route across Missouri |
In some instances, Epstein's accusers (and their families) experienced invasions that sound very much like what DeAnna Kelley went through as Doug Healy's target in Poplar Bluff, MO. From CNN:
The father of one accuser later told authorities that a private investigator was "photographing his family and chasing visitors who come to the house," according to a police report. The police identified this investigator as the second one involved in the case and said the investigator was likely hired by a new attorney Epstein brought into the case. Black was no longer on the case at the time.
One week later, according to the police report, that accuser was approached by the person who claimed to be in touch with Epstein and given the warning about cooperating for compensation or facing consequences.
Kuvin, the lawyer, said Epstein's team also tried to obtain the medical records of his accusers.
By June 2006, the same month the state announced an indictment of Epstein on soliciting prostitution, one parent called the police multiple times alleging he was followed by someone; police later identified the vehicle as belonging to a third private investigator. It isn't clear which lawyer hired that investigator.
The father "stated that as he drove to and from work and running errands throughout the county, the same vehicle was behind him running other vehicles off the road in an attempt to not lose sight of (the father's) car," according to the police report. The same car, which was linked to a private investigator, according to the report, later ran the mother of the same accuser off the road.
How does Doug Healy's actions in Missouri compare, in terms of ruthlessness, to those of Jeffrey Epstein in Florida? Our answer is that they are quite comparable. The expense involved, the technology used, and sheer brazenness of Healy's efforts to make the mother of his child look bad . . . well, they seem to be in the same ballpark of anything Jeffrey Epstein did.
They are likely to shock the conscience -- of anyone who has a conscience-- and we will be providing details of Healy's intimidation campaign in upcoming posts.
(To be continued)
Previously in series:
(1) Doug Healy got female acquaintance pregnant and pushed for an abortion -- 6/18/19
(2) Doug Healy threatens mother of his "bastard child in Poplar Bluff" -- 6/20/19
(3) Doug Healy backs controversial $2.5-billion Grain Belt Express -- 6/25/19
(4) Doug Healy faced opposition from mother of his "bastard child" and from landowners trying to block Grain Belt Express -- 8/8/19