A number of news reports suggest that the Palm Beach police have shown the kind of gentle treatment to Jeffrey Epstein that it wouldn’t show to, say, someone who isn’t worth a few billion dollars. Epstein at one point was offered a plea bargain which, among other things, mandated that he have no unsupervised conduct with minors.

Epstein was given months to respond—an option not generally given to people suspected of regularly hiring 15-year-olds for sex—but something went wrong and he failed to respond to the offer. In any case, according to the Smoking Gun, “police investigators-who anticipated five felony counts being lodged against Epstein-were incensed at what they clearly viewed as a sweetheart prosecution offer.”