By Joshua Wilburn

Copyright radaronline

When investigators were closing in on Jeffrey Epstein in 2008, he briefly considered issuing a public apology, RadarOnline.com can report.

Newly obtained emails show he turned to a high-profile communications adviser to help him craft the words.Epstein’s ‘Apology’ DraftsMerrie Spaeth, a crisis strategist who once served as director of media relations for President Ronald Reagan’s White House, prepared three versions of a potential public apology for Epstein. The drafts, sent in February 2008 and uncovered in emails, reveal Epstein’s fleeting contemplation of contrition.

The first attempt was meek: “As a child growing up, I was taught to apologize. I fervently hope it will be acceptable for me to simply offer to the community my apologies for associating with young women who turned out to be under the age of eighteen.”

The second was a brisk 33-word version, expressing little beyond a “wish to apologize” and a promise to “conduct myself appropriately in the future”.

The third draft was far more elaborate. Drawing on ideas from philosopher William James about the “hour of terror and the hour of satiety”, it reflected on the “substantial” rewards Epstein had gained pursuing the American dream, noted he had been “forced to ask myself what’s important” and culminated in a “public and heartfelt apology”.Epstein’s TeamFour months after the drafts were circulated, Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to felony solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors to engage in prostitution. He was sentenced to just over a year in custody. Despite the prepared drafts, Epstein never delivered a broad public apology of the kind envisioned.

Spaeth later explained her limited involvement, saying her firm had been hired through a lawyer “to provide communications options for Mr. Epstein and his legal team”. She added: “I ultimately terminated the engagement because of my discomfort with it.”

Her connection to Epstein, previously undisclosed, appears only briefly in the wider trove of more than 18,000 emails from Epstein’s Yahoo account. The cache provides sweeping details of his public and private life — his calculated recruitment of young women, his deep partnership with Ghislaine Maxwell, and his adoration from influential figures in the UK.Epstein’s Powerful AlliesThe emails also shed light on Epstein’s lesser-known but vital relationships with powerful allies.

When his legal troubles mounted, he called on a network that spanned lawyers, academics, media advisers, and even former and future White House officials.

His circle also included a Hollywood publicist, a former child-exploitation prosecutor, and acclaimed researchers, including one who would go on to win a Nobel Prize.’Hour of Terror’Epstein’s wealth — built after leaving Bear Stearns in 1981 to advise the ultrarich — funded a lifestyle of private jets, one of Manhattan’s largest townhouses, and his own Caribbean island.

When the “hour of terror” arrived in 2005, after Palm Beach police received a tip from a teenage girl’s family, Epstein didn’t rely on a single defender. Instead, he assembled a team of elite professionals who, as the emails suggest, defended and deflected, coached and polished, thereby helping to prolong his influence and freedom.

That support, the Justice Department later noted, shielded a man who harmed more than 1,000 people. His reckoning was delayed until 2019, when federal prosecutors charged him with trafficking minors. Weeks later, awaiting trial in a New York jail, Epstein was found dead.