Epstein Forums

The sordid Jeffrey Epstein saga is a Florida story, first and foremost.

That’s where Julie K. Brown, a longtime investigative reporter at the Miami Herald, did most of the reporting that led to the Palm Beach billionaire’s arrest in 2019. She has a gorgeous apartment in Hollywood, Fla., overlooking the Atlantic, and temperatures were climbing into the mid-60s on this Tuesday afternoon.

But Brown is sitting at a dining room table in Old City — not in Florida — surrounded by redacted documents and lots of Eagles and Phillies memorabilia. Outside, cars are encased in snow on the cobblestone streets like ice-age fossils after another snowstorm. It’s late February, and temperatures hover around freezing.

“I decided this is a good place for me to come and get sane from Florida because Florida is insane,” she says. “Philly is in my bones. I would not be where I am right now if not for Philadelphia.”

Brown, 64, isn’t used to talking to reporters about herself more than Epstein, the man who will be mentioned in the first sentence of her obituary someday, but she’s doing her best, while keeping an eye on her cell phone.

She could miss a message from an anonymous source or one of her two kids, Amelia and Jake. Television producers from CNN or PBS could be trying to get her on to discuss Epstein, of course. That’s a constant, she says.