Brad Edwards

Bradley J. Edwards is a Fort Lauderdale, Florida victims' rights attorney and partner at the law firm Edwards Pottinger LLC (formerly Farmer, Jaffe, Weissing, Edwards, Fistos and Lehrman). He began his career as a solo personal injury practitioner based in Hollywood, Florida. In June 2008, at age thirty-two, he took on his first Epstein victims — three young women who retained him to pursue civil litigation against Jeffrey Epstein for sexual abuse committed while they were minors. From that point forward, Edwards became the central legal adversary to Epstein in the civil arena, ultimately representing dozens of victims across multiple state and federal proceedings. He is co-author, with Paul Cassell, of "Relentless Pursuit: My Fight for the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein" (2020), the definitive first-person account of the legal battle against Epstein and the government's protection apparatus. Edwards is the attorney who filed the foundational Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA) lawsuit — Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States (Case No. 9:08-cv-80119, S.D. Fla.) — challenging the constitutionality of the 2007 Non-Prosecution Agreement on the grounds that the DOJ and AUSA Marie Villafana had concealed the plea deal from victims in violation of their statutory rights. He became lead counsel in that case alongside Professor Paul Cassell of the University of Utah College of Law. The CVRA case ran for over a decade and produced the February 2019 Marra ruling that the government had violated victims' rights — the first judicial finding that cracked the legal framework protecting Epstein. Edwards' role in the CVRA case made him Epstein's primary litigation target: Epstein personally sued Edwards in 2009 for malicious prosecution (Epstein v. Edwards, Case No. 50-2009-CA-040800, Palm Beach Circuit Court), an action courts later recognized as a retaliatory attempt to extort Edwards into abandoning the NPA challenge (EFTA00808633). Epstein eventually dropped his claims and Edwards counter-sued; a 2017 Florida Supreme Court ruling allowed Edwards' malicious prosecution counterclaim to proceed to trial. In April 2010, Edwards filed an affidavit (EFTA01187465) in which he set out a seven-point evidentiary basis for seeking to depose Donald Trump in the civil litigation: Trump had called Epstein's West Palm Beach mansion on multiple occasions per confiscated message pads; Epstein's computer directory contained 14 phone numbers for Trump; Trump had visited Epstein at the Palm Beach home where abuse occurred daily; Mark Epstein testified Trump flew on Epstein's private plane; Trump publicly praised Epstein in a 2002 Vanity Fair article; Trump reportedly banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after an assault on an underage girl at the club; and Jane Doe 102 (Virginia Giuffre) had alleged she was first recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell at Trump's Mar-a-Lago spa. The affidavit also documented Edwards' attempts to depose Ghislaine Maxwell — who fled to England the day before her scheduled deposition — and his discovery that Maxwell had attended Chelsea Clinton's wedding while claiming to be unavailable. Edwards was placed on the 2017 Palm Beach witness list in the malicious prosecution trial, which Jack Scarola described to the Florida Bulldog as the "first public airing of Epstein's lurid lifestyle" (EFTA02803362). Throughout the litigation Edwards represented Virginia Giuffre (Jane Doe 102) and conducted her sworn telephone interview alongside Jack Scarola on April 7, 2011 (EFTA01657683).

Classification basis: T6 Peripheral (Legal) — Lead victims' rights attorney representing dozens of Epstein victims in civil litigation beginning in 2008. Filed the foundational CVRA lawsuit (Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 v. United States, 9:08-cv-80119) that ultimately produced the 2019 Marra ruling establishing the DOJ violated victims' rights. Filed the Edwards Affidavit (EFTA01187465) establishing the 7-point evidentiary basis for deposing Trump. Represented Virginia Giuffre (Jane Doe 102). Countersued Epstein for malicious prosecution after Epstein's retaliatory 2009 lawsuit (EFTA00808633). Key documents: EFTA01187465, EFTA00808633, EFTA02803362. No criminal conduct alleged — role is adversarial to Epstein.