AFL-CIO Won’t Urge Labor Secretary to Quit Over Teen-Pimping Case

WASHINGTON—The AFL-CIO will hold off on demanding that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resign for letting Miami hedge-fund magnate Jeffrey Epstein get a light sentence for trafficking dozens of teenage girls for sex.  Bloomberg Law reported that at a meeting Feb. 26, federation officials decided to wait for the results of a lawsuit and Justice Department investigation. As the lead federal prosecutor in southern Florida in 2007, Acosta worked out a plea-bargain deal with Epstein’s lawyers for him to serve 13 months in prison on state prostitution charges, in exchange for dropping federal charges that could have gotten him a life sentence. Federal Judge Kenneth Marra ruled Feb. 21 that the deal violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act because prosecutors didn’t tell the victims about it. Some unions, including the American Federation of Teachers and the Association of Flight Attendants, have urged Acosta to resign, but sources told Bloomberg Law that some AFL-CIO officials worried that his likely successor, Deputy Secretary Patrick Pizzella, would be worse. In the 1990s, Pizzella worked with lobbyist Jack Abramoff to enable sweatshops in the Northern Mariana Islands to hold immigrant guest workers as indentured servants — and promoted the islands as a “laboratory of liberty.” Read more