Bradley J. Edwards

Bradley James Edwards is an American attorney. He is best known for representing victims of financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He is the managing partner at Edwards Henderson, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Early career and background He graduated with honors from the University of Florida, where he played collegiate tennis, later attending Florida State University College of Law.

In 2008, he was hired to represent three young women who alleged they were molested by Jeffrey Epstein when they were teenagers. This marked the beginning of what would become a decade-long legal battle against Epstein and the federal prosecutors who granted him a controversial plea agreement.

Cases involving Jeffrey Epstein In 2008, Edwards filed a lawsuit under the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA) on behalf of two victims, identified as Jane Doe No. 1 and Jane Doe No. 2, against the United States government. The lawsuit challenged the secret non-prosecution agreement that then-United States Attorney Alexander Acosta had negotiated with Epstein's legal team, which allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state prostitution charges and serve only 13 months in jail, despite evidence of systematic abuse of dozens of underage girls.

Edwards argued that Acosta and fellow prosecutors violated federal law by granting Epstein and his alleged accomplices immunity without notifying the 36 identified underage victims, as required by the Crime Victims' Rights Act. In February 2019, after more than a decade of litigation, a federal judge ruled that Acosta and his fellow prosecutors had broken federal law by keeping the agreement secret from Epstein's victims. The CVRA case remained open with pending requests for remedies including financial recompense, written apologies from prosecutors, and the potential overturning of Epstein's plea deal.

Edwards filed a counterclaim for malicious prosecution, asserting that Epstein's lawsuit was designed to intimidate him and his clients, inflict financial burden, and force him to abandon the cases against Epstein.

Litigation involving Alan Dershowitz In sworn statements, one of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, alleged that attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was part of Epstein's legal team, had sexually abused her when she was a minor. Dershowitz publicly accused Edwards of unethical conduct and demanded he be disbarred for spreading what Dershowitz characterized as false allegations. This prompted Edwards to sue Dershowitz for defamation, and Dershowitz countersued. They settled in 2016.

In 2023, he led sex trafficking cases against JPMorgan Chase Bank and Deutsche Bank for facilitating Epstein's sex trafficking operations. Edwards, along with Brittany Henderson, David Boies, and Sigrid McCawley, obtained a $290 million settlement from JPMorgan Chase and a $75 million settlement from Deutsche Bank on behalf of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein in the same year.

Publication Along with his partner Brittany Henderson, Edwards co-wrote Relentless Pursuit: My Fight for the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein, which was published in 2020.