Julie K. Brown

Julie Knipe Brown is an American investigative journalist with the Miami Herald best known for pursuing the sex trafficking story surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, who in 2008 was allowed to plead guilty to two state-level prostitution offenses.

Brown was included in Time magazines 100 2020 list of Most Influential People of 2020. Brown has received George Polk Awards for Justice Reporting. In 2026, Brown was awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation, in recognition of her earlier reporting on Epstein.

While at the Miami Herald, Brown spent four years investigating patterns of abuse in the Florida prison system. Her reporting work prompted a 2018 federal investigation into civil rights abuses in Lowell Correctional Institution in Central Florida.

In August 2026, Brown drew media attention after referring to presidential aide Natalie Harp as President Trump’s “side piece” in a post on X.

Investigation into Jeffrey Epstein Brown has been credited with re-opening the Jeffrey Epstein sexual abuse case with a series of reports published in November 2018. Brown began investigating Epstein in October 2016, citing a lawsuit alleging that Donald Trump and Epstein raped a then-13 year old "Katie Johnson". In early 2017 she researched a large number of accusers and the pressure campaign to silence them. Brown contacted Brad Edwards, a lawyer representing Epstein accusers, seeking information on victims. Brown reported on 80 potential victims (as young as 13 and 14 years old when the abuse occurred) and documented the eight individuals who agreed to tell their stories.

After Epstein was re-arrested, many commentators praised Brown and the Herald for their reporting. Geoffrey Berman, a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, also commented at a news conference that his team had been “assisted by some excellent investigative journalism."

In July 2020, Brown’s book, Perversion of Justice, based on her reporting on the Epstein case, was published by William Morrow and Company. The book served as the foundation for a limited series on HBO, executive produced by Brown, along with Kevin Messick and Adam McKay. Writer Sharon Hoffman will also serve as co-showrunner alongside Eileen Myers.

Awards Brown won a 2014 George Polk Award in Justice Reporting from Long Island University for "Cruel and Unusual," her series of articles on "the brutal, sometimes fatal mistreatment of Florida prison inmates with mental illnesses." In an open letter Dershowitz wrote that Brown should not be rewarded for her work. She was not. At the start of her investigative reporting on Epstein, Brown had been warned by former Police Chief Michael Reiter to expect pushback as other members of the media who attempted to report on Epstein had been reassigned following a phone call to their publisher.

In December 2019, Brown and her Miami Herald colleague Emily Michot were jointly recognized for their five-part series "Perversion of Justice," with a Sidney Award, the Hillman Prize for Journalism in the Common Good, from the Sidney Hillman Foundation.

Personal life Brown has two children, one daughter and one son.