Matthew Menchel

Matthew Menchel was the chief criminal prosecutor who spearheaded Epstein’s 2007 plea deal, after which he left the Department of Justice and continued to be in contact with Epstein. The released files document that they exchanged emails between 2010 and 2018 and shared multiple dinners and meetings.

The ABA Journal, reporting on documents released as part of the Epstein files, describes Menchel as the former chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and reports that he “left his job as prosecutor in August 2007 to join the international law firm Kobre & Kim.” According to the ABA Journal, the meetings and dinners between Menchel and Epstein “happened in 2011, 2013 and 2017,” beginning four years after he left his post. Kobre & Kim’s own firm biography confirms that, before joining the firm, Menchel “was a prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice (as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida), where he was also chief of the Criminal Division.”

Menchel has disputed the characterization of his relationship with Epstein. As quoted by Yahoo News, he stated: “I had no business relationship with Mr. Epstein at any point, not before, during or after my tenure at the US Attorney’s Office,” adding that when Epstein’s team asked his firm to handle litigation, “we declined.” According to that report, after publication Menchel told the Miami Herald that he never skied with Epstein, but did not deny that he had met with Epstein after leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Is Matthew Menchel in the Epstein files?

Yes. Matthew Menchel is named in the released Epstein files and in reporting by the ABA Journal and others as the former federal prosecutor who handled Epstein’s 2007 plea deal and later met with him on several occasions. Menchel has denied having any business relationship with Epstein. Being named in the files is not evidence of any crime or wrongdoing; people appear in these documents in many contexts. See the sources above for the specific documented context.

Documents

Primary-source records that name or reference Matthew Menchel. Inclusion in these documents is not, by itself, evidence of wrongdoing; Menchel has denied having any business relationship with Epstein.

• Giuffre v. Maxwell — unsealed court records (Jan. 2024) — Menchel is referenced in a deposition transcript among the documents unsealed in this civil case (U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:15-cv-07433), where he is identified as one of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the Southern District of Florida office at the time of Epstein’s case. The reference concerns his role as a prosecutor, not any allegation against him.
• DOJ Epstein Files (EFTA release) — The Department of Justice’s January 30, 2026 release of Epstein records includes the calendar entries and email exchanges documenting Menchel’s post-prosecution contacts with Epstein — meetings or dinners reported in 2011, 2013 and 2017, years after he left the U.S. Attorney’s Office — as reported by the ABA Journal.