Sony Pictures TV, Laura Dern and Adam McKay are teaming up for a limited series about the investigation that blew open the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Dern is set to star in the drama, which based on Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown’s book Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story. The Ocsar and Emmy winner will play Brown in the series. Sharon Hoffman (Mrs. America, Pieces of Her) is writing and will serve as co-showrunner with Eileen Myers (The Night Agent, Masters of Sex).
Hoffman and Myers will executive produce the project with Dern, McKay and Kevin Messick for Hyperobject Industries, and Brown. Sony is taking the series to potential buyers — and will likely find bidders for the first scripted take on the Epstein case.
Sony describes the limited series as “an explosive account of an investigative reporter exposing the secret plea deal between Epstein and federal prosecutors. Drawing from Brown’s experience as a groundbreaking reporter for the Miami Herald, the book and the limited series follow her relentless years-long investigation that identified 80 victims, persuaded key survivors to go on the record, and led to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s arrests.”
Brown’s 2018 reporting in the Miami Herald led to a raft of new charges of sex trafficking against Epstein — who had previously been convicted on charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute — and Maxwell and led the to the still-ongoing calls for the Department of Justice to release its complete files on Epstein and his associates and acquaintances, who included presidents (Donald Trump and Bill Clinton), royals (Britain’s former Prince Andrew) and prominent business leaders and media figures.
Brown’s Herald reports also led to the resignation of then-Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, who as the U.S. attorney for Florida’s southern district signed off on a non-prosecution agreement that blocked any federal charges from Epstein’s first criminal case in 2007. Epstein instead pleaded guilty to state charges.
The newspaper series and Brown’s book also interviews with a number of Epstein’s victims, several of whom spoke on the record for the first time.
