The media is very eager to talk about Acosta. It seems much less interested in bringing up the name of the guy who gave Jeffrey Epstein a pass.

Barry Krischer.

There were really just two people willing to risk their careers to go after Epstein: Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and Detective Joseph Recarey.

In their first on-the-record media interviews about the case, Reiter and Recarey revealed new details about the investigation, and how they were, in their view, pressured by then-Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer to downgrade the case to a misdemeanor or drop it altogether.

Krischer and the lead state prosecutor on the case, Assistant State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek, began to dodge Recarey and Reiter’s phone calls and emails, and they dragged their feet on approving subpoenas, Reiter and Recarey said.

“Early on, it became clear that things had changed, from Krischer saying, ‘we’ll put this guy away for life,’ to ‘these are all the reasons why we aren’t going to prosecute this,’ ’’ Reiter said.

Krischer, who is now retired and in private practice, did not respond to multiple requests from the Herald for comment. Belohlavek also did not respond to an email sent to her office.

“It became apparent to me that some of our evidence was being leaked to Epstein’s lawyers, who began to question everything that we had in our probable cause affidavit,’’ Reiter said.

In May 2006, Recarey drew up probable cause affidavits, charging Epstein, two of his assistants and one recruiter with sex-related crimes. Instead, Krischer took what Recarey said was the unusual step of referring the case to a state grand jury. Epstein was indicted in state court on a minor charge of solicitation of prostitution.

Recarey said Krischer told him he didn’t believe Epstein’s accusers, and only two of them were called before the state grand jury investigating the case — even though police had lined up more than a dozen girls and witnesses at that time.

Believing that the case had been tainted, Reiter — that same month, May 2006 — took a very public stance against Krischer, writing a letter, which was released to the news media, calling on Krischer to remove himself from the case. The chief then referred it to the FBI, which opened its own investigation in July 2006, FBI records show.

In a written, public statement on March 20, 2011, Acosta asserted that the deal he struck with Epstein’s lawyers was harsher than it would have been had the case remained with the state prosecutor, Krischer, who favored charging Epstein with only a misdemeanor prostitution violation.

Acosta also described what he called a “year-long assault’’ on prosecutors by Epstein’s “army of legal superstars’’ who, he said, investigated individual prosecutors and their families, looking for “personal peccadilloes’’ to disqualify them from Epstein’s case.

What’s Barry up to now? Glad you asked. He’s using his “expertise” to provide “training” on prosecuting crimes of sexual violence.

This tuition free training on Investigating and Prosecuting Sexual Violence Crimes will be conducted by Barry Krischer, a retired Chief Prosecutor and State Attorney from the 15th Judicial Circuit. The training will include information on the dynamics of sexual assault, building the strongest possible case, evidence-based prosecution and incorporating domestic violence statutes when necessary. Strategies for consistent and thorough investigations through the use of interviewing, lawful entry into a home, hearsay exceptions, witness/evidence tampering, forfeiture by wrong doing, injunctions and strangulation will be presented. The intended audience is certified domestic violence centers, law enforcement, first responders, criminal court personnel, child welfare providers, victim advocates and other service providers who work with survivors of sexual violence, their children and perpetrators.

And it somehow gets even worse.

He currently serves on the Palm Beach County Alliance, responsible for oversight of children placed in foster care

Can Jeffrey Epstein foster a few children?

There’s general agreement that Barry Krischer is at the center of what went wrong in the Epstein case. So why aren’t we talking about him? Because he’s a Florida Democrat in good standing who aggressively went after Rush Limbaugh, but gave Epstein a pass.

And once we start talking about that, the narrative that the media is pushing won’t hold up anymore.