Palm Beach Police Chief Reiter Referred Epstein Case to FBI Amid Claims of Professionalism

Fernandez Rundle said of Reiter's letter. Following Epstein’s indictment, Reiter referred the case to the FBI to determine whether the super-rich, super-connected defendant had violated any federal laws. Reiter won't discuss the case or the broadsides aimed at him. But others almost uniformly use one word to describe the chief: professional. "I have always been impressed by Mike's professionalism and his leadership," said Rick Lincoln, chief of the Lantana Police Department and a Palm Beach County cop for 32 years. "The town of Palm Beach has a very professional police department. We all consider Mike to be our peer and a man of integrity." Juno Beach Police Chief H.C. Clark II agreed. Although he doesn't know Reiter well, he has met with him on countywide law enforcement issues. "I've never seen him lose his cool. I've never seen anything but a professional demeanor from him." Reiter joined the Palm Beach Police Department in 1981, leaving a $20,000-a-year patrol job at the University of Pittsburgh. His personnel jacket shows consistently excellent job evaluations. Posh Palm Beach is no hotbed of crime, and in his first year on the job, a resident confined to his home with a sick child thanked Reiter for delivering a few Cokes to the house. Reiter refused payment for the beverages. Another resident thanked Reiter for shutting off his car's headlights in his driveway, saying a valet must have been at fault. Reiter worked everything from road patrol to organized crime, vice and narcotics. And he's no novice at investigations involving the island's rich and famous. He was the lead detective probing the drug overdose death of David Kennedy in 1984. He also was one of the officers who worked the investigation of William Kennedy Smith, who was charged in 1991 — and later acquitted — with raping a woman at the Kennedy family compound in Palm Beach. Reiter, who has a master's degree in human resource development from Palm Beach Atlantic University, also has attended the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va., and management courses at Harvard. He's been active in countywide interagency law enforcement organizations and has a "top secret" national security clearance. "He has a perspective that's broader than just addressing the needs of the town," said Town Manager Peter Elwell, who promoted Reiter from assistant chief to chief in March 2001. Reiter makes more than $144,000 as the town's top cop. Elwell thinks he's worth it. He's very businesslike, very straightforward. He's not easily agitated or flamboyant. He's about the work," Elwell said. "I think that his service as chief has been outstanding in five-plus years." New York Times — 09/03/2006 Questions of Preferential Treatment Are Raised in Sex Case Against Money Manager - September 3, 2006 By ABBY GOODNOUGH PALM BEACH, Fla. — In the summer and autumn of last year, when most of the mansions here stood empty behind their towering hedges, the police stealthily watched one at the end of a waterside lane. They monitored the comings and goings of its owner’s private jet, subpoenaed his phone records and riffled through his trash. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021771