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victim/witness staff were "ready to assist you with the details of victim notification, and other
areas for which United States Attorney[']s Offices are now explicitly responsible under the act."
The USAO's Victim Witness Program Coordinator told OPR that the USAO provided annual
mandatory office-wide training on victim/witness issues and training for new employees.
B. The Automated Victim Notification System
Both the FBI and the USAO manage contacts with crime victims through the Victim
Notification System (VNS), an automated system maintained by the Executive Office for United
States Attorneys. The 2005 Guidelines mandated that “victim contact information and notice to
victims of events shall, absent exceptional circumstances (such as cases involving juvenile or
foreign victims), be conducted and maintained using VNS." The VNS is separate from agency
case management systems maintained by the FBI and the USAO. Both the FBI and the USAO
use the VNS to generate form letters to victims at various points in the investigation and the
prosecution of a criminal case. Although each form letter can be augmented to add some limited
individual matter-specific content, the letters contain specific language concerning the purpose of
the contact that cannot be removed (such as the arrest of the defendant or the scheduling of a
sentencing hearing).271
In the usual course of a criminal case, the FBI collects victim contact information during
the investigation stage, which it stores in its case management system. The FBI's Victim Specialist
exports the victim information data from the FBI's case management system into the VNS
database. Victim information stored in the VNS is linked to the investigation's VNS case number.
At the time of the Epstein investigation, the FBI's Victim Specialist could use the VNS to generate
seven different form notification letters: (1) initial notification; (2) case is under investigation;
(3) arrest of the defendant; (4) declination of prosecution; (5) other; (6) advice of victim rights;
and (7) investigation closed.
After a charging document has been filed and the "prosecution stage" begins, the USAO's
Victim Witness Specialist assumes responsibility for victim notification. 272 The USAO imports
data from its case management system into the VNS and links to the previously loaded FBI VNS
data. The USAO's Victim Witness Specialist uses the VNS to generate form letters providing
notice of case events, such as charges filed; an arraignment; a proposed plea agreement; change of
plea hearings; sentencing hearings; and the result of sentencing hearings.
271
U.S. Dept. of Justice Office of the Inspector General Audit Division Audit Report 08-04, The Department of
Justice's Victim Notification System at 29 (Jan. 2008), available at https://oig.justice.gov/reports/EOUSA/a0804/
final.pdf. The 2008 audit identified concerns with the VNS templates, including that "VNS users cannot alter the
format to ensure that it fits with the specific case for which it is being sent," and many users had noted that "information
in notifications became confusing and sometimes contradictory when various types of notifications were combined in
the same letter."
272
The FBI and the USAO have different titles for the individual who maintains victim contact: the FBI title is
"Victim Specialist," and the USAO title is "Victim Witness Specialist."
195
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