A trove of legal filings listing dozens of names linked to Jeffrey Epstein have been released.
The 40 documents released on Wednesday are part of a long-running defamation lawsuit brought by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against his former fixer and convicted child trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015.
More documents were unsealed on Thursday.
Although the case was settled in 2017, Maxwell’s attorneys had fought for the names to continue to remain private. Their objection was lifted in 2022, a year after she was convicted and sentenced to two decades in prison.
In December, New York Judge Loretta Preska issued an order to unseal materials connected to the case. The documents identify individuals whose names had been previously redacted.
Those listed include “alleged victims, people not accused of wrongdoing…and absent third parties.” Being identified through the court documents does not necessarily mean that the individual was involved in or aware of any wrongdoing by Epstein.
While the filings provide a further look into the allegations raised against Maxwell and Epstein, several of the revelations had previously become public through the account of individuals at the centre of the litigation. Some high-profile figures, including former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew, had already been publicly tied to Epstein.
One of the exhibits unsealed on Wednesday included a 2015 email sent by Maxwell in which she appeared to reference Prince Andrew and Mr Clinton.
“I have already suffered such a terrible and painful loss over the last few days that I can’t even see what life after press he’ll even looks like - statements that don’t address all just lead to more questions,” Maxwell wrote. “... what is my relationship to clinton ? Andrew on and on. Let’s rest till monday. I need head space.”
In a deposition, Johanna Sjoberg — who claimed the Duke of York touched her breast in 2001 at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse — testified that she was told by Epstein that Mr Clinton allegedly “likes them young, referring to girls.”
Ms Sjoberg said she never met Mr Clinton.
Ms Sjoberg also claimed in a deposition that during an encounter with Maxwell, Prince Andrew and Ms Giuffre in 2001, Maxwell gifted the prince a caricature puppet that looked like him. The incident Ms Sjoberg took place at Maxwell’s Mayfair home, where an infamous picture of Ms Giuffre, Andrew and Maxwell was also taken that night.
Prince Andrew has previously said he has no recollection of that night.
“And they decided to take a picture with it, in which Virginia and Andrew sat on a couch,” Ms Sjoberg said in the deposition. “They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap, and I 2 sat on Andrew’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo.”
In a filing supporting a motion to request a deposition from Mr Clinton, attorneys for Ms Giuffre argued that although she had mentioned Mr Clinton’s friendship with Epstein, she hadn’t accused the former president of any wrongdoing.
However, the attorneys asserted that “former President Clinton is a key person who can provide information about his close relationship with Defendant and Mr. Epstein and disapprove Ms. Maxwell’s claims.”
Ms Giuffre had claimed that she once saw the former president on Epstein’s secluded private island Little St James, which Epstein victims say was the centre of his international sex trafficking ring.
Mr Clinton has vehemently denied ever visiting the island.
In a deposition unsealed Wednesday, Maxwell claimed it was “100 per cent” false Mr Clinton had eaten a meal on the island.
“I’m sure he had a meal on Jeffrey’s plane”, Mr Maxwell testified.
Mention of Mr Clinton in the unsealed files does not indicate any suggestion of wrongdoing or that he was aware of Epstein’s criminal activity. Mr Clinton has said that he cut ties with Epstein in 2005, three years before the paedophile was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution.
Flight logs that emerged as part of separate lawsuits against Epstein showed that Mr Clinton had flown on Epstein’s private jet, which became known among the press as the “Lolita Express,” to several locations — but not to Little St James.
Among other revelations in the filings was that Jeffrey Epstein “called up” Mr Trump and visited one of his casinos after his private plane was diverted to Atlantic City in New Jersey. Ms Sjoberg testified that while travelling on the plane with the disgraced financier the pilots had said that they were unable to land in New York as planned.
“Jeffrey said, ‘Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to -- I don’t recall the name of the casino, but -- we’ll go to the casino’,” the testimony read.
Mr Trump is only named four times in the filings, less than US magician David Copperfield, who is named six times.
According to the newly unsealed documents, Mr Copperfield reportedly had dinner with Epstein.
Ms Sjoberg said Mr Copperfield did magic tricks before asking if she was aware “that girls were getting paid to find other girls.”
One of the key allegations against Epstein and Maxwell was that some of the girls he paid for sex acts then acted as recruiters to find him other victims. Ms Sjoberg said Copperfield didn’t get more specific about what he meant.
Copperfield’s relationship with Epstein has previously been noted, including in a 2019 article from The New York Times, which described the role of Ghislaine Maxwell in acquiring young girls for the disgraced financier.
Ms Giuffre also claimed in a deposition that she was trafficked to have sex with several men, including American billionaire Tom Pritzker, the chairman of the Hyatt Hotels, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, investor and Robin Hood Foundation co-founder Glenn Dubin and late AI pioneer Marvin Minsky.
The Independent has reached out to those parties for comment.
A spokesperson for Mr Pritzker told The Independent that he first rejected those allegations in 2019 and “continues to vehemently deny” them.
A spokesperson for Mr Dubins also told The Independent in a statement: “The Dubins strongly deny these allegations, as we first said in 2019, when these unsubstantiated statements first surfaced as part of this same civil court proceeding.”
In an unveiled email Epstein sent to Maxwell in 2015, he suggested that Maxwell should offer money to people close to Ms Giuffre willing to discredit her. Epstein went on to deny allegations that Mr Clinton had dinner on his island and that Stephen Hawkins purportedly took part in an orgy with underaged girls.
Despite earlier statements by Maxwell that she distanced herself from Epstein in the aftermath of his 2008 conviction on charges of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute, the two continued to communicate via email long after.
“You have done nothing wrong and I would urge you to start acting like it. Go outside, head high, not as an escaping convict. Go to parties. Deal with it,” Epstein emailed Maxwell in January 2015.
Alan Dershowitz’s name also emerged in the first tranche of released documents. Jane Doe 3 claimed that Epstein instructed her to have sex with Dershowitz, which the former Harvard Law Professor has previously denied.
“Epstein required Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with Dershowitz on numerous occasions while she was a minor, not only in Florida but also on private planes, in New York, New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” an excerpt of the filings by the plaintiff’s attorneys read.
Following accusations by Ms Giuffre that she had been trafficked to have sex with Mr Dershowitz, contentious legal battles between the pair rumbled on for the next three years. In November 2022, Ms Giuffre admitted that she may have made a mistake in identifying Mr Dershowitz as one of her abusers. Lawsuits were then dismissed on both sides.
Late singer Michael Jackson also was listed in the documents.
“I met Michael Jackson ... At Jeffrey’s house in Palm Beach,” Ms Sjoberg said in a deposition.
Another name mentioned in the filings was model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, who died by suicide while imprisoned at a French jail nearly two years ago. Brunel was facing sexual assault and human trafficking charges.
Ms Giuffre first brought the civil case against Maxwell in 2015 after a spokesperson for the former socialite called Ms Giuffre’s allegations “obvious lies”.
The civil case helped consolidate the criminal case against Maxwell, who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison on five charges of sex trafficking minor girls. She has since appealed her conviction.
Ms Giuffre also went on to sue Prince Andrew for sexual assault and infliction of emotional distress before that case was also settled in 2022. Prince Andrew has adamantly denied the sexual abuse allegations.
However, hundreds of names included in the Giuffre v Maxwell lawsuit remained under seal. The Miami Herald, whose investigation into Epstein led to his arrest in 2019, first sued in 2018 for the release of all documents related to the lawsuit.
The first set of those documents was unsealed on 9 August 2019, just a day before Epstein killed himself in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.
The parties had until midnight on 1 January to object to the latest ruling ordering the rest of the documents to be unsealed, with only 10 people identified in the papers successfully arguing that their right to privacy as victims outweighs the public’s right to know their names.
More documents will be released in the coming days.
