A federal judge in New York has ordered the unsealing of dozens of documents naming people linked to the disgraced financier and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.
Jeffery Epstein Client List To Be Revealed
The documents to be released come from a civil trial brought by Virginia Giuffre, who said that Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated Epstein’s sex trafficking of her. The names of over 180 associates are expected to be revealed, although New York Judge Loretta Preska has given the individuals 14 days to object to the release of their names.
“The Court stays its order for fourteen days to permit any impacted Doe the opportunity to appeal, after which counsel are asked to confer, prepare the documents for unsealing pursuant to this order, and post the documents on the docket,” Preska wrote on Monday.
The documents are expected to identify more than 180 people, including associates, victims, investigators and journalists who covered the case. Anyone who did not successfully work to have their name excluded from the civil case could see their name released to the public upon the documents’ unsealing, including Epstein’s victims, co-conspirators and innocent associates.
Some of the names will remain under seal, including those belonging to minor victims who never spoke publicly about the case and a person who the judge said was wrongly identified as an alleged perpetrator by a reporter.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska outlined the reasoning in a 51-page order Monday. The order comes as part of a 2015 lawsuit between Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre and his former lover and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. The case was settled in 2017, but the judge indicated in hearings in 2021 and 2022 that the names would not remain sealed indefinitely.
After the suit was settled two years later for an undisclosed amount, the court granted a motion filed by the Miami Herald to unseal documents from the case. Other documents unsealed in the case include portions of the 2016 deposition of Rinaldo Rizzo, a former private chef for the hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, who claimed Epstein and Maxwell came over with a disoriented, 15-year-old Swedish girl.
The release on Jan. 1 will come after Judge Preska reviewed the files for years to determine which could be released to the public.
Though the documents may not clarify why a certain individual became associated with Giuffre’s lawsuit, they may expose more about Epstein’s sex trafficking of women and girls in New York, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other locations.
It was previously reported that Epstein owned at least three jets, including a Gulfstream II sold in November 2013, a Gulfstream IV sold before his arrest, and a Boeing 727 nicknamed the “Lolita Express,” which allegedly transported prominent individuals and girls all around the world.
The so-called “Lolita Express” private jet has been the subject of controversy amid the accusations brought against Epstein and, in particular, the flight records connected to the plane that supposedly include the names of those who traveled with him.
Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison after she was convicted of sex trafficking and procuring girls for Epstein, who allegedly died in his jail cell by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
There is still an ongoing fight to release the names of Epstein’s clients and people who traveled on his private jet – which came to a head in Congress last week when Republicans in the House and Senate accused Democrats of “stonewalling” their requests for those documents.