A trove of information regarding Jeffrey Epstein and his myriad associates will be revealed after a federal judge ordered the unsealing of documents tied to Virginia Giuffre’s settled lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell.
As ABC News reports, Judge Loretta Preska ordered the documents to be released Jan. 1, 2024. The exact scope of the information contained in the documents is unclear, though over 150 Epstein associates could be named.
Many of the files are related to John or Jane Does who have previously spoken publicly about their connections to Epstein, or aired accusations against him. Those whose identities are still unknown will have 14 days to file objections to the document dump.
The long-under seal documents are related to a defamation suit Giuffre — one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers — brought in 2015 against Maxwell, the financier/child sex trafficker’s alleged madam and romantic partner. Giuffre first went public with allegations of being procured by Maxwell when she was 15, and that she was repeatedly assaulted by Epstein and other powerful men.
Maxwell called her claims “obvious lies,” prompting Giuffre to sue for defamation. The lawsuit settled in 2017, two years before Epstein’s second arrest on sex trafficking charges and his subsequent death by suicide in jail.
Files related to Giuffre’s 2015 defamation suit have trickled out in the past, including just days before Epstein’s death on Aug. 10, 2019. That doc dump included Giuffre’s allegations against Epstein, and included the names of several other powerful men, including Prince Andrew, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel. (Richardson has denied the accusations; Brunel died in 2022; and Prince Andrew also denied the accusations and settled his own lawsuit with Giuffre in 2022.)
As for Maxwell, she is currently serving 20 years in prison for helping Epstein recruit, groom, and abuse girls. In Dec. 2021, she was found guilty on five of the six charges against her, including sex trafficking, conspiracy, and transpiration of a minor with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity. He sentence was handed down in June 2022.