The investigation

Epstein: first documents related to his case disclosed

Made public 40 documents (out of 250) on Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sex trafficking and died by suicide in prison in 2019. Names that have already emerged in the investigation include Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, David Copperfield, Virginia Giuffre, Ghislaine Maxwell

4 January 2024

4' min read

4' min read

Dozens of previously sealed court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sex trafficking and who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019, were made public late Wednesday evening, 3 January. The documents are likely to disappoint the curious who thought they would find new 'clients' or 'co-conspirators' in the documents. In fact, the judge who made the decision wrote in December that he was ordering the release of the documents because much of the information in them is already public. The first 40 documents, of the 250 expected to be made public, largely mention people whose names were already known, including high-profile friends of Epstein and victims who spoke publicly.

What is known so far

Jeffrey Epstein, a millionaire known for consorting with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and academics, was initially arrested in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005, after being accused of paying a 14-year-old girl for sex. Dozens of other underage girls described similar sexual abuse, but prosecutors eventually allowed the financier to plead guilty in 2008 to a charge involving only one victim. He served 13 months in an in-prison programme.

The friends who abandoned Epstein

Some famous acquaintances left Epstein after his conviction, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, but many did not. Epstein continued to associate with the rich and famous for another decade, often through philanthropic activities. A Miami Herald report renewed interest in the scandal, and in 2019 federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein with sex trafficking. Epstein later committed suicide in prison while awaiting trial.

The role of the ex-girlfriend

The Manhattan US Attorney's Office then prosecuted Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell , for helping to recruit his underage victims. She was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. The documents made public are part of a lawsuit filed against Maxwell in 2015 by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, one of dozens of women who sued Epstein saying he had abused them in his homes in Florida, New York, the US Virgin Islands and New Mexico.

Caso Epstein, pubblicata la lista dei suoi contatti

The Great Accuser

Giuffre said that the summer she turned 17, she was lured by a job as a spa attendant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club to become a "masseuse" for Epstein, a job that involved sexual acts. Giuffre also claimed that she was pressured to have sexual relations with men in Epstein's social orbit, in particular Prince Andrea.

All these men said her stories were made up. Giuffre settled a case against Prince Andrew in 2022. In the same year, Giuffre withdrew a charge she had brought against Epstein's former lawyer, law professor Alan Dershowitz, saying she "may have made a mistake" in identifying him as an abuser.

The Miami Herald investigation

Giuffre's case against Maxwell was settled in 2017, but the Miami Herald approached the court for access to court documents initially filed under seal, including transcripts of interviews lawyers had with potential witnesses. About 2,000 pages were made public by a court in 2019. Other documents were released in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

The batch currently being released contains about 250 documents that have been blacked out or completely sealed due to concerns about the privacy rights of Epstein's victims and others whose names have surfaced during the legal battle, but who were not complicit in his crimes. Only about 40 of these documents were made public on Wednesday, 3 January. Others will be made public in the coming days.

Judge Preska

District Judge Loretta A. Preska, who evaluated the documents to be made public, stated in her December order that she was ordering the release of the documents because much of the information in them is already public. Some documents have been made public, in part or in full, in other court cases.

The people mentioned in the documents include many of Epstein's accusers, members of his staff who told their stories to tabloid newspapers, people who served as witnesses at Maxwell's trial, people who were mentioned in passing during depositions but who are not accused of anything important, and people who investigated Epstein, including prosecutors, a journalist and a detective.

Other names in bold

There are also boldface names of public figures known to have dated Epstein over the years, but whose relationships with him have already been well documented elsewhere, the judge said. One of these is Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modelling agent close to Epstein who was awaiting trial on charges of raping underage girls when he killed himself in a Paris prison in 2022. Giuffre was among the women who had accused Brunel of sexual abuse. His name appears in all the documents released yesterday.

Clinton and Trump are both in the court file, in part because Giuffre was questioned by Maxwell's lawyers about inaccuracies in newspaper stories about her time with Epstein. One article quoted her as having travelled in a helicopter with Clinton and flirted with Trump. Giuffre said neither actually happened. She did not accuse either former president of wrongdoing.

The obscured names

The judge said a handful of names should remain blacked out in the documents because they would identify persons who had been sexually abused. Even before the documents were released, misinformation about their contents abounded. Social media users mistakenly claimed that the name of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel could appear in the documents, in the wake of a joke New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers uttered on Espn's "The Pat McAfee Show" on Tuesday.

In a response on X, Kimmel stated that he had never met Epstein and that Rodgers' 'thoughtless words endanger my family. Keep it up and we will discuss the facts further in court,' Kimmel wrote. The judge did not set a deadline for the release of all documents, but more are expected to arrive in the coming days.