The US Justice Department published this Wednesday a first batch of judicial documents related to the deceased financier Jeffrey Epsteinaccused of trafficking and sexual abuse of minors, and who had been classified until now.
The documents are part of a defamation lawsuit filed in 2015 by Virginia Giuffreone of Epstein’s main accusers, against his ex-lover and partner, the British heiress Ghislaine Maxwelland have attracted media attention due to the expectation that they will involve prominent figures related to the billionaire.
However, it is expected that many of the names are already known, since they were identified during the 2021 trial against Maxwell – sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping the financier to sexually abuse minors – or because they have given interviews or have been the subject of complaints.
The judge Loretta Preskaof the federal court for the Southern District of NYhad ordered that as of January 1, the documents, until now sealed, and which include the identity of about 150 people, be made public.
Being mentioned in the documents does not imply any type of guilt, since there are everything from emails to statements from victims or witnesses. The identity of who they were minors or have not made public statements will remain hidden.
The deadline was set to give anyone who opposed the publication of their name time to object, and at least two people have objected and have until January 22 to explain their reasons.
The first batch of documents, published this Wednesday, is around 1,000 pages in total.
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It is known that the final list will include the name of the prince andrewwhom Giuffre sued for sexual abuse and with whom he reached an extrajudicial agreement, and also the former president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), identified by ABC News as ‘John Doe 36‘, whom Giuffre unsuccessfully tried to summon to testify.
Clinton, against whom no charges are pending, appears on the passenger lists of Epstein’s flights to different countries, but his possible presence on one of the financier’s islands is unclear, something that Giuffre claims but he denies.
Epstein committed suicide in 2019 in a federal prison in New York, where he was awaiting trial for allegedly creating a ring of child sex trafficking in their mansions in the Big Apple and Florida. The youngest girls were 14 years old, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
