Hundreds of pages of previously sealed court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and registered sex offender, were made public on Wednesday, but as most legal experts familiar with the sordid affair had surmised, there was no irrefutable list of men celebrities who had sought to have sexual relations with young women and adolescents.
The documents, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, appeared to add a little more context to the relationships Epstein had maintained over the years with powerful men, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald J. Trump and a member of British royalty, Prince Andrew.
But they provided little to no new fodder for conspiracy theorists who remain obsessed with Epstein’s dealings more than four years after his death.
The 45 court documents made public Wednesday were part of a lawsuit filed against Epstein by one of his victims. The documents were previously sealed or redacted to conceal the names of more than 100 victims, associates or friends of Mr. Epstein, all with the designation “J. Doe” and a unique identification number.
But the judge overseeing the case, Loretta A. Preska, who last month ordered the materials to be unsealed, noted that most of the names had already been publicly revealed in other lawsuits or in news reports.
Most of the documents made public Wednesday do not include specific episodes of wrongdoing by men other than Epstein, who was found dead at the age of 66 in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking. His death was ruled a suicide.
But one of Epstein’s great curiosities is how a college dropout could amass a fortune valued at $600 million and become friends with a series of politicians, celebrities, academics and rich men. And while the documents don’t answer that question, they reveal the calm nature he seemed to share with his associates.
Among the documents revealed Wednesday was a lengthy deposition taken in May 2016 from Johanna Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, who said she was with Epstein from 2001 to 2006. She was asked if Epstein ever spoke to her about Clinton during that time.
“He once said that Clinton likes young women, meaning girls,” Ms. Sjoberg testified. She also said that while flying with Mr. Epstein on one of his planes, they made an unplanned stop in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
“Jeffrey said, ‘Great, we’ll call Trump,’” Sjoberg testified, adding that Epstein suggested they visit Trump’s casino.
As for Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth II’s second son, Mrs. Sjoberg testified that when she was first introduced to him, he “put his hand on my chest.”
Most of the famous people linked to Epstein have said they were unaware of his abusive behavior toward teenage girls or young women.
Clinton, 77, issued a statement in 2019 saying she knew nothing about Epstein’s “terrible crimes.” Clinton has never been charged with any crimes related to Epstein; and he did not object to the disclosure of documents mentioning him, a spokesman said Wednesday night. Trump, 77, has said he had a “feud” with Epstein years ago and was “not a fan.”
In total, Judge Preska ordered more than 200 documents unsealed, with the rest expected to be released in the coming days after they are reviewed by attorneys involved in the litigation.
The materials largely comprised legal motions and excerpts from statements given by accusers that described in detail how Epstein had sexually abused them, including forcing them to masturbate him during massages.
Judge Preska said in her order that the documents, for the most part, did not include lewd material about people other than Mr. Epstein.
In explaining her decision to unseal the documents, Judge Preska pointed to a number of cases in which a particular “Doe” had not raised objections to her name being released.
But in other cases he ordered that confidentiality be maintained.
“Doe 16 is an alleged minor victim of sexual abuse who has not spoken publicly and who has maintained her privacy,” Judge Preska wrote in one case. “As such, the public interest does not outweigh privacy interests,” he added.
The documents were originally filed as part of a defamation lawsuit filed in 2015 by Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim, against Ghislaine Maxwell, a former Epstein associate who was convicted in 2021 of conspiring with him in his sex trafficking operation. Ms. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
In 2022, Giuffre and Prince Andrew settled a separate lawsuit in which she claimed that he had sexually abused her when she was 17 years old.
Sigrid McCawley, Giuffre’s lawyer, said releasing the documents would allow the public to learn “more about the scale and scope of Epstein’s business” and how he managed to get away with it for so long.
One of the documents revealed Wednesday includes an email Epstein sent to Maxwell in January 2015 in which he told her to “give a reward to any of Virginia’s friends” who “come forward and help prove her allegations are true.” “false.”
Ms. Giuffre and Ms. Maxwell settled the lawsuit shortly before it went to trial in 2017. The Miami Herald and other media outlets asked the judge overseeing the case, Robert W. Sweet, to unseal documents in the case, but he refused. application. However, in 2019, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court unsealed about 2,000 pages of materials and returned the case to the district court, where Judge Preska was assigned to oversee a process that has led to more publications. of documents.
However, the fact that the documents are revealed tells only a small part of Epstein’s story, which spanned more than two decades.
Most of the documents being revealed involve testimony from women who were victims of Epstein from the 1990s until his 2008 conviction in Florida on charges of soliciting a teenage girl for prostitution. But Epstein reportedly continued to abuse women after serving that sentence and being forced to register as a sex offender.
Last year, documents were released about JPMorgan Chase’s role in helping finance Epstein’s activities in the course of litigation against the bank brought on behalf of his numerous victims. In a settlement last year, JPMorgan, the country’s largest bank, agreed to settle the class-action lawsuit for $290 million, which is expected to result in payments to nearly 200 women.
