A list of names linked to late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is set to be made public, bringing renewed attention to a sex trafficking operation that has made international headlines for years.
A U.S. judge authorized the release of court documents last month as part of a 2015 defamation lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell of trafficking her when she was a minor.
The documents will reveal more than 150 names of people linked to Epstein, who committed suicide in a US prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and other charges.
They include people accused of wrongdoing, as well as those who worked for Epstein or had only tangential ties to him. The names also include alleged victims of sex trafficking and witnesses to crimes, US media reported.
This is everything you need to know about the name list and what its implications are.
Where do the names come from?
The names appear in court documents from the 2015 defamation lawsuit Giuffre filed against Maxwell, a British socialite who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges related to sex trafficking.
Giuffre had accused Maxwell of facilitating her sexual abuse at the hands of Epstein and other powerful men. When Maxwell called those accusations “obvious lies,” Giuffre responded with the defamation lawsuit.
The case was finally settled in 2017. As part of the court’s findings, a judge wrote that Giuffre “was a victim of sustained sexual abuse of minors between 1999 and 2002.”
But the documents used in the case continued to spark interest, long after the lawsuit ended.
In 2018, the Miami Herald began legal proceedings to gain access to the documents. “Thousands of pages have been released” continuously since then, according to the Herald, as part of a process to determine which files could be made public.
However, many of the names on the documents had been redacted. But on Dec. 18, the U.S. District Court Judge overseeing the case, Loretta Preska, decided that some of the names could also be released.
He gave anyone affected until midnight on January 1 to file an objection, meaning the files could be released as early as Tuesday.
How did the judge decide which names could be made public?
Preska argued in his decision that many of the names had already been revealed through testimony or court statements, as well as in media reports. Until now, certain people have been referred to in court documents as John or Jane Doe.
However, some names will remain sealed because the people were minors when the alleged sexual abuse occurred and have not spoken publicly. “The public interest does not outweigh the privacy interests of the alleged minor victim,” Preska wrote.
But concerns remain about how the public might react to the newly released names. The documents themselves “may not clarify why a certain individual was associated with Giuffre’s lawsuit,” ABC News reported.
That said, the new revelations will likely help illustrate the scale of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking ring and its influence among powerful members of society.
Epstein committed suicide before he could face sex trafficking charges in court.
Will notable names be included?
The name of Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom is expected to appear in the documents. Giuffre accused the British royal of forcing her to have sex with him two decades ago, when she was 17, an accusation Prince Andrew has vehemently denied. The case was resolved in 2022.
According to ABC News, the unsealed court documents are expected to contain details of a witness, identified as Jane Doe 162, “who testified that she was with Prince Andrew, Maxwell and Giuffre, then 17, at Epstein’s New York mansion.” “.
“Giuffre has alleged that that meeting, in 2001, was one of the times she was ordered to have sexual relations with Andrew,” the news outlet reported.
Former US President Bill Clinton is also expected to appear in the released documents, although Giuffre did not accuse him of any crime. She had said that she met Clinton on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, US media reported.
When US prosecutors brought sex trafficking and conspiracy charges against Epstein in 2019, the former president’s spokesman, Ángel Ureña, said Clinton “knows nothing about the terrible crimes” of which the disgraced financier had been accused.
“In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton made a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane: one to Europe, one to Asia and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation,” Ureña said. .
“He has not spoken to Epstein in more than a decade and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico or his residence in Florida.”
ABC News reported that Clinton’s name appears more than 50 times in court documents, but mentions of the former president are often related to efforts to subpoena him “for testimony about his relationship with Epstein.”
Statement on Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/98ha9YYd1l
— Ángel Ureña (@angelurena) July 8, 2019
How important is liberation?
CBS News Legal Analyst Rikki Klieman saying this week that “it is very important that the documents be opened so that the full story of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell can be made public.”
“We need to know, as members of the public, who has a stake in keeping women, girls and boys safe from predators,” Klieman said.
Giuffre also commented on the post last month on social media, describing Judge Preska as “honorable” for her decision to make the names public and ensure transparency.
He added that “there would be a lot of nervousness.” [people] at Christmas and New Year.”
