by Nearly 200 names linked to the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking conspiracy could be revealed by a New York judge as soon as Tuesday, exposing or confirming the identities of dozens of associates of the disgraced financier who until now have only been known as John and Jane Does in court documents.
The deadline for objections to name releases expires at midnight Monday, nearly nine years after victim Virginia Giuffre filed a single defamation lawsuit against Maxwell, daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, in 2015. which in turn produced the names in legal depositions.
A year later, in 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet denied Maxwell’s motion to dismiss the case, finding that “the truth of a broader contextual world of facts than the statements allegedly defamatory” and that Guiffre “was a victim of abuse sustained by minors. sexual abuse between 1999 and 2002.” The parties reached an out-of-court settlement in 2017.
From that source emerged not only the names that will now be released, but also a series of civil lawsuits, including Guiffre’s action against Britain’s Prince Andrew for “sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress,” which was settled extrajudicially without admission of responsibility for a reported 12 million dollars. The prince has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
The defamation lawsuit also set the stage for a federal sex trafficking case against Maxwell, who was found guilty on five of six counts and sentenced to 20 years in prison in December 2021.
But expectations that the release of names from the old defamation suit could result in criminal charges are probably overblown. Epstein committed suicide while awaiting trial in 2019, and after Maxwell’s conviction, federal prosecutors made clear that they considered his job done.
Still, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska’s 51-page order explaining her reasoning on whether to open or continue to withhold the names of about 180 offerings from John and Jane Does will likely be a serious embarrassment to many high-profile figures.
Many of those included on the list will already be known publicly as associates, employees of Epstein and Maxwell or people who flew on their planes. He could also name Epstein’s alleged victims who had been taken to homes, including a mansion in New York, a villa in Palm Beach, a private island in the US Virgin Islands and a ranch outside Santa Fe.
It is the names of the John Does that will come under the most scrutiny, and they will almost certainly include a former US president, actors, academics and, notably, the now reclusive British prince.
According to ABC News on Monday, “Jane Doe 162” is a witness who testified that she was 17 years old when she was with Andrew, Maxwell and Giuffre at Epstein’s New York mansion home.
Former US President Bill Clinton was identified by ANC News as “Doe 36” and is mentioned in more than 50 of the redacted documents, according to court records. Giuffre made no accusations of wrongdoing on Clinton’s part, but maintains that she met him on the island, which Clinton has said she never visited.
But personal flight logs kept by one of Epstein’s pilots showed that Clinton flew extensively on Epstein’s plane, including trips to Paris, Bangkok and Brunei in the years after he left office in 2001.
According to ABC, Giuffre’s lawyers contacted Clinton’s legal representatives to request a statement, but they responded that her testimony would not be helpful. Maxwell’s lawyers also rejected the idea, calling it “a transparent ploy by Guiffre to increase media exposure of his sensational stories through side statements.”
But Clinton’s name came up repeatedly in connection with Epstein, including in a 2002 New York magazine article in which she said through a spokesperson that Epstein was “both a highly successful financier and a philanthropist committed to a keen sense of global markets and a comprehensive vision.” -deep knowledge of 21st century science.”
Clinton has said she broke up with Epstein in 2005 after Epstein was accused of bringing underage girls to his Palm Beach home for sexualized massages. A federal investigation was dropped and Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of pimping a minor and soliciting prostitution, was given a light sentence and was required to register as a sex offender.
After Epstein was arrested in 2019, Clinton again issued a statement, saying she had not spoken to Epstein “in over a decade” and had “never been to Little St James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico or his residence in Florida.” ”And she “knows nothing” about Epstein’s crimes.
While the depositions may offer a closer reading of Epstein and Maxwell’s interactions before the conviction at Epstein’s request, much of the attention is now focused on the financier’s behavior after he was released from detention in Florida and He returned to New York to rebuild his reputation.
Epstein’s programming diaries that reached the Wall Street Journal this year during Epstein-related lawsuits between the U.S. Virgin Islands and two American banks revealed the extent to which the financier continued to build his network.
Bold names that emerged included CIA Director Williams Burns and Kathryn Ruemmler, a White House adviser under Barack Obama, along with lesser figures such as left-wing professor and activist Noam Chomsky, billionaire venture capitalist Reid Hoffman and Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard and director of the National Economic Council under Obama.
Others included Woody Allen, Bill Gates, Thorbjørn Jagland, former Norwegian prime minister, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and former Barclays chairman Jes Staley.
An acquaintance of Maxwell and Epstein told The Guardian last year that Epstein’s behavioral patterns were not significantly different before and after the convictions. “He was not a changed man,” they said. “But you have to understand that in his mind he thought that he had done nothing wrong and that he had the right to behave as he wanted if he had the money to do so.”
