Unsealed documents shed light on Epstein’s misdeeds and on Little Else

Hundreds of pages of previously sealed court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and registered sex offender, were made public Wednesday — but as most legal experts familiar with the sordid case had suspected, there was no smoking gun -list of famous men who had done that. tried to have sex with young women and teenage girls.

The documents, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, appeared to add some more context to the relationships Mr. Epstein had cultivated over the years with powerful men, such as former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald J. Trump and a member of the British royal family, Prince Andrew.

But they provided little or no new fodder for conspiracy theorists who remain fixated on Mr. Epstein’s actions more than four years after his death.

The 45 court documents made public on Wednesday were part of a lawsuit filed against Mr Epstein by one of his victims. The documents had previously been sealed or redacted to conceal the names of approximately 187 victims, associates or friends of Mr. Epstein, all labeled “J. Doe” and a unique identification number.

But the judge overseeing the case, Loretta A. Preska, who ordered the materials unsealed last month, noted that most of the names had already been made public in other lawsuits or in news reports.

Most of the documents made public Wednesday do not include specific instances of misconduct by men other than Mr. Epstein, who was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 at the age of 66 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges . His death was ruled a suicide.

But one of Mr. Epstein’s great curiosities is how a high school dropout can amass a fortune worth $600 million and become friends with a host of politicians, celebrities, academics and wealthy men. And while the documents don’t answer that question, they do reveal the easy-going nature he seemed to share with his associates.

Among the documents released Wednesday was a lengthy May 2016 statement from Johanna Sjoberg, one of Mr. Epstein’s alleged victims, who said she was close to Mr. Epstein from 2001 to 2006. She was asked whether Mr. Epstein had ever spoken to her about Mr. Clinton during that time.

“He once said that Clinton likes young people, referring to girls,” Ms. Sjoberg testified. She also said that while flying with Mr. Epstein on one of his planes, they made an unscheduled stop in Atlantic City, NJ.

“Jeffrey said, ‘Great, we’ll call Trump,’” Ms. Sjoberg testified, adding that Mr. Epstein suggested they visit Mr. Trump’s casino.

As for Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth II’s second son, Ms. Sjoberg testified that when she was first introduced to him, “he put his hand on my chest.”

Most famous people associated with Mr. Epstein have said they were unaware of his abuse toward teenage girls or young women.

Clinton, 77, issued a statement in 2019 saying he knew nothing about Mr. Epstein’s “terrible crimes.” Mr. Clinton has never been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Mr. Epstein; and he did not object to the release of the documents mentioning him, a spokesman said Wednesday evening. Trump, 77, has said he had a “feud” with Mr. Epstein years ago and “wasn’t a fan.”

In total, Judge Preska ordered the unsealing of more than 200 documents, with the remainder expected to be released in the coming days after being reviewed by attorneys involved in the lawsuit.

The material consists largely of legal motions and excerpts from depositions by prosecutors detailing how Mr. Epstein sexually abused them, including by forcing them to masturbate to him during massages.

Judge Preska said in her order that, for the most part, the documents did not contain any salacious material about individuals other than Mr. Epstein.

In explaining her decision to unseat the documents, Judge Preska noted a number of instances in which a certain “Doe” had not objected to the release of their name.

But in other cases she ordered that confidentiality be maintained.

“Doe 16 is an alleged minor victim of sexual abuse who has not spoken publicly and who has maintained his or her privacy,” Judge Preska wrote in one case. “As such, the public interest does not outweigh the privacy interest,” she added.

The documents were originally filed as part of a defamation lawsuit filed in 2015 by Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Mr. Epstein, against Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime 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, Ms Giuffre and Prince Andrew reached a settlement in a separate lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.

Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer for Ms. Giuffre, said unsealing documents would allow the public to “learn more about the size and scope of Epstein’s racket” and how he managed to get away with it for so long.

One of the documents released Wednesday includes an email that Mr. Epstein sent to Ms. Maxwell in January 2015, in which he told her to “offer a reward to one of Virginia’s friends” who “will come forward and will help prove her allegations are false.”

Ms. Giuffre and Ms. Maxwell settled the lawsuit shortly before it was set to go to trial in 2017. The Miami Herald and other media asked the judge overseeing the case, Robert W. Sweet, to have the trial documents unsealed, but he denied. the request. However, in 2019, a three-judge federal appeals court panel released approximately 2,000 pages of materials and sent the case back to the district court, where Judge Preska was appointed to oversee a process that led to further release of documents.

However, unlocking the documents only tells a small part of the Epstein story, which lasted more than twenty years.

Most of the documents being released concern testimony from women who were victimized by Mr. Epstein from the 1990s until his conviction in Florida in 2008 on charges of soliciting a teenage girl into prostitution. But Mr. Epstein is said to have continued to abuse women after serving that sentence and having to register as a sex offender.

Last year, documents detailing JPMorgan Chase’s role in helping finance Mr. Epstein’s activities were released during a lawsuit against the bank filed on behalf of his many victims. In a settlement last year, JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, agreed to resolve the class action lawsuit for $290 million, which is expected to provide payouts to nearly 200 women.