The names of at least 180 people linked to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were made public Wednesday night after a federal judge ordered previously sealed documents to be released.
The documents stem from a civil lawsuit involving his now-incarcerated partner Ghislaine Maxwell, who spent years aiding and abetting Epstein’s sex trafficking ring that he operated while associating with figures from Hollywood, politics, business, and royalty. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ordered the unsealing of the records late last month.
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The approximately 900 pages released in the batch of court records include depositions and testimony about the legal proceedings in a defamation suit brought by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s accusers.
While several notable names on the list were previously reported as Epstein associates, the documents shed light on the nature of some relationships between Epstein’s associates and claims made by accusers about Epstein’s high-profile contacts.
Here are five takeaways from the extensive records released:
Former President Donald Trump not involved, per witness
Long before former President Donald Trump made it to the Oval Office, he had a well-established relationship with Epstein documented through various video clips, photos, and personal accounts offered to the media. Trump has since backtracked his connection to Epstein, saying they had a falling out and that he “threw him out” of Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort club.
One newly unsealed deposition from May 18, 2016, revealed an account from Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, who recalled that, in 2001, she was with Epstein, Maxwell, and Giuffre on one of Epstein’s planes when a pilot said they needed to land in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during a planned trip to New York.
Epstein made light of the unintended destination, court records show, saying to the people on board, “‘Great, we’ll call up Trump, and we’ll go to — I don’t recall the name of the casino, but — we’ll go to the casino,'” Sjoberg said. She said she and Giuffre were able to make it into Trump’s casino despite being underage at the time but that neither gambled.
The deposition also included Sjoberg’s claim that she did not ever see Trump at one of Epstein’s properties and that she didn’t see Trump receive any massages. When asked whether Epstein’s former lawyer Alan Dershowitz had sex with her, she said, “Absolutely not.” She also denied ever seeing Giuffre with the attorney.
Maxwell said she flew former President Bill Clinton to the island
In the same deposition in which Trump was mentioned, Sjoberg said she did not recall Maxwell ever saying that she flew former President Bill Clinton in her helicopter to Little St. James, Epstein’s island. Clinton is known to have taken multiple flights on Epstein’s private jet, though there are conflicting accounts about whether he actually flew to the private property in the Virgin Islands.
Giuffre said in a separate deposition on May 3, 2016, that Maxwell said she flew Clinton on the helicopter, but Giuffre did not have independent knowledge of the claim.
“Ghislaine told me that she flew Bill Clinton in. And Ghislaine likes to talk a lot of stuff that sounds fantastical,” Giuffre said in the deposition, noting that she did not know whether Maxwell’s claim about the former president was true when she recounted it years ago to a journalist.
Clinton spokesman Angel Urena referred the Washington Examiner to a statement he previously put out in July 2019, in which the former president said he knew “nothing about the terrible crimes” Epstein committed. Clinton has not been accused of criminal activity in connection with Epstein, denies ever visiting the island, and his representatives did not object to the unsealing of the latest documents.
Prince Andrew’s puppet
Sjoberg’s deposition included detailed testimony about how Prince Andrew groped her and Giuffre in 2001 during a strange incident involving a puppet who looked like the royal family member.
While in New York in 2001, Sjoberg said Maxwell called her to an upstairs closet, where there was a puppet of Prince Andrew that was made from a BBC program. Also in the closet were Prince Andrew himself and Giuffre.
“They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap, and I sat on Andrew’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo,” Sjoberg said.
Sjoberg previously spoke about the indictment in 2007 in a news interview, though her claims under oath appear in the newly surfaced deposition.
Prince Andrew repeatedly has denied all allegations of sexual impropriety and accepted no liability in his out-of-court settlement with Giuffre.
Rewards floated for Giuffre’s friends if they silenced Stephen Hawking orgy claims
In January 2015, Epstein offered a reward to Giuffre’s friends if they helped to shut down her claim that theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking had participated “in an underage orgy” at Epstein’s island property. At the time, Giuffre was preparing her defamation lawsuit against Maxwell that was later filed in February of that year, court records show.
“You can issue a reward to any of virginias friends acquaionts family [sic] that come forward and help prove her allegations are false,” Epstein wrote to Maxwell in an email dated Jan. 12, 2015, and released by the court this week.
Epstein also mentioned in the email two specific events that Giuffre claimed took place, one being a dinner with Clinton, which he described as the strongest allegation, and another a trip to the Virgin Islands that Hawking was present for.
“The strongest is the clinton dinner, and the new version in the virgin isalnds that stven hawking partica-ted in an underage orgy,” the typo-ridden email concluded.
More documents likely on the way
It is not clear how long it will take for all of the unsealed names and documents to be made public. Two people whose names are sealed are appealing to keep their names redacted, including someone described as “Doe 110” whose name and “association with Epstein has been widely publicized by the media,” according to the filings released in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. That appeal remains pending.
Another person appealing to keep her name shielded, known as “Doe 107,” is a woman who says she “faces a risk of physical harm in her country of residence.” The judge has asked her to provide additional information to support her case by Jan. 22.
Several names are to remain sealed in the case, including multiple alleged victims whose allegations against Epstein have not been made public.
The released documents stem from Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Maxwell. Giuffre accused Maxwell of discrediting her claims about Epstein and painting her as a liar. The lawsuit was settled in 2017, but the Miami Herald has fought in court since then for the release of information in the case.
Epstein, the financier who faced many accusations of sexual abuse of girls and who was able to collect many high-profile friends despite his depraved lifestyle, was charged with sex trafficking girls as young as 14 and sex trafficking conspiracy in New York in July 2019.
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Maxwell, a longtime associate who at times had a romantic relationship with Epstein, was found guilty by a New York jury in 2021 on conspiracy and trafficking charges related to Epstein and for her role in abuse of underage girls for nearly 10 years.
Shortly after Epstein was arrested, he was found unresponsive in his New York City jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019. His death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell remains in prison at Florida’s Federal Correctional Institution, Tallahassee, and she will be eligible for release in July 2037.
