[ad_1]
Nearly 200 names that had previously been redacted from court documents in a lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s former lover and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell have been made public on orders of a federal judge in New York.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ordered their release in December but gave the Jane and John Does two weeks in case they wanted to appeal.
The names were unveiled in a series of 40 documents that have been posted to the docket without previous redactions that hid big names including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Clinton’s estranged longtime aide Doug Band, Prince Andrew, the late former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and the French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who like Epstein died while awaiting trial.
JEFFREY EPSTEIN SCANDAL: FEDERAL JUDGE TO UNSEAL 180 PREVIOUSLY REDACTED NAMES
Jeffrey Epstein pictured in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Sept. 8, 2004. (Rick Friedman/Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis via Getty Images)
Epstein had many high-profile connections, including former U.S. presidents, foreign prime ministers and Britain’s Prince Andrew, as well as Hollywood stars, leading academics, people in the modeling and fashion industries and other public figures. Some of the names were previously known through other means despite having been withheld from the public’s eye in the lawsuit.
Many of the names belong to people who have not been accused of wrongdoing, including Clinton, who also declined to ask the court to have his name remain sealed.
A spokesperson for Clinton also denied claims in one of the documents that alleged the former president and Epstein had a “close personal relationship.”
Bill Clinton receives a massage from Chauntae Davies in 2002 at a small airport in Portugal during a fuel stop for Jeffrey Epstein’s Boeing 727 which was bound for Africa from New York. (Mega)
Other names unsealed Wednesday included billionaire Glenn Dubin and his former private chef Rinaldo Rizzo. Previously released documents revealed that Rizzo claimed Epstein and Maxwell once visited Dubin’s house with a disoriented, 15-year-old Swedish girl who told him the couple asked her for sex and that her passport had been taken. Others mentioned include Tony Figueroa, Limited Brands founder and former Victoria’s Secret CEO Lex Wexner, and Epstein accusers such as Johanna Sjoberg and Annie Farmer.
A notable new name is David Copperfield – who was himself accused of sexually assaulting a teen model and is described in the documents as a friend of Epstein.
Sjoberg, according to a deposition in the lawsuit claimed that Epstein once told her “Clinton likes them young, referring to girls” and that Copperfield, a friend of Epstein’s, “did some magic tricks” at dinner.
Graphic content warning: Exhibit #12 the deposition of Johanna Sjoberg (Mobile users go here)
Sjoberg also brought up Trump, claiming that Epstein once claimed he’d call the billionaire businessman when his helicopter had to be rerouted to Atlantic City because it couldn’t land in New York. She also stated she had never given massages to Trump, the director George Lucas or Marvin Minsky, a renowned computer scientist who died in 2016.
Read Exhibit #9 (Mobile users go here)
In a typo-filled email from Epstein to Maxwell, the sex trafficker accused Giuffre of fabricating her allegations against him and mentioned one “stven hawking” and an “underage orgy.” In that same document, another email showed a publicist for Maxwell bragging about some “helpful leakage” with links to articles in the Daily Mail and Daily News.
Read Exhibit #14 (Mobile users go here)
Several were withheld for various reasons, including names of some of Epstein’s underage victims and at least one person who the judge said had been falsely identified.
Dubin and his wife, Eva Andersson Dubin, who had previously dated Epstein, have previously denied any knowledge of the late financier’s behavior.
JEFFREY EPSTEIN ACCUSER MOCKS ‘NERVOUS’ ASSOCIATES SET TO BE NAMED: ‘WHO’S ON THE NAUGHTY LIST?’
Chauntae Davies and Jeffrey Epstein in an undated photo of them in Paris. (Mega)
The names were all previously redacted documents in a lawsuit against Maxwell from Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein accuser who said he trafficked her to his private island, Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands before her 18th birthday. The parties settled out of court in 2017. She also sued and received a settlement from Prince Andrew.
In a separate criminal case, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for sex trafficking Epstein’s victims.
The release comes amid a fight in Congress to release the names of Epstein’s clients and people who traveled on his private jet. Tennessee Republicans Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Rep. Tim Burchett have accused Democrats of “stonewalling” their requests for those documents.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre holds a photo of herself as a teen, when she says she was abused by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew, among others. (Emily Michot/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
DOZENS OF GHISLAINE MAXWELL FILES UNSEALED BY FEDERAL COURT IN SEX TRAFFICKING CASE
“It appears that bad actors within our government are going to great lengths to protect the pedophiles who took Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet,” Blackburn wrote on X in late December. “I will not stop working to reveal their identities. The American people deserve to know every name on that list.”
Giuffre praised the lawmakers’ involvement on X herself while taunting some of Epstein’s previously unnamed associates.
Photo from 2001 that was included in court files shows Prince Andrew with his arm around the waist of 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre. Ghislaine Maxwell is standing to the right. (U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
“Finally we are hearing members of the US government senators about the need for transparency and a call to arms for accountability!!” she wrote on X. “There’s going to be a lot of nervous ppl over Christmas and New Years, 170 to be exact, who’s on the naughty list?”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Anyone who suspects trafficking can call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at (888) 373-7888.
Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link