Court records offer new details about sexual abuse allegations against Jeffrey Epstein

Amid much uproar, a new batch of previously secret court documents related to Jeffrey Epsteinthe financier who committed suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Social media has been filled in recent weeks with posts speculating that the documents would include a list of rich and powerful men who were “customers” either “partners in crime” by Epstein.

Such a list did not exist. The first 40 documents revealed by court order consisted mostly of already published material from nearly two decades of newspaper reports, television documentaries, interviews, court cases and books about the Epstein scandal.

Still, the documents — which included transcripts of interviews with some of Epstein’s victims — recalled that the millionaire surrounded himself with famous and powerful people, including some who have also been accused of crimes.

They include mentions of the past friendship between Epstein and Bill Clinton — who is not accused of any crime — and with Prince Andrew of England, who has already settled a lawsuit in which he was accused of having had sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl who traveled with Epstein.

One of the women who accused Epstein, Johanna Sjobergtestified in a deposition released now that he once met Michael Jackson at the financier’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, but that nothing inappropriate happened with the late pop icon.

The documents being declassified are related to a lawsuit filed in 2015 by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre. She is one of dozens of women who reported him for abusing them at their homes in Florida, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and New Mexico. This particular lawsuit was directed against Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwellwho is serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping to recruit and abuse his partner’s victims.

Giuffre’s case against Maxwell was settled in 2017, but the court had kept some court documents redacted or secret out of concern for the privacy of Epstein’s victims and others whose names emerged during the legal battle. More will be made public in the coming days.

The new batch of documents included court briefs in which Giuffre’s lawyers complained about the difficulty of subpoenaing some women who have worked for Epstein, in addition to the financier himself. Two of those women relied on the Fifth Amendment, which recognizes their right against self-incrimination, when they were questioned in other proceedings about whether they had helped recruit other young women.

In his statement, Maxwellbecame angry when asked about the accusations of Giuffre that he had prepared his sexual encounters with Andrew of England. Additionally, she reacted angrily when asked if she had purchased sex toys or revealing clothing, or seen bare-breasted young women at Epstein’s home.

A former member of Epstein’s domestic staff testified that he was uncomfortable with the number of young women appearing at the house, and that he felt intimidated by Maxwell into remaining silent.

Other documents included legal arguments about whether Giuffre He should have more time to question potential witnesses, including Clinton. Giuffre never alleged that the former president engaged in illegal behavior, but his lawyers pointed out that it was a “key person who can provide information about your close relationship” with Maxwell and Epstein.

Maxwell’s lawyers countered that Clinton’s testimony was not relevant.

The documents included statements from several of Epstein’s victims, many of whom had already told their stories publicly.

In his statement of May 2016, Sjoberg He described having attended a dinner at one of Epstein’s homes, which the magician also attended. David Copperfield.

According to his story, copperfield did magic tricks before asking him if he was aware that “girls get paid to find other girls”. One of the key allegations against Epstein and Maxwell was that some of the young women they paid to perform sexual acts later acted as recruiters to find other victims. Sjoberg indicated that copperfield He was not more explicit about what he meant.

A publicist for Copperfield did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Sjoberg She also shed more light on a trip to New York in April 2001 in which she said Prince Andrew touched her breast while they posed for a photo at her home. Epstein in Manhattan.

In his statement, parts of which appeared in excerpts in previous court filings. Sjoberg She said that she and Giuffre arrived in the city with Epstein aboard his private plane and, once there, they met Maxwell and Andrés from England.

At one point, according to her testimony, Maxwell called her to an upstairs closet where they took out a puppet of Andres that had been made for a television show.

“He looked like him“, he said Sjoberg. “And she took it down and showed it to him, and it was a big joke because apparently it was from a BBC production”.

“And they decided to take a photo with her, in which Virginia and Andrés were sitting on a sofa. They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap and I sat on Andrés’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s chest and Andrés put his on mine, and they took the photo.”, he noted.

On the way to New York, he indicated SjobergEpstein’s plane was diverted to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and he spent a few hours at one of Donald Trump’s casinos due to bad weather.

Upon learning of the change of plans, Sjoberg He recalled that Epstein said “Great, we’ll call Trump and go” to the casino. Sjoberg was not asked if they had met Trump that night. He later indicated that he was never asked to give Trump a massage.

Sjoberg He also testified that, although he never met Clinton, Epstein once told him that “Clinton likes them young”, a comment she interpreted as a reference to young women or girls.

Clinton He has said through a spokesperson that although he traveled several times on the financier’s private plane, he never visited his homes, had no knowledge of his crimes and had not spoken to him since his conviction. Trump also claimed that back in the day he thought Epstein was a “great guy”, but later they quarreled.

In his statement, Giuffre She claimed that the summer she turned 17 she was persuaded to leave a job as a spa attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club to become “massage therapist” by Epstein, a job that involved performing sexual acts.

In 2022 she settled a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in which she claimed that he had sexually abused her during a trip to London. That same year, Giuffre dropped an accusation against Epstein’s former lawyer, law professor Alan Dershowitz, claiming that “I could have made a mistake” when identifying him as the aggressor.

The files released Wednesday included many references to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent close to Epstein who committed suicide in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial accused of allegedly raping underage girls. Giuffre was among those who had accused Brunel of sexual abuse.

The name of Clinton It also emerged because Maxwell’s lawyers questioned Giuffre about inaccuracies in newspaper articles about her time with Epstein, including a story in which she was quoted as saying she had traveled by helicopter with Clinton and flirted with Donald Trump. Giuffre said none of that happened.

The judge indicated that a handful of names would remain redacted in the documents because they would identify people who suffered sexual abuse. The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they choose to go public with their stories, as Giuffre and Sjoberg have done.

Even before the documents were published, misinformation about their content was rife. Social media users falsely claimed that host Jimmy Kimmel’s name could appear in the documents, fueled by a comment New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers made Tuesday on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show.”

Kimmel responded in X that he had never met Epstein and that the “Rodgers’ reckless words put my family in danger”.