yahoo | Hundreds of sealed court filings pertaining to the late sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein are set to be made public this week, and several prominent names -- including Britain's Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton -- are expected to appear in the documents.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled earlier this month there was no legal justification for continuing to conceal the ex-president's name and more than 150 names other "John and Jane Does" mentioned in the records. Preska ordered the unsealing to begin after Jan. 1.
The documents stem from a 2015 civil lawsuit centered on allegations that Epstein's one-time paramour, Ghislaine Maxwell, facilitated the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre, an alleged trafficking victim. Giuffre also accused Epstein and Maxwell of directing her to have sex with Prince Andrew and several other prominent men. Prince Andrew denied the allegations and claimed he could not recall ever meeting Giuffre. He later settled a lawsuit she filed against him.
Most of the prominent names that appear in the documents are already associated in some way with Epstein; for allegations of wrongdoing, for having worked for Epstein, flown on his planes, or visited his homes. Some were mentioned during Maxwell's criminal trial in 2021. In some instances, the only appearances of the names are in potential witness lists or in proposed terms for searches of electronic records.
While Giuffre's allegations against Prince Andrew, and his denials, have been widely reported around the globe, dozens of the sealed records are expected to contain additional details from "Jane Doe 162," a witness who testified she was with Prince Andrew, Maxwell and Giuffre, then 17, at Epstein's New York mansion. Giuffre has alleged that gathering, in 2001, was one of the occasions she was directed to have sex with Andrew.
Giuffre made no allegations of wrongdoing by Clinton, and there is no indication the sealed records contain evidence of illegal conduct by Clinton. But Giuffre's claim that she met the ex-president on Epstein's private Caribbean island emerged as a contentious issue in the litigation, which was settled in 2017. Maxwell contended Clinton had never been to Little St. James -- as Epstein's island was known -- and assailed Giuffre's claim as a fabrication that shattered her credibility.
Personal flight logs kept by one of Epstein's pilots -- which surfaced in separate lawsuits against Epstein -- showed that Clinton and his entourage had flown extensively on Epstein's jumbo-jet to international destinations such as Paris, Bangkok and Brunei in 2002 and 2003. But none of the available records included the former president on a trip to Epstein's island.
The court documents to be unsealed this week represent the eighth, and likely final, round of unsealing records from the case since the Miami Herald intervened for access to the records in 2018. Previously unsealed items included multiple deposition transcripts of Maxwell and Giuffre, along with sworn, but unproven, allegations that Epstein and Maxwell directed Giuffre to have sex with several well-known men, including former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the late model scout Jean Luc Brunel, billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, and others.
Maxwell denied the allegations, as did all of the men identified by Giuffre when their names surfaced.
This batch will involve the names of additional Epstein associates, alleged perpetrators, alleged co-conspirators, alleged victims, witnesses and former Epstein employees. Several of the "Does" mentioned in the documents are now deceased.
Former President Clinton, who ABC News has learned is identified as "Doe 36," is mentioned in more than fifty of the redacted filings, according to court records. Several of those sealed or redacted entries are focused on an effort by Giuffre's lawyers in mid-2016, first reported by ABC News, to subpoena the two-term Democratic president for deposition testimony about his relationship with Epstein.
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