Epstein files mention ‘1,000 people by name’

Judge outlines schedule for release of court documents as anonymous man begs for his name to be kept out

JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S friends are facing a nervous wait after a judge in New York yesterday laid out a schedule for releasing court documents that mention “literally 1,000 people” by name.

One unnamed man, known as John Doe, wrote to the court in advance of the hearing, begging the judge to keep his name out of the public domain.

Jeffrey Pagliuca, a lawyer for Epstein’s long-term companion Ghislaine Maxwell, said the release of the sealed documents should be delayed because they include “hundreds of pages of investigative reports that mention hundreds of people”.

They contain depositions taken from 29 people. “There are hundreds of other people who could be implicated” in the documents, he said.

Judge Loretta Preska is overseeing the unsealing of the 10,000 pages relating to a slander case filed by Virginia Roberts-giuffre, an alleged victim of Epstein, against Miss Maxwell, who is accused of being his “madam”. She has always denied any wrongdoing.

The case was filed in September 2015 and settled in May 2017.

On July 2, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered that the documents in the case be unsealed, owing to the overwhelming public interest. The first 2,000 pages were published on Aug 9, the day before Epstein killed himself. The second set is due to be published in the coming months.

“In some … documents there are literally 1,000 people named,” Judge Preska said. “It’s not going to be easy.”

The case files are known to contain claims by Mrs Roberts-giuffre that she was sexually abused by “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister and other world leaders”.

Mrs Roberts-giuffre has claimed that she was “lent out” by Epstein to the Duke of York, and forced to have sex with him.

The Duke has always denied the claim, and all allegations against him were struck from the court record in 2015 after being described as “immaterial and impertinent” by a judge.

On the eve of the hearing, John Doe wrote to Judge Preska and begged for his name not to be mentioned, arguing that his reputation would be destroyed. “Unsealing references to non-parties would throw those non-parties into the middle of this frenzy, and unfairly do irreparable harm to their privacy and reputational interests,” his lawyers, Nicholas Lewin and Paul Krieger, wrote. “But it is clear that these materials implicate the privacy and reputational interests of many persons other than the two primary parties.”

The letter says a prior judge summarised the still-secret documents as containing a “range of allegations of sexual acts involving plaintiff and non-parties … some famous, some not; the identities of non-parties who either allegedly engaged in sexual acts with plaintiff or who allegedly facilitated such acts”.

John Doe’s lawyers do not say if he is famous, or what accusations he expects to face. Judge Preska asked the lawyers for both Miss Maxwell and Mrs Giuffreroberts to begin categorising the 10,000 pages, before unsealing them.

She gave the lawyers two weeks to divide the documents into 10 categories, and then they would have a week to designate which group should be unsealed first, with a rolling weekto-week process thereafter to evaluate the material and argue over how much or how little should be disclosed publicly.

Mr Pagliuca urged the judge to delay the release, saying he wanted a month to sort the documents.

Judge Preska denied his request, adding: “You know we have got to get this done.”