Next up in Epstein case: Testimony involving Doe 1 and Doe 2
A deadline has passed without opposition from two parties whose depositions in the bitter lawsuit between disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s accused co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, and an Epstein accuser are set to be made public.
The two non-parties in the now-settled civil dispute between Maxwell and accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre had until Nov. 5 to oppose the way their names would be redacted as well as references that might identify them.
But in a filing late Tuesday in New York by Giuffre’s lawyers to U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, they said no opposition came in against the release of documents as proposed. A one-week period was to allow Maxwell lawyers to respond had there been opposition, ending Thursday. Giuffre’s attorneys would then have had until Nov. 19 to respond.
Instead, it appears the release of more documents is imminent, including those from third parties — known in court documents as Doe 1 and Doe 2 — who provided testimony in the suit settled in 2017. They asked the judge to keep names and identifying information out of transcripts of depositions that are due to be made public as part of a lawsuit from the Miami Herald.
The Maxwell-Giuffre lawsuit became the subject of a records lawsuit after the Herald’s Perversion of Justice series brought renewed attention to Epstein and how he escaped federal prosecution in 2008 for sex crimes against minors.
In July, Preska ruled for the Herald in favor of releasing numerous documents, the process began in August, and after a series of appeals, it resulted in the release of an April 2016 deposition by Maxwell where she was obstructive and failed to answer key questions about herself and Epstein.
Maxwell was then ordered to sit for another deposition in July 2016 because of a lack of responsiveness, and that deposition is expected to be released by Preska in the next few weeks. It has been delayed in part in order to give the two Does and other non-parties time to make their arguments about what to have redacted from their soon-to-bereleased depositions.
The latest filing Tuesday also noted that numerous non-parties have been contacted about the release of five docket items that have been under seal, giving them the chance to oppose having their names released. Seven raised objections before their respective deadlines.
Giuffre’s lawyers asked Preska to allow all potentially affected non-parties to be notified at once to speed up the process. Maxwell’s lawyers have objected at every turn, arguing that the release of deposition materials jeopardizes her defense in criminal proceedings.
Maxwell was arrested on July 2 at a 156-acre estate in New Hampshire on four counts of sexual trafficking of a minor for her role in the alleged abuse of three girls between 1994 and 1997. She faces a federal trial next summer and had sought to block the release of her 2016 depositions on the grounds that it would prejudice her ability to get a fair trial. The deposition was also used to bring federal perjury charges against Maxwell in her criminal case.
Considered a flight risk, Maxwell was denied bail and has been held in a federal facility in Brooklyn as she awaits trial. While she has fought to block the release of materials from the 2015 civil lawsuit, her lawyers have tussled with federal prosecutors in the criminal case, arguing that they have been deficient in turning over potential evidence against Maxwell and that Maxwell’s conditions in federal detention have hindered her ability to prepare her defense.
“Summer is gone, winter is coming, and the Government has failed good to make good on its promises,” her lawyers wrote in one filing.
Federal prosecutors pushed back on Maxwell’s claims that her detention harmed her ability to prepare for her defense — pointing out that she is given up to 13 hours a day to review potential evidence, more time than any other inmate in her Brooklyn, New York, facility. They also said the delay in turning over all of the potential evidence was due to a contractor falling behind in its work of preparing material from electronic devices that were seized from Epstein’s homes in New York and the Virgin Islands in connection with Epstein’s 2019 arrest on sex charges.
Prosecutors wrote that they will be turning over 1.2 million documents from 62 devices they seized from Epstein. They were granted a two-week extension earlier this week on the delivery of those materials.
Meanwhile, in another closely followed legal matter, self-described muckraker Angela Clemente’s records lawsuit against the FBI has advanced in ways that may ultimately prove revealing. The FBI has sought to limit what it releases to Clemente in her Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding tens of thousands of documents from the agency about its relationship with Epstein.
In an Oct. 26 ruling, Judge Trevor McFadden, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ordered the FBI and Clemente to file a joint status report on their efforts to negotiate what documents will be made public. Importantly, he denied the FBI’s request to push the next status hearing to days before Christmas and ordered the two sides to update him on
Nov. 23. McFadden also ordered the FBI to confer with Clemente and her lawyer on which records sought should be given priority treatment.
Clemente, a paralegal, sued the FBI in May, seeking to force the agency to release the documents on the grounds that Epstein is now dead, albeit under mysterious circumstances, and citing an overarching public interest in releasing documents. The Justice Department, representing the FBI, is fighting the effort.
Clemente’s lawyer,
James “Jim” Lesar, contends that the FBI continues to sit on documents for which it had effectively waived privacy protections. Clemente wants access to records because of her decade-long investigation into the deaths of young women in Ohio and a purported sex trafficking ring that brought underage girls to and from Palm Beach.
That’s where Epstein resided before his 2008 plea agreements to state charges in Florida in which he agreed to be an FBI informant. Ohio is where Leslie Wexner, the founder of the L Brands empire, lives and where a key chapter of Epstein’s rise to fortune happened.
No public documents tie either Wexner or Epstein to the missing girls, but Clemente alleges that state and federal officials in Ohio have failed to properly investigate the murders. At least one of Epstein’s accusers has told authorities she was abused in Ohio.