A new set of court records pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy and cosmopolitan banker who committed suicide in 2019 while facing allegations of sex trafficking, were made available by a US court on Wednesday. Among the people mentioned in the documents were Prince Andrew of Britain, music sensation Michael Jackson, and former US President Bill Clinton.
Epstein was also well-known for his connections to billionaires, politicians, entertainers, and elite academics.
The news agency claims that about forty documents were made public, most of which included content that had already been publicised or thoroughly reported. In the days to come, more documents of this type should be made available.
Transcripts of interviews with a number of Epstein’s victims were also included in the archives, confirming the idea that the criminal surrounded himself with well-known and influential people—some of whom have also been accused of wrongdoing.
The just made public records also referenced Epstein’s prior relationships with Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton. Although there was no evidence of misconduct against Clinton, Andrew had already paid off a lawsuit in which he was accused of having sex with a seventeen-year-old girl who was travelling with Epstein.
The previously sealed records also concerned a lawsuit that Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, brought in 2015. She is only one of the numerous women who filed lawsuits against Epstein, claiming that he harassed them at his residences in New Mexico, Florida, New York, and the US Virgin Islands.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, who was found guilty in 2021 of aiding in the recruitment of Epstein’s victims and is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence, was also named in the lawsuit.
Giuffre and Maxwell’s action was settled in 2017, however due to privacy concerns regarding the identities of Epstein’s victims and other parties whose names surfaced during the legal battle, the court decided to keep some court papers sealed or blacked out.
One of Epstein’s accusers, Johanna Sjoberg, claimed in the documents that she once met Michael Jackson at Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida, house, but she stated nothing inappropriate ever happened between the two pop icons.
The documents released on Wednesday also contained court notes in which Giuffre’s attorneys expressed dissatisfaction about the difficulty of serving subpoenas on some of the women who had worked for Epstein, as well as Epstein himself.
When asked if she had ever bought sex toys or skimpy clothing, seen young, topless ladies at Epstein’s house, or arranged for Giuffre or other women to have sex with Prince Andrew, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend reacted.
But according to the paper, one of Epstein’s domestic employees claimed in a deposition that he was uneasy about the quantity of young ladies who were visiting the home and that he felt pressured by Maxwell to keep silent when he quit.
Legal arguments regarding Giuffre’s request for further time to depose possible witnesses, such as Clinton, were mentioned in other documents.
Giuffre’s lawyers claimed that although the former President was not a party to any unlawful activity, he was a “key person who can provide information about his close relationship” with Maxwell and Epstein.
Maxwell’s lawyers responded that Giuffre’s lawyers had not made a concerted effort to subpoena Giuffre to testify, and thus Clinton’s testimony was irrelevant.
Several of Epstein’s victims, many of whom have previously shared their stories in public, also provided depositions in the records.
Sjoberg’s May 2016 deposition revealed further details of a trip she took to further York in April 2001, during which she said Prince Andrew stroked her breast as they posed for a picture at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, in addition to the Michael Jackson reference.
Sjoberg testified that she and Giuffre had taken Epstein’s private jet to New York. Parts of the evidence were published in earlier court files. She reported that Maxwell and Prince Andrew greeted them there.
She stated in her testimony that at one point Maxwell summoned her to an upstairs closet, where they produced a puppet of Prince Andrew.
Bad weather forced Epstein’s plane to divert to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where they spent a few hours at a casino owned by former US President Donald Trump while travelling to New York, according to Sjoberg’s testimony.
Giuffre stated in her deposition that she was persuaded to leave her position as a spa attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club at the age of 17 in order to work as a “masseuse” for Epstein, a position that required engaging in sexual acts.
According to Sjoberg’s testimony, she was never asked to massage Trump.
Sjoberg further testified that, despite the fact that she had never met Clinton, Epstein had once told her that “Clinton likes them young,” which she interpreted to mean young girls or women.
Many allusions to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modelling agent linked to Epstein who was awaiting prosecution on allegations that he had sexually assaulted minors when he committed suicide in a Paris jail in 2022, could be seen in the data made public on Wednesday. Among the women who had accused Brunel of sexual abuse was Giuffre.
Clinton’s name also surfaced when Guiffre was questioned by Maxwell’s solicitors on errors in media articles concerning her relationship with Epstein, one of which quoted her as saying that she had flirted with Trump and gone on a helicopter ride with Clinton.
According to Giuffre, none of the events occurred.
