A federal judge in New York has ruled to unseal the documents that contain the identifying information of an estimated 180 people connected in some manner to Jeffrey Epstein. The convicted pedophile died in 2019 in a New York jail, and the documents are related to the case that put him there.
Judge Loretta Preska of the Southern District of New York explained her reasoning in the 51-page order on Monday, noting that previous hearings have established that the names would not remain redacted indefinitely.
Any of the people impacted by the order have 14 days to appeal the decision, after which the lawyers must “confer, prepare the documents for unsealing pursuant to this order, and post the documents on the docket,” Preska said.
The trove is expected to identify some of Epstein’s close associates, his victims, as well as investigators and journalists who covered the case. Some of the names will remain sealed, including minor victims and at least one person wrongly identified as a sexual predator by a reporter.
The documents in question are related to the 2015 lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell of sexually trafficking her when she was 17. The case was settled in 2017, with most of the evidence and depositions remaining under seal. A lawsuit by activist Mike Cernovich resulted in their declassification in July 2019, at which point Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges.
The former financier who long socialized with the rich and powerful – and flew them to his Caribbean island on a private jet known as the ‘Lolita Express’ – was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell on August 10, 2019. The official cause of death was listed as suicide by hanging.
Maxwell went into hiding afterwards, but was located by the FBI in July 2020 and arrested. She was convicted in December 2021 on five sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison, five years of probation, and $750,000 in fines.
The identities of Epstein’s clients and the logs of who all traveled on the ‘Lolita Express’ remain under seal still. A Republican senator on the Judiciary Committee tried to subpoena them last month, but the motion was blocked by Senator Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat in charge of the committee.