A federal judge made a surprise ruling on Tuesday that likely has a lot of America’s financial and political elite getting hot under the collar. At the beginning of the new year, the identities of over 150 associates of late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be unsealed and shown to the public.
The documents are part of a settled civil lawsuit alleging Epstein’s one-time paramour Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre. Terms of the 2017 settlement were not disclosed, writes ABC News.
Anyone who did not successfully fight to keep their name out of the civil case could see their name become public — including Epstein’s victims, co-conspirators and innocent associates.
Judge Loretta Preska set the release for Jan. 1, giving anyone who objects to their documents becoming public time to object. Her ruling, though, said that since some of the individuals have given media interviews their names should not stay private.
The documents may not make clear why a certain individual became associated with Giuffre’s lawsuit, but more than 150 people are expected to be identified in hundreds of files that may expose more about Epstein’s sex trafficking of women and girls in New York, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and elsewhere. Some of the names may simply have been included in depositions, email or legal documents.
Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison for her role in Epstein’s operation. A jury found her guilty in December 2021 on five of the six charges against her, including “sex trafficking, conspiracy, and transpiration of a minor with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.”
She received her sentence in June 2022.
Epstein and Maxwell partnered for years to target and groom young girls to work in “massage parlors” where they were allegedly abused and trafficked to some of the most prominent and powerful people in the country. Giuffre first went public with allegations of being trafficked by Maxwell when she was 15, and said that she was repeatedly assaulted by Epstein and other powerful men.
In one unsealed interview with Giuffre, she said that one of the “powerful men” she saw on Epstein’s island was Bill Clinton.
In 2020, The National Review wrote that “former president Bill Clinton traveled with Jeffrey Epstein to his private island and stayed there with “two young girls” from New York, according to a recently-unsealed interview of prominent Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
‘I remember asking Jeffrey what’s Bill Clinton doing here kind of thing, and he laughed it off and said ‘well he owes me a favor,’ Guiffre told lawyer Jack Scarola in a 2011 phone interview.
‘He never told me what favors they were,’ Guiffre explained. ‘I never knew. I didn’t know if he was serious. It was just a joke . . . He told me a long time ago that everyone owes him favors. They’re all in each other’s pockets.’
Giuffre then said that ‘orgies were a constant thing that took place’ on the island, but did not say specifically whether Clinton was involved.”
Statement on Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/98ha9YYd1l
— Angel Ureña (@angelurena) July 8, 2019
Clinton’s alleged relationship with Epstein has led some to wonder if that is why the Democratic Senator from Illinois and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee recently clammed up when faced with a vote to release Epstein’s travel logs.
Reports have claimed that Epstein “owned at least three jets, including a Gulfstream II sold in November 2013, a Gulfstream IV sold before his arrest, and a Boeing 727 nicknamed the ‘Lolita Express,’ which infamously transported prominent individuals and girls all around the world,” noted The Daily Wire.
“In December 2021, prosecutors reportedly released thousands of flight records in the sex-trafficking trial of his alleged accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who pleaded not guilty but was ultimately convicted.
Victims of Epstein, and one of his pilots, have since come out and claimed that public figures, including Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, and Donald Trump, traveled with the disgraced financier.”
[Read More: Biden Daughter Charged]
