Hundreds of pages of court documents have been released
The names of nearly 200 people linked to the Jeffrey Epstein – Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking conspiracy have been released by a New York judge.
The release comes after a deadline for objections passed on Monday January 1.
This expose confirms the identities of dozens upon dozens of associates of the disgraced financier who, up until now, have only been known as John and Jane Doe in court papers.
US Judge Loretta Preska ordered that the court filings in a lawsuit brought against Ghislaine Maxwell by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre must finally be unsealed and the names of up to 200 “John and Jane Does” unredacted.
While ordering the release of the list, Judge Preska said many of those named in the lawsuit had already been identified by the media or in Maxwell’s trial.
Judge Preska added that many others did not raise an objection to the documents being released.
In one document Prince Andrew was named, as a woman named Johanna Sjoberg claimed the Duke of York touched her breast while sitting on a couch inside the US billionaire’s Manhattan apartment back in 2001, according to Sky News.
Buckingham Palace previously claimed that the allegations are “categorically untrue”.
Sky News also reports that former US President, Bill Clinton, is set to be one of those named.
The news comes nearly nine years after victim Virginia Giuffre filed a defamation case against Ghislaine Maxwell that eventually produced the names in legal depositions.
A year later, US district court judge, Robert Sweet, rejected Maxwell’s motion to dismiss the case as he found the claims included a lot of context and facts “more broad than the allegedly defamatory statements”.
He concluded that Giuffre “was a victim of sustained underage sexual abuse between 1999 and 2002”.
From that came a series of lawsuits, including Giuffre’s action about Prince Andrew for “sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress”.
This was settled out of court.
