More than 170 people with ties to Jeffrey Epstein, including ex-employees and victims, are in store for an uncomfortable start to the New Year — with their names set to be dredged up in a trove of court documents to be unsealed in the coming weeks.Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska on Monday ordered the release of the long-sealed documents in a since-settled defamation lawsuit that Epstein accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, brought against the convicted pedophile’s madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, back in 2015.Under the ruling, dozens of individuals — who have previously been referred to as “Jane Does” or “John Does” in various court filings linked to the suit — will likely be identified publicly when the materials tied to them are “unsealed in full.”
The judge has given those individuals 14 days to appeal the decision, according to Monday’s order.Several people who are likely to be ID’d in the unsealed papers have previously spoken out in media interviews about their working relationships with the convicted pedophile – or how they were abused by him — over the years, the ruling states.Still, for some, having their names back in the spotlight due to their links to the well-connected sex offender will likely cast a shadow over the beginning of 2024.While Monday’s ruling doesn’t name anyone specific, it references multiple Does as being a “public figure,” including one whose name was referenced in Epstein’s infamous little black book.
The ruling also points to past news articles where former Epstein employees and victims have spoken out — including Cathy and Miles Alexander, a couple who ran Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James, between 1999 and 2007.Haley Robson, one of Epstein’s alleged sex slave recruiters, is also identifiable as a Doe due to a 2020 interview she gave detailing how she became caught up in the pedophile’s web when she was a teen.Among the Epstein victims identifiable in the ruling is Teala Davies, who alleged she was repeatedly raped and molested as a teen by the billionaire at his homes in New York, Florida, the US Virgin Islands and Paris.Another is Courtney Wild, who had claimed Epstein started sexually abused her when she was just 14. She started speaking out publicly while trying to revive her 2008 lawsuit — where she was unnamed — that sought to throw out a controversial non-prosecution agreement protecting Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators from criminal charges.
A handful of underage Does, however, will remain anonymous when the court filings are unsealed after the judge ruled they were alleged victims of sexual abuse.
Previously sealed court docs tied to Giuffre’s defamation suit against Maxwell, which they eventually settled in 2017 for an undisclosed amount, have trickled out over the years .The defamation suit had centered on Giuffre’s claim that Maxwell defamed her by saying that she was lying about being sex-trafficked by Epstein when she was a teen.Maxwell was convicted in late 2021 of recruiting and grooming underage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.Epstein killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on related sex-abuse charges.
credit : New York Post
