Lawyer Says 'Hundreds of People' Could Be Implicated in Epstein Lawsuit Documents
Sealed documents in a lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who has been accused of sexual assault by multiple parties, could contain the names of hundreds of people who may be implicated, lawyers revealed in court Wednesday.
Maxwell’s lawyer, Jeffrey Pagliuca, told U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska that “there are hundreds of pages of investigative reports that mention hundreds of people” and that the documents include an address book containing “about 1,000 names,” The Daily Beast reported.
Wednesday’s hearing came after an appeals court in New York ordered Preska to release “all documents for which the presumption of public access outweighs any countervailing privacy interests” following a review, according to The Guardian.
When both parties arrived in court unprepared to screen the documents, Preska ordered them to devise a tentative plan for reviewing the thousands of pages.
“There’s some work involved in this,” Pagliuca said.
Sigrid McCawley, who represented Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre in a 2015 federal lawsuit involved in the current case, argued Wednesday that only social security numbers, medical information and names of minors should be redacted from the documents, Bloomberg reported.
“Anybody whose information is in the documents would be notified so they could object,” McCawley said.
Lawyers representing a “John Doe” allegedly named in the documents advised in court that third parties not directly involved in the case may suffer “life-changing” disclosures should their names be released.
The documents reveal “the identities of non-parties who either allegedly engaged in sexual acts with [Giuffre] or who allegedly facilitated such acts,” the lawyers wrote in a letter, according to The Daily Beast.
They also defended their client.
“[John] Doe is not, and has never been, a party of any judicial proceeding involving Ghislaine Maxwell or Virginia Giuffre, or in any proceeding relating to Giuffre’s allegation that Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused her,” the lawyers wrote in a letter, according to The Daily Beast.
Though the case against Epstein — who died by suicide in his jail cell on Aug. 10 — has been dismissed, the financier continues to make news.
The controversy over the documents mentioning “hundreds of people” arise from a 2015 defamation suit by Giuffre against Maxwell.
Giuffre accused Maxwell of “recruiting” her for sex with Epstein and others, Forbes reported.
Preska gave attorneys a timeline of two weeks to process the information contained in the documents.
The appellate court in New York has urged the public and the media “to exercise restraint” regarding allegations in the documents that may be defamatory, The Guardian reported.
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