A US court is expected on Wednesday to start revealing the names of dozens of people with ties to deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein, a move that could unveil new details about his sex trafficking.
Epstein socialised with Wall Street titans, royalty and celebrities before pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. He took his own life in 2019, at age 66, while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Dozens of women have accused Epstein of forcing them to provide sexual services to him and his guests at his private Caribbean island and homes he owned in New York, Florida and New Mexico.
The names of more than 150 people mentioned in a lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's most prominent accusers, are expected to be released after being sealed for years.
US district judge Loretta Preska said in a written order on Wednesday that lawyers involved in the case had told her they would begin filing unsealed records “later today”.
More than 50 of the names have already been made public.
Some people who were friendly with Epstein, such as Britain's Prince Andrew and former Barclays CEO Jes Staley, have seen their reputations tarred because of their associations.
JPMorgan Chase, where Staley also worked, and Deutsche Bank have paid $365 million to settle accusations they turned a blind eye to their former client’s activities.
Prince Andrew, who has been stripped of most of his royal titles, is among those expected to be discussed in the unsealed documents. He settled a civil lawsuit with Giuffre last year for an undisclosed sum and has denied wrongdoing.
ABC News said former US president Bill Clinton would also be among those named. Epstein’s former pilot has testified that Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane several times.
Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowledge of Epstein's sex crimes.
Another name that could surface is Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agent who died in France in 2022 after being arrested on sex charges.
Other names expected to be released are those of former Epstein employees and several people who have been sued over their ties to Epstein.
The list stems from a long-settled defamation lawsuit that Giuffre filed against Ghislaine Maxwell (62) Epstein’s former girlfriend.
Maxwell, the daughter of British media mogul Robert Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein. She is appealing her conviction.
Giuffre accused Maxwell of recruiting her when she was underage for Maxwell to abuse.
Preska, who is overseeing the case, ruled last month that there was no legal justification to continue keeping most of the names in Giuffre's lawsuit private.
She ruled that some names would remain confidential, including those of people who were underage when Epstein abused them. - Reuters
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