Unsealed court records offer new detail on old sex abuse allegations against Jeffrey Epstein | CityNews Calgary

Amid nice hype, a brand new batch of beforehand secret courtroom paperwork was unsealed late Wednesday associated to Jeffrey Epstein, the jet-setting financier who killed himself in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on sex-trafficking expenses.

Social media has been rife in current weeks with posts speculating the paperwork amounted to an inventory of wealthy and highly effective males who had been Epstein’s “clients” or “co-conspirators.”

There was no such record. The first 40 paperwork within the court-ordered launch largely consisted of already public materials revealed by means of almost twenty years of newspaper tales, TV documentaries, interviews, authorized instances and books in regards to the Epstein scandal.

Still, the information — together with transcripts of interviews with some Epstein’s victims and previous police reviews — contained reminders that Epstein surrounded himself with well-known and highly effective figures, together with a number of who’ve additionally been accused of misconduct.

There had been mentions of Epstein’s previous friendship with Bill Clinton — who is just not accused of any wrongdoing — and of Britain’s Prince Andrew, who beforehand settled a lawsuit accusing him of getting intercourse with a 17-year-old lady who traveled with Epstein.

Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg testified in a newly launched deposition that she as soon as met Michael Jackson at Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida, dwelling, however that nothing untoward occurred with the late pop icon.

The paperwork being unsealed are associated to a lawsuit filed in 2015 by one in every of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre. She is one in every of dozens of girls who sued Epstein for abusing them at his properties in Florida, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and New Mexico. This go well with was towards Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year jail time period for serving to recruit and abuse Epstein’s victims.

Epstein, a millionaire identified for associating with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and educational stars, killed himself in jail in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on sex-trafficking expenses.

Giuffre’s lawsuit was settled in 2017, however the courtroom had stored some paperwork blacked-out or sealed due to considerations in regards to the privateness rights of Epstein’s victims and others whose names had come up throughout the authorized battle. More paperwork had been to be launched in coming days.

Among newly unsealed information had been courtroom memos by which Giuffre’s legal professionals complained that some ladies who had labored for Epstein had been proving tough to serve with subpoenas, as was Epstein himself. Two of these ladies had invoked their Fifth Amendment proper towards self-incrimination when questioned in different lawsuits about whether or not they had helped procure younger ladies for Epstein to abuse.

Maxwell, in her deposition, chaffed at being requested about Giuffre’s allegations that she had organized for her to have sexual encounters with Prince Andrew. She additionally reacted angrily to being requested about whether or not she had bought intercourse toys or revealing outfits, or seen younger, topless ladies at Epstein’s dwelling.

One former member of Epstein’s home workers stated in a deposition that he felt uncomfortable with the variety of younger ladies exhibiting up on the home, and felt threatened by Maxwell to remain quiet after he give up.

Other paperwork included authorized arguments over whether or not Giuffre must be allowed extra time to depose potential witnesses, together with Clinton. Giuffre by no means alleged he was concerned in unlawful habits, however her attorneys stated the previous president was a “key person who can provide information about his close relationship” with Maxwell and Epstein.

Maxwell’s attorneys countered that Clinton testimony was not related and that Giuffre’s attorneys didn’t diligently attempt to subpoena him to testify.

The information included depositions of a number of Epstein victims, lots of whom have advised their tales publicly beforehand.

In her May 2016 deposition, Sjoberg described going to a dinner at one in every of Epstein’s properties with the magician David Copperfield.

She stated Copperfield did magic methods earlier than asking if she was conscious “that girls were getting paid to find other girls.” One of the important thing allegations towards Epstein and Maxwell was that a few of the ladies he paid for intercourse acts then acted as recruiters to seek out him different victims. Sjoberg stated Copperfield didn’t get extra particular about what he meant.

A publicist for Copperfield didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail in search of remark.

Sjoberg additionally shed new gentle on an April 2001 journey to New York by which she stated Prince Andrew touched her breast whereas they posed for a photograph at Epstein’s Manhattan city home.

In the testimony, a few of which appeared as excerpts in earlier courtroom filings, Sjoberg stated she and Giuffre had flown with Epstein to New York on his non-public jet. Maxwell and Prince Andrew met them there, she stated.

At one level, she testified, Maxwell known as her to an upstairs closet the place they pulled out a puppet of Prince Andrew that had been made for a tv program.

“It looked like him,” Sjoberg stated. “And she brought it down and presented it to him; and that was a great joke, because apparently it was a production from a show on BBC.”

“And they decided to take a picture with it, in which Virginia and Andrew sat on a couch. They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap, and I sat on Andrew’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo.”

On the way in which to New York, Sjoberg testified, Epstein’s jet diverted to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and spent a number of hours at one in every of Donald Trump’s casinos, due to unhealthy climate.

Upon listening to the change of plans, Sjoberg recalled Epstein saying, “Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to” the on line casino. Sjoberg wasn’t requested in the event that they’d met up with Trump that night time. Later in her testimony, she stated she was by no means requested to present Trump a therapeutic massage.

Sjoberg additionally testified that although she by no means met Clinton, Epstein as soon as remarked to her that “Clinton likes them young,” a comment she took as a reference to younger ladies or ladies.

In her deposition, Giuffre stated the summer season she turned 17, she was lured away from a job as a spa attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago membership to turn out to be a “masseuse” for Epstein — a job that concerned performing sexual acts.

She settled a lawsuit towards Prince Andrew in 2022 by which she claimed he had sexually abused her throughout a visit to London. That identical 12 months, Giuffre withdrew an accusation she had made towards Epstein’s former lawyer, regulation professor Alan Dershowitz, saying she “ may have made a mistake ” in figuring out him as an abuser.

The information launched Wednesday included many references to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent near Epstein who was awaiting trial on expenses that he raped underage ladies when he killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022. Giuffre was among the many ladies who had accused Brunel of sexual abuse.

Clinton’s title additionally got here up as a result of Giuffre was questioned by Maxwell’s legal professionals about inaccuracies in newspaper reviews about her time with Epstein, together with a narrative quoting her as saying she had ridden in a helicopter with Clinton and flirted with Trump. Giuffre stated neither of these issues truly occurred.

The decide stated a handful of names ought to stay blacked out within the paperwork as a result of they might determine individuals who had been sexually abused. The Associated Press doesn’t sometimes determine individuals who say they’re victims of sexual assault except they resolve to inform their tales publicly, as Giuffre has accomplished.

Even earlier than the paperwork had been launched, misinformation about what was in them abounded. Social media customers wrongly claimed that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s title would possibly seem within the paperwork, spurred by a crack New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers made Tuesday on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show.”

Kimmel stated in a response on X that he had by no means met Epstein and that Rodgers’ “reckless words put my family in danger.”