Why the unsealed Epstein documents will disappoint those expecting to see his fabled ‘client list’
Deceased billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein trended Tuesday on X after a New York judge ordered names to be unsealed in a long running civil case between Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre and jailed Epstein procurer Ghislaine Maxwell.
The news had posters on X celebrating what they saw as the potential resolution of a long-running mystery over who Jeffrey Epstein was alleged to have trafficked children to.
“Christmas Comes Early!” commented @Slyd on a story about the order.
“Merry Christmas to you all,” posted @Prolotario1. “Santa's little helper gave us an early Christmas present by announcing a 170 name list of people to be disclosed who flew to Jeffery Epstein Island to molest little children. Who do you think is sh*tting ornaments right now?”
The order by Judge Loretta Preska resolved a long-running dispute about making public the names of 184 people named in filings in civil litigation Giuffre first filed against Maxwell in 2015 for calling her account of abuse at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell “obvious lies.”
The case ended in 2017 with a settlement between the two women, and a voluntary dismissal, but dragged on for years when the Miami Herald and other parties including attorney Alan Dershowitz filed for the documents in the case to be made public.
Most of the names on the list won’t be new, though, and don’t consist of the long-fabled Epstein client list.
Instead, many are witnesses involved in the case. And the 150 names that were ordered unsealed in full (with a few names to be partially unsealed), an estimated 100 have been sussed out by online sleuths.
The judge noted that for many of them, their identities had already been reported in the media.
Only a handful will remain fully under seal.
Most of the names that will remain redacted are because they relate to the testimony of alleged minor victims who want privacy. According to the judge, a few others won’t be named because they’re unrelated directly to the facts of the case. Others named in the files have since died, so they didn’t contest being named.
Only one of the names will remain fully redacted, based on Giuffre accepting the unnamed person’s argument that they were misidentified in a photo and their name was only introduced to her by a reporter.
However, according to some reporting, a few of the soon-to-be-released names could be interesting, including: “An alleged Epstein affiliate” where material around them may be “salacious,” an "alleged perpetrator,” another "affiliate" who “is alleged to have engaged in serious wrongdoing," and an "affiliate" who was listed on Epstein's flight log.
According to the judge’s order, the impacted parties will have two weeks to decide whether to appeal the decision before the attorneys in the case have to unredact the documents and post them on the public docket.
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