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The next batch of documents pertaining to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have been released.
Wednesday’s unsealed documents were part of a long-settled defamation lawsuit Virginia Giuffre filed against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre claimed she was a teen sex slave for Epstein and directed by him and Maxwell to have sex with powerful men.
The documents released on Wednesday included arguments by attorneys for Giuffre who sought to depose former President Bill Clinton as part of her lawsuit against Maxwell.
Giuffre’s lawyers wrote that Clinton was “a key person who can provide information about his close relationship with Defendant and Mr. Epstein,” in documents unsealed on Wednesday.
In this courtroom artist’s sketch, defendant Jeffrey Epstein, center, sits with attorneys Martin Weinberg, left, and Marc Fernich during his arraignment in New York federal court, July 8, 2019.
Elizabeth Williams/AP, FILE
The now-unredacted document revealed specifically why Giuffre’s lawyers sought Clinton’s testimony.
“In a 2011 interview, Ms. Giuffre mentioned former President Bill Clinton’s close personal relationship with Defendant and Jeffrey Epstein. While Ms. Giuffre made no allegations of illegal actions by Bill Clinton, Ms. [Ghislaine] Maxwell in her deposition raised Ms. Giuffre’s comments about President Clinton as one of the ‘obvious lies’ to which she was referring in her public statement that formed the basis of this suit. Apart from the Defendant and Mr. Epstein, former President Clinton is a key person who can provide information about his close relationship with Defendant and Mr. Epstein and disapprove Ms. Maxwell’s claims,” the document said.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled last month there was no legal justification for continuing to conceal more than 150 names of “John and Jane Does” mentioned in the records. Preska had ordered the unsealing to begin after Jan. 1.
Additional associates of Epstein’s, including Prince Andrew, are named in the documents.
Reacting to the release of the documents, Managing Partner of Boies Schiller Flexner Sigrid McCawley, counsel for Giuffre, said the public deserves to know more about what happened with Epstein.
“The public has wondered and many have rightly demanded to know how Epstein operated his vast, global sex trafficking enterprise and got away with it for decades. Questions of who enabled and facilitated him and who participated in an operation that resulted in unspeakable harm and devastation to the lives of countless girls and young women quickly surfaced,” the statement read. “Some of those questions have been answered; many have not. Some justice for the survivors has, indeed, been achieved; not nearly enough as hoped for and deserved. The public interest must still be served in learning more about the scale and scope of Epstein’s racket to further the important goal of shutting down sex trafficking wherever it exists and holding more to account. The unsealing of these documents gets us closer to that goal.”
Late Wednesday night, Maxwell’s attorneys, Arthur L. Aidala and Diana Fabi Samson, also released a statement reading: “Ghislaine Maxwell took no position on the court’s recent decision to unseal documents in Giuffre v Maxwell as these disclosures have no bearing on her or her pending appeal.”
“Ghislaine’s focus is on the upcoming appellate argument asking for her entire case to dismissed,” their statement continued. “She is confident that she will obtain justice in the second circuit court of appeals. She has consistently and vehemently maintained her innocence.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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