Documents related to Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were released on Wednesday night after a judge ruled in December that the redacted information should be unsealed, according to a court order issued by Judge Loretta Preska.
Many of Epstein’s long-rumored powerful friends — including Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew — appear in the trove of previously sealed court records. In one deposition transcript, one accuser recalled Epstein saying Clinton “likes them young, referring to girls.” She also alleged that Prince Andrew once touched her breast while posing for a photo next to Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who was holding a puppet of Prince Andrew, that was itself touching her breast. (Representatives for Clinton and Andrew did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)
Among the information provided in the document dump, Maxwell was asked in a deposition if she ever “provided [Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre] with an outfit of a sexual nature to wear for [L Brands founder] Les Wexner?” to which she said “categorically no.”
The documents, related to more than 150 of the so-called Jane and John Does in the case, were part of the evidence presented in the civil case against Ghislaine Maxwell brought by Giuffre. Maxwell, the youngest child and favorite daughter of the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell, had at one point been romantically involved with Epstein, who was then known as a successful financier. According to the criminal case against her, Maxwell’s role shifted to being one of a procurer, finding very young — often underage — women and girls to introduce to Epstein and his group of extremely rich and influential friends in the early 2000s. As ringleader of the alleged sex trafficking ring, Epstein was accused of sexually abusing dozens of victims, some of whom were as young as 14.
Many of these women would eventually come forward and accuse Epstein and his cohort of sexual assault. One was Giuffre, who sued Maxwell for defamation in 2015, arguing that Maxwell had smeared her by accusing her of lying when Giuffre made her allegations. (In December 2021, Maxwell was convicted for her role in Epstein’s operation and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She is appealing the conviction.)
The newly released documents provide a disturbing glimpse into the world of abuse to which Epstein and Maxwell allegedly subjected their young victims. One witness testified that Maxwell had “threatened a terrified 15-year-old girl and confiscated her passport to try to make her have sex with Epstein,” and that she once instructed a group of 11 girls as young as 14 to “play a ‘kissing game’ with and for” Epstein.
Giuffre’s civil suit echoed the grim allegations, accusing Epstein of sexually abusing her “with the assistance and participation of Maxwell.” In Giuffre’s victim impact statement, which her attorney delivered at Maxwell’s sentencing in June 2022, she wrote that Maxwell “deserve[s] to spend the rest of [her] life in a jail cell … trapped in a cage forever, just like [she] trapped [her] victims.”
“I want to be clear about one thing: without question, Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible pedophile,” Giuffre wrote. “But I never would have met Jeffrey Epstein if not for you. For me, and for so many others, you opened the door to hell. And then, Ghislaine, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you used your femininity to betray us, and you led us all through it.”
Giuffre also brought a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew, which was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in Feb. 2022. She had accused the British royal of sexually abusing her numerous times between 2000 and 2002 — when she was under the age of 18 — in New York, London, as well as on Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. (Andrew has denied the allegations.)
Giuffre additionally accused prominent lawyer and former Epstein friend Alan Dershowitz of sexual abuse, filing a lawsuit against him in 2019. She later dropped the suit and acknowledged she “may have made a mistake” in identifying him as one of her abusers, saying she had been quite young at the time and in a “very stressful and traumatic environment.”
Epstein himself was charged with sex trafficking and faced 45 years in prison, but his case never went before a jury; he killed himself in a Manhattan correctional facility jail in 2019 while awaiting trial. The suicide spawned endless conspiracy theories, with the public searching for clues as to who was really “behind” his death.
Part of what has fueled these theories is the sheer wealth and power of those connected to him — besides Prince Andrew, with whom he appeared to have a close friendship, and Dershowitz, his former lawyer, Epstein has at times been linked to Clinton, Donald Trump (with whom he had a falling out in the late 2000s over business dealings), Bill Gates, L Brands founder Les Wexner (his only confirmed client), and hosted countless other prominent people on his private jet, including Kevin Spacey and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., though they have not been accused of wrongdoing.
The documents were initially expected to come out Tuesday, leaving hordes of people — particularly right-wing conspiracy theorists — waiting with bated breath for their release and spinning baseless claims about the reason for the delay. Some even purported to have access to the documents before they became available, circulating hoax lists of celebrities they falsely accused of being associated with Epstein.
This appears to be the first set of documents to be released, as the December court order approved over 200 documents to be unredacted and turned over to the public. More releases are expected in the coming days.
This article was updated at 6:52 p.m. to reflect that some of the documents have begun to be released to the public, and at 8 p.m. to include more details from the documents.
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