By Lucy Sweeney and Rebecca Armitage
An undated photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell obtained from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on 8 December 2021. Photo: AFP / Handout by US District Court for the Southern District of New York
A US judge has unsealed a huge tranche of documents related to an old lawsuit filed by one of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged victims.
The late financier was a convicted sex offender, who was accused of abusing a string of underage girls.
In 2019 he was arrested on sex trafficking charges, but died by suicide before he could face trial.
His associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, an Oxford-educated heiress, is serving 20 years in prison for helping him target and sexually abuse vulnerable young girls and women.
The documents unsealed Thursday were part of a lawsuit filed against Maxwell in 2015 by one of Epstein's alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre.
The release of hundreds of pages of court documents was highly anticipated.
But most of the names mentioned were already publicly linked to Epstein.
During his life, Epstein went to great lengths to be in the orbit of famous people, including politicians, celebrities and academics.
Many of the high-profile men named have already confirmed that they once knew Epstein, but insist they were never aware of, or involved in, his sex trafficking ring.
Here's what we found in the unsealed files.
Prince Andrew and the puppet allegation
It should come as no surprise that Prince Andrew, the younger brother of King Charles III, is mentioned several times in the court files.
Giuffre has publicly claimed that Epstein and Maxwell forced her to have sex with the Duke of York in 2001.
Prince Andrew has consistently and vigourously denied ever meeting Giuffre.
In 2022, he settled a lawsuit brought by Giuffre, which did not include an admission of guilt, and said he regretted his friendship with Epstein.
Prince Andrew says he regrets his association with Jeffrey Epstein, but insists no women were ever trafficked to him. Photo: AFP
In the documents, another one of Epstein's alleged victims, Johanna Sjoberg, claims Prince Andrew groped her in 2001 while she was visiting Maxwell's London home.
"At one point, Ghislaine told me to come upstairs, and we went into a closet and pulled out the puppet, the caricature of Prince Andrew, and brought it down. And there was a little tag on the puppet that said "Prince Andrew" on it," she said in her 2016 deposition.
"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."
Buckingham Palace has previously said Giuffre's allegations are "categorically untrue", and the existence of the puppet photo has never been proven.
Bill Clinton and the deposition
Another widely anticipated name unsealed in the tranche of documents was that of former US president Bill Clinton.
Giuffre claimed she had met the former president on one of the private Caribbean islands where Epstein was alleged to have sexually trafficked and assaulted underage girls.
She did not allege any wrongdoing by Clinton, but her legal team repeatedly pushed for him to be subpoenaed to give testimony about his relationship with Epstein.
Bill Clinton said he cut ties with Jeffrey Epstein once sexual assault allegations emerged against him. Photo: AFP
In the deposition of Sjoberg, who was hired by Maxwell as a university student and directed to provide massages and sexual favours for Epstein, she was asked about his friendship with the former president.
Q: Do you know if Bill Clinton was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein?
A: I knew he had dealings with Bill Clinton. I did not know they were friends until I read the Vanity Fair article about them going to Africa together.
Q: Did Jeffrey ever talk to you about Bill Clinton?
A: He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.
A spokesman for Clinton said in 2019 that the former president had cut off ties with Epstein more than a decade before and didn't know about Epstein's alleged crimes.
The spokesman said the former president took four flights on Epstein's plane and once visited Epstein's New York townhouse. He said, each time he was accompanied by his Secret Service team and was there for his Clinton Foundation work.
While flight logs from other lawsuits have shown Clinton did travel on Epstein's jet, they do not mention a visit to Epstein's private island, Little St James.
His lawyers and a former FBI director have stated he did not visit the island.
The unsealed documents also included a deposition of Giuffre in which she was questioned about an article published by Daily Mail reporter Sharon Churcher headlined "Teenage girl recruited by pedophile Jeffrey Epstein reveals how she twice met Bill Clinton".
Giuffre explained that she had told the reporter that Maxwell had flown Clinton to the island via helicopter, based on what Maxwell had told her.
Q: Do you recall telling Sharon Churcher that you had conversations with Bill Clinton regarding him flying on a helicopter with Ghislaine Maxwell?
A: I believe that it was taken out of context. Ghislaine told me that she flew Bill Clinton in. And Ghislaine likes to talk a lot of stuff that sounds fantastical. And whether it's true or not, that is what I do recall telling Sharon Churcher.
Q: So you told Sharon Churcher that Ghislaine Maxwell is the one who told you that she flew Bill Clinton in the helicopter?
A: I told Sharon Churcher that Ghislaine flew Bill Clinton onto the island, based upon what Ghislaine had told me.
Bill Clinton did not object to the unsealing.
Stephen Hawking and the email
One of the unsealed documents is an email from Epstein to Maxwell in 2015.
In the short note, he says that she should reward any of Giuffre's friends, acquaintances or family members who can prove her claims to be false.
"The strongest is the clinton dinner, and the new version in the virgin islands that stven [sic] hawking participated in an underage orgy."
The context of his exchange with Maxwell is unknown.
The renowned British theoretical physicist met Epstein in early 2006, shortly before the financier was charged by police in Florida with unlawful sexual activity with a minor.
Hawking was one of several scientists invited to a conference on gravity at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on the Caribbean island of St Thomas.
During the conference, Epstein invited the scientists, including Hawking, to Little Saint James.
Hawking died in 2018.
Two years later, Giuffre publicly denied on Twitter that she had ever been trafficked to the scientist.
Epstein, who described himself as a "science philanthropist" on his website, was notorious for his pursuit of famous intellectuals.
He gave millions to prestigious institutions such as Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Heavy redactions including one politician
Perhaps the greatest takeaway from the unsealed documents is the lengths to which Epstein went to collect famous friends.
In her testimony, Sjoberg claimed that she had met several celebrities at Epstein's home, including Michael Jackson and magician David Copperfield.
She said Epstein was constantly "name dropping" but it was unclear whether he actually knew the celebrities he was discussing.
Once, she said, they were forced to land his private plane in Atlantic City because they were unable to land in New York.
"Jeffrey said, 'Great, we'll call up Trump,'" Sjoberg testified, though it's unclear if the call was ever made to former US president Donald Trump.
But among the newly unsealed identities, there remain a few redactions.
In a letter to Judge Loretta A Preska regarding the provision of unsealed documents, Giuffre's lawyer Sigrid McCawley noted that it excluded those "pertaining to Does 105 … 107, and 110 … while the court's review of those documents is ongoing".
According to court documents, Jane Doe 107 applied to the court to remain anonymous, asserting that "unsealing would cause her physical harm". A second inquiry was submitted by Doe 110 - whose gender is not stated - and is currently under review.
It is not clear whether Doe 105 applied for a similar exemption, or whether they are an alleged associate, victim or employee of Epstein's.
Within the unsealed documents, there are some names that remain redacted - blacked out from the hundreds of pages uploaded to the court website.
In one of the depositions of Giuffre, one of Maxwell's lawyers questioned her about an email exchange with Churcher, the Daily Mail reporter.
Q: Do you recall ever telling Sharon Churcher that you were trafficked to two of the world's most respected politicians, [REDACTED] and somebody else?
After some back and forth between lawyers, Giuffre repeatedly stated that she did not know whose name had been redacted.
Q: You don't know if you received this e-mail?
A: No, I received this e-mail, obviously, but I don't know who's redacted there.
The document drop was ordered by Judge Preska, who noted that most of the names in the sealed files were already named.
Thursday's release might be just the beginning.
More documents are expected to be released in the coming days.
- This story was first published by the ABC