Names of people linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are slated to start being revealed on Jan. 3, according to a court official.
“The unsealing is expected to begin today,” Ed Friedland, the district executive for the Southern District of New York, told news outlets in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, appointed under President George H. W. Bush, ordered in December 2023 the identities of 157 people to be released.
The people include associates of the late Mr. Epstein and others brought up in a defamation case brought against Ghislaine Maxwell, one of Mr. Epstein’s closest friends.
Judge Preska stayed her order for two weeks to give the people time to challenge the unsealing order.
Just one individual has challenged the order, Judge Preska said on Wednesday. A second individual not covered by the order has also asked to remain shielded.
“With the exception of the documents relating to these Does, the parties have informed the Court that they will begin filing the unsealed records,” Judge Preska said.
Lawyer Marc Randazza, who has been involved with the case, told The Epoch Times via email that his understanding was the parties did not start assembling the documents with the names until after the stay expired.
“As counsel to The Gateway Pundit, who sought to intervene previously, we have reached out to them in an effort to expedite matters. We may well have to take action if they delay unreasonably,” he said.
Inquiries to other attorneys on the docket were not returned or returned away messages.
Lawyers for one person covered by the unsealing order, Doe 110, have asked to keep his or her name shielded while lawyers for a woman not covered in the order requested the judge not unseal her name, saying she lives outside the United States “in a culturally conservative country and lives in fear of her name being released.”
Judge Preska gave that woman and her representatives until Jan. 22 to submit documents supporting her position. The judge is considering the request from Doe 110.
Still, others have been kept secret to the present day.
The names being unsealed will include Mr. Epstein’s employees, former associates, alleged victims, and journalists who investigated him, according to the court.
The identities are expected to include some individuals already known to have spent time with Mr. Epstein, such as former President Bill Clinton. Some appeared on Mr. Epstein’s flight log or in his address book, which has previously been published.
But the identities could also include people not known before to have any association with him.
Multiple names raised in the case will remain shielded, Judge Preska said, including one described as a “classic outsider, peripheral to the events at issue.”
Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty to a sex offense in Florida in 2008.
Mr. Epstein was 66 when he perished in 2019 in a federal prison in New York City. He was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
A medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.
Ms. Maxwell, 62, is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
“I don’t think she has anything to talk about except maybe that if you look at this crime, this overall crime, it’s all about men abusing women for a long period of time … and it’s only one person in jail — a woman,” Arthur Aidala, one of Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers, said on NewsNation this week.
Mr. Epstein and his associates ran a large sex trafficking ring that included many girls, according to court documents and testimony from victims.
Mr. Epstein “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes,” an indictment unsealed in 2019 stated. Mr. Epstein enticed the girls to engage in sex with him and paid them to recruit other girls, whom he also abused, a grand jury said.
“In creating and maintaining this network of minor victims in multiple states to sexually abuse and exploit, Jeffrey Epstein, the defendant, worked and conspired with others, including employees and associates who facilitated his conduct by, among other things, contacting victims and scheduling their sexual encounters with Epstein,” according to the indictment.
Mr. Epstein had connections across the business and political worlds, maintaining an office at Harvard University, meeting with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and flying on his private plane with Mr. Clinton, actor Kevin Spacey, and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Many of the individuals affiliated with Mr. Epstein have since renounced the affiliations and said they were not aware that he was committing crimes, even though some spent time with him after the 2008 guilty plea.
Mr. Epstein owned properties in the U.S. Virgin Islands, New York, New Mexico, Florida, and France, among other places. Women have testified that Mr. Epstein, Ms. Maxwell, and others raped them at the various properties, including Little Saint James, an island in the Virgin Islands.
