More than 170 people with ties to Jeffrey Epstein, including ex-employees and victims, are in store for an uncomfortable start to the New Year — with their names set to be dredged up in a trove of court documents to be unsealed in the coming weeks.
Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska on Monday ordered the release of the long-sealed documents in a since-settled defamation lawsuit that Epstein accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, brought against the convicted pedophile’s madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, back in 2015.
Under the ruling, dozens of individuals — who have previously been referred to as “Jane Does” or “John Does” in various court filings linked to the suit — will likely be identified publicly when the materials tied to them are “unsealed in full.”
The judge has given those individuals 14 days to appeal the decision, according to Monday’s order.
Several people who are likely to be ID’d in the unsealed papers have previously spoken out in media interviews about their working relationships with the convicted pedophile – or how they were abused by him — over the years, the ruling states.
Still, for some, having their names back in the spotlight due to their links to the well-connected sex offender will likely cast a shadow over the beginning of 2024.
While Monday’s ruling doesn’t name anyone specific, it references multiple Does as being a “public figure,” including one whose name was referenced in Epstein’s infamous little black book.
The ruling also points to past news articles where former Epstein employees and victims have spoken out — including Cathy and Miles Alexander, a couple who ran Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James, between 1999 and 2007.
Haley Robson, one of Epstein’s alleged sex slave recruiters, is also identifiable as a Doe due to a 2020 interview she gave detailing how she became caught up in the pedophile’s web when she was a teen.
Among the Epstein victims identifiable in the ruling is Teala Davies, who alleged she was repeatedly raped and molested as a teen by the billionaire at his homes in New York, Florida, the US Virgin Islands and Paris.
Another is Courtney Wild, who had claimed Epstein started sexually abused her when she was just 14. She started speaking out publicly while trying to revive her 2008 lawsuit — where she was unnamed — that sought to throw out a controversial non-prosecution agreement protecting Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators from criminal charges.
A handful of underage Does, however, will remain anonymous when the court filings are unsealed after the judge ruled they were alleged victims of sexual abuse.
Others, too, will be spared because unveiling their names in specific court papers would “disclose sensitive information regarding an alleged minor victim of sexual abuse who has not spoken publicly and who has maintained his or her privacy,” the judge noted.
The defamation suit, which they eventually settled in 2017 for an undisclosed amount, had centered on Giuffre’s claim that Maxwell defamed her by saying that she was lying about being sex-trafficked by Epstein when she was a teen.
Other previously sealed court docs tied to the defamation suit have trickled out in the years after it was settled – including a transcript of the seven-hour deposition the fallen British socialite initially gave in the case.
The transcript, which was released in 2020, included hundreds of denials from Maxwell, who claimed she knew nothing of Epstein’s abuse of underage girls.
It also included questions about Maxwell’s sex life and her ties to former President Bill Clinton, who has said he was unaware of Epstein’s perverted behavior.
Maxwell admitted in the deposition that she had previously flown on Epstein’s planes with the ex-commander-in-chief before — but refused to characterize Clinton’s relationship with her boss as “friends.”
Clinton has been among a bevy of prominent figures pictured posing with Epstein’s accusers over the years.
The UK’s Prince Andrew was captured in a now-infamous shot with his arm around a then-17-year-old Giuffre as Maxwell smiled in the background.
It emerged this week that billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, too, had allegedly posed with alleged Epstein victims.
Maxwell was convicted in late 2021 of recruiting and grooming underage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.
Epstein killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on related sex-abuse charges.
