- A judge has ruled to unseal documents that would name 177 Does who are Epstein’s friends, recruiters and victims within the coming weeks
- The material is related to a defamation case brought by Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts in New York against Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell
- The hundreds of files will shed new light on the late financier’s sex trafficking operation and his network of influence
Dozens of Jeffrey Epstein‘s high profile associates are in for a New Year’s surprise as they will be named in court documents set to be released in the first days of 2024.
The pedophile’s powerful friends are set to be exposed as part of a vast unsealing that a judge ordered on Monday will take place in 14 days.
That will take the release day to January 1 – but as that is a holiday it is likely the files will be made public the following day.
Some 177 people will be identified across hundreds of files which will shed new light on the late financier’s sex trafficking operation and his network of influence.
Judge Loretta Preska wrote ‘unsealed in full’ next to the names of 177 Does who are Epstein’s friends, recruiters, victims and others whose names will be revealed when the material is released within the coming weeks.
The material is related to a defamation case brought by Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts in New York against Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell.
Roberts sued Maxwell for defamation in 2016 and while the case was settled, media outlets filed in order to have the documents made public.
Some of the Does are identified in the ruling through links to interviews they have given to the media, which the judge cited as a reason why they should not stay private.
They include the housekeepers on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean where some of the worst abuse that he perpetrated was carried out.
In her ruling Judge Preska gave 14 days for any Does who objected to their documents being made public to object, after which they would be unsealed.
There will be documents about one of Prince Andrew’s accusers, who claims he fondled her breasts at Epstein’s New York mansion.
There will also be material about Haley Robson, who was named as a recruiter in police files of Epstein’s original investigation in 2006 in Palm Beach – though she has more recently claimed she was a victim too.
The filing suggests some documents will relate to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French model scout who was close to Epstein and allegedly abused many young women. Brunel hanged himself in a Paris prison cell in 2022 while awaiting trial on a slew of sex charges.
The documents in the case have been released on a rolling basis since 2019 when the first batch were made public days before Epstein also hanged himself in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Among the revelations in previous batches of documents were emails between Andrew and Epstein in 2015 when Roberts made allegations about him.
The batch of 177 Does is the final group and includes many who were notified by the court but did not object to documents with their name on them being made public.
The material is likely to include depositions, emails, legal documents and other material not previously made public.
Does three and four appear to be Miles and Cathy Alexander, a South African couple who managed Little St James, Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, for years.
Judge Preska cited a 2011 interview the couple gave to the Daily Mail as one of the reasons why their names should be made public
In the interview the couple claimed that it was not their place to ‘judge’ other people, even though they suspected some of the girls on the island were young.
Cathy described how the Duke of York arrived with a blonde brain surgeon in her 30s and that he urinated on her foot when she trod on a sea urchin.
The tranche of documents will also include those referring to Annie Farmer, one of the women who gave evidence at Maxwell’s trial – she is identified as Doe 63 as Judge Preska cites an interview she gave and notes she testified under her own name.
Doe 64 appears to refer to Farmer’s sister Maria as it cites the same interview as her sister, in which both of them spoke.
Doe 67 is one of the recruiters who was named during Maxwell’s trial for luring a 14-year-old girl into Epstein’s web.
Carolyn Adriano, who testified at Maxwell’s trial that she was recruited at age 14 and repeatedly raped by Epstein, is identified as Doe 5 due to an interview which the ruling cited
Tragically she died earlier this year from an overdose in a hotel room in Florida.
Doe 23 appears to be Brunel as it refers to a person who was ‘subject to a widely publicized criminal prosecution abroad for sex trafficking’.
Brunel was arrested for the crime in France but committed suicide before he could go to trial.
Doe 24 is the only one who is identified by name, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who has publicly called for all material related to him to be made public.
Judge Preska cited an NBC News interview she gave as the reason for unsealing material related to Doe 44.
Among those who spoke out in that interview were Roberts and Epstein victim Anouska De Georgiou, who testified against Maxwell at her trial, along with Chauntae Davies, another woman who says she was repeatedly raped by the pedophile.
Also featured in the interview are Epstein victims Jennifer Aroaz and Rachel Benavidez – it is unclear which person the ruling refers to.
Doe 154 is Haley Robson, who spoke out in the Netflix series Filthy Rich about Epstein’s crimes and described how she was already a rape victim by the age of 16 when she got caught in his web.
In the interview cited by Judge Preska, Robson says that her image as portrayed in police reports – she bragged that she was like Heidi Fleiss, the infamous Hollywood Madam – she was not mature enough to understand what was happening to her at the time.
Perhaps most alarming for Prince Andrew is the inclusion of Johanna Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s underage girlsd, in the list of Does.
Judge Preska effectively names Sjoberg as Jane Doe 162, by citing a Daily Mail article about her from 2021.
So far only small excerpts of her depositions have been made public, and those have been damning for the Duke.
It was in 2007 that she first told of the alleged encounter with Andrew at Esptein’s East 71st Street mansion in New York.
In depositions she recalled that she returned to the grand home after some ‘sightseeing’ and ‘Prince Andrew was there and a couple of other girls my age’.
Andrew was very charming,’ she said. ‘She (Maxwell) came down with a present for him – a latex puppet of him from Spitting Image,’ a satirical British TV show.
Sjoberg added that Andrew had thought the puppet ‘funny because it was him’
She said in a deposition: ‘I just remember someone suggesting a photo and they told us to get on the couch. And so Virginia (Roberts) and Andrew sat on the couch and they put the puppet on her lap.
‘And so I sat on Andrew’s lap, I believe of my own volition, and they took the puppet’s hands and put it on Virginia’s breast and so Andrew put his on mine.’
It was all done in ‘a joking manner’ and ‘everybody laughed,’ Sjoberg said. ‘Ghislaine… had a very dirty sense of humor.’
There are 10 Does whose names will not be made public, Judge Preska ruled, because they are minor victims whose names have not been publicly revealed before.
In those cases, their privacy outweighs the public’s right to know, the ruling stated.
In previously released documents in the case Roberts named for the first time other powerful men she alleges that she had sex with including former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who died in September.
Other names include wealthy financier Glenn Dubin and now-deceased MIT scientist Marvin Minsky along with ‘another prince’ a ‘foreign president’, a ‘well-known prime minister’ and the owner of a ‘large hotel chain’ in France.
Emails sent by Andrew to Maxwell showed the panic that gripped him in early 2015 when Roberts made her allegations against him.
In an email to Maxwell at 5.50am on January 3, 2015 the duke wrote: ‘Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts.’
Maxwell replied: ‘Have some info. Call me when you have a moment’.
Roberts sued Andrew in 2021 at a court in New York for battery and infliction of emotional distress.
They settled the case in February 2022 for a reported $12m.
Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing and told the BBC in an interview that he never remembered meeting Roberts, who now lives in Australia and goes by her married name Giuffre.