Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Michael Jackson and David Copperfield: the names in the Jeffrey Epstein case revealed

Amid much fanfare, a new batch of previously secret court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein were revealed Wednesday evening. the financier who committed suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In recent weeks, social media has been filled with posts suggesting that the documents include a list of rich and powerful men who were “clients” or “accomplices” of Epstein.

No such list existed. The first 40 documents revealed by court order consisted mostly of previously published material from nearly two decades of newspaper articles, television documentaries, interviews, court cases and books about the Epstein scandal.

However, the documents – which included transcripts of interviews with some of Epstein’s victims – recalled that the millionaire surrounded himself with famous and powerful people, including some who had also been accused of crimes.

They include references to Epstein’s past friendship with Bill Clinton – who is not accused of any crime – and with Britain’s Prince Andrew, who has already settled a lawsuit in which he was accused of having sex with a 17-year-old. old girl who traveled with Epstein.

One of the women who accused Epstein, Johanna Sjoberg, testified in a deposition now released that she once was seen with Michael Jackson at the financier’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, but nothing inappropriate happened with the late pop icon.

The documents being declassified relate to a lawsuit filed in 2015 by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre. She is one of dozens of women who have reported him for abusing them in their homes in Florida, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and New Mexico. This particular lawsuit was directed against Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping to recruit and abuse her partner’s victims.

Giuffre’s case against Maxwell was settled in 2017, but the court had kept some court documents redacted or secret out of concern for the privacy of Epstein’s victims and others whose names emerged during the legal battle. Others will be made public in the coming days.

The new set of documents includes court briefs in which Giuffré’s lawyers complained about the difficulty of suing some women who worked for Epstein, as well as the financier himself. Two of these women relied on the Fifth Amendment, which recognizes their right against self-incrimination, when questioned in other proceedings about whether they had helped recruit other young women.

In her statement, Maxwell became angry when asked about Giuffre’s allegations that she had prepared his sexual encounters with Andrew of England. Furthermore, she reacted angrily when she was asked if she had purchased sex toys or revealing clothing, or if she had seen topless young women at Epstein’s home.

A former member of Epstein’s household staff testified that he was uncomfortable with the number of young women in the house and that he felt intimidated by Maxwell into remaining silent.

Other documents included legal arguments about whether Giuffre should be given more time to question potential witnesses, including Clinton. Giuffre never alleged that the former president engaged in illegal behavior, but her lawyers noted that she was a “key person who could provide information about her close relationship” with Maxwell and Epstein.

Maxwell’s lawyers countered that Clinton’s testimony was not relevant.

The documents included statements from several of Epstein’s victims, many of whom had already told their stories publicly.

In her May 2016 deposition, Sjoberg described attending a dinner at one of Epstein’s homes that also included magician David Copperfield.

According to her story, Copperfield performed some magic tricks before asking her if she was aware that “girls get paid to find other girls.” One of the main allegations against Epstein and Maxwell was that some of the young women paid to perform sex acts later acted as recruiters to find other victims. Sjoberg indicated that Copperfield was no longer explicit about what he meant.

A publicist for Copperfield did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Sjoberg also shed more light on a trip to New York in April 2001 in which she said Prince Andrew touched her breast as they posed for a photo at Epstein’s Manhattan home.

In his statement, parts of which appeared in excerpts from previous court documents. Sjoberg said she and Giuffre arrived in town with Epstein aboard his private plane and, once there, met Maxwell and Andrés from England.

At one point, according to her testimony, Maxwell called her into an upstairs closet where they brought out a puppet of Andres that had been made for a television show.

“It looked like him,” Sjoberg said, “and she took it and showed it to him, and it was a big joke because apparently it was from a BBC production.”

“And they decided to take a photo with her, in which Virginia and Andrés were sitting on a sofa. “They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap and I sat on Andrés’ lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s chest and Andrés put his on mine, and they took the picture,” he noted.

On the way to New York, Sjoberg said, Epstein’s plane was diverted to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and he spent a few hours at one of Donald Trump’s casinos because of bad weather.

Upon learning of the change of plans, Sjoberg recalled that Epstein said, “Great, we’ll call Trump and go” to the casino. Sjoberg was not asked if they met with Trump that night. Later, he indicated that he was never asked to give Trump a massage.

Sjoberg also testified that although he never met Clinton, Epstein once told him that “Clinton likes them young.” a comment he interpreted as a reference to young women or girls.

Clinton said through a spokeswoman that although she traveled on the financier’s private plane several times, she never visited his homes, was unaware of his crimes and had not spoken to him after his conviction. Trump also said that he once thought Epstein was a “good guy,” but the two later fell out.

In her statement, Giuffre said that the summer she turned 17 she was convinced to leave a job as a spa attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club to become Epstein’s “masseuse,” a job that involved the realization of sexual events.

In 2022 she settled a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in which she claimed he sexually abused her during a trip to London. That same year, Giuffre dropped a charge against Epstein’s former lawyer, law professor Alan Dershowitz, arguing that “I may have made a mistake” in identifying him as the attacker.

The files released Wednesday included many references to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent close to Epstein who committed suicide in a Paris prison in 2022 while awaiting trial accused of allegedly raping underage girls. Giuffre was among those who had accused Brunel of sexual abuse.

Clinton’s name also came up because Maxwell’s lawyers questioned Giuffre about inaccuracies in newspaper articles about her time with Epstein, including a story that cited her as having ridden a helicopter with Clinton and flirted with Donald Trump. Giuffre said nothing happened.

The judge indicated that a handful of names would remain redacted in the documents because they would identify people who were sexually abused. The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they choose to go public with their stories, as Giuffre and Sjoberg have done.

Even before the documents were published, misinformation about their contents was widespread. Social media users have falsely claimed that host Jimmy Kimmel’s name may appear in the documentsfueled by a comment New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers made Tuesday on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show.”

Kimmel responded on X that he had never met Epstein and that “Rodgers’ reckless words put my family in danger.”