The names of over 150 people relating to the deceased billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein were released today, shedding some light on a long mysterious episode in American history.
However, at the current moment, no one can access them, as the popular judicial news site Court Listener that was hosting them crashed.
The documents are, however, available, on the government hosting site PACER.
Epstein, who pled guilty in 2008 to procuring a minor for prostitution, was accused of hundreds of sex crimes and accused by multiple women in civil litigation of both abusing them running a pedophile ring that trafficked teenage girls to politicians and celebrities. Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on charges related to those allegations but died in custody before the case could go to trial.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's right-hand woman for over a decade in the alleged trafficking enterprise was convicted of five sex abuse counts including child sex trafficking in 2019. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role.
Before Maxwell's criminal trial, her involvement in Epstein's enterprise was largely detailed in press interviews and a series of civil lawsuits filed in the 2010s.
Virginia Giuffre told the press in a series of interviews at the time about years of rape at Epstein's hand from the time she was a young teenager, as well as Maxwell's role in the enterprise, leading Maxwell to publicly call her a liar.
Giuffre sued Maxwell for defamation in 2015. That case was settled between the two women in 2017, but a protracted legal battle over the privacy of dozens of people referenced in the litigation has stretched out for years. Many people who were identified in court filings, which were filed confidentially due to the sensitive nature of the case, fought attempts by the press, led by the Miami Herald, to unseal documents in the case.
While most of the filings have already been released in a redacted form, at the end of December 2023, a federal judge finally ordered most of the redacted names to be unredacted. Most of the names that will remain redacted are alleged victims who have asked for privacy due to the sensitive nature of the case.
One name that will stay redacted is John Doe 133. According to a document filed by the judge, that Doe's name and identifying information "shall remain sealed in full." According to the document, Giuffre said that Doe was "mistakenly identified in a photograph" and that their "characterization as an alleged perpetrator was first introduced by a reporter."
However, the documents, hosted on CourtListener, were inaccessible by many immediately after they dropped.
Although the names have been widely speculated on, some online claimed this was one last push by the deep state to keep the names under wraps.
Although not the fabled Epstein client list that people have long speculated, the names could shed some light on who was involved in Epstein's orbit.
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