A raft of previously sealed court documents related to disgraced millionaire Jeffrey Epstein have been released to the public.
More than 150 people – among them a number of famous faces – linked to Epstein are named within the papers.
The 943-page long document, which names sex abuse victims, Epstein employees and others, is related to a defamation lawsuit filed in 2015 by Virginia Giuffre, who says she was abused and trafficked by Epstein.
Ms Giuffre brought the defamation case against British socialite and Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who supplied the financier with underage girls. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Epstein was accused of luring underage girls to his homes under the guise of giving him massages before sexually abusing them. However, he took his own life in a New York prison as he awaited trial for sex trafficking charges in 2019.
Which well known names were revealed in the documents release? ITV News explains.
Bill Clinton
Former US president Bill Clinton, who was a high-profile acquaintance of Epstein, is mentioned more than 70 times in the newly released documents, although he is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Johanna Sjoberg, another Epstein accuser, testified that while she never met Clinton, Epstein once remarked to her that “Clinton likes them young” – a comment she took as a reference to young women or girls.
Clinton has previously admitted to travelling on Epstein’s jet, but denied ever visiting his homes.
He issued a statement in 2019 saying he “knows nothing” about Epstein’s crimes.
Prince Andrew
Prince Andrew – who is namechecked more than 60 times in the papers – is accused by Ms Sjoberg of touching her breast while they posed for a photo at Epstein’s Manhattan town house, in 2001.
Buckingham Palace previously said the allegations are “categorically untrue”.
Ms Sjoberg testified that she and Ms Giuffre had flown with Epstein to New York on his private jet. They were later met by Epstein’s associate Maxwell and Prince Andrew.
She claimed, at one point, Maxwell called her to an upstairs closet where they pulled out a puppet of Andrew, which had been made for a television programme.
“It looked like him,” Ms Sjoberg said. “And she brought it down and presented it to him; and that was a great joke, because apparently it was a production from a show on BBC.”
“And they decided to take a picture with it, in which Virginia and Andrew sat on a couch.
“They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap, and I sat on Andrew’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo.”
Andrew had previously settled a civil lawsuit against Ms Giuffre – a woman he has previously said he has never met – after she had accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump – who is not accused of any illegality – was mentioned by name in the documents during testimony given by Ms Sjoberg.
She said that on one occasion while travelling to New York on Epstein’s jet, bad weather forced it to divert to Atlantic City, where they spent several hours at one of the former US president’s casinos.
Upon hearing the change of plans, Ms Sjoberg recalled Epstein saying “great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to” the casino.
Ms Sjoberg was not asked if they had met with Trump that night. Later in her testimony, she said she was never asked to give Trump a massage.
Michael Jackson
Pop icon Michael Jackson’s name was mentioned when Ms Sjoberg claimed to have met him once at Epstein’s Palm Beach house, in Florida.
However, she said nothing untoward happened with the late pop star.
Stephen Hawking
British scientist Stephen Hawking is named in the documents, but he is not accused of any wrongdoing.
He was mentioned as part of an email Epstein sent to Maxwell in 2015, shortly after Ms Giuffre filed a civil claim in the US against the former.
The documents say he attended a science conference alongside a group of eminent scientists on a Caribbean island in 2006, before Epstein was charged for unlawful sex with a minor.
David Copperfield
Giving evidence in 2016, Ms Sjoberg said she attended a dinner at one of Epstein’s homes alongside magician David Copperfield, who is not accused of any illegalities.
He performed magic tricks before asking if she was aware “that girls were getting paid to find other girls”, according to Ms Sjoberg.
Epstein and Maxwell have been consistently accused of recruiting some of the girls – which the former paid for sex acts – to find him other victims.
Ms Sjoberg said Copperfield did not elaborate any further on what he meant by his comments.
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