Federal judge orders Jeffrey Epstein documents unsealed, public interest outweighs right to privacy

Manhattan Federal Judge Loretta Preska ordered on Friday that dozens of documents connected to deceased convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein be unsealed, potentially paving the way for the exposure of the identities of eight John Does allegedly involved in his sex trafficking of minors.

The documents were filed in the defamation case against ex-Epstein handler, accomplice, and lover Ghislaine Maxwell by accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2016, according to Fox News. Attorneys objected to the move because it would reveal and harm the reputations of those named in the documents.

The judge ruled that public interest outweighed the privacy rights of the eight “John Does” named in the documents. Those who could possibly be outed are John Does 12, 28, 97, 107, 144, 147, 171, and 183. Preska, however, didn’t set a date for the release of the documents.

One of the people named in the documents is Tom Pritzker, the billionaire executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels and cousin of Illinois governor JB Pritzker, according to the Daily Mail.

When Pritzker’s attorney objected on the grounds that the revelation would harm his client’s reputation, Preska disagreed with his premise, asserting that the documents were already available in other cases and that their contents did not specify malicious actions.

John Doe 107 also filed an objection, claiming that the unsealing of the documents was a violation of their privacy. The judge knocked that objection down as well.

Another associate of Epstein’s named Emmy Taylor, who is a former personal assistant to Ghislaine Maxwell, is named in the documents. She is accused of being involved in the abuse of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims.

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Taylor is mired in a separate lawsuit and objected to the unsealing of the documents. She steadfastly denies doing anything wrong while working for Maxwell.

The judge also ordered documents connected to John Doe 183 to be unsealed as well, since they were the “subject of intense media coverage.” However, the release of those documents will not occur until November 28 so the individual has the option to appeal her decision.

“In the court’s view, there’s no reason to redact Doe 183 from the documents,” she ruled, according to Business Insider.

John Doe 147’s documents will also be unsealed. That person is said to be Epstein victim Sarah Ransome. The judge noted that Ransome was a sex abuse victim but since she testified in another case publicly, the documents can be unsealed. She also published a book detailing her abuse and wrote a Washington Post op-ed.

Other documents were already made public in Maxwell’s own trial last year, which resulted in her 20-year conviction, according to the judge.

Some documents were kept under seal because there was some “sufficient interest to preserve sealing.”

John Doe 12’s documents remained sealed because the person was ostensibly not a contributor to the abuse or a victim of Epstein or Maxwell.

John Doe 28’s documents will also remain sealed because the individual is a “victim of sexual assault who continues to experience trauma as a result of these events.”

The media is salivating over the documents and has requested their release.

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