A US court released a 943-page list on Thursday. It contains the names of more than a hundred people who had ties to the infamous businessman Jeffrey Epstein. What preceded the Epstein abuse case?
Jeffrey Epstein was an American businessman and sex offender. He became known worldwide for allegedly sexually abusing dozens of young girls.
Epstein was first arrested in 2005 in Palm Beach, USA. He was suspected of paying a fourteen-year-old girl for sex. Dozens of other underage girls subsequently came forward with similar stories.
Epstein was first convicted in 2008. That was for the sexual abuse of one victim: the fourteen-year-old girl with whom he had paid sex. He was sentenced to thirteen months in prison, but was allowed to serve large parts of his sentence outside prison.
After that, it remained quiet for a long time, but in 2018, alleged sexual crimes from the past came to light again. An investigative journalist for the American newspaper Miami Herald spoke to alleged victims. The journalist also reported on a large human trafficking network that Epstein maintained with his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
Via the Miami Herald shocking details emerged about sex parties ‘Epstein Island’. That refers to Little Saint James, an island in the US Virgin Islands that Epstein owned. Business partners and friends of his were also linked to visits to the island.
In 2019, federal prosecutors prosecuted Epstein in New York for human trafficking and sexual exploitation. They did this in response to the newly announced details.
While awaiting trial, Epstein committed suicide in his cell. He died on August 10, 2019. His death halted the federal lawsuit.
After Epstein’s death, Maxwell was arrested and prosecuted for crimes she committed together with Epstein. She was found guilty in 2021 of, among other things, child trafficking and sexual exploitation of minors. Maxwell was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
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Over the years, victims filed dozens of lawsuits against Epstein and Maxwell. One of the best-known victims is Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who went public in 2010 to reveal her experiences with Epstein.
The documents released Thursday are part of a lawsuit Giuffre filed against Maxwell in 2015. Giuffre claims that as a seventeen-year-old girl she was “lured” by Maxwell to become a masseuse for Epstein. During massages, she was forced to perform sexual acts on the businessman.
That case against Maxwell was settled with a settlement in 2017. But this case also blew the whistle Miami Herald new life. The newspaper did this through requests for disclosure of court documents. With success: the court has already released thousands of documents in the past four years.
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The now released documents contain the names of (known) people linked to Epstein. These arouse extra interest because they provide an idea of the scale of the Epstein case. New suspects are also identified where possible.
Some celebrities mentioned are former American president Bill Clinton and the late singer Michael Jackson. For the time being, only part of the list of names has been released. More names are expected in the coming days.
Witnesses and former employees of Epstein who raised the alarm in the media are also mentioned. They are not suspected of serious crimes themselves, but played a role, for example, during court cases or investigations into the former businessman.
Finally, it lists the names of Epstein’s circle of friends against whom accusations of sexual abuse have been made in the past. One of them, for example, is Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former friend of Epstein against whom Giuffre also filed a lawsuit. That case was settled with a settlement in 2022.
So far, little news has come to light in terms of content. But one thing is certain: it will be about Epstein for a while.
2024-01-04 13:04:00
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