Manhattan judge orders release of 180 names linked to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, including accomplices

2023-12-21 14:18:42

MONDE – A judge in Manhattan federal court in New York (United States) on Monday, December 18, 2023, ordered the disclosure of 180 names linked to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. In a 50-page document listing the cases of these people, Judge Loretta Preska called for the links of the financier, who died in prison in 2019, to be “completely unsealed”. The magistrate justifies her decision by the fact that several of these names have become recognizable or identifiable, after granting interviews and interviews to the press. Two weeks were given to the 180 people to appeal, so that their identities would not be revealed on January 1 or 2, 2024. Is billionaire Bill Gates on the list?

Accomplices, victims and investigators

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein met in the 1990s before becoming collaborators and accomplices in sex crimes for nearly 30 years. Epstein, arrested and incarcerated in July 2019 in New York, was found hanged on August 10 of the same year in his cell. His trial, at the end of which he faced a sentence of up to 45 years in prison, was scheduled by the prosecutor for June 2020.

The trafficker committed suicide by hanging, according to the autopsy report of a New York medical examiner. Two guards, responsible for monitoring the high security cell in which he was incarcerated, were suspended and then charged following this event. The Manhattan court revealed that the two employees failed to comply with the 30-minute patrol requirement, “staying at their desks surfing the net and wandering around the common areas of their unit.”

His partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the wealthy British press boss Robert Maxwell, was sentenced in June 2022 to 20 years of imprisonment. She was convicted of helping Jeffrey Epstein lure underage girls to his properties in order to have sex with them.

It was within the framework of a defamation case brought in 2015 by Virginia Giuffre, a victim of the couple, against Ghislaine Maxwell, that judge Loretta Preska wrote her order. Virginia Giuffre is the same victim who accused British Prince Andrew in 2021 of sexually assaulting her in 2001, when she was 17 years old. The Duke of York, who has fallen from grace, has always denied these accusations and in February 2022 sealed an amicable agreement with Virginia Giuffre for millions of dollars, which spared him a civil trial in New York.

The defamation complaint was settled in 2017. However, an American media outlet, the Miami Herald, turned to civil justice to request access to the file. The Manhattan judge ordered the release of the names of those involved because she found that some of them had given press interviews and become recognizable. Among these names are also Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplices, investigators and journalists who covered the affair.

Bill Gates on the list?

Both the victims and the accused, previously cited by numbers or by the pseudonym “Doe”, have fourteen days – since last Monday – to appeal and avoid the disclosure of their identities. However, certain names remain protected. These include minor victims who have never spoken publicly and another person who was wrongly identified as the perpetrator of a sex crime. According to Fox News, one of the names on the list has already requested that his identity be withheld, fearing “physical harm”.

The same outlet claims that Republican representatives in Congress are pushing to subpoena people named in the flight logs of Epstein’s private plane. One such name is Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates. The latter has repeatedly reiterated that his relations with the financier and sex trafficker were limited to “dinners” and “nothing binds” its foundation to Jeffrey Epstein.

A version that has been undermined several times. In addition to his ex-wife, Melinda Gates, several media outlets have claimed that the two people met several times. Bill Gates’ name has appeared since 2013 on the logbook of the “Lolita Express”, Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet. He expressed “his regrets” for having met the financier, against “Melinda’s advice and wishes”. The latter revealed that the relationship between the two men was one of the reasons for her divorce from the billionaire.

In January 2023, Ghislaine Maxwell said she was convinced that her former companion “was murdered”. Without detailing the reasons for her conviction or putting forward a possible motive for this assassination, Ghislaine Maxwell said she “safe” what “Jeffrey Epstein was confident of reaching an amicable settlement”. “I was shocked. I wondered how this happened”she added, regarding the news of his suicide.