On Friday, a Manhattan federal judge ruled that she’ll unseal another cache of records in a defamation suit that Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex ring, filed against the financier’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Since 2019, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska has released long-secret documents in the litigation on a rolling basis, giving the public a glimpse of Giuffre’s accusations about Epstein’s trafficking scheme and the men she claims participated in it. The unsealed filings also included a lengthy transcript of Maxwell’s testimony.
The latest records to be revealed, according to the Daily Mail, will include materials related to eight people including Thomas Pritzker, the billionaire executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels who is listed in Epstein’s little black book of contacts, a former personal assistant to Maxwell named Emmy Tayler, and Sarah Ransome, a survivor of Epstein’s abuse.
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Preska, however, didn’t set a date for the release of the documents.
While Pritzker had argued disclosure of the record could damage his reputation, Preska overruled his objections. In previously unsealed court records, Giuffre claimed Epstein and Maxwell forced her to have sex with wealthy, high-profile men including Pritzker, Britain’s Prince Andrew, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and billionaire hedge-fund manager Glenn Dubin. (All of the men denied Giuffre’s accusations.)
During Friday’s hearing, Preska indicated that a majority of the “purportedly sensitive information” related to the parties, who are identified only as “Does” on the court docket, has already come to light during Maxwell’s 2021 trial for sex trafficking.
Meanwhile, on records related to Tayler, Preska ruled they will be released because Tayler is mentioned in other publicly available materials and filed a lawsuit against Miami Herald scribe Julie K. Brown. (Tayler has denied any wrongdoing in connection to Epstein and Maxwell’s trafficking ring.)
Giuffre’s 2015 lawsuit against Maxwell was settled on the eve of trial in 2017, but much of the case remained under seal until the press fought for its release.
Last week, Giuffre settled a defamation suit filed against Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a onetime friend and attorney to Epstein whom Giuffre has accused of sexual abuse for years. Dershowitz adamantly denied her claims and accused Giuffre of perjury.
As part of the settlement, Dershowitz and lawyer David Boies, who has represented several Epstein victims, resolved their own defamation litigation against each other.
In a statement published after the settlement was reached, Giuffre said, “I have long believed that I was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Alan Dershowitz. However, I was very young at the time, it was a very stressful and traumatic environment, and Mr. Dershowitz had from the beginning consistently denied these allegations.
“I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz,” Giuffre added.
But after Dershowitz did a round of media interviews arguing his name was now cleared, Giuffre told The Daily Beast: “I was shocked to read that Alan Dershowitz is claiming that our mutual dismissal of our lawsuits against each other somehow ‘exonerated’ him.”
“Stopping the false charges against me, and securing Mr. Dershowitz’s public acknowledgement of my good faith was important to me and my family,” Giuffre added. “However, I did not, and would never, ‘exonerate’ Mr. Dershowitz in return.”
